Jeremiah (Stud Ranch 5)

“I thought Charlie hated her parents,” I said, shoving a huge bite of taco into my mouth and chewing. “So why are we busting our asses to make ‘em feel cozy?”

“They’re paying for the wedding,” Reece said, sounding exasperated. “I’ve told you a hundred times. This is a big deal for Charlie. She’s sees it as a way to reconcile with them after everything that went down with her fucker of an ex.”

I waved with my overstuffed taco. “Exactly. They took the side of that abusive fuck. So good riddance to ‘em.”

“It’s not so easy to write family off,” Mike piped up from across the table. “Even when they suck.” I looked over at him where he was sopping up the bits that had fallen out of his taco with the last of his tortilla. Beside him, Buck was playing an obnoxiously loud game on his phone, ignoring all of us.

I shook my head. “Seems pretty cut and dried to me. They abandoned her when she needed them.” I sliced the hand not holding my taco through the air. “They made their choice.”

But Reece just shook his head. “You know Charlie’s not like that. She’s got a big heart and she feels like if they’re willing to come halfway, she wants to meet them there.”

I rolled my eyes. Whatever. From what I’d seen, and I’d seen a fucking lot, people never changed.

We finished up dinner and then headed over to the big house. The insurance money from the tornado had all gone to Ruth since she’d still owned the quarter acre the damn house was on, in a nasty little bit of fine print she’d squirreled past our boss Xavier’s lawyer. But at least she’d finally sold it to him, so now he owned the entire ranch outright. But it meant he’d also had to shell out the cash on an already huge investment for the house rebuild.

So we tried to keep costs down where we could, including going with the lowest bidding contractors—a mistake, and one that had been my decision.

Xavier had given me this project and I’d yet to prove much of anything in the way of leadership skills. Selling the first calves two weeks ago had helped even out the ledger books, but we were still operating in the red.

So Reece and I were finishing up what work on the house we couldn’t contract out.

As we walked up, Charlie stepped out the front door. Her short hair had grown out from being nearly bald like when she first arrived, but she still kept it shortish and dyed pitch black, like a little goth pixie.

“Babe!” Her face lit up at seeing Reece and she threw her arms around him. “Ruth got the caterer we wanted. They had a last-minute cancellation and we got them!”

Reece grinned big. He lifted her up off her feet and I had to give it to the bastard. He really did look happier than I’d ever seen him. He and Charlie had taken forever to actually start dating and admit that they liked each other for real. But once they did, it was a damn whirlwind. Of course, it was with my impatient brother. He was proposing by their three-month anniversary.

I told him it was too fast, that she’d just gotten out of a shit marriage and the last thing she probably wanted was to be saddled with another man’s ring on her finger, but what the fuck did I know?

Reece proposed anyway and she said yes and the two of them have never looked fucking happier.

And frankly, I don’t know why the whole thing’s put me in such a bad damn mood.

When Reece finally set her down on her feet, she was pulling her phone out of her jeans pocket.

“But Ruth says we need to decide like, tonight, between the type of meat dish we want to serve.” She started flipping through options on her phone and Reece zeroed in like he was studying for a math exam.

I just shook my head and pushed past the both of them. “I’ll be inside.”

I only realized my mistake once I opened the door and heard the sounds of Britney Spears’ tinny voice and saw Ruth Harshbarger shimmying her backside while she rolled a roller of grey paint sloppily up and down the wall.

The door shut behind me with a loud enough bang, but the music was so loud she didn’t notice and kept dancing back and forth while visible paint flecks flew off the roller in all directions.

And I took in several things at once:

One, the way she was dancing was pulling up the plastic that she’d only haphazardly laid over the newly installed carpet.

Two, she was painting the walls but the ceiling was still naked drywall.

And three and most annoying of all, her ass looked fan-fucking-tastic in those paint-smeared leggings that did absolutely nothing to hide the shapely contours of each of her plump globes and Jesus fuck, it had been way too long since I’d been laid.