Chapter 1 ~ Tae

Taylor stumbled out the door of the stuffy office. As she trudged into the tiny employee closet where she kept her old purse and clocked out, she heard the happy sounds of the diners through the wall. She took off her dirty apron and walked back through the main eating area.

"See you later, Taylor girl!" Margie called over the counter.

The sweet old woman had no clue.

Stepping out of the diner and onto the cold street, she turned towards her old home. The wind fought her with each step she took, and the rain was coming down in droves on top of her now. She walked along the edge of the road on the sidewalk to avoid the mud.

Cars went by, but Taylor didn't notice; her head was as clouded as the grey sky above her. The old sidewalk was cracked and uneven, and not paying attention, Taylor caught the toe of her flats on one of the cracks. She stumbled and almost fell, catching herself at the last minute. Her head swam as she looked back and forth and decided where to go. With an idea some-what forming in her mind, she set off again down the bumpy road.

Walking out of the diner had been hard, but walking now to the house, which was no longer her home was harder. She didn't have clue where to go now or what to do. Her life was a true mess any way she looked at it, so she decided to just continue walking. She was lost enough in her thoughts that she didn't realize she was going the wrong way until she stopped again. She couldn't remember how long she had been walking, but she was on the other side of town.

She had been walking along the street by the old brick school. When the bell rang signaling the end of the school day, she was brought back to reality. Children soon came running out of the school door to play in the rain.

"Children, get out of the rain or you'll get sick!" one of the teachers yelled at the students from under an awning.

Parents began yelling out the windows of their cars telling their children to hurry. She envied the children and their lack of responsibility; they had the freedom to play in the rain without thinking of the consequences. What she would give to have that freedom right about now.

Taylor stood in the pouring rain rethinking her life choices. How did she get here? What went wrong with the brilliant plan she had been making since she was a little girl? As she looked up into the dark, gloomy sky above her, she saw the sun peek out from behind the clouds. It was high in the sky, and she stared at it for a moment. She didn't remember it being that late when she left the diner. She looked at the sun peaking out again.

The sky was brightening up a tiny fraction, so maybe her day would brighten up as well. That was when the loud, outrageous truck flew down the road through a puddle drenching her in a muddy spray.

She cursed the truck driver, throwing her hands up and giving him everything she had. It was so typical of teenage boys, whose daddy had given them everything they'd ever wanted, to flaunt their money and act like they owned the place. As she was yelling, she saw the truck turn around and come back to her. The truck pulled off the road and someone got out.

Except, this was no teenage boy who was flaunting his money, this was a very broad man wearing a cowboy hat and jeans. His boots were muddy and he was sweating despite the cold, windy rain that was still falling on top of them. So no, this was no teenager, this was a man. A mad man too. He ran up to her, putting his finger in her chest, and yelling just as loud as she had.

"What do you think you're doing? Are you out of your mind?" he bellowed out at her in a deep southern drawl.

She seemed to lose the ability to talk.

She continued to stare for a moment, looking at him with a loss for words. She couldn't seem to get the thoughts that were jumping around in her brain like a hot potato out through her mouth. The man's presence screamed male, and she had to look up to even see into his eyes, which she realized were so piercing blue they seemed to look right into her soul. She continued her exploration of his face and found a scar above his right eyebrow.

She knew that she was short compared to the rest of the world, but compared to this man, she was tiny. She took a step back to continue her looking, but she was still having to look up at him.

While her brain was busy appreciating the view of the man who looked like a Greek god who'd been born in Texas, she didn't realize that he had been asking her a question.

"That's about right! Princess thinks she can do whatever she cares to and no one will get mad. You're probably just waiting for daddy to take care of it." he sneered at her through his teeth. "Am I right?" he asked, coldly.

"Excuse you," she shot back.

Now, she got mad, how dare he say these things about her. He had no clue who she was, or what she did for a living, or well at the moment, didn't do. He didn't know what her life had been like growing up, how there hadn't been a real daddy present after her angelic mother died. She had had to take care of every little thing. Pay the bills, clean the tiny house they scraped rent up for, and cook the small meals she could rustle up the change to buy groceries for. So no, she didn't think he had a right to say these nasty, accusing things about her.

These poor memories reminded her of how bad today had been and her anger boiled over. She'd 'had enough.

Seeing red she yelled, "How dare you say that about me, I did no wrong. You were the one flying down the road in your big, loud truck acting like you owned the place. You could have run me over, idiot!"

"Damn straight I could have run you over, you were standing in the middle of the road!" he frustratingly yelled back at her.

He was looking down at her like she was out of her mind. It was then that she looked down and realized, yes, they were standing in the middle of the road. The ground started spinning and she felt herself falling apart.

"Oh my god," she said as her butt collided with the ground.

As all the crazy emotions she had kept at bay came rushing in at once, she collapsed to the ground and began sobbing. The man looked down at her, looked around nervously, then at the winding road they were still standing on, and back at her.

He appeared to not know whether to say something to her or walk away. She would appreciate it if he'd walk away. It had been a long day, and she wasn't sure if she could take another person making her life more miserable than it already was.

Despite her hopeful wishes, the man decided to speak in the middle of her meltdown.

"Hey now, miss, you can't just collapse in the middle of the road," he said calmly.

She looked up at him through her wet lashes and saw he was sticking out his hand for her to grab. Her tears doubled as she realized that this man, whom she had been so rude to, was now going to be nice to her.

Again, he looked southward to the hill that anyone could come flying over any minute now, and she watched as a determined gleam set in his eyes.

"Aw, come on now, let's get up," he said as he reached again to help her up.

This time, she limply put her hand in his. As he hauled her into his arms, she continued to cry. It had been a long day, and she needed to sleep.

"Thank you," she murmured into his shoulder, but it was too quiet for him to hear.

He carried her carefully off of the road, while she continued to cry into his shirt, and patiently waited for her to be done.

"Th, th, thanks," she finally stammered.

She looked at him again and began to unravel her soaked self from his strong arms.

"I'm sorry for yelling at you, and getting you all muddy, I'll let you go home now."

The man looked at her curiously, and able to take no more, she turned around and began walking again as she was before he nearly ran her over. He would begin asking her questions if she stuck around, and she was in no mood to watch him pity her for the bad hand of cards she'd been given to live her life.

"Wait a minute, Miss," he called out after her. "You can't just walk off by a busy road. You'll get run over by someone who doesn't see you."

She spun to look at him again, the fire blazing back in her soul. She had had enough of this man-child thinking he knew how to run her life. She'd done perfectly fine on her own. Hadn't she?

"I'm a big girl, I can take care of myself," she exclaimed.

She lifted her chin and raised her green eyes to meet his as he stomped over to her., this was no easy task since he was almost a foot taller than she was. He glared down at her with his piercing blue eyes, and just like that, her anger and hatred for the world were back.

"I only mentioned it to help you out. I never said you weren't capable of taking care of yourself, but frankly, at the moment I don't think you're in the right state of mind to," he muttered.

He looked down at her from the runny mascara on her face to her soaked clothes, and finally, to the muddy flats on her feet, his face softening a little, "and besides, you'll get hypothermia out here."

There was the pity she'd been waiting for. She saw it flash in his eyes as he said it. She knew she looked like a wreck, and she had definitely acted like a mess as well, so he may have a point with the comment about getting sick.

"I'm fine," she stuttered.

"Uh-huh," he said nodding as if he agreed, but she could tell he didn't.

As if he had control over her body, her numbness wore off and she felt the cold wind blowing and the chills that were running down her spine from being soaked through.

Her teeth started chattering, and he looked at her knowingly. She ran over her choices in her head. There were only two. Walk away and continue her trip towards her old home, or listen to what this crazy man had to say.

"I don't know you, I'm not getting in that big truck with you," she said to his large chest, not looking him in the eyes.

Her emotions were down for the day, she had no more energy to be mad at him, and she didn't have the energy to apologize. So, she continued to avoid eye contact.

He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it.

He stood silent staring, so she spun away and continued walking towards her destination. She heard him mutter under his breath but kept walking. She was not going to break down in front of this man again.

Softly she heard him say, "My name is Rhett, and my mama wouldn't be too proud if I left a pretty girl out in the rain to get sick."

Her heart fluttered at the pretty comment, but then she remembered that they were standing in the middle of the rain, muddy, and mascara ruined. She turned around and saw him staring at his feet.

"I bet that works with all the girls, doesn't it," she snided. He just continued to look at his feet and then turned around and headed to his truck.

"Just get in the truck please, pretty girl," he said softly, never looking back at her.

He then climbed into the truck starting it. It roared to life.

She stood there for a minute after he had climbed in and contemplated this. She didn't think that he would kidnap her, he'd already had the chance to do that. As the rain continued to pour down on her, she stalked towards the truck. Now, up close,, she could see that it wasn't some new fancy truck, but it was a bit older and had been used well.

She opened the door only to stand there. She looked down at herself and her wet moody clothes.

"I'm going to get your truck wet and dirty," she said to him embarrassed.

He looked at her and crooked an eyebrow as if to say, okay and? She looked at him again and said, "I don't want to make a mess of your truck."

He shook his head and leaned over to reach into the back seat. She looked over to see a mess of stuff thrown in the back, but he sat back up with a hoodie in his hands before she could check for murder weapons.

.........

As Rhett climbed into the cab of his trusty truck, he was tired and irritable. He'd been through a long day of fixing fence in the rain. He'd gotten a call at three this morning from good ol' Jack saying the fence was down in the North pasture. This would be the same pasture that had just gotten fixed by the hands a week ago.

"Rhett, the fence is down in the North pasture," Jack said, clipped.

"Okay, are you sending Rex and Nate down there again?" he asked.

"No. I want you to go down there and do it," Jake said before hanging up.

He'd thought then, that the two young guys had rushed the easy job, but they promised Jack that they had done it right. Rhett had doubted it when it had only taken them two hours for the two of them to fix it, and now, he wished he would have doubted it a little louder.

Maybe, if he would have complained about them more, Jack would have had it checked.

He laughed ruthlessly at the thought of it. Jack would never take the time to listen to him.

Now, Jack was having him go down and fix the damaged fence himself because all the other hands would be busy today, and Rhett was perfectly capable of doing the two-man job himself. After the 'I'm not asking, I'm telling' talk from Jack, Rhett was sent straight out to do it.

Jack expected a lot out of him he knew, and it was normal to get these types of calls, but at three in the morning? In the pouring rain? That was a new record.

Jack was known for being a straightforward man who expected the best from the men that worked for him. He didn't take crap from anyone, and the whole town knew not to get on his bad side. Damn Jack for making sure Rhett was always busy working with something, but, that's what fathers were for, right?

Now, as he pulled over to shut the rusted gate, he saw Mitch, one of the hands, drive over the hill. Mitch took his slow sweet time to get down to Rhett, and when Rhett turned to look at him, he slowly rolled the dark window down.

Mitch was close to sixty-five and had worked with Jack since Jack had taken over the ranch from his father. Mitch was a slow-paced feller and never got in a hurry. He was a good worker, but you didn't try to rush him.

As Rhett believed, quality was better than quantity.

Mitch was normally the one Jack sent out to check on him because he knew that Rhett respected Mitch, and wouldn't blow a gasket on him like he might one of the immature younger hands.

Today though, Rhett was already prickly from the long day in the cold, never-ending rain, and it didn't matter if it was Mitch, or Creek, the stuck-up new ranch hand that thought he was better than everyone. He was looking for a fight.

"What are you doing here? Jack said you all were busy," he asked icily through the window.

"Well, Jack just sent me down to make sure you did it correctly. He doesn't want it to go down again," Mitch replied in his normally slow and steady tone.

This quiet tone was normally soothing to Rhett, but today it grated on his nerves. He wished Mitch would find another gear and get on with it.

"Didn't think I was capable of taking care of a fence?" he asked.

Mitch shrugged apologetically and added, "He just worried it would be too much for you since it was a two-man job."

Mitch knew of his rocky relationship with his father and Rhett could tell he was trying to let him down easily.

But regardless of what Mitch believed, he would still be a loyal servant to Jack, and he'd do anything Jack wished for him. No matter how close Rhett and he were, Mitch would still check over Rhett's work and report to Jack about every detail.

Seeing red, Rhett turned to stomp toward his mud-covered truck. He was cold, wet, and beyond tired of the same games that were always being played. It was a never-ending circle of frustration with Jack, and no matter how hard he tried to please him, he was never able.

"Close the gate on your way out from checking my work that you think isn't good enough," he hollered over his shoulder. "You might want to take notes. It's better than you'll ever do."

He growled as he climbed into his truck. He felt very little satisfaction from ripping Mitch a new one. He wished it was Jack. He banged his head on the steering wheel as he tried to calm his anger.

This was typical Jack, making sure he sent somebody behind to fix Rhett's mistakes. Rhett didn't make mistakes, but Jack always sent someone anyway. No matter what he told Rhett, Rhett knew that on the inside, Jack didn't trust or think Rhett was good enough for the jobs.

Mad as could be, Rhett started his truck back up and peeled out of the gravel drive. He was overreacting he knew, but damn if he cared. He was tired, sore, and wet. He was still sweating from all the work, besides the pouring down rain that had been falling since the day before last.

At first, the rain had been just a drizzle, but soon it had begun to fall in a true West Texas fall monsoon. It happened every year, and every year Rhett believed he was ready for it. Every year though, he was reminded of how much he hates the rain.

The rain made it impossible to do any work outside without it turning into a mud bath. Then when you have to be out in the mud for long periods, the mud, depending on whether you were in the northern pastures or the southern pastures, was either sticky and you could bet you were going to lose a boot to it, or it was slick and impossible to walk through without falling on your ass.

Today he was in the North Pasture and speaking of, he'd already lost a boot. He'd get mad and stomp to his truck for a tool, and poof, his foot would leave the boot. He'd been too busy stomping around to realize he'd lost the boot until he'd stepped down into the mud and it soaked through the toes of his sock. His sock was muddy now, and his boots had done nothing to keep his feet warm.

He was headed home to eat something warm, take a shower, and go to bed. That was all he wanted to do. As he thought about his marvelous plan, he decided he might send a nasty call to Jack, too. He quickly realized he didn't have the energy for it, though, and threw the idea out.

But since he had already thought about it, his brain started creating up different scenarios of what he could tell Jack. He'd make sure to make him real' mad, then throw it all in his face. Thinking about it now brought all his anger back to the surface.

He was too busy soaking in his anger to see the girl standing nearly in the road. She looked like a ghost staring into the distance.

"Crap," he shouted

He cursed as he swerved around her into the other lane to avoid the girl. Almost meeting a car head-on, he jerked back over in his lane.

"What is that woman doing?" he yelled to himself in the quiet cab of the truck.

The driver he almost ran into threw him a dirty look and a not-so-nice finger as he blew past him. Rhett cursed as he turned his truck around.

The woman started throwing her hands up and yelling at him. He couldn't hear her, but he was good enough at reading lips to know that what she was saying wasn't very nice.

Mad at the woman for thinking she was too good to walk on the paved sidewalk, he slowed down. He pulled off the road and got out of his truck to give her a piece of his mind.

His anger at Jack bubbled over into his new rage and all he saw was hot fury. His usually long fuse had officially been blown.

Yelling at the woman for walking down the road, he asked, "What do you think you're doing? Are you out of your mind?"

When she fired right back that he could have run her over, he had to point out the obvious that she was standing in the road.

It was then that she looked down at the road under her soaked feet, and he could see the flash in her eyes. It was almost like she came back to herself from being in space.

She crumbled to the ground in tears, and he realized that something was wrong. Looking around at the road they were still standing on in the pouring rain, he knew he had to get her out of there.

He got her up into his arms, off the side of the road, and held her for a few minutes while she continued to cry. Her eyes were lifeless and it was as if she was a shell of a person.

After a few minutes, her body stiffened and she realized that she was in his arms. She quickly stepped back, almost tripping and falling, and Rhett's body moved him forward to catch her instinctively.

She caught herself though and immediately apologized for getting him wet and muddy. He tried not to chuckle. Obviously, she hadn't taken a good long look at him before, or she would have known that he was already muddier than a pig in spring showers before their exchange.

As she turned to go, he stopped her again for some reason. When he told her that it wasn't safe to walk alone by the road, she'd spun around with anger in her eyes again.

It was good to see life there, and as he took a good long look at her, she took his breath away. She was a pretty girl, the type of small-town girl that didn't care about fancy things.

She had little makeup on besides the mascara running down her face, but he could see right past it to her pretty green eyes that flashed with fury. Her auburn hair was plastered around her heart-shaped face due to the rain, but it only helped to capture the length of her long hair.

He could tell by the tumbleweed of emotions she was going through at the moment that she had had a rough day. She looked exhausted, and by her whirlwind behavior, he would guess she was emotionally drained, too.

He couldn't walk away from this girl, whose eyes shined with loneliness when she opened them after closing them for a minute, and let something happen to her.

He didn't know what had happened to make her look this defeated and broken, but he knew she shouldn't be alone like this. She might not be as lucky when the next person flies down the road she's walking on.

Unable to control himself, he told her he couldn't leave her. He watched as she had to fight back a smile at the fact that he'd called her Pretty Girl. Ah, so she liked it. He'd have to see the smile again soon.

She argued again about getting in the truck with him, so he turned around and headed to the truck himself. Praying that taking control of the situation would make her come with him, he started to climb into the truck.

He hollered over his shoulder, "Just get in the truck please, pretty girl."

He sat in the large cab for a few minutes praying she would follow him. Finally, the squeaky passenger door opened and she stood looking at the high seat. She was so short that he worried she wouldn't be able to reach it.

She didn't make eye contact, and he wondered what was going on in her head. Maybe, she was worried she couldn't reach it as well.

When she made her comment about getting his truck dirty, he nearly laughed out loud. Worrying about upsetting her, he instead grabbed a hoodie and gave it to her.

His truck was messy, but it had everything he might need for any situation. So, he thanked the lord above that he had put in an extra hoodie and towel in the back this morning with the rest of the crap.

He didn't usually have to worry about impressing anyone, so he never thought about cleaning his truck. He was a cowboy, he didn't have to chauffeur people around.

But now, with this pretty girl about to be sitting in his shotgun seat, he wished he'd at least organized the backseat instead of throwing it all back there.