bumped into the chair behind her. “You’re welcome to stay as long as you want. Heck, I get that you seem to be an important piece in this whole puzzle. But you definitely don’t belong at the top. You’re not a Johnson. This isn’t in your blood. You’re the imitation here.”
She gasped and her face grew red. “Just because I may not be blood-related doesn’t mean I’m not meant to be part of this ranch. I’ve been more of a daughter to them for the past few years than you’ve been their son.” She pushed against his shoulders with both hands and squeezed past him.
His hand shot out and grasped her arm. “What is that supposed to mean?” he gritted out.
Kate whipped her arm from his grasp and glared at him. “If it had been me? I wouldn’t have left the ranch at all. Like I said, I know my place. Not even my parents would have been able to get me to leave.”
“If you love your parents so much, go suffocate them for a while and leave mine alone.”
Her face paled. Hot fury built behind her eyes until the pressure caused the dam to break. A warm, solitary tear trickled down her cheek before she brushed it away with the back of her wrist. “Goodnight, AJ.”
She fled the dining room and bolted from the house toward the little cabin on the far side of the property. The one she’d shared with her parents. The one that now sat empty. Both deaths had been sudden and unexpected. Her father had an accident on the job and her mother’s health deteriorated soon after discovering she had pancreatic cancer. But AJ knew nothing of this. Whenever he came home, he’d been focused on spending time with his family. He had no reason to ask about her or her parents.
Slowing her pace, she gulped in a few deep breaths of the cool night air. She pushed the door to her home open and gently closed it behind her. As the quiet sounds of her sanctuary engulfed her, she allowed herself to release the pent-up emotion she wouldn’t allow AJ to see.
Kate wrapped her arms around herself and let out a quiet sob. It wasn’t his fault. He didn’t know. And she didn’t need his pity. She was going to win this thing fair and square and when she did, she’d show him the mercy he most definitely wouldn’t bestow on her.
Chapter Five
AJ spun around as Kate practically dodged around him. Uh oh. He’d gone too far. He went over their conversation again, but he couldn’t pinpoint what would have been bad enough to make her cry. Was it his unwillingness to accept her as part of his family? She’d thrown that punch first. How was she more of a daughter than he a son?
If she was going to fling insults, then she needed to be able to take it when they were flung back at her. But the guilt continued to eat away at the anger he’d felt during their argument.
He shook his head and ran a hand through his hair. Clenching his hand into a fist, he threw it down on the table, causing the dishes to rattle. He should apologize. But he still didn’t know what he needed to apologize for exactly.
The food quickly became cold as it sat on the plate untouched. He’d lost his appetite anyway. Slowly, he gathered the dishes from dinner and took them to the kitchen. His parents were probably already asleep. No one moved in the house. When the table was cleared and the food put in the fridge, AJ grabbed his glass of ice water and headed out onto the porch.
The crickets chirped and the light breeze continued to rustle through the fields. AJ settled onto a rocking chair and brought the glass to his lips. The cool water slid down his dry throat. Maybe Kate and his parents were right. He hadn’t been around long enough to know everything he had to in order to run the place. He thought he had. He’d seen it all through his high school years. It was only in the last decade that he’d popped in and out.
But his parents had insisted on college. Then one thing had turned into another. The scowl returned to his face. If his parents had wanted him to know about the family business so much, why didn’t they just have him working the ranch straight out of college? It wasn’t like