Noah chortled and lifted the Stetson off his head, then settled it back on. “You’ve been without a woman too long, Lockhart.”
Snorting, Reese said, “Have any of us had a woman in the last two or three years?”
“No, sucks doesn’t it?”
It did, but Reese wasn’t going to admit it. Right now, he was protective of what he shared with Shay. There was no way he was going to give it up to anyone.
“When you get done with the horse, why don’t you mosey in and see if she needs some help? She looks a lot more upset than usual. That old bastard probably tore into her good this time,” Noah suggested before turning around and walking down the concrete aisle.
Reese stared after him for a minute. Damn. He finished brushing the horse’s legs and unsnapped the cross ties. He led Smoke out to a large paddock where he could join the other horses. Glancing to his left, Reese saw that Noah was back in the horse training area. Looking up, he saw Shay’s pickup parked at the front of the house. Every cell in his body screamed at him to go immediately to Shay. But Noah was nearby and would see it.
So what was he afraid of?
Himself.
Reese was at a point with Shay that he wasn’t sure he could keep his hands off her any longer. His dreams had been torrid and scalding. If someone would have told him he’d feel desire again, he’d have scoffed at them. He hadn’t felt like this in two years.
Flexing his gloved hand, he hesitated at the corral, watching the gray gelding walk toward the other three horses munching grass. A greater part of him wanted to be at Shay’s side, to protect her. But hell, he couldn’t protect himself, much less anyone else, at present.
Life had been so damned black and white when he was well. When PTSD hadn’t run his life. Being without anxiety the last week had been a miracle, and for that, Reese was grateful to his soul. With the anxiety gone, and the paranoia and jumpiness that came with it, he was finding himself thinking normally again. And because of that, it pushed him to go to the main house and find Shay. His protectiveness was clamoring in every cell of his body to go and find out if he could help her.
It was 10:00 A.M. as Reese pulled back his glove to look at the watch on his wrist. He knew that Shay had gone over to see her father early because there was so much to do today. He pushed open the back door to the house and stepped in, wiping his boots on the mat, getting off the dirt. Looking down the long, polished hall, he heard Shay moving around in the kitchen. Dragging in a deep breath, Reese made some noise walking down the hall so she would hear him coming. The last thing he wanted to do was startle her.
He rounded the entrance to the kitchen and saw Shay at the counter making bread from scratch. She had a huge slab of dough on the counter, gently kneading it with her hands. Her hair was piled on top of her head and held with a tortoiseshell comb. Around her waist she wore a red apron. Shay looked beautiful in the tan slacks and feminine pink short-sleeved blouse she wore. She turned, twisted a look across her shoulder at him. His heart dropped. Noah was right; her eyes were red rimmed. And there were spots of flour on her brow and cheek. It made her look hauntingly vulnerable.
“Hey,” he murmured, taking off his Stetson and hanging it on the peg. “I just got back from riding fence line and was coming in to make some coffee.”
“Go ahead,” she said, returning to kneading the dough.
Reese heard the low huskiness in her voice. He knew she’d been crying earlier. He floundered around inwardly, unsure what to do. She looked happy to see him, though. How blind had he been? “I’ll stay outta your way,” he said, going to the other end of the counter. “Looks like you’re tapping into your inner baker?” he asked, quickly setting up the coffeepot and flipping on the switch.
“Yes . . . I wanted . . . needed to do something positive for a while.”
He heard the hesitation in her voice and noted Shay refused to look at him, her eyes on the bread she was gently folding between her hands. “What kind of bread will we have tonight?” he asked, leaning against the sink, watching her profile.
“Whole wheat and honey. My mom”—she stopped to push some hanging tendrils of hair off her brow with her forearm—“created the recipe when I was a kid. I remember coming out here when I was only seven years old. I loved the smell of the bread being mixed with the local honey.”
Reese heard a tremble in her low voice. “Those kinds of good memories are the ones we always want to keep close in our heart.”