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I yanked the water back and chugged it, gulp by gulp until the glass was empty.
“Look, the girls are up at the house,” Reece kept at it. “They ate on the way over so they’re doing some painting. I told them we’d be up there after dinner to help.”
I was bone tired. I’d been up since five a.m. and hearing him talk only reminded me that the day was far from over.
But it wasn’t the thought of having to take on this second shift—going to work on the big house after all the ranch work, since the contractors we’d hired were shit and about a month behind schedule. That meant we had to do a lot of the finishing touches ourselves on the downstairs, the only part of the house that was finished, and just section off the upstairs which didn’t even have drywall up yet in some rooms.
No, my brain was stuck on the word girls.
“What do you mean—who’s up at the house with Charlie?”
But I knew what he was gonna say even as he frowned at me. “Ruth.”
I massaged my temple. I felt a headache coming on.
“What’s your problem with her?” Reece asked. “We all lived in the same house for months and now it’s like the two of you can’t barely stand to be in the same room together.”
I glared at my brother for stating the obvious. “I’ve had a long day. And that woman’s mouth never turns off.”
“Well, if Charlie’s parents are coming in on Thursday, then we need all the help we can getting the place ready.”
As if I needed another reminder of the circus about to come to town. I sat down at the table and spooned some of the taco meat piled in a bowl at the center of the table into a flour tortilla. There was only the meat, salsa, and a squeeze bottle of sour cream on the table in addition to the tortillas. Plus beer. Dinner of fuckin’ champions.
“I thought Charlie hated her parents,” I said, shoving a huge bite of taco into my mouth and chewing. “So why are we busting our asses to make ‘em feel cozy?”
“They’re paying for the wedding,” Reece said, sounding exasperated. “I’ve told you a hundred times. This is a big deal for Charlie. She’s sees it as a way to reconcile with them after everything that went down with her fucker of an ex.”
I waved with my overstuffed taco. “Exactly. They took the side of that abusive fuck. So good riddance to ‘em.”
“It’s not so easy to write family off,” Mike piped up from across the table. “Even when they suck.” I looked over at him where he was sopping up the bits that had fallen out of his taco with the last of his tortilla. Beside him, Buck was playing an obnoxiously loud game on his phone, ignoring all of us.
I shook my head. “Seems pretty cut and dried to me. They abandoned her when she needed them.” I sliced the hand not holding my taco through the air. “They made their choice.”
But Reece just shook his head. “You know Charlie’s not like that. She’s got a big heart and she feels like if they’re willing to come halfway, she wants to meet them there.”
I rolled my eyes. Whatever. From what I’d seen, and I’d seen a fucking lot, people never changed.
We finished up dinner and then headed over to the big house. The insurance money from the tornado had all gone to Ruth since she’d still owned the quarter acre the damn house was on, in a nasty little bit of fine print she’d squirreled past our boss Xavier’s lawyer. But at least she’d finally sold it to him, so now he owned the entire ranch outright. But it meant he’d also had to shell out the cash on an already huge investment for the house rebuild.
So we tried to keep costs down where we could, including going with the lowest bidding contractors—a mistake, and one that had been my decision.
Xavier had given me this project and I’d yet to prove much of anything in the way of leadership skills. Selling the first calves two weeks ago had helped even out the ledger books, but we were still operating in the red.
So Reece and I were finishing up what work on the house we couldn’t contract out.
As we walked up, Charlie stepped out the front door. Her short hair had grown out from being nearly bald like when she first arrived, but she still kept it shortish and dyed pitch black, like a little goth pixie.
“Babe!” Her face lit up at seeing Reece and she threw her arms around him. “Ruth got the caterer we wanted. They had a last-minute cancellation and we got them!”
Reece grinned big. He lifted her up off her feet and I had to give it to the bastard. He really did look happier than I’d ever seen him. He and Charlie had taken forever to actually start dating and admit that they liked each other for real. But once they did, it was a damn whirlwind. Of course, it was with my impatient brother. He was proposing by their three-month anniversary.
I told him it was too fast, that she’d just gotten out of a shit marriage and the last thing she probably wanted was to be saddled with another man’s ring on her finger, but what the fuck did I know?
Reece proposed anyway and she said yes and the two of them have never looked fucking happier.
And frankly, I don’t know why the whole thing’s put me in such a bad damn mood.
When Reece finally set her down on her feet, she was pulling her phone out of her jeans pocket.
