Full Rigged (Lost Creek Rodeo #4) - Rebecca Connolly Page 0,19
put her arm around her and whispered something.
Josie swallowed and cleared her throat. “I’m Josie. From upstate New York. I . . . was in an abusive relationship for ten years. I finally got brave enough to leave and not go back.”
“Good for you, sweet pea,” a blonde with a thick twang in her voice praised, smiling at Josie with tenderness. “Hurts like a birch tree, don’t it?”
The replacement phrase made Brynn smile even as Josie nodded fervently. “I haven’t been able to restart my life since the divorce came through and I moved back in with my parents. I . . . don’t know how.”
Trish tightened her hold on Josie, rubbing her arm. “You’ll find your voice, Josie. You will.”
The others agreed with that, and Brynn nodded as well, though she suddenly wondered if her situation was pitiful compared to the others in this group. Death and abuse were huge things—practically insurmountable.
What did that make the cause of her broken heart?
Josie and Trish looked at her, followed by Kellie and the rest of the group.
Brynn had presented at several conferences professionally, had given reports to other physicians in grand rounds, and guest lectured at medical schools all over the Southwest without so much as batting an eyelash. But the prospect of talking about herself, about what had broken her, in front of seven other women started a cold sweat at the back of her neck.
“My name is Brynn,” she began, her hands starting to shake in her lap. “I’m a doctor, recently divorced.” Her throat suddenly went dry, and she struggled to swallow. “My ex is a pilot, and he . . . really enjoyed membership in the mile high club.”
Someone in the room hissed in apparent pain, but a few others merely looked confused. The reference must have been lost on them.
She wet her lips, shifting in her chair. “And finding local tour guides with great legs.”
Understanding seemed to dawn on the rest of them, and several heads were shaking in either disgust or sympathy.
“And drinks with coworkers that led to hotel rooms,” Brynn went on, trying for a bitter smile, but finding her eyes burning with surprise tears. “But not starting a family with me.”
Her voice caught on the last word, and she swallowed the growing lump. She couldn’t cry over Minimus. Not now, not again, and not ever.
“And I’m angry about it,” Brynn told them, finding her voice again. “Like, uncontrollably angry at times. Scary angry. If I ever snap at any of you, please know it isn’t personal and I will feel sick with guilt as soon as I’m down from the surge. So I need help to be less angry. Or to be able to control it. One or the other, I guess. Preferably both.”
“Why not both?” the blonde suggested, smiling brightly. “Let’s do both!”
Brynn smiled back. “Sounds like a plan.” She looked across the group at Kellie, only to find her smiling at her like a proud sister. But there was something else in her expression.
Understanding.
A deep, personal understanding that could only be explained by experiencing something similar.
Why that comforted Brynn, she couldn’t quite say. She wouldn’t want any woman to have experienced the things she had with Minimus—the shame and the embarrassment, the hurt and the insecurity—but knowing someone else would completely get where she was coming from and how she felt . . .
That was something special.
Kellie knew her situation before Brynn arrived, but she hadn’t seen this degree of understanding in their intake interview the day before. Why had it shown itself now? Or was Brynn only now seeing it?
Either way, she was suddenly even more delighted to be at this ranch, away from the noise of her life and among other women who were not expected to be perfect or normal all the time. Here, she could heal, because everyone else was healing, too.
She listened as the others introduced themselves quickly, the drill clearly familiar to them now. Sadie was the quirky blonde, halfway through her time at the ranch to heal after getting a diagnosis of infertility. Julia had brown hair that turned purple halfway through, and she was struggling to cope with the death of her mother. Paige was the picture of the farm girl next door, down to her dirty-blonde hair, freckles, and overalls, and her fiancé had left her the moment she’d received a cancer diagnosis. And Meredith, the most adorable auburn-haired woman Brynn had ever seen, was in her fifties and felt she had