Page 30 of Her Boss, Her Rancher: Sunrise On The Ranch
“Do you care about him?” Reagan asked, abruptly interrupting Emma’s rushed explanation. “I want the truth, Emma. That’s all that matters to me. Not what happened or whether it will happen again. I swear to you. I only want to know if he matters to you.”
“He does,” Emma choked out around the fifteen-car pileup of emotion in her throat. “More than I want to either admit or deal with. Why?”
The other woman closed her eyes and breathed deeply. “I’m getting married. It’s not so crazy to want my first real girlfriend ever to be happy, too, is it?”
Ignoring the gentle pang of envy that rang through her heart, Emma chose to focus on the fact that this amazing woman considered her a friend.
“No. I suppose it’s not.”
CADELAYONhis bed and listened to the murmur of feminine voices next door. He’d left the bathroom door cracked, but all he could catch was a word now and again—dragon, marriage, dude ranch, brochure, budget, Eli, death, hate, help.
Was Reagan explaining how Cade had almost ruined the ranch? That Eli, with his wealth and generosity, was the only one that had been able to save the ranch from being shuttered after an outbreak of shipping fever?
Taking his older brother’s handouts had almost destroyed what little pride Cade had managed to salvage throughout the whole shipping fever nightmare. Emma would find out how Cade hadn’t been able to save the place without charity and his big brother’s intervention.
The ulcer he believed he’d beaten started burning a hole in his gut again.
He couldn’t be angry with Reagan for reaching out to Emma. She had no female friends, but was, instead, stuck out here with the men all day, every day. That had to wear on her. She had Eli, sure, but there were bound to be moments of loneliness.
He’d never been in love, but no way could someone else be a person’s everything. Banking on one person for that was foolishness, anyway. That kind of investment gave a person the kind of control one should never relinquish. Ever. And as far as emotions went? The same rule existed to an exponential level. He’d done it once, banking every emotional dollar he had in Eli coming home when Cade had begged him to. His older brother had shut him down and shut him out.
He sat up, scrubbing his hands over his face. This was ridiculous, sitting here straining to catch words.
Shoving off the bed, he cursed when the frame slipped and the headboard bumped the wall with a decisivethump.
Voices next door extinguished at the sound. Time suspended as he waited for a reaction, and then someone laughed, low and sultry.
Emmaline.
Reagan was a beautiful woman in her own right, but she was no Emmaline. Particularly when the latter laughed. God save him from that sound, the way it pulled at him and made him want to do inexplicable things, the way it made him feel ten feet tall when he was responsible for it.
Why doesn’t she laugh more? Why is she usually so serious?
He laughed at himself.Pot to kettle, my man.
A soft knock at the door had him spinning around.Emma?“Yeah?” The word emerged gruff and gravelly from his tight throat.
Reagan stuck her head in. “Got a second?”
He tried to keep his disappointment disguised. “For you? Always.”
She smiled. Somehow, she realized he’d expected a different woman at his door.
Glancing at him, her smile widened. “How you doing, Cade?”
“Fine.” He waited a moment. When she didn’t move, he asked, “And you?”
Her answer came across as a tad absentminded. “I’m really good. You’re sure I’m not interrupting?”
He stepped out of the doorway and swept his arm wide, on open invitation to enter.
Instead of stepping inside, though, Reagan stayed where she was and stared at him. “I have a theory.”
“Oh-kay...” His future sister-in-law’s eyes gleamed with a mischievous light that made Cade’s hindbrain go on complete alert, his fight-or-flight instinct kicking in, and hard.
“Want to help me prove or disprove it?”
“If it’ll get you to go upstairs and get a good night’s sleep, my answer’s yes. The stress of the opening seems to be getting to you, darlin’.”
