Page 142 of Traces Of You

“Do you want him to push?” Brooke said, leaning back and wiping a fallen tear off of Reenie’s cheek. “Is that what’s wrong?You think you’re an obligation and, now that it’s over, he’ll step back or change his feelings? I can assure you that won’t happen.”

“I don’t know if I thought that. I just remember I hurt him as a child by not telling him things and then left.”

“Don’t!” Brooke said, waving her finger. “You were a child with no control over your life. My son would never hold that against you. I’m disappointed that you’d think that.”

Her hand went to the heart locket on her neck, moving it around in comfort. That statement was a great way to slam shame in her face.

Brooke wasn’t wrong with her words.

Her bottom lip trembled, but she pulled within herself. She’d shown enough weakness around people in her life.

But she’d told herself that if she couldn’t be open enough for those she loved and cared for to see the real her, she’d never fully be able to move on.

Sheneededto move on.

Her future would be bleak without the ability to put her past in a shipping container to drop into the ocean and never resurface again.

She was no longer the young girl that was going to cower.

Hadn’t she’d proven that by fighting back a few days ago?

And coming here to have a heart to heart with Brooke? If Ford’s mother had said she couldn’t stay, she would have asked and sold her worth to the family farm.

There was no way she was taking no for an answer.

It didn’t seem as if it’d come to that.

“I don’t want you to be disappointed in me. I’m trying to move on and I don’t always know how.”

“I can help you,” Brooke said. “You never had a mother in your life. Not one to raise you or teach you the important things.”

“No. Just you for that one year and more recently. I love our talks and your guidance in everything.”

“That’s right,” Brooke said. An oven timer went off. “And if you want to grab that pan of brownies out, you can while we talk about getting you on the books. You’re working more than you should to stay in the cabin. I wanted to argue and Clay told me not to.”

“Clay?” She reached for the oven mitts and removed Ford’s favorite brownies. Brooke normally made them the day before and Reenie frosted them in the morning.

“Yes. He said you’d want to feel your worth and to let it go. Ford said the same thing hours later when I saw him. It was never to have you feel as if we were taking advantage of you.”

“I never thought that,” she said. Clay and Ford both understood and went to bat for her. “I wanted to do more.”

“And you will as an employee not just of the cafe, but with Clay for the events. We’ll get it all worked out in the next few weeks.”

“I can pay rent for the cabin then,” she said.

“Off the table,” Brooke said firmly. “It wasn’t being used, it’s costing nothing for you to live there. Don’t argue with me. You won’t win.”

This time she hugged Brooke. “For once in my life, I don’t have a problem with not winning.”

“You know what,” Brooke said. “Those words right there. That’s your growth.”

“What?” She moved back to help Brooke stack the clean pans the way they’d been closing for weeks.

“You didn’t say you lost, you said not win. There is a difference.”

Lost was so negative. Not winning just meant that she didn’t come in first. But not that she didn’t try.

These were the things she might not have ever learned without the Ridgeways.