LJ gritted his teeth, because on that small point alone, they agreed. The difference was, Bill thought because he’d gotten his hands on a little money, he had the right to dictate other people’s lives.

“I saw the ambition eating at you,” Bill said. “People who are just working for the weekend don’t come out after sunset to fix a loose rail or check on a fidgety horse. You don’t want to work on a spread like this. You want to own it, just like I did.” He turned to Andra. “You’ve been through enough, sweetheart. I didn’t want you to get your heart broken the first time you tried to date again. So I told him if he wanted you rather than a foothold in this ranch, he’d find a different job. He didn’t. And after that, I never saw you two together until he took off and you told me you were going after him. Apparently, rather than showing me straight that he wasn’t angling for this ranch, he started lying and sneaking around, trying to pull one over on me.”

“Is that true?” Andra looked at LJ. “Did he give you some kind of ultimatum? Why didn’t you just tell me? I never would have let him fire you over that. It’s not like you were trying to get a ring on my finger and steal all the horses. You were just teaching me to cook, and things happened from there. We were just . . .” She trailed off, her face paling beneath her hat. “LJ?”

He swallowed. Because he hadn’t just been teaching her to cook. He’d been fascinated from the first moment he’d seen her, and if he were any kind of real man, he’d have stood up for that no matter how many jobs it cost him. He could have found another way to support Mama, somehow.

Bill’s face went somber. “I married your mother when we could barely afford diapers for Jason. I would have fought the flow of gravity for that woman, and that’s what I wanted for you, Cassie. A man who loved you above everything. More than horses or his pride or his ambition.”

“Bullshit.” It was the single word LJ let escape, shaking with the power of all the things he was holding back. If this man didn’t have Andra’s blood running through his veins, he’d already be on the ground.

But there was no reason to keep silent anymore. Andra knew he’d lied to her dad and refused to give up his career for a chance to openly date her. Not that he thought her father would have approved no matter what he did, but what mattered was how bad it looked to Andra. If he had the chance now, he would choose her a thousand times over, but it was too late.