Page 25 of Christmas with the Cowboy
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After four hoursof sorting, Trenna made Audrey promise not to add to the piles they’d made until the next morning, more to make certain that her friend ate dinner than anything else. Most of the paperwork was mundane ranch stuff, but even the mundane from the turn of the last century was interesting, and if Audrey was going to write the history of the ranch, as she planned, she needed to soak up the details.
Trenna got into her car, which was parked next to the barn, and turned the key, only to hear the familiar dead click. Knowing the drill, she let out the required muttered curse, popped the hood, and reached for the wrench lying on the passenger floorboards. A few seconds later, she was out of the car and setting the prop under the open hood.
“Car trouble?”
Trenna nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound of Reed’s voice from behind her.
“Nope,” she said without turning around. It was stupid, but she needed a moment, because she was certain her cheeks had gone red. “Just a loose connection. It happens. A lot.” She cranked the connection for the positive battery cable tight, then shut the hood and wiped her hands down the sides of her jeans. Finally, she raised her gaze to meet Reed’s and felt the jolt.
Her sense of alarm intensified as he scooted gravel with his boot, something he tended to do when he was faced with a difficult conversation. There was so much that she’d thought she’d forgotten about the man that had merely been lying dormant, waiting for a trigger.
“I’ll be replacing that cable as soon as I remember to buy one. In the meanwhile, I’d better get to work.” She held up the wrench.
He looked at her like she was speaking Greek.
“I’m going home,” she said, sidestepping him and moving to her car door.
“Trenn.”
Something warm and dangerous rippled through her at the sound of her name, and she felt zero inclination to remind him of her full name. He’d always called her Trenn.
She closed her eyes, her hand on the handle. “Yes.”
“I’ve been thinking about what you said yesterday. About not wanting things to be awkward while you’re working with my mom.” He rubbed a hand over the side of his neck. Another tell. “As I see it, we can dodge each other and feel shifty, or we can face this head-on.”
“Dodge each other?” Her eyebrows lifted as she turned to face him. “I wouldn’t call what happened at the river dodging.” She folded her arms over her chest. “Or your showing up at my door.”
“Dodging here. On the ranch,” he said patiently. “Instead…we should talk. Now.”
Reed wanted to talk?
She made an open-palmed gesture, and from the way his expression shifted, as if he knew exactly what was coming next, she wondered if he, too, was hammered by small memories suddenly resurfacing.
“What do we need to talk about? How I traded our relationship for a college education?”
That wasn’t exactly what she’d done, but it was damned close, and if he wanted to call her on it, she was ready to take the hit.
“It was probably a good move.”
Trenna expected neither the words, nor the painful tightening in her midsection. “If you’re saying that, then it must have been a good move.” Her throat felt tight, and when Reed glanced down at his boots, she swallowed.
He nudged the gravel again. “We were kids from different worlds.”
“That didn’t matter while we were dating.”
Why was she pointing this out when a quick agreement would move her closer to her objective of not feeling awkward on the ranch? Of not feeling this dangerous sense that something could still happen between them.
The gaze he raised was clear and untroubled. “Because we made our own world. But…I don’t know that we would have made it in the real world. I needed to get off this place, establish my independence. You needed to go to college.” He met her gaze. “Can you see the potential for some trouble there?”
Trenna wondered what the hell was wrong with her breathing.
This was Reed. Her first and practically her only. That was what was wrong. Plus, the fact that he’d changed, and she was still cataloging how while being pummeled by old memories. That wild edge that had defined him was still there—she’d seen evidence yesterday at the river—but it was now tempered with something else. A sense of steadiness, as if he’d found his anchor.
His daughter, maybe? His ex? Himself?
Trenna pushed the hair back from her forehead. She was off-balance and not thinking right.
