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There were a million questions I wanted to ask her about how this happened. And if I voiced even one of them, it would come out sounding like an accusation. I’d come off as the condescending asshole, and she would want to kick me in the balls for it.
Maybe I should share my spanking idea with her. It could be cathartic for us both. Release some of my frustration and give her a sore ass to think about instead of her sunburn. I laughed sadly and silently at the insane thought.
I was a jerk. A total jerk.
Shaking my head and consciously relaxing my jaw before I broke a tooth, I gave up my anger and thoughts of a spanking. Neither would help this situation. What was done was done.
“I shouldn’t have had you out there with me all day,” I admitted to the silent car, not expecting her to answer.
“No. It’s my job.” She lifted her head and turned slightly toward me as I drove. Her drowsy words were almost too quiet to hear.
A calming breath did little to retain my slippery grip on sanity.
“This is not your job.” I pointed at her angry red skin.
“You are going to buy that place. So yeah, it is my job.” She tipped her head back onto the headrest, and her eyelids fluttered closed. “What I should have done was tell Stephen I wanted to keep my long-sleeve sun shirt.”
Thank the fucking lord! An outlet for my rage—Stephen.
I cracked my knuckles and played out the phone call I would have with Kate later about this... this stupidity. Did he even give her sunscreen? Idiot. Stephen was getting fired. First thing Monday. I would tell Kate it was him or me.
Fuck it.
The whole TV show was a fiasco. I didn’t need any of it. Blue Star was my dream home. My slice of paradise.
As the word paradise lingered in my head, my eyes left the road to check on Cameron. And once more, that herd of wild horses took off, their hoofbeats crashing hard against my rib cage. I rubbed a hand over my sternum and tried to suck in a full breath, but the damn horses had knocked the wind out of me.
Chapter 16
Cameron
UVexposuretransformedmeinto a sunburn zombie. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure if that was a real thing, but my brain had gone mushy, and I was incapable of complex thoughts, so zombie felt like the right medical diagnosis.
I lay face up in the middle of the king-sized bed in one of the guest rooms in Wilson’s rental house, like a giant starfish stranded in a tide pool with no way back to the ocean. My hair, wet from a shower, soaked the fluffy feather pillow under my head, and I didn’t have it in me to care.
Sun had irradiated my will to function.
I had three damp hand towels strategically placed on the worst of my burns. The ceiling fan ran on high, its spinning motion helping to distract me from the goosebumps pebbling my exposed skin and the heat radiating off my crispy arms and chest.
After my cold shower, I changed into a black tank top and drawstring workout shorts Wilson gave me. He informed me before I asked that he’d found the woman’s top in the rental house’s dryer, while the shorts were his. He could have given me a garbage bag to wear, and I would have been happy as long as it wasn’t that stupid red top. I’ll never see Gingham again without thinking of this painful humiliation.
Next to me on the bed, my cell chirped. I lifted it awkwardly, trying not to dislodge my cooling towels. Bailey had sent a thumbs-up emoji in response to my earlier message that she was on her own tonight. I knew she would pump me for all the details when I got home, but tonight she had rehearsals for the upcoming play to keep her occupied.
I groaned. How the hell did I explain my stupidity to my daughter? My grandma? Ugh, my brother? He’d be the worst. Bless his heart.
Wilson had offered to call Colton about my stranded car, and I’d happily given him carte blanche to handle it. That might have been a bad idea, but I was a zombie. Brains weren’t my strong suit. My brother, who I loved with all my heart, could be an asshole.
I paid a mortgage, raised a child into an awesome mini-adult, and made a decent living. But everyone still saw me as the scared twenty-six-year-old widow, in danger of falling apart at any moment. But damn it, that was a long time ago.
Even fully functioning members of society sometimes fucked up. Today had been my turn. I’d let greed, excitement, and my dreams of hitting it big outweigh my common sense.
For the past sixteen years, the whole town had treated me with kid gloves. They went out of their way to help me any time they could. This sunburn would cause pandemonium. There wouldn’t be an aloe plant left in the county when word got out. I’d have every home remedy in Texas forced on me and gifts of sunscreen coming out of my ears. Elmer loved me, but... sometimes all of it—the love, the whispered conversations, the sympathetic looks—was unbearably heavy.
With a weary sigh, I refocused on the spinning fan and let my fried brain go back to being mush. No point in getting all worked up. I’d deal with the repercussions later. As long as Wilson was still interested in buying Blue Star Ranch, I wouldn’t mind everyone’s concern one bit.
Another shiver ran through me. My unburned skin exposed to the fan was freezing, but my arms and chest were on fire. This was going to be a long, miserable night.
At least the spackle-like makeup on my face had protected it from the sun. Yeah, minor miracles were all I’d earned tonight.
