Reece (Stud Ranch)

“You got a new calf,” Reece cut in. “First of the season.”

Ruth beamed even bigger. “See. Eat your heart out, motherfucker!” she shouted, giving the finger with both hands at the window in the direction of Trent’s retreating truck. “The HB is back.”

Jeremiah rolled his eyes. “How about we start with some breakfast and then finish fixing the pen to keep the cows we just rounded up, ’cause those two troublemakers were already eyeing the temporary cow pens like they were planning the Great Escape Part Two.”

“Sit, sit,” Ruth waved us all to sit down. “I’ll make my grandma’s famous flapjacks and eggs.”

Jeremiah just lifted his eyebrows at Reece as if to say, is this the same woman who was just screaming at all of us ten minutes ago? but we all sat as instructed.

Well, Jeremiah sat and half-dozed while Reece insisted on helping with coffee and I volunteered to help with cooking.

6

“So shit, girl, you were hitchhiking last night?” Ruth asked almost as soon as I started frying up some bacon. “That’s nuts.”

Apparently she wasn’t one for beating around the bush. Or the bacon, as it were.

I shrugged, noticing how Reece had quieted while his brother talked on about all the chores that needed doing that day. Was he listening?

“Just trying to get where I’m going.”

“Where’s that?” Ruth asked.

“Austin.”

She nodded. “You got family there?”

“Um… No, not really.”

“Friends?”

I shook my head as I reached for a fork and flipped the sizzling bacon. “Just looking for a fresh start, I guess.”

Ruth let out a low whistle. If the guys hadn’t been listening before, I didn’t know how they weren’t now.

“I don’t really like to talk about it,” I said hurriedly.

“Oh sure, sure,” Ruth said, pausing as she whipped the pancake batter.

But as soon as she’d plugged in a big griddle, after I’d finished the first round of bacon and was starting the second, she continued.

“I respect that. A brand new start. God knows I’m not exactly one for letting go of the past.” She let out a humorless laugh, but then gazed out the window.

It was a beautiful view, I had to admit. We were in a part of Texas I didn’t even know existed. Instead of being flat like the rest of the state, there were dramatic, rolling hills. Cattle dotted the hills, and it was a bit breath-taking, to be honest.

“Well, some pasts can be hard to let go of,” I said quietly.

Ruth still heard me, I knew because her head swung my way. She nodded, before her attention got taken away by the pancakes which needed flipping. “Yeah, I guess that’s true,” she said a few minutes later, startling me because I didn’t imagine she was still thinking about my words.

“So how ya gonna get to Austin? I hope you don’t try hitchhiking again. I’m happy to take you, but I gotta hit the hay first after breakfast. I’m swamped and a two-hour roundtrip journey might be a little much at the moment after the all-nighter I just pulled.”

“Oh my God,” I almost dropped the fork I was flipping bacon with. “Are you serious? That would be amazing! But of course, of course, get all the sleep you need.”

“Sure. No problem. We gals gotta stick together, right?”

Again, I was struck by the urge to hug her. To hug someone.

And to cry. Because here was the second person in as many days to prove that there were actually good people in the world, despite all evidence to the contrary in my previous lived experience.

“Thanks,” I said, trying my damnedest to swallow back my emotions. “I would really appreciate that. You have no idea.”

She looked over and her eyes softened. “I know what it’s like to need someone to just throw you a rope once in a while.” Then she huffed out, her mouth hardening into a line. “And how much it bites when there’s no one there with any ropes in sight.”

I nodded. Yeah. Yeah, that, I knew exactly what she meant.

“So we pick ourselves up by our own bootstraps?”

She huffed out again. “More like crawl out of one hole of doom and hope for a less doomy hole tomorrow.”

I laughed out loud at that. “Yup.”

Which was also when I saw Reece look my way, as if startled and then pleased to hear me laugh.

Which made me… feel things.

Good Lord, being an unleashed human in the real world was intense and overwhelming, and I’d only been at it for a few days. I felt like unfamiliar emotions kept assaulting me left and right. I barely knew what to do with one before another one hit. Part of me wanted to go back to bed, curl into a ball, and pull the covers over my head for a long, long time.

I decided instead I should just focus on cooking bacon, and then eggs, something I actually knew how to do. One foot in front of the other. I’d figure this all out as I went…right?