Page 64 of The Guy Who Stole My Ranch

Her smile faded.

“Please,” I added in a slightly less grumpy tone.

“Sure.” She got to her feet and jogged to the truck.

I’d tried contacts a few times in my life, and this felt like one of those had gone awry in my eye. I attempted to fish the offending bit of nature out with my finger but failed.

“Here.” Brooke had returned. “Let me s—”

I held my hand out again. “I’ll take that.” There was no way I was going to let anyone wash my eye out.

“But…”

How would Victoria handle this? With humor. The situation would have to settle for some dark humor. “Let’s just say I don’t trust you anywhere near my face right now.” I thought I did a good job of keeping the irritation out of my tone.

Brooke looked a bit crestfallen, but she surrendered the little bottle.

“Thank you.” I moved over to the trucks. Patrick stood from where he was gathering seeds off a tarp and gave me a questioning look. I waved him away. All I needed was a minute to get this blasted chaff out of my eye and another minute to get the roaring in my ears to stop. I tilted my head back and squeezed the bottle.

My eyelid twitched once before I managed to hit my target. The drop was surprisingly warm and felt thick. I rolled my eye around, then tilted my head so as much of the moisture would leak out as possible. It ran down my cheek. Between that and the fact that I was sniffing, I felt like I was crying, which was a little humiliating.

The only person who teased me on a regular basis was Courtney, and we had more refined ways of poking fun at each other.

Victoria, who liked to tease but rarely did so physically, sat somewhere between Courtney and Brooke. Maybe she could help me figure out how to deal with this.

I hadn’t contacted her much since I’d arrived, but I needed her help.

William:Do you have a minute?

She answered almost immediately.

Victoria:What’s up?

As always, I decided directness was best.

William:Brooke just purposefully blew chaff into my eye. You know I’m not a fan of anything like that. I’m trying not to be upset, but I’m pretty angry.

Victoria didn’t waste time answering.

Victoria:You need to talk to her about it. She’s used to messing around with her brothers. If she’s doing that stuff to you, she’s comfortable with you and you need to discuss boundaries.

William:Even though she didn’t technically do anything wrong?

Victoria:Correct. An open and non-accusatory conversation would be the best way to deal with it. Trust me. If you keep something like this to yourself, resentment will grow between you.

I glanced over to where Brooke was helping Xavier load the seeds into one bucket. Could I ever resent her? Or was this something I needed to get over?

William:Thank you for your input. I apologize for putting you in a precarious position by talking about your friend.

Victoria:You’re my friend too, and I’m happy to help.

I wasn’t sure what to say to that, but Victoria sent another message.

Victoria:I haven’t heard from Brooke in a few days, what exactly is going on at that ranch?

An array of question marks followed.

Brooke was what was going on. She felt like a gravity well pulling me in, but everything was moving too fast. I needed to regain my footing.

---