“Better,” she croaked.
Reese reached out, cupping her chin, forcing her to hold his gaze. “Why didn’t you tell me just how badly he was treating you, Shay?”
More tears blurred her vision. Just the roughened touch of his palm against her jaw made her start unraveling. “Well, I-I . . . there was nothing to be done about it. He’s my father. It’s my job . . . my responsibility . . . not yours . . . or any of the other guys’.” She melted beneath his soft gaze, watching his tension diminish.
“Shay, you never have to take that kind of abuse from anyone. Not ever.”
She sniffed. “I grew up with it.”
“Well,” Reese said thickly, “that’s done and finished. Crawford is never going to treat you like that again.” He reluctantly released her and sat up, sliding the key into the ignition, the engine turning over.
“Wh-what did you do in there?”
“I talked to Marcy, the manager. I told her that I’d be the one coming in to see your father from now on. That you had other things to do out at the ranch.”
Gasping, her eyes rounded. “But—”
“You can’t go on like this,” Reese said, resting his hand on the wheel. “Do you know that the guys have seen how beaten down you are every time you return from a visit with your father?”
“N-no . . .”
“They see how shaken you are. You’re pale. And you don’t eat well that night at the dinner table. They aren’t dumb, Shay. They see the outcome of those visits. Garret had originally warned me about it, and I told him I’d see what was happening.”
His mouth compressed and he held her tearful look. “Your father’s an alcoholic. He’s not just cranky, he’s abusive, that’s clear. And there’s too much going on with your ranch, now and in the future, for you to keep putting yourself in his gunsights, Shay. All he does is hurt you. The guys are worried about you, too. They care about you. And they want you out of the line of fire with your father. They see you going down and they’re worried that if this doesn’t stop, your father will destroy you, like he nearly destroyed the ranch.”
“Oh, God,” she whispered brokenly, pressing her hands to her face, shame rolling through her. “I-I didn’t know they knew . . .”
Gently, Reese moved his hand across her hunched, tense shoulders. “It’s okay, Shay. The guys told me, and I wanted to protect you if your father was hurting you. Seeing it firsthand, I’m sorry I didn’t get involved a lot sooner.”
Sniffing, she shakily wiped the tears from her eyes. “I-I didn’t want any of you to come here with me. I knew how my father felt about vets . . . and I didn’t want them hurt any more than they already were.”
“I know,” Reese whispered, continuing to gently move his hand across her shoulders. “You were protecting them. I understand that.” And he drilled a look into her damp blue eyes. “You put yourself in the line of fire instead.”
Weakly, she whispered, “There was no one to help me with this issue, Reese.”
Nodding, he said, “Well, there is now. From now on, I’ll be the one to visit your father. And it won’t be three times a week, either. He’s going to have to learn to be a team player and that the world no longer revolves around him. He’s going to have to understand that he can’t continue to abuse you, Shay. Ms. Dodge knows that your father is probably going to be angry, and she’s okay with it. She agreed with me that you need to back off and stop seeing him for a while. The employees at the nursing home knew he was verbally abusing you, Shay, every time you visited him. But their hands were tied.” Reese lifted his chin and stared out the window for a moment. “Until now.”
Gratitude flowed through Shay and she took a tissue from her purse and blotted her eyes. “I-I tried to get him to change. Tell him he couldn’t keep hurting me like this, but he just got angrier when I tried to defend myself.”
“Because,” Reese said gently, holding her unsure gaze, “he’d always used you as his whipping post from the time you were a little girl up to this moment.”
Jerkily nodding, Shay blew her nose and wiped it. “I never realized that . . .”
“He’s got some serious attitude adjustments to make,” Reese warned her. “And I’m not letting you anywhere near him. If he wants to see you, I’ll be with you. And if he calls the ranch, you’re to tell him to talk to me. Don’t talk to him, Shay. You can’t break his pattern if you keep playing back into it. You’re going to have to be strong enough to tell him that I’ll return his call when I get back to the house. All right?” Reese held her anguished gaze. His hand tightened for a moment on her shoulder to emphasize his words. “You are through being the person he hurts all the time.”