Just Gettin' Started: BWWM Interracial Cowboy/Western Romance (Westbury Ranch Book 1) by Roxy Wilson

sure he was in there.
    Damn the man! Did he have to make it so difficult? She had such a simple, easy, and peaceful life before he came in, but he’d complicated everything.
    Maybe it was time to set things right.
    She knocked on the door but he didn’t answer. Cullen rang the bell but there wasn’t any reply. Shit! Where is he? Just as she was about to turn back to see if he was on the farm, he appeared on the other side of the door.
    “What do you want?”
    She lifted an eyebrow at his curt voice. “We need to talk.”
    He appeared reluctant to let her in but then after a brief pause, he opened the door.
    She stepped through. Cullen’s gaze took in the bag that stood against the wall. “Going somewhere?”
    “Yes. It seems clear to me that you trust that asshole more than me, so it’s better if I leave right now,” he growled.
    Cullen ran a hand over her cheek as she stepped into the kitchen behind him. His muscles were bunched and she could see he was vibrating with anger. She’d never seen him like this before, and it was quite a revelation. Rage gave so much more information about a person. She could see he was mad, but he kept a lid on his temper. “So you think I’m being judgmental?”
    He whirled to face her. “Yes!”
    She might’ve laughed if she hadn’t seen how upset he was. “Maybe you’re the one who’s judging me.”
    “What?”
    “I never said I didn’t trust you.”
    He opened his mouth, and then closed it again.
    She could see the wheels click in his brain.
    “You—I…”
    “Perhaps I should’ve asked Max to shut up and get the hell out…and yes, I did do so. I would’ve done it in front of you, if you hadn’t stormed out by then.”
    His stare was incredulous. “I—you what?”
    She wiggled her eyebrows at him. Cullen felt quite amused to see he was at a loss for words. A rarity for him. Cullen might’ve been hard-hearted when she started dating him; she might’ve tried her best not to fall in love with him; but once she did so, there was no looking back.
    Love?
    Yes .
    Yes, indeed.
    She wouldn’t say it to him. Call her old fashioned, but she expected her man to say it first. “Max is out of our place and I hope to hell he stays away. The man’s a compulsive liar. You think I don’t know that?” She took a deep breath. “And give me some credit. Do you think that I don’t know him well by now, after he cheated on me? I don’t make the same mistakes over and over again.”
    His bark of laughter pierced the still room. “You kicked him out?”
    She paced a little, feeling restless. “He wasn’t amused. Perhaps he thought I would take everything he said at face value, but I know Max, and he isn’t just a cheat but also a liar. He almost destroyed my life once, and I don’t want him to ruin it again. You and I, we’ve a good thing going, and I don’t see any reason to listen to him and spoil everything.”
    “He attacked me first. I was planning to tell it to you but I guess I never expected that he would put such a spin on things and run to you at first chance. He said things about you that I couldn’t tolerate.”
    “Max always knows how to make the most of an opportunity.” She wasn’t much worried that her neighbor called her names and wanted to win her back. He didn’t have a chance in hell. What worried her was another thing that he said. “You said that he wanted my ranch. Why did he say that?”
    Graeme shrugged. “Maybe he wants to expand.”
    She ran a finger over her lips as she pondered over Max’s strange declaration. Maybe Graeme didn’t hear right, but she didn’t think so. Max had started hovering around her at the same time as she’d hired Graeme, and she assumed it was because she was getting involved with another man. But what if his reason was something else?
    “He has made some offers of merging.” She glanced out of the window as she remained lost in thought. Now, things were a little clearer. Max wasn’t pursuing her because