Page 37 of Bailey

“I’ve got plenty of bad to go with it,” he said.

Another scoff filled the air, and she tilted her head, her eyes vibrant and blazing but not in a good way.

“And then you said you wanted a slow, country, small-town life. Nothing big, nothing celebrity…and I swear I was seconds away from telling you.” He hadn’t been in that moment, but he’d been stewing over how to tell Bailey way before she’d even told him about her small town life dreams. He took another step closer. “Please, can we go eat in your office?”

“Fine,” she clicked out. “Yes. Let’s go.”

She strode past him, and Reeves did sigh then, because this was the worst way for Bailey to find out about his online persona, videos, and channel. The door to the livestock shed slammed closed, and Reeves looked up into the rafters of it.

“Really, Lord?” he asked, his voice heavy with disdain. “She is the most interesting woman I’ve ever met, and I’ve already started to fall in love with her, and You couldn’t have helped me orchestrate something better than this?”

God had never been particularly loud for Reeves, and he certainly didn’t get any booming directions or guidance now. Reeves couldn’t stand out in the livestock shed by himself, so he followed Bailey at a slower pace and re-entered the veterinary clinic through the back door Marina had used to bring him outside.

He didn’t quite know how to get to Bailey’s office from here, but he turned right and went down a hallway that was clearly meant for staff. He passed the doggy daycare room, which had a large outdoor area as well, and then the cat center. He turned the corner and found a doorplate that said Dr. McAllister.

His step slowed, and he wasn’t sure how he could eat greasy, saucy Chinese food with so much between him and Bailey. He told himself something he’d thought earlier this week: you don’t have to explain thirty-five years of your life in a single day.

So he entered her office, and he set the brown paper bag of Chinese food on the middle of her desk before he took a seat across from it. She kept her focus steadfastly on her desktop computer monitor, clicking so fast that she surely wasn’t doing anything of importance.

“I’ve wanted to tell you for weeks,” he said. “Since the moment you asked me what I really did.”

She turned her icy blue gaze on him. “You could have at any time.”

“It’s a secret I’ve guarded for years,” he said. “And maybe it’s a stupid career choice to be online when you don’t want to be found by your abuser.”

Bailey blinked slowly at first, and then rapidly. All of her bravado fell away as what he’d said truly sank in. “What do you mean?”

“I bought that farm here in Coral Canyon for anonymity,” he said, using the word for a second time. “It took me a couple of years to figure out the best way to hide from my dad. I changed my name, got a new ID, and left everything I owned in Montana to have this life I have now.”

He leaned forward, hoping not to have to get into every nitty-gritty detail today. “He abused me every day of my life, starting when I was nine years old,” he said. “With my first paycheck from working in the bitter Montana cold, shoveling driveways and sidewalks for little old ladies, I bought a pair of steel-toed boots.”

Bailey seemed riveted to him, and Reeves couldn’t look away from her either.

“I bought them, so that I could kick him when he came into my bedroom at night, drunk and angry over God knows what. I wore them to bed every night, and he finally left me alone when I kicked him in the teeth and broke his jaw.”

Reeves’s heartbeat thundered through his whole body, and he felt a bit outside himself as pieces of him seemed to be moving at a million miles an hour, and yet he spoke in a steady, calm rhythm.

He leaned back in his chair, wrung out. “He never spoke another word to me after that. He didn’t feed me. He didn’t buy me clothing, school supplies, sports or camping equipment, nothing. He didn’t come to any of my high school events, including my graduation.”

Reeves only paused to breathe, which he did quickly. “I went to Alaska for a couple of years with a buddy of mine after I first left home. And everything I’ve done since then has been to protect myself and also build the serene, quiet, small town life I also want.”

He sat back, utterly spent, though he’d been hoping for a fun, light-hearted surprise lunch for his girlfriend. He’d really liked the way she’d introduced him to OJ as her boyfriend, and he hoped that he hadn’t put that status in jeopardy now that she knew about his channel.

All the emotion on Bailey’s face smoothed over, and she pushed herself back from her desk and stood up. She walked around the back corner of it, and Reeves watched, thinking she would walk out of her office and leave him there with their Chinese food. He certainly had no stomach for it now.

To his great surprise, she continued around the front corner of the desk toward him, and he barely had enough time to open his arms to receive her as she slid onto his lap and wrapped her arms around his shoulders.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered as his cowboy hat fell to the ground behind him.

He didn’t care one whit about that, for he was holding the beautiful Bailey McAllister in his lap, and the warmth and weight of her was everything he’d ever wanted. He pressed his face into the hollow of her neck and breathed in the scent of her skin, getting some hay and a bit of antiseptic, and maybe some fabric softener from her veterinary coat.

“You’re apologizing to me?” he whispered.

“Yes,” she said back. “I didn’t know about your daddy.”

“How would you? I didn’t tell you about him.”

She pulled back and searched his eyes, and Reeves had no idea what she was looking for. He simply let her look, and he hoped that she would find what she needed, because he didn’t want to keep anything from her ever again. She carefully stroked the tips of her fingers down the side of his face and then leaned down and kissed him.