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She may have felt nothing, but I was reeling.
I wanted to ask a million things of her and Wilson but didn’t know where to start. The jumble of questions would stay unspoken and unanswered. Trapped inside my head, hanging on the tip of my uncooperative tongue.
She wouldn’t even look at me. And if a lifetime of riding horses had taught me one thing, it was non-verbal communication. No eye contact meant she didn’t want to see me. I wouldn’t wait for her to kick me in the head like an angry mare. I got the message loud and clear.
It was time to melt into the background. Disappear before Wilson and Cami, who obviously knew Rae, started asking questions of their own.
This drama had provided the gawking sheriff’s deputy and his Hollywood girlfriend, the host of the reality TV show Wilson and Cami hade been on, enough entertainment. I’d never been a fan of people, and working on almost no sleep and confronted with Rae’s appearance in my normal life, I was done.
I took another cautious step back, closer to the door, farther from all the shit I didn’t want to deal with. And farther from her. A muttered curse found its way past my lips.
“Let me look.” Cami rushed over with a dish towel held out to catch Rae’s blood and inspect the damage. “I’m going to have to pull this glass out. See if you need stitches.”
I stopped my retreat. Cami might be a mom, but I’d doctored more animals in my life than I could count. I hovered, unsure if I had the right to interfere. Watching the three of them huddled together, I grew roots. Shit, this wasn’t like me at all. I was the person that managed the chaos in a crisis, but Rae had me wringing my hands and clutching my pearls.
“It’s not that big. I’m sure it’s fine.” Rae’s voice was steady.
“Let her look,” Wilson chided.
“Fine.” She opened her hand with a resigned sigh and a slight grimace of pain.
“You’re right. It’s not so bad, but I will need tweezers to get the glass out.” Cami’s calm handling of the minor injury confirmed I wasn’t needed.
“Cami, you take care of Rae. We’ve got this mess. Where do you have a mop or dustpan?” The actress, Tina—no, Tracie—bustled from behind the huge kitchen island with a sponge in hand and an eager, helpful expression on her pretty face.
“That closet,” Wilson answered with a chin jut.
Jethro, the deputy, took a swig of his beer before moving to find the requested cleaning shit for Tracie.
Leaving me with nothing to do but feel even more out of place. I looked down at my boots, searching for my wits. Instead of locating my sanity, I watched Rae’s dog. The purebred grand champion Maltese show dog had discarded all pretense of snobbery and lapped up spilled beer as fast as his pink tongue would allow.
What a clusterfuck. I rubbed a hand over my face, grinding a day’s worth of travel dirt and ranch dust into my eyes.
Cami had an arm around Rae, the blood-soaked cloth held delicately around her injured left hand, as they moved toward the stairs. Rae looked as stunned as I felt, her gaze darting around the room, falling on anyone but me. With Cami on one side and Wilson on the other, there was no room for me.
Tracie touched my arm, and I jumped. She held up the dustpan and looked meaningfully at the floor.
“Sorry, ma’am.” I moved out of her way so she could clean up. It was one step closer to the door. Closer to escaping this twilight zone where my one-night stand belonged at Blue Star and I was on the outside looking in.
“Jethro and Atley, can you guys load up my sister’s luggage on the ATV to take to the guest house while we deal with her hand? Keys for the minivan are on the bar.” Wilson tossed the request over his shoulder as he and the two women mounted the stairs to the second floor. Rae didn’t look back.
Sister.
It could have been worse. Who the hell was I kidding? No, it couldn’t have. My life was about to get very, very complicated. The sweet, sexy stranger who I’d shared the most explicit and passionate one-night stand of my life with was my boss’s sister.
The universe had a sick sense of humor. And I hated being the butt of the joke.
Given a task by my boss, I finally got moving, snatching the keys off the island and heading outside, not caring to wait for Jethro’s help. Tracie had shooed Georgie away from the puddle of beer, and he trotted behind me. I held the front door open for the dog, and he floated out into the sweltering late afternoon heat, his long white hair ruffling like a velvet curtain.
I shoved my sunglasses back on and dropped my hat onto my head. The whoosh of heat outside enveloped me like walking into an oven. Damn, July in the Texas Hill Country. You could actually fry an egg on the sidewalk if you wanted to—a local weatherman did it last week.
In the driveway, I opened the side door of the minivan, and a black and tan checkered suitcase tumbled out. It had to be from the 1970s. I peered into the van. Wedged inside were at least a dozen suitcases. No two seemed to match. Many were bulging at the seams, ready to burst. The insane hodgepodge of luggage crammed inside told me Rae was here for more than a long weekend.
The forthcoming awkward conversation with my boss about how I knew his sister had just gotten that much worse. It looked like Rae was here to stay.
I glanced around the front yard, wishing a camera crew would pop up and tell me it was all a huge practical joke for one of those stupid TV shows. But I wasn’t that lucky. Nope. My only company was Georgie, who sniffed the sage bushes by the porch, stopping to lift his leg occasionally. The sight made me chuckle despite it all, because that prissy fluff-ball pissing on a bush like a regular dog was wrong on so many levels.
I picked up the fallen suitcase and carried it to the trailer behind the ATV. Rae’s luggage would not move itself, and mindless physical labor suited my mental state to a T.
