“This is why she brought it to my attention, because we both knew you’d react like this.”

“Act like what? Resentful that I’m a twenty-six-year-old professional woman and my mommy is still checking up on me?”

“Lainie—”

“Are you my boss right now or my family friend?”

Doc hesitated. “I hate that you draw these invisible lines in the sand and I’m forced to stand on one side or the other.”

“Choose.”

“Fine, I’m your friend.”

“Then, friend, here’s the side I’m standing on. I hate that you’re still letting my mother lead you around by the nose. I hate that the last time I talked to her I told her to butt out of my life. She couldn’t accept that and she took it upon herself to call you to rectify it.”

“What was I supposed to do? She was crying. Crying. About you. It broke my damn heart.”

God, Lainie was mad enough to spit nails. Doc Dusty was one of the most focused, headstrong men she’d ever known. She’d watched Doc stare down the head of a major television network when they demanded to televise his examination of life-threatening rodeo injuries. So his being reduced to an errand boy for Sharlene Capshaw Green burned Lainie’s ass.

“And worst of all she was blaming me for you not staying in touch with her,” Doc added.

“How is that your fault?” Lainie demanded.

“Sharlene said I’m keeping you too busy working both circuits and you have no life outside of this job. Which, she felt entitled to point out, is only a part-time position.”

Dammit.

“After I talked to Sharlene I checked your personnel file. You haven’t taken any time off since you started working for me.”

“So?”

“So you’re overdue for a vacation. Long overdue.”

“When was the last time you took a vacation?”

His eyes narrowed. “This ain’t about me. This is about me and your mama being worried about you.”

“Why doesn’t she worry about her other kids and leave me the hell alone?” Lainie fumed. Paced. Cursing her mother’s need to control everything, which had always been a major sticking point between them.

A year following her husband’s tragic death, Sharlene Capshaw was wooed by Marcus Green—an ambulance-chasing attorney—to sue the venue where Jason Capshaw had been killed. Sharlene refused. Yet a romance between the grieving, beautiful young widow and the greedy, hotshot lawyer blossomed. By Lainie’s seventh birthday, her mother had remarried.

They moved out of Oklahoma to Marcus’s house in California. Which would’ve been fine, except Sharlene decided Lainie acted too rural for Sharlene’s new station in life. She enrolled Lainie in a private school and cut Lainie off from anyone who’d mattered in her old life. Her grandmother, Elsa Capshaw, wasn’t allowed contact, under the guise of Lainie needing to acclimate to her new surroundings.

By age nine, Lainie refused to travel with her mother and stepfather, demanding instead to spend her summer vacations at her grandma Elsa’s house in Oklahoma.

During those hot summers she fell in love with the world of rodeo her mother had left behind. The month Lainie graduated from high school, she moved back to Oklahoma for good. Partially because her grandmother needed a caretaker; partially because Lainie’s career goals weren’t lofty enough for her mother.

It hadn’t mattered that Lainie had earned a CNA certificate and become an EMT while a senior in high school. Or that after moving to Oklahoma she’d earned a degree as an LPN, as well as becoming a licensed massage therapist. Sharlene constantly harangued Lainie to go back to college for an RN or PA degree, with an eye toward medical school.

Medical school didn’t interest her. She couldn’t fathom the extra burden of attending classes and finishing homework at the end of a brutal workweek.

So Sharlene had been beyond infuriated when Lainie accepted Dusty’s job offer to work in the world of rodeo. Things had spiraled to the point where she and her mother rarely spoke at all these days.

“Lainie? You went awful quiet. You all right?”

“No. I’m not all right, Doc. Don’t do this.”

“Too late. After tomorrow night’s performance, you’ll officially be on vacation for three weeks.” He raised his hand, stopping her automatic protest. “This is nonnegotiable.”

Seething, Lainie itched to smack something. She inhaled two deep, long breaths and exhaled with deliberate care. “Okay. Say I agree to take this blasted vacation and don’t just quit outright. What happens when I come back? Will you knuckle under to Queen Sharlene every time she feels I’m being mistreated?”

Doc scowled. “No.”

“Because as a fully grown adult woman, I tend to get a little pissy about stuff like that.”

“I imagine so. Look, I’m not knuckling under to her. In fact, I’d planned to approach you about this and another issue before Sharlene called me. It seemed a good idea to get what I want—forcing you to take the break you need—while allowing Sharlene to believe I abided by her wishes and keeping her happy.”

Warning bells rang in her head. “Whoa. Back up. Approach me about what other issue?”

“About you going to work for Lariat full-time.”

“You’re joking.”

“Nope. But before you get all hyped up about it, I’ll tell you this: It wouldn’t be under the same structure we are right now. We’ve been in negotiations for months about serious changeups. By the time you get back, hopefully we’ll have all the details ironed out.”