Let It Breathe Read Online Free

recognized the face, of course, but this wasn’t the same man she remembered trying to fill her livestock water trough with beer six years ago.
    His face had thinned, with angles and planes replacing the mottled puffiness of his cheeks the last time she’d seen him.
    The shoulders were still broad and his hair was still the same caramel shade, but it was shorter now—almost a buzz cut. And what was that tattoo peeking out from beneath his T-shirt sleeve—
    “Hello, Reese.”
    The warmth in his voice made her stomach flip like it always used to. She would have known that voice anywhere. She was more familiar with the sound of it phoning from jail at two a.m., but still. She gripped the edge of the door harder and took a deep breath.
    “Hello, Clay,” she said as levelly as she could manage. “Eric said you were back in town.”
    “So you know I’m the foreman on the project?”
    She nodded. “And I know you got sober. Congratulations on that.”
    “Thank you.”
    His eyes dropped to her breasts, and Reese felt an unexpected flutter of desire. It was a pleasant tingle that started under her sternum and sent a pulse of heat all the way to her nipples.
    Then she remembered her passenger.
    “It’s a baby opossum I rescued,” she said, touching a finger to her shirt pocket. “I didn’t grow a mutant nipple, in case that’s what you’re thinking.”
    She saw his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. “I wasn’t thinking about your nipple. Or anyone’s nipples.”
    “That’s a first.”
    He blinked. “I’ve changed, Reese.”
    Something about his words knifed straight through her core. Maybe it was Eric’s accusation that she hadn’t changed. Maybe it was the question of how much Clay had. Maybe it was something else entirely.
    She weighed her next words carefully, not sure how to bring up the subject. “Aren’t you worried that—um—well, working at a winery—”
    “I’ll climb into a barrel of Pinot and drink my way to the bottom?”
    “Something like that.”
    “No.”
    “You sound pretty confident.”
    He gave her a small smile. “I am.”
    “You always were.”
    “True,” he said, shifting his weight to lean against the doorframe. “But I’ve been sober almost four years now. I’ve earned it.”
    Reese nodded, still taking him in. He was the same, but different. They’d been buddies in college—her, Eric, Clay. The Three Musketeers. Back then, he’d been Eric’s roommate and one of her best pals. That was before she and Eric got married and Clay dropped out of college to work construction and drink himself into oblivion. He’d been crazy even then, was probably still crazy now.
    But had his eyes changed color? They’d always been brown, of course, but usually more bloodshot than anything. They were clear now, and the most remarkable shade of root-beer brown with tiny flecks of—
    “I suppose you’ll want to see the area where you’ll be working,” Reese said, stepping back a bit to put a few feet of distance between them.
    “Reese—before we get started, I want to say something.”
    “Oh?”
    She felt the baby opossum wriggle in her pocket and saw Clay’s eyes drop to her chest again. She touched her fingers to the flannel, and Clay didn’t look away this time.
    “You were always so soft,” he murmured. His eyes widened the second the words left his lips. “A softie ,” he clarified. “A softie with the animals.”
    He shook his head and took a deep breath. Reese waited, not sure what to expect.
    “I’m sorry,” he said at last. “Really, I know I wasn’t a very nice guy those last few years, and you bailed me out more times than I deserved. It couldn’t have been easy on you or on your marriage to Eric, and I want to apologize for—”
    “You didn’t wreck my marriage to Eric,” she interrupted. “That was a mistake from the start.”
    “Of course it was, but I know my behavior—” He stopped, probably sensing from her expression that he’d misspoken.