Page 71 of Cruel Expectations

With a satisfied moan, she rolled out of bed and padded to the bathroom. In Europe she’d experienced a variety of facilities. She’d had the hottest of hot showers, and the most frigid ones too. Quickly she learned that cooler ones stimulated her and gave her more energy, so she switched the tap to a cool temperature and stood under the spray.

After she finished and dressed for the day, she found herself standing alone in the middle of the empty kitchen. In fact, the entire house was empty.

She was all alone.

For the first time, she realized how painful this must have been for Meadow when Ivy was gone. Waking alone, speaking to no one. Her sister obviously learned to operate solo and was continuing in that pattern by heading outdoors with her horses—or maybe Colton—as soon as the sun rose.

Ivy listened to all the sounds of the house. The hum of the refrigerator. A small creak of the house settling.

She looked around herself and then drifted to the counter and then to the kitchen table. She reached out and stroked the fat pottery jug in the center of the table. Years ago, her mother used to pick flowers and place them in that jug. The small gesture cheered up the space and the family members who saw them whenever they entered the kitchen.

Lilacs in spring, daisies in summer. In the fall, she’d place fat sunflowers that she grew on the border of her kitchen garden in the jug.

It stood empty now. Just a vessel. But Ivy could find some flowers that grew around the ranch and fill it.

Something else her mother always did was take a morning walk through the house. Ivy remembered tagging along behind her, just watching her mother’s face as she moved through the rooms.

Once Ivy was old enough to put her questions into words, she asked her mom why she did this. She told her that she liked to take stock of the house, to appreciate all that they had and to be grateful for it.

She drifted to the living room. The big window overlooked the verdant green field that rolled into grazing land for the cattle. Beside the window sat a small table with a lamp. The shade could use a dusting, but Ivy could manage that too.

As she turned, her gaze fixed on the wall and a gallery of photographs her mother had hung. Meadow, Forest and her, from babyhood to their older years. Abruptly, the photos stopped getting hung when their mother died.

A hot tear trickled down Ivy’s cheek, followed by another and another. They ran too fast for her to stop. When the rough sob escaped her throat, she plastered her hands over her face.

No, no, no. She wasn’t a crier. She held it in. She prided herself on her self-control.

There was no holding back now. She was really crying. She’d never cried like this.

Dropping to the leather chair in the corner that her mom preferred, Ivy cradled her face in her hands and let the tears out for the first time ever.

Every emotion she’d bottled up for years and years bubbled out, overflowed. She cried for the parent she’d lost and the one who’d wallowed in his own despair and depression when he lost his wife. She cried for the childhood that she, Meadow and Forest had lost when they had to grow up too soon.

Then Forest. God, losing her brother had been like having a huge portion of her heart carved out of her chest. Her brother had been Meadow’s protector, but he was Ivy’s too.

Tears streamed down her face, and her sobs couldn’t be muffled anymore. She stopped caring if anybody heard her. Let them—she had to let this out or explode.

Finally, everything had come to a head. Or maybe Hunter was the reason—he cracked her open and made her start to feel again.

After long, long minutes, her tears stopped flowing. She stood and walked to the bathroom to find tissues. After blowing her nose, she stared at her reflection. Her eyes were red-rimmed and glittering from the tears, her lashes wet. But she was drained dry.

Turning inward, she examined her inner workings the same way that she had the house. She took stock of her emotions…and found that she was blessedly lighter than she had been in…forever.

She had to tell Hunter. Last night after making love, she drifted off to sleep and woke to an empty bed. She got a text that he was going to Badlands and she shouldn’t leave the house.

That ominous text was a bucket of icy water after what she just shared with her lover. It kept her lying awake for half the night too. When the sky began to lighten from midnight black to deep blue, she drifted off again into a fitful sleep.

After splashing her face with cold water and patting it dry, she walked out of the house. The ranch appeared to be just as deserted as the house. At this time of day, all the ranch hands were busy with various tasks. Where would Hunter be right now?

A sound came from around the back of the barn. When she rounded the corner, she spotted Webb with a hay bale in hand.

“Hey, Zack!”

He looked up at her. In a pair of dark sunglasses to shade his eyes when the brim of his hat didn’t do enough, he looked like one of those cowboys from the movies. Zack was tough as nails and gave zero cares about what anyone thought of his decisions around the Gracey Ranch.

She always admired that in him, but was secretly glad that he wasn’t destined to be her brother-in-law and had shifted his sights away from Meadow. She liked Zack, but he wasn’t right for her sister.

“What’s up?” He paused and dropped the bale to the ground.

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