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“Absolutely,” I said, and didn’t miss Ruth rolling her eyes.
“How about I take her into town with me today?” Ruth said. “We can even get more cake. I saw you were running low.”
“Cake?” I asked, laughing.
“Cottonseed meal, dried grains, maybe sunflower meal,” Reece said. “Plus the minerals and protein cows need. It tastes good and they’re usually excited to get it.”
“You need more and how about I take our girl in town to get it? You set up an account with Mr. Rivera, didn’t you?”
Jeremiah nodded. “Apparently, I’ll be spending the morning chasing down lost cows again, and we’ll need both ATVs anyway.”
“Perfect!” Ruth declared, grinning and throwing an arm around my shoulders. “Then I’m sure you won’t mind fixing yourselves lunch, too, while I kidnap our girl here for lunch out.”
“Oh, I don’t have to be away that long,” I said hurriedly. “Especially if I’m needed here.”
“No, no,” Reece said. “Go. You deserve some time for a breather.”
I looked up and met his gaze, something I tried not to do most of the time for exactly this reason, this zap of electricity or energy that hit me every time I did. He’d taken a step forward but then stopped, and the way it looked in his eyes, it was as if he was intentionally holding himself back, even though he wanted to come closer. “Enjoy town. You’ve been working your butt off. We got it and like Jer said, we’ll be on both ATVs anyway.”
“Okay,” I whispered. Then cleared my throat a little and nodded, still not looking away from Reece. “If you guys are sure.”
I finally dragged my gaze off Reece and looked at his brother. Who was also looking at Reece, his brows drawn together slightly. Oh crap, had he noticed something? Was there something to notice? Reece was just being friendly. He was a friendly guy.
I smelled something burning and then turned back to the sausages. “Shit!” I yelped, grabbing the pan and yanking them off the stove. One side of the sausages was blackened.
I flinched, freaking out and terror-stricken as I looked down at the ruined sausages. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry. I’ll make a fresh batch. And you can take this batch out of my salary, I’m so sorry—”
“Hey,” Ruth said, touching my arm. “It’s no biggie. It’s just packaged meat, honey.”
Which was when I looked up and realized they were all looking at me strangely. And not because I’d burned the meat.
I looked from one face to another. “I… um…”
“Don’t worry about it,” Reece said, stepping forward and grabbing one of the sausages that had to still be way too hot to handle from the plate where I’d flipped them from the pan. He took a big bite off the end and even though I heard the audible crunch from the burned side, he just grinned at me. “Tastes great to me.”
And I wanted to burst out in tears. Ridiculous, stupid tears. Because of course burning a little pan of sausages wasn’t a big deal.
Except it would have gotten me beaten black and blue only weeks ago. And apparently I couldn’t switch off a body’s instincts that had been honed over a decade. Dear God, would I always be such a mess?
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.
