A Cowboy in Manhattan(37)

She gave a little whoop when she successfully flipped the pancake.

“Now what?” she called over her shoulder.

He draped his clothes on another kitchen chair and moved up behind her. “Give it a minute, then we’ll start another.”

“I’m pretty good at this,” she bragged.

“Outstanding,” he agreed. He retrieved a dinner plate so they could stack the pancakes.

She dumped the pancake from the pan onto the plate and placed the pan back on the stove.

“First you spoon in the batter,” he demonstrated. Then he tipped the pan so that the batter spread thin.

“You’re very domesticated,” she noted.

“Survival instinct.”

“Your mom teach you to do that?”

Reed nodded through the familiar hitch in his chest. Even after all these years, he couldn’t help but react whenever he talked about his mother. Which wasn’t often. “She did.”

Katrina’s voice lowered. “How old were you when it happened?”

He pretended to misunderstand the question. “When she taught me to cook pancakes?”

“When she died,” Katrina clarified.

He kept his voice even. “Seventeen.”

There was a silent pause.

“I remember she was beautiful,” said Katrina.

“She was,” he agreed. And she’d been kind and gentle, and far too delicate to be toiling in the wilds of Colorado ranch country. Not unlike Katrina.

“You mind talking about her?”

Reed bought himself a moment by flipping the pancake. “I don’t mind,” he lied.

“It must have been hard.”

“It was.”

“And then Caleb left.”

“What are you trying to ask me?” Reed would rather get to the point and get out of this conversation.

She shrugged. “I’m not sure. How it impacted you, losing such a big part of your family all at once. If you were lonely.”

“Were you lonely?” he asked her, instead of answering.

“Huh?”

“You left your family.”

She nodded but didn’t elaborate. A few seconds later, she wrapped both hands around the handle of the frying pan and dumped the next pancake onto the plate.

“You want to try?” he offered, relieved to move on to something more mundane.

“Sure.” She accepted the spoon, doled out the batter and tipped the pan.

“Well done.” He smiled.

“I was lonely,” she admitted, setting the pan back down on the heat.

He clenched his jaw. So much for letting the maudlin stuff go.

“I was only ten years old,” Katrina continued, eyes taking on a faraway expression. “For a while there, I really wanted to come home. But Auntie Coco talked me out of it. She was a pistol. No matter how much the other kids teased me, no matter how hard the studies or the dancing, no matter how much I missed my mom, she’d tell me to keep my chin up, my head clear and try just a little bit harder.”

Reed found himself engaging. “What was the most difficult part?”

Katrina turned to face him, and it hit him just how close together they were standing. “What was the most difficult part for you?”

He gazed into her eyes, debating whether to lie. For so many years now, whenever he was asked about his father, he’d glossed over Wilton’s cruelty. It was an ingrained reflex. But he found he didn’t want to lie to Katrina.

“That my father was junkyard-dog mean.”

Her delicate brows went up.

“He was dictatorial, demanding and ruthless. He yelled at me every day of my life, hit me and nearly worked me to death for ten long years.” Reed reached around her and flipped the next pancake.

“Are you serious?” Katrina’s voice was a horrified whisper.

“I am.”

“But why didn’t you leave? Caleb left. Couldn’t you have—”

“And let Wilton win?”

Katrina paused. “So, you were taking a stand?”

“I was.”

She seemed to ponder his words.

“You think I was nuts.” He’d sure heard enough of that reaction from Caleb.

But Katrina gave her head a slow shake. “I’m envious.” Moving in what seemed like slow motion, she reached up to brush her fingertips along his bicep.