Reece (Stud Ranch 4)

Ruth laughed. “Dear God, it’s like you were meant for this life. Or you just haven’t shoveled enough manure yet. Dealing with the calves is the best part, I will admit.”

She sidled up to me by the counter. “But you don’t own this place. You just work here. And you get time off. Pretty sure it’s the law.”

“Oh,” I said. I hadn’t really thought about it. Frankly, I was glad to have things to do every day. What would I do with time off? Ruminate on things better off forgotten. No, better to keep busy.

“I don’t mind,” I started to say, but just then, the door off the kitchen opened and Reece and Jeremiah came in, and they came in loudly, mid-conversation, like they often did.

“I’m telling you, we need to move them in,” Reece said.

“We can’t,” his brother answered. “The pastures are a mess. They gave no thought to recovery periods or optimal growth cycles, and the soil! Jesus, the soil!”

Reece just shook his head. “But another fence was downed in the west pasture and I’m telling you, I don’t think it was the cows. When I looked closer—”

“Hey,” Ruth interrupted. “You ever gonna give your employee a day off?”

They both looked up at us. I started to wave my hand and say it was okay, when Jeremiah took off his hat, putting it on the hook, and said, “Of course. I know it’s been busy while we trained you, Charlie, but we can set up a schedule now. Xavier always gave us one day a week off, so if that sounds fair to you—”

“Absolutely,” I said, and didn’t miss Ruth rolling her eyes.

“How about I take her into town with me today?” Ruth said. “We can even get more cake. I saw you were running low.”

“Cake?” I asked, laughing.

“Cottonseed meal, dried grains, maybe sunflower meal,” Reece said. “Plus the minerals and protein cows need. It tastes good and they’re usually excited to get it.”

“You need more and how about I take our girl in town to get it? You set up an account with Mr. Rivera, didn’t you?”

Jeremiah nodded. “Apparently, I’ll be spending the morning chasing down lost cows again, and we’ll need both ATVs anyway.”

“Perfect!” Ruth declared, grinning and throwing an arm around my shoulders. “Then I’m sure you won’t mind fixing yourselves lunch, too, while I kidnap our girl here for lunch out.”

“Oh, I don’t have to be away that long,” I said hurriedly. “Especially if I’m needed here.”

“No, no,” Reece said. “Go. You deserve some time for a breather.”

I looked up and met his gaze, something I tried not to do most of the time for exactly this reason, this zap of electricity or energy that hit me every time I did. He’d taken a step forward but then stopped, and the way it looked in his eyes, it was as if he was intentionally holding himself back, even though he wanted to come closer. “Enjoy town. You’ve been working your butt off. We got it and like Jer said, we’ll be on both ATVs anyway.”

“Okay,” I whispered. Then cleared my throat a little and nodded, still not looking away from Reece. “If you guys are sure.”

I finally dragged my gaze off Reece and looked at his brother. Who was also looking at Reece, his brows drawn together slightly. Oh crap, had he noticed something? Was there something to notice? Reece was just being friendly. He was a friendly guy.

I smelled something burning and then turned back to the sausages. “Shit!” I yelped, grabbing the pan and yanking them off the stove. One side of the sausages was blackened.

I flinched, freaking out and terror-stricken as I looked down at the ruined sausages. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry. I’ll make a fresh batch. And you can take this batch out of my salary, I’m so sorry—”

“Hey,” Ruth said, touching my arm. “It’s no biggie. It’s just packaged meat, honey.”

Which was when I looked up and realized they were all looking at me strangely. And not because I’d burned the meat.

I looked from one face to another. “I… um…”

“Don’t worry about it,” Reece said, stepping forward and grabbing one of the sausages that had to still be way too hot to handle from the plate where I’d flipped them from the pan. He took a big bite off the end and even though I heard the audible crunch from the burned side, he just grinned at me. “Tastes great to me.”

And I wanted to burst out in tears. Ridiculous, stupid tears. Because of course burning a little pan of sausages wasn’t a big deal.

Except it would have gotten me beaten black and blue only weeks ago. And apparently I couldn’t switch off a body’s instincts that had been honed over a decade. Dear God, would I always be such a mess?