Reece (Stud Ranch 4)

I nodded and turned away from all of them, taking the pan to the kitchen sink. Of course it wasn’t necessary to clean it right now, but I couldn’t bear for them to see the emotion on my face. I shoved the water lever to hot and started scrubbing the pan, blinking rapidly to try to get rid of the tears that were still threatening.

Ridiculous, completely ridiculous. I was furious at myself and at my stupid unwieldy emotions. For ten years I’d been stone cold, the master of control. So what the hell was wrong with me now?

At least the others had begun talking again behind me. I was too overwhelmed to actually hear what they were saying, but the buzz of their voices was calming, knowing attention wasn’t on me anymore.

At least I thought so, until I felt a presence and looked over to see Reece’s big body looming beside me.

“Hey, you okay?” he asked.

“Fine,” I said, turning the water colder as I rinsed the pan, angling my body away from him to put it in the drying rack. I wanted to run away to the bathroom to cry, not be interrogated by anyone, least of all him.

And maybe he sensed that, because he backed off again. “Okay,” he said. “Just, if you ever need to talk. I can be a friend. I hope we are friends.”

I looked over at him in spite of myself, which I immediately regretted because I didn’t know what emotions were still on my face. And I wanted to control myself around this man, desperately, because he made me feel out of control. He made me feel things that were out of control. He made me want to do things that were out of control.

And when a stupid tear slipped out of my eye and down my cheek and he saw it, I wanted to—

I didn’t know what I wanted, honestly.

But then he reached over and swiped it away with his thumb and leaned in and said, “It’s okay to cry, you know. You can cry over burned sausages or spilled milk or any damn thing you want.”

He said it quiet, and Jeremiah and Ruth were still talking in the background—okay arguing, it seemed they were always arguing. But that meant the moment Reece and I were having was genuinely private, and I appreciated all of them so much in this moment.

“Sometimes it’s not,” I said back to Reece. “It’s not okay to cry.”

He shook his head. “Whoever taught you that didn’t understand pain. That’s bullshit. You let it out, whenever you need. No one here will judge you.”

I frowned at him, feeling too many things, and gave a half-nod-half-shrug, and turned away again.

I pasted on a bright smile, something that felt familiar. The familiar felt good right now, so I stuck with it. “Who wants biscuits?”

“All right, Jesus, finally it’s just us girls,” Ruth said as soon as she shoved the truck into drive and jammed her foot on the petal, spitting gravel as we shot forward.

I grabbed the bar overhead, then quickly yanked my seatbelt on.

She looked over at me and grinned. “So tell me everything. God, I can’t believe we haven’t had a chance to talk since you got here. Sorry, I should have pulled you aside earlier for girl time but I’ve been dealing with my own shit.” She waved a hand. “Dad left a shitstorm when he passed that I’ve been cleaning up ever since.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

She waved her hand again, but I didn’t miss the slight tightening of her mouth. “He was a mean bastard. He certainly never bothered to give a shit about me when he was still around so why should I now that he’s gone?”

“Don’t let the bastards get you down,” I said. I’d always loved the quote.

Ruth looked over at me and grinned like she was surprised. “Fuck yeah.”

We drove a little further and then she looked at me. “So. Spill. You just show up out of nowhere. What’s your story?”

“Oh.” I blinked. I’d been grateful that nobody had pressed me about my past. But I guess I should have known that out of everyone, Ruth would be the one to eventually ask. She wasn’t exactly big on tact. That much was obvious by how much she bickered with Jeremiah all the time, even though they barely knew each other.

“Oh you know, I just needed a change of scenery. So I decided to start over somewhere new.”

She made a scoffing noise. “Honey, people do not just decide to start over without any luggage or money and end up hitchhiking on highway 284 in the middle of nowhere Texas. I mean, believe me, I’ve lived here my whole life, and good looking strangers don’t just go showing up out of nowhere.”

“Reece and Jeremiah showed up out of nowhere,” I countered.