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I knew I’d liked being in his arms. I didn’t like it when he avoided me around the ranch. That much I knew, but I wasn’t sure it clarified anything.
“I know my brother’s been an ass. I’ll talk to him. Because I really like you, Charlie. Regardless of what’s happened in the past, I really want us to be able to be… friends.”
Friends.
My shoulders slumped a little in spite of myself. Did friends do the things we had tonight? Did friends feel the way I did about him when I remembered what it had been like to have him slide between my legs? Or think about him when they were supposed to be working, and when they showered, and when they—
I swallowed hard, my fingers tightening on the steering wheel. “Friends,” I said tightly, my jaw flexing. “Yes, I’d like that.”
And I loosened my grip on the wheel, because the truth was, I would like it. Reece as a friend was better than the no-Reece at all of this past week.
I looked at him, flashing what I hoped was an easy, breezy smile. “Sounds good, friend.”
I couldn’t read the expression on his face. It was almost as if he was frowning. But then he nodded, right as I looked back at the road.
“Friends it is,” he said.
15
Things were busy on the ranch the next week with calving season hitting its peak, so even though my mind stayed on Reece, I was genuinely too worn out at the end of every day to do much about it. Or maybe that was just the excuse I told myself to put off making a decision. But no, he’d said we were friends, and friends it was. Friends didn’t think about how tight each other’s ass was. Friends didn’t obsess about wanting to grab each other to whisper about getting together to play kinky sex games in the middle of the night.
I drove the four-wheeler back out for the mid-morning check. I couldn’t believe I’d been here for almost the entire duration of calving season. We’d had 87 calves born, with eleven cows and heifers still pregnant. Some days it had just been one or two, but then it had sped up and there’d been one long, exhaustive day right in the middle of it with nine born in one day.
I’d been out in rain and cold and sun and mud, so much mud, spending my days more outside than in. Each night I dropped into bed too exhausted to think. I’d even eased up on the pills the past week ever since the dance, taking just the prescribed dose instead of doubling it, and I’d only woken up once drenched in sweat from a nightmare. I was counting that as a win.
And in between the work was the people. Ruth, and Reece, and Jeremiah. And well, Buck was there too, sometimes, though he tended to take his meals in the bunkhouse more often than not. He’d usually grab breakfast at the big house, though.
I thought back to this morning as I rode the four-wheeler over the familiar path out to the far pasture where there’d been a cow in labor this morning that I needed to check on.
Some morning it had been, sheesh. It had started out normal enough. Breakfast had been Ruth doing her usual morning crossword.
“What’s a four-letter word for a tall tale? Ends with N?” Ruth had asked this morning from the table where she was bent over the paper.
“Story?” Buck offered before shoving his last bite of his eggs in his mouth and reaching for his mug of coffee, downing it in one gulp.
Ruth rolled her eyes and shot me a what-am-I-gonna-do-with-this-guy? look. He’d been giving similarly useless guesses every time Ruth tossed out a clue for help.
“Maybe a yarn?” I offered.
Her eyes lit up. “Yes! You’re a genius.” She started scribbling in the little squares.
Jeremiah was finishing up his food too. He stood up and grabbed his hat off the hook by the door. “We should start talking about what you wanna do now that calving season’s almost over, Charlotte.”
I’d looked up, surprised to be singled out by him, and just as surprised at his words. Lately to chase away the doldrums, I’d just been burying myself in my work, taking on extra chores, doing anything I could to keep busy, busy, busy. I helped repaint the bunkhouse, inside and out. I was an extra pair of eyes driving the fence line three times a week to double-check no more of it was downed. I tried to absolutely wear my body out every day to leave no room for maudlin thoughts or dreams.
Especially since I was still trying to respect Jeremiah’s wishes and stay away from Reece for the most part. Even though memories of dancing together that night… well, I’d had to fight the impulse more than once to seek him out in the night and have a repeat of the first evening I’d shown up on his bunkhouse door.
