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But we’d established firm boundaries. Friends. We were just friends now.
It didn’t stop me from being glad that Buck slept in the bunkhouse now, too. It helped keep the temptation at bay… But it wasn’t like I couldn’t invite Reece into my room. I mean he did sleep there that one night… And maybe if we were suuuuuuuuuper careful and exxxxtra quiet we could—
God, even the fact that I was thinking about it as if it was something I was actually considering just showed how I needed to keep busy and stay away from the sexy, gentle, kind, understanding—
Jesus, I was fucked up enough as it was. Adding a man to the mix was a horrible idea. Absolutely horrible.
Friends. We were just friends.
All these thoughts went racing through my head, the ones that had been on a circular hamster wheel for weeks, when Jeremiah made that statement this morning.
What genius response came out of my mouth in return to Jeremiah’s startling suggestion that I should be thinking about leaving soon? “Oh. Right.”
“I just mean, we’d only initially talked about you staying on through calving season, and then you’d said you wanted to be moving on.”
I don’t know why his words felt like a blow to the gut. Except, of course they did.
There was an audible noise as Ruth slapped the newspaper down on the table. “I don’t see how that has anything to do with anything. Situations change. People change. She just didn’t know us yet. But of course she wants to stay on and keep working here. Don’t you?”
I looked to Reece, wanting to hear his opinion, but his gaze was fixed to the floor.
And it struck me—shit, maybe I was wearing out my welcome.
They probably did want some burly man as their permanent ranch hand. Not a woman who was new to the life and had to be taught every little thing. They had the resources to hire a seasoned hand. It had been charity to take me in in the first place, and only at Ruth’s insistence.
Then I frowned, for the first time pausing and being like…wait. Were those my real thoughts? Or just an echo of the way Jeff would always tell me what a burden I was? Or how my mother would talk to me, calling me useless even though I did most of the housework in addition to keeping up my grades at school?
I frowned, considering the possibility, right as Reece finally spoke up.
“Jer, what the hell?” Reece asked, obviously aggravated. “Of course she can stay. She’s a fast learner and this is a good, safe environment for her.”
Jeremiah glared at his brother. “What matters is what she wants, not what you want.” He directed his attention back to me. “Forgive my brother. It’s up to you. You can stay and train as a ranch hand and get some first hand experience. Or I can pay you out here in a week or so, and I’m sure Ruth would help you get set up in Austin if that’s still where you’re wanting to go. Think on it and let me know.”
And with those ominous words he’d just stepped out the door like he hadn’t just turned my little world on its head.
“Well, obviously you can’t leave,” Ruth said as soon as the door closed behind Jeremiah. She scoffed as if it was the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard. Then she looked at my face closer. I don’t know what she saw there, but she jumped up from the table, ran over and threw her arms around my neck. “Oh God, are you going to leave us?”
Over her shoulder, I saw Reece watching me, his forkful of eggs halfway to his mouth, like he was waiting for my answer.
“I- I don’t know,” I answered honestly.
And that was how I’d left it. I’d gone out to feed Bessie and Nine and looked down at their little faces and eagerly suckling maws and the thought of leaving and not getting to see them grow up…
Which was silly. They’d grow up and just become cattle. Eventually Nine would be sold off as beef. Bessie would be used to breed little calves of her own soon enough.
My sentimentality was silly. Useless.
This had always just been a waystation. A place to do some healing. To reconnect with myself. I’d even called it cocooning. The whole point of a cocoon was so that you could eventually emerge from it, and fly away.
I neared the herd where I’d seen the heifer laboring earlier this morning, before I’d gotten back in and realized the four-wheeler was out of gas, which meant I’d had to take an unplanned trip into town for more—it really had been one of those kinds of mornings.
I climbed off the four-wheeler, the back of my hair brushing my neck in a way that tickled in the breeze and I looked out at the land. The huge sky overhead was dotted with puffy white clouds, the now familiar hills of the land sloping into one another, all of it like something out of a movie.
