Before I could turn, Jane’s dainty gloved fingers closed around my shirt and pulled me to her. It was more of her pulling herself into me, but I was also startled enough that I bent with the sudden pull as well. I was as shocked as anyone else when her lips met mine and she held them there for what felt like a gloriously long time. Enough that I was fairly certain it caught the attention of everyone else, including her father and uncle.
When she pulled away, I opened my eyes to see her staring deeply into them. There was an unspoken conversation in those eyes, one that said to trust her. To let her take control of her own life in that moment and show them all, including me, just how much she had changed. Her father wanted her to grow up, and she had.
She smiled at me, and then her eyes cut sharply as she turned. She let go of the front of my shirt and I saw her jaw set, her fists clench, and her curvy, sexy frame round on Rubin with all the might and fire her body could produce. Rubin was thus far unfazed, sitting high and proud on a horse that was given to him because it wouldn’t turn on anyone, and yet it had tried to shake him off too.
As Jane stomped her way toward her cousin, I could only watch as a darkly amused smile stretched across my face.
Chapter 32
Jane
My eyes were so intently focused on my cousin, they were like lasers. I could have burned clear through him right then and there, and part of me wished I actually could. A big part of me. I couldn’t believe Rubin was being so much of an ass.
He had been obnoxious since pretty immediately after we’d arrived at the ranch. I honestly didn’t expect much else from him, considering the way he was acting on the plane. When he sat down with Cecilia and me to tell us about what cowboys really do and what it was really like on a ranch, I had the feeling I was in for it once we actually got out to Montana.
That was the way Rubin was. He was raised in the same sort of privilege and luxury Cecilia and I were. But he reacted to it in a different way. There was an absolute sense of superiority and entitlement in our cousin. He believed he deserved everything that was handed to him in life, and if it wasn‘t just placed at his feet or dropped in his lap, then he was being unfairly treated.
That was always an excuse for Rubin. No matter what he did or how he acted, he could defend it simply by saying he was a victim of his circumstances, that people didn’t understand him or had it out for him because they were envious. He truly believed he could do nothing wrong and should have everything made simple and accessible for him.
It was a toxic side effect of being indulged to the point of being spoiled as a child. This would be the point when most people would say “not that I have a lot of room to talk,” but that was at the core of my realizations about my cousin.
I didn’t have any room to talk because I used to be exactly like him. And at the same time, I had all the room in the world because I could see it now and had changed.
Before we came to Montana, I didn’t recognize the full extent of my cousin’s character flaws. We were so close and so similar, I didn’t want to see the negativity in the way he acted. I didn’t want to see how smug and self-important he was. How absorbed he was in himself and the very specific narrative he created for himself.
In that way, he was no different than me. And I was no different from him. Just as I postured and created an image to offer up to the men I interacted with in my life, he conjured up his own image to show off to everyone. He saw himself as a specimen of perfection. He held himself up as the standard to which all men should compare themselves and what they should aspire to become.
For the most part, it was harmless. Obnoxious, frustrating, but generally harmless. At least, that was what I liked to tell myself. The more