Parker by Maddie James

entire left eye was encircled in
black—except for the purple eye shadow effect above it. The bump
above her eyebrow was still prominent and puffy, and her eyelid was
so swollen she feared by morning it would be totally closed.
    “Yeah. See? Can’t you just let me do
something for you? I feel responsible for this. The wreck, at
least. It was on my property!”
    He was shouting, and Reba’s one good eye grew
wider at his words. Why was he so angry?
    She glared at him and wanted to cry. Like
everything she’d been through in the past twenty-four hours was
suddenly bearing down on her shoulders. “Why are you angry with me?
It was no one’s fault. Blame the damn deer and the sun.” At that
point, Reba shoved the mirror closed and looked out the window. The
last thing she wanted to do was have him see her cry.
    Out of her one damn good eye!
    She didn’t want to cry over this. She didn’t.
It was a vain and stupid thing to do, to cry over a black eye. Not
to mention her arm in a sling down to the first joints of her
fingers. How was she going to be able to type? Or edit the
video?
    Then there was the television interview
coming up and the photoshoot….
    She sniffled. More than a little. And her
eyes stung.
    How in the hell had all of these things
happened to her in less than twenty-four hours? Just a day ago
she’d been on cloud nine. Her blog had been deemed a success, the
launch of her YouTube channel was coming in a few weeks, and the Bekah’s Cottage book deal was the icing on the cake. Life
was so good!
    Her dreams were coming true, thanks to Jack. Dear Jack .
    The thought of him made her want to cry even
more.
    “Reba, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled at
you.”
    She whirled back. “No, you shouldn’t have.
Please, just take me home.” Then she did the unthinkable. Something
she hadn’t done for months. Something she wouldn’t let herself do
so much when Jack was dying.
    She burst into tears. Not just tears but a
full-blown, butt-ugly, gut-twisting, sob-sucking crying attack.
    ****
    “Ah, hell.”
    Parker glanced into his rearview mirror, saw
no traffic behind him, and started slowing down. He quickly perused
his surroundings and spotted a pull-off up ahead. Not saying
anything to Reba, he moved over as far as he could, got out and
rounded the cab, and made his way to the passenger side and to
Reba. Opening her door fully, he stepped up to her side, carefully
undid her seatbelt, and angled her legs toward him, a little.
    “Reba,” he said softly. “I’m sorry. Look at
me.”
    Her gaze was downcast, and she was still
sobbing in hiccups. “No. I don’t want you to look at me.”
    Ah hell! “Reba, sweetheart, it’s okay.
Look at me.”
    Slowly, she lifted her face and his gaze
caught hers. Shit . Big, fat tears were hanging onto her
lower lids, and all he wanted to do was kiss them away.
    Can’t do that, McKenna.
    “I’m a mess. I’m a swollen, bloated,
tear-faced mess. I really don’t want you to look at me.”
    He reached for the clean handkerchief in his
pocket. “Here.” He carefully dabbed the cloth underneath both her
eyes. “Now yes, that was a lot of ugly crying, but it sure doesn’t
make you any less pretty. Gosh, Reba, I didn’t mean to go and get
you that upset.”
    She shook her head. “No, it’s not you. It’s
just everything .” She sniffled and glanced off.
    “Want to talk about it?”
    She must have because she started in
immediately. “It’s me, Parker. It’s all of this stuff. Things were
going so well until yesterday, and now I have this,” she raised her
left arm with the splint, “and how am I supposed to type and blog
and edit when I can’t even move my fingers…and what about this!”
She pointed to her eye. “I have a big job thing coming up, and I
will be on camera and all of this crap,” she waved both her arms,
“is going to get in my way!”
    “That was one big damn sentence, honey. I’m
not sure if I got it all but—”
    “Never