A Second Chance in the Show Me State - Jessie Gussman Page 0,28
sink, the scent of warm hay and musky animal, and that unique manly scent that reminded her of honesty and courage mixed in under it all, floating by.
It made her wish she could turn around and step into his arms. That she still belonged there. That the years they’d spent playing together, and running around together, and working together, and building their lives together hadn’t been wasted.
She’d never been a believer in looking back with regret.
But in order to not look back with regret, she had to make decisions that worked.
She’d made a major mistake.
Even if she could humble herself enough to fix it, he might reject her.
“Mom said she’ll drive the tractor. She said she would never forget. No matter how many bigwigs she was with.” Dallas seemed to be gaining a head of steam, but Houston cut in.
“She said that she was a farmer before she was a businessperson, and she would never forget her farming skills.”
Emerson scraped the vegetables into the skillet and tried to ignore the heat on her neck that she was pretty sure was from Reid’s gaze burning into her back.
“Did she, now?” There was a little bit of humor in his tone, but it was also more serious than what she remembered him being.
Normally he came in from the barn with a smile and a joke or a story of something that happened in the morning.
“Well, maybe she brought her work clothes along with her then?” Reid asked.
Emerson’s eyes got big. She’d never even thought about what she was going to wear. She’d brought her business clothes along, but she didn’t exactly have a bunch of jeans and T-shirts and sweatshirts like she’d normally wear on the farm. Or even a Western button-down.
“I think I still have some clothes that I left here. I can go look,” she said, not turning around from the stove but spreading the vegetables over the eggs in the skillet like it was extremely important that they be flattened out completely evenly in just the right artistic arrangement.
“If you want to run up and check, I can finish the omelets.” Reid came over and stood close enough to make Emerson uncomfortable. She dropped the spatula and moved away.
“Okay.” The business slacks she had on and the loose blouse wasn’t going to cut it outside on the tractor.
The boys were talking to Reid as she exited the kitchen.
Why did she have to be so stiff? So formal?
If she let her guard down and joked or at least laughed, or gave Reid an easy look, he would follow her lead.
He might not be in love with her anymore, he might not even like her that much, but she was the one who was putting walls up and stiff-arming him away.
She had no one to blame but herself if there was no easy family atmosphere in her home.
She just didn’t know how to get rid of her attitude.
She opened the door to the bedroom that she and Reid had shared before she’d moved out and went straight to the closet where she’d kept her clothes.
She was a size bigger than she was before she had the twins, but she could probably squeeze into an old pair of her jeans. They would work until she was able to run to the store and get some that wouldn’t be so tight.
But her shirts were not going to fit her.
She’d grabbed her jeans from the closet and turned. Her eyes landed on the framed picture that sat on the nightstand on Reid’s side of the bed.
It was the four of them in the hospital. She had a baby in each arm, wires and monitors and tubes running everywhere. Each of their little arms were taped to a board to keep them from bending them and shifting the needles out. She couldn’t even remember which baby was in which arm, but Reid leaned over top of her, his head just above her shoulder and one big arm of his underneath each of her arms like they were holding the babies together.
He was smiling and looked as happy as a man could be.
Unbelievably, she, in her hospital gown, holding babies that she wasn’t sure were going to live or die, smiled hugely as well.
It was the same picture she had in her locket that she still wore around her neck.
It represented everything that they’d wanted for their family. Excitement and eagerness and knowing that whatever they had to face, as long as they were together, they