Reclaiming the Rancher's Son by Trish Milburn

Author:Trish Milburn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2022-02-01T13:18:54+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

MAYA DIDN’T SLEEP a wink. She tried, but even dozing proved elusive. Her brain simply wouldn’t shut down and let her rest. Instead, it kept repeating how she had ruined what had felt like an early friendship. All the thawing that Gavin had done toward her, how they’d grown able to laugh together, that was gone.

On the surface, what she’d done might not seem like a huge offense. But she’d still invaded a space that wasn’t hers, and those paintings obviously embodied a story that Gavin did not want to share.

Giving up a few minutes before daylight started making an appearance, she moved quietly to the kitchen and made coffee and toast. She didn’t think she could stomach anything else, but she needed the caffeine if she was to get through the day. It wasn’t as if she could go straight to bed when she got home, not when she’d been away from the office for way too long.

She considered making breakfast for Gavin, but she wasn’t sure he’d appreciate it anymore. If she thought there would be any passing vehicles at this hour, she would simply walk out to the road and hitch a ride to town. She’d never be able to tell her mother that or she might find a bunch of relatives dragging her back to the reservation where she would be guarded like an errant teenager prone to making bad decisions.

When Gavin emerged from his room a while later, Maya felt more awkward than she had that first day she’d awakened in a strange house with a man she didn’t know. If only she hadn’t crashed that day she could have saved both of them many uncomfortable and tense moments.

But she might never have met Gavin otherwise. Maybe that would have been a good thing.

“I’ll be back after the sun has had time to hit the road for a while,” he said before putting on his winter outerwear and stepping out the front door without breakfast or even a cup of coffee.

Maya sank onto the familiar couch and lowered her head to her arms that lay atop her knees. She hated so much that she had likely undone every positive step she’d made toward convincing Gavin that she wasn’t like the type of journalists he disliked so much. She didn’t even know what had caused him to look at her profession with such derision. There was so much she didn’t know about him and now never would.

Her remaining time in his home crawled by with agonizing slowness, to the point where she thought she might go mad. If only she had a computer and internet access, she could occupy her time. But she was left with pacing, staring at the clock and mentally naming every resident of Jade Valley she could remember.

After about an hour of sloth-speed time passage, she decided to write Gavin a letter. There was a lot she still wanted to say, but when she was facing him and his stony expression she couldn’t form the words.

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