Page 38 of Broken Roads (Hard to Handle #1)

Bradley

I stack the breakfast dishes with more concentration than the task requires, my hands moving mechanically while my mind races a thousand miles ahead.

The ceramic plates clink together too loudly in the kitchen's morning quiet, betraying the unsteady tremor in my fingers.

Across the room, Ruthie softly hums to herself as she wraps leftover biscuits in a checkered cloth, seemingly oblivious to the tension radiating from me like heat from an overworked engine.

But I know better. Nothing escapes Ruthie's notice in this house.

"You're going to crack those plates if you keep gripping them like that," Ruthie says without turning around.

I loosen my hold, not realizing how tightly I'd been clutching the dishware. "Sorry."

My voice comes out gruff, another thing I can't seem to control this morning.

Last night's encounter with Hailey plays on repeat in my mind—her body pressed against mine in the kitchen, those little gasps she made when I touched her, the way we froze like guilty teenagers when we heard Ruthie's footsteps.

Then breakfast, with Hailey in that pink dress that made my brain short-circuit, followed by Ruthie's innocent comment about hearing voices in the kitchen that nearly made Hailey choke and turned my ears the color of a summer sunset.

Fuck, I'm in deep.

"Hand me that dish towel, would you?" Ruthie asks, breaking into my thoughts.

I reach for the faded blue towel hanging from the oven door handle and when I pass it to her, she pause and studies my face.

"Alright, out with it," she says, taking the towel but making no move to use it. "You've been fidgeting like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs since breakfast ended."

I open my mouth, then close it, the words I've been rehearsing in my head suddenly evaporating. Instead, I turn back to the sink and grab another plate, scrubbing at a spot that doesn't exist.

"Bradley James Walker," Ruthie says, her voice taking on that tone that's been stopping me in my tracks since I was knee-high. "I've known you since you were in diapers. I can tell when something's eating at you."

The plate in my hand suddenly feels too slippery. I set it down carefully before I drop it and brace both hands against the edge of the sink.

"It's nothing," I mutter, the lie sitting uncomfortably on my tongue.

Ruthie snorts, the sound both affectionate and dismissive.

"And I'm the Queen of England." She moves to stand beside me and waits, patient as always, giving me the space to find my words.

It's a gift she's always had—knowing when to push and when to simply stand in silence until I work through whatever's knotted up inside me.

Exhaling slowly, I turn to face her. "It's about Hailey."

Ruthie's expression doesn't change, but something in her eyes softens. "I figured as much."

My fingers tap an anxious rhythm against the counter. "You did?"

"Honey, a blind man could see the way you two look at each other," she says with a small smile. "And I've still got twenty-twenty vision, thank you very much."

Heat crawls up the back of my neck, and I resist the urge to tug at my collar. "That obvious, huh?"

Giving me a look, she sets the dish towel down and places her hands firmly on her hips. "Stop dancing around it and say your piece."

Pushing away from the sink, I lean against the counter and cross my arms over my chest. "I know how it must look," I begin, then stop, realizing I'm still stalling.

Ruthie raises an eyebrow.

"Fuck," I mutter, then wince. "Sorry for the language."

"I've heard worse," she says dryly. "Usually from you."

That pulls a reluctant smile from me, easing some of the tension in my shoulders.

"I wanted to talk to you about me and Hailey," I finally manage.

“After what you said at breakfast, about hearing voices in the kitchen.

.. Well, that was us." My confession hangs in the air between us, and I hurry to continue before I lose my nerve. "It’s not what you think."

Ruthie's expression remains carefully neutral. "And what am I thinking, Bradley?"

"I don't know," I admit, suddenly feeling like I'm fifteen again, caught sneaking in past curfew. "That's part of what I wanted to talk about. I know how much Hailey means to you. You've known her since she was born, care for her, and now—"

"And now she's here, working for your family," Ruthie finishes for me. "And you're concerned about how I feel about the two of you... what? Sleeping together? Dating?"

I shift my weight, uncomfortably aware of how unprepared I am for this conversation despite rehearsing it in my head all morning. "I don't know exactly what we’re doing," I admit. "It's all happened pretty fast."

"Most important things do," she simply says.

"I didn't plan for this," I continue, gesturing vaguely. "After how things started between us, with me being such an ass when she first arrived. I was so sure she was just another city girl who wouldn't understand our way of life, who wouldn't fit in here. I was wrong about that. About her."

I pause, trying to organize my thoughts, to express what I'm feeling without sounding like a lovesick teenager. "I just... I wanted to make sure you're okay with this. With us. Whatever this is becoming."

Ruthie studies me for a long moment, her face unreadable. Then she laughs. Not mockingly, but with genuine warmth that crinkles the corners of her eyes.

"Oh, Bradley," she says, shaking her head. "You wonderful, stubborn man."

I blink, caught off guard by her reaction. "What's so funny?"

"You are," she says, reaching out to pat my cheek affectionately. "Standing here all nervous, asking for my blessing like it's nineteen-fifty and I'm Hailey's father."

Her words make me realize how ridiculous I must sound, and I feel heat creeping up my face again. "That's not what I—"

"Isn't it?" Her eyebrow shoots up again. "Let me ask you something. Did you talk to Bradford like this? Ask his permission to court the pretty consultant he hired?"

"No," I admit, shifting uncomfortably. "But that's different."

"How so?"

I struggle to articulate the difference, knowing it has nothing to do with hierarchy or authority and everything to do with the woman standing before me who has been more mother to me than the one I lost too young to remember.

"Because your opinion matters to me," I finally say, the words scraping at my throat. "Because I respect you, and I know how protective you are of Hailey. And because..." I swallow hard, forcing myself to finish the thought. "Because I don't want to fuck this up, Ruthie. Not with her."

I shake my head. "Things with Claire... they ended badly.

And the ranch has always come first for me.

Always." I run a hand through my hair, frustrated with my inability to explain myself clearly.

"But with Hailey, I think about more than just the next day's work.

I think about her. What she wants. What we could be. "

Ruthie studies me for an unnervingly long time before she speaks.

"The fact that you're standing here, talking to me about this speaks volumes about the man you are, Bradley Walker.

" Reaching out, she squeezes my forearm with surprising strength.

"You've always had a good heart. Even when you're being stubborn as an old mule, which is most of the time. "

A reluctant smile tugs at my mouth. "Learned from the best."

She snorts but doesn't disagree. "Listen to me. Hailey's a grown woman who knows her own mind. And you're a grown man who's spent too many years putting everyone else's needs before your own." Those wise eyes of hers hold mine. "I trust your judgment. And more importantly, I trust hers."

Relief washes through me at her words, easing a tension I hadn't fully acknowledged until now. "Even after our rocky start?"

"Especially after that," Ruthie says, surprising me.

"You think I haven't noticed how you've changed over the past few weeks?

How you've opened up to her ideas, started seeing beyond just the day-to-day of running this place?

" She shakes her head, a knowing smile playing at her lips.

"That girl challenged you, and instead of digging your heels in harder, you finally bent a little. "

I hadn't thought of it that way, but she's right.

Hailey pushed back against my stubbornness from day one, refusing to be intimidated or dismissed.

And somewhere along the way, I saw the value in her perspective, in the fresh eyes she brought to problems I'd been staring at for so long I couldn't see solutions anymore.

"Trust yourself, Bradley," Ruthie continues. "And trust Hailey. The rest will sort itself out in time."

"Is that your way of telling me not to overthink things?" I ask, a hint of amusement creeping into my voice.

Ruthie laughs. "You've been overthinking everything since you were five years old, analyzing ant hills to figure out how they worked."

"I like to understand things."

"Some things aren't meant to be understood right away," she says, her voice softening. "They're meant to be experienced. Felt." She pats my arm again. "In the end, what's meant to be will be."

The words could sound like a platitude but coming from Ruthie they carry the weight of earned wisdom.

"Thank you, Ruthie."

She nods, then turns back to the biscuits she was wrapping, a signal that our heart-to-heart is concluding. "Now, are you going to help me finish these dishes, or are you going to stand there looking like a lost puppy all morning?"

The return to normalcy is a relief, a familiar ground after the emotional territory we've just navigated. "Yes, ma'am."

As we settle into the comfortable rhythm of cleaning up, my thoughts drift to Hailey. To the way she looked this morning in that pink dress. To the way her body felt pressed against mine in the darkness of the kitchen. To the future stretching out before us, undefined but full of possibility.

What's meant to be will be, Ruthie said.

For the first time in longer than I can remember, I hope that what's meant to be includes more than just the ranch, more than just the legacy I've been carrying.

That it includes Hailey, with her spreadsheets and her brilliant ideas and the way she fits against me like she was made to be there.