The truth settles in my chest like a bruise. My heart isalready cracked from the man who broke me before my boy was even born. I cannot afford another break. Not here. Not now.
I breathe in deep, steadying myself.
Whatever happens next, I have to keep my head clear. For my son. For my future. For the pieces of my heart I still have left.
Chapter 10
Wade
The barn is warm with the late-afternoon heat, and the air thick with the scent of hay and cattle. I’m fixing the latch on one of the stalls when I hear Caleb’s boots behind me. He’s not stomping around, but there’s purpose in each step. I know that walk. He’s wound tight about something. I turn as he stops in the middle of the aisle. His shoulders are set like stone, his jaw flexing the way it does when he’s trying not to say something he’s going to end up saying anyway.
“What’s got you looking like a kicked dog?” I ask.
He holds my gaze, eyes dark and steady.
“Joelle was crying.”
A beat of silence passes before I can speak. “Is she hurt?”
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “She’s hurt. And I want to know what you’re doing with her.”
My stomach dips. I straighten slowly, wiping my hands on my jeans. “Helping her.”
He lets out a soft, humorless laugh. “Helping. Right.”
“Spit it out, Caleb.”
His eyes flicker with something sharp. “I heard her this morning. Everyone did. You had her moaning loud enough to startle the birds.”
Heat climbs up the back of my neck. He doesn’t know the whole story, and he’s walking straight into a storm.
“She needed relief,” I say. “She asked.”
“Relief,” he repeats. “What kind of relief?”
“She wanted to wean her son, but she didn’t know that she couldn’t just stop.”
“So Eli was right.”
“Eli needs to mind his own fucking business,” I grunt.
Caleb sighs, tipping his head to the barn roof, then looking straight at me with the eyes we share. “She’s vulnerable, Wade. And that’s not the kind of thing a man should do for a woman who walked onto his ranch, especially a woman who used to live here when she was a kid.”
“Kid? She was a teenager. And what does that matter? She’s not a kid anymore. She needed my help.”
Caleb shakes his head.
I interrupt before he can jump in with more judgment. “What would you have done, Caleb? She was crying from the pain and embarrassment. There wasn’t any other way.”
“You’ve made her stay for three days. You could have sent her home to her kid.”
“I need to make sure she’ll fit here, before she brings a kid under our roof. You might think I’m a heartless asshole, but I won’t be the one to make a kid homeless.”
“I think you might not be seeing her as clearly as you think you are,” he says. “Because less than an hour after youtwo were going at it upstairs, she was on the kitchen floor crying so hard she could barely breathe.”
My chest goes tight. “What happened?”
“Her son,” he answers, softer now. “She talked to him on the phone. It gutted her. She misses him somethin’ fierce, and she’s scared out of her mind about whether this job will stick. And at the same time, she’s letting you put your mouth on her.”
