Page 68 of Cowboy SEAL Homecoming

* * *

Becca groaned at the high-pitched trilling way too close to her ear. Her stomach sloshed and her head pounded. Even with her eyes still closed and the noise stopping, she felt gross and vaguely ill.

When she managed to open her eyes, she whimpered as the sunlight streamed in through the sides of her curtains.

She’d slept in, and her phone was ringing again, and she felt like utter shit.

How was this fair? She knew some people could drink all the alcohol in the world, but if she ever went over one hard alcoholic beverage, she was toast the next morning.

Her phone stopped ringing and she relaxed with a sigh of relief. Only to groan again when it started squawking.

She pawed around for the offending phone and wrinkled her nose at the fact that her hair still smelled like the cigarette smoke from outside the bar, even though she’d showered after coming inside last night. Hannibal meowed irritably from his position at the end of the bed. A spot he almost never left.

When she finally grabbed her phone and looked at the screen, she groaned again. This time not in pain, but in frustration and possibly guilt.

She hit Accept and tried to work some cheer into her voice instead of gravel and hangover. “Morning, Mom. How are you?”

“Worried.”

How unusual, Becca thought sarcastically. It was an unkind, snotty thought, and Becca winced at the way it almost escaped her mouth. “Worried about what?” she asked instead.

“Do you know how many people have told me they saw you at Pioneer Spirit last night?”

Becca scratched a hand through her still-stinky hair. “No. Why would people care if I was at Pioneer Spirit?” Becca tried to think of anyone last night who would have passed that on to Mom. Or why they would have.

“Because apparently they have more sense than you do.”

“Mom, I’m so not in the mood for this.” She didn’t trust herself to be kind in the face of Mom’s criticizing worry. Not this morning. Not when she was feeling crappy and late for her chores.

“Why, because you’re hungover? Because you had some crazy night on the town?”

“Mom, I’m almost twenty-five. I get to go to a bar if I want to go to a bar. I hardly had some sort of drunken orgy.” She probably shouldn’t have put that idea into Mom’s head. Now that’s all she would be convinced of.

Mom’s silence on the other end was damning. Flippancy had never calmed her mother’s worry, and Becca knew better than to employ it. “Mom, I—”

“If this is the influence those men are having on you, then I absolutely want you staying in town with me.”

“You know I can’t stay with you and take care of the horses.”

“Isn’t that what we have Hick for?”

“No, Hick is for helping with the cattle and watching over things if we need to get out. He is integral, but I’m not having him do all my work for me while I sit in your house because you’re afraid that I… What are you even afraid of? Mom, I haven’t been really sick in years.”

“Are you sleeping with them?”

“Sleeping with who?” Becca demanded, too sluggish to keep up with Mom’s accusations.

“Any of them. Have they convinced you that—”

“Mom. Seriously. You can’t do this. I am an adult.”

“Yes. One I’ve protected your whole life. You don’t know a thing about men or what they’re capable of. I thought I could trust Alex, being Burt’s son, but—”

“I am not completely unaware of the fact that men can be awful. That people can be cruel. That’s life. I may not have experienced much of it, but I’m aware of it. You can’t—”

“I never even had the talk with you.”

Becca physically and emotionally recoiled. “And you don’t need to. Please. Listen to me.” Becca let out a breath and tried to think, but it was hard finding reason and sense with the pounding in her head and the frustration deep in her bones.

---