I stop, forcing her to stop too, and she turns to look at me, crossing her arms over her chest. “Yes?”
I set her on edge with our interview earlier today, and if I want to quell some of this heat between us, I need to rectify that.
I tilt my head. “We got off on the wrong foot. I might have been a bit abrasive earlier.”
One brow shoots up, and she huffs. “A bit?”
“All right, maybe a lot.” I toss her a smile meant to disarm her. “Get your concerns out on the table, and we can deal with them.”
“Fine.” Her chin lifts. “I don’t think you’re going to respect my authority.”
She’s probably right, but it’s not because she’s a woman. It’s because she wears her authority like a chip on her shoulder. I’m guessing, since the inner workings of her mind aren’t my business, that it wouldn’t be smart to bring that up, so I nod, all agreeable like. “You’re the boss. I’m your employee. It won’t be a problem, except if I think it’ll hurt the crops.”
She frowns a little, like she’s not sure she likes my answer. “You think you know better than me.”
“Well, that’s because I do.”
She plants her hands on her hips. “And how do you know that? You don’t know the first thing about me.”
I shrug. “I don’t need to know about you. I looked at the crops and can do better.”
There’s that flash again, for just a second before she covers it up with a hard clench of her jaw. “I’ve been doing this a long time.”
“Yeah, so?”
“You won’t even say how many years of experience you have.” She waves a hand over me. “Do you even have a college degree?”
I smirk. “Yeah, I do.”
Surprise lights her face. “You do?”
“I do, in agriculture.”
“From where?”
“Does it matter?”
“It matters if you’re lying about it.”
I laugh. “Is it really that hard to believe?”
She glares at me. “Stop trying to win me over.”
I lean down. “Now why wouldn’t I want my boss to like me?”
“Jackson and Wyatt like you. They’re the ones that matter.”
An interesting statement. It rings with truth, and her displeasure at it. That chip’s becoming a bit clearer, but it’s not my place or my problem to uncover the source of it.
I get the conversation back on track. “It’s not a slight. It’s a fact.” Her brows slam together, but before she can get herself too worked up, I say, “I should be better than you. That’s what you’re paying me for—to be an expert—and that’s what I’m going to be.”
She opens her mouth to speak, but I cut her off.
“You’re not just running a farm; you’re running a distillery too. Your focus is pulled in a lot of different directions, and you can’t do it all yourself. There’s no shame in hiring someone better than you to take some of that load off.”
As soon as the words leave my lips, I know they were the wrong thing to say.
She puffs out her chest, which unfortunately calls my attention to her breasts. “Isn’t it a bit presumptuous to claim your superiority when you’ve been here... What?” She raises her wrist and glances at her watch. “Six hours?”
It’s not. I’ve already created a long list of things that need to be tweaked and changed to increase production and quality. And that’s just on Jackson’s side of the business. But, since I’m not a complete idiot, I nod instead. “Give me a month, and you’ll see the difference. If I’m wrong, I’ll be the first one to step up and admit it.”
“Fine.”
Ah, the woman’s fine is a dangerous thing.
Her silver eyes narrow. “And stop calling me boss. The name’s Cat. Use it.”
“Done.”
She frowns, like she was expecting a fight. “Good.”
“Anything else?”
“I want to review and approve any changes before they are implemented.”
“Are you going to fight me over them?”
“I will if they’re stupid.”
“They won’t be.”
She smirks. “I’ll be the judge of that.”
I stare down at her, studying her intently. I can see her stubbornness; her heels are literally digging into the dirt under her feet. I don’t trust her to put the good of the operation over her desire to assert her authority over me.
“I’ll make you a deal. I will review everything with you, thoroughly explain my decisions and rationale. And in exchange, you let me do what I need to do without question before the opening.”
“So, what you’re saying is you want me to let you do whatever you want,