“Okay, sweetie pie,” she said, “the point is that except for you, I never fight with anyone. So I think it’s pretty safe to say that you’re the damn problem. Not me.”
“Is it?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said, crossing her arms beneath her breasts. “It is.”
“Or do you just not talk to anyone who dares to disagree with you?”
He strode toward the barn and left a hissing and spitting Sadie standing there, stunned for a full thirty seconds before she took off after him.
“Why don’t we get back to business,” he continued. “Since I don’t really want to get to know you, and I’m betting you don’t want to get to know me.”
“Yeah,” she said, “fine.” She reached behind her head and tugged the end of her ponytail. “I don’t want to know you. I want to know your barn.”
“Get ready for the excitement,” he said, his tone dry. “And I’m assuming barn isn’t a euphemism for my...for anything.”
“How could a barn be euphemistic?”
“I don’t know. But you’re always accusing me of missing those kinds of things so I figured I’d take preemptive measures.”
“Right. Well. No. A barn is just a barn. Though, may I say, this is a particularly fantastic barn. Have you ever had weddings here?”
“No,” he said.
“You should. Weddings and parties and—”
“No.”
“You are the boringest man.”
“I thought we were letting go of personal things and getting on with business?”
“Well, I was, but then you started talking about the possibility of barns being something dirty. Which made me think of your—” don’t say anything dirty “—exasperating nature.”
“Just look at the barn.” He walked to the side door and released a wrought-iron latch, pushing it open, muscles in his thighs flexing, his biceps and forearms straining just enough to make everything in her tense up to match.
She stepped inside, the wood floor hollow-sounding beneath her feet, the expansive, empty section cleaner than most of her apartments had ever been. “Wow,” she said. “I’m serious, you could host events here. And you could charge lots of money for them.”
“It’s nothing special. Just a place to keep equipment and hay.”
“So...just a place to keep your entire livelihood? Yeah, you’re right. It’s not that special.”
“Well, it’s a serviceable barn. And it cost a hell of a lot of money. But the old one was run-down, and after we ended up with moldy hay one winter...it was pretty clear things had to change. After Dad died, we got a good chunk of change from his life insurance, and Kate and I gave our share to Connor to invest.”
“Well, he did it in a very serious way,” she said.
“Yeah, he did. But this place is our family legacy. Connor’s the keeper of it, sure, but when...when there’s another generation, I guess they’ll all have a part of it. Though I’m sort of skeptical about any of us managing another generation.”
“Okay,” she said. “You, sure, because...I can see that you’re not the open-your-home-up-to-chaos-and-crazy kind of guy. But Connor could find someone else.”
“He doesn’t want to. He seems to think cracking a smile’s some kind of hanging offense.”
“And Kate?”
“She’s a kid.”
“She has to be in her twenties.”
“Twenty-one,” he said. “She’s way too damn young to be thinking about that stuff.”
“Well, I agree on one level. A husband and kids? No way. Not at her age. But I assume she’s dating and otherwise showing a normal interest in that sort of thing.”
“Uh...not so much.”
“Oh.” Sadie’s face heated, embarrassment washing through her. “Sorry, I was making assumptions. I should have said partner.”
“What? Why?”
“Oh, just the way you said that I thought maybe I’d made a very broad assumption about her sexuality, is all.”
He winced. “Can we please not talk about sexuality and my sister in the same sentence?”
“I just meant, if she’s a lesbian I have no problem with that and I would hate for it to seem like I was passing judgm—”
“She’s not,” he said. “Considering the number of times I found torn-out magazine pages of...what’s his name? Zac Efron?”
Sadie laughed. “Okay, but you realize that’s an indication that she does have a sexuality.”
“I refuse to have this discussion.”
