The floorboard creaked, and Caleb appeared. “Where have you been?”
She straightened, looking him directly in the eye. If he’d been drinking, he hadn’t drank very much. “None of your business.”
“Look, I’m sorry about last night, but—”
“No buts. I am not interested in your buts. Did you do any work to get Fiona to come back or find a new nurse?”
“No, I—”
“Then get out of my way, because I have things to do.” She wasn’t ready to forgive Caleb yet. She wasn’t ready to give him that chance, and she wasn’t ready to face that him drinking as much as he had last night meant…
Yeah, she couldn’t stand to think about what it meant right now.
*
Dan was a man who thrived on routine, and luckily he’d forced himself into one the past few days. It made a remarkable difference on his attitude. Probably having a plan in place helped too.
Then there was Mel in his bed. Okay, possibly that had the most to do with his newfound good mood that even texts from Scott about still being “this close” to tryout possibilities couldn’t dim.
Especially with the fact that the sun was rising over the mountain, he’d gotten a hell of a run in, and Mel Shaw was driving up the gravel a full thirty minutes earlier than usual.
Oh, there was a lot he could do with those thirty minutes.
First, Mystery needed to be watered and fed. It was a chore Dan would gladly speed through.
By the time Mel made it up to the top of the hill, he had almost filled and moved all the water barrels and added a bit of hay to the pile. He felt like a right and proper rancher, all things considered, even in the face of Mel’s infinitely ranchier appearance.
Flannel shirt, heavy-duty work pants, boots, but he could clearly picture everything that was beneath now, and he looked forward to undoing all those buttons, shedding all those layers she guarded herself with.
“Perfect timing. I was about to go take a shower. You can join me.” He flashed her a grin as he moved the last barrel of water over to where she stood on the other side of the fence. He definitely didn’t miss how her eyes dropped to his arms as he hefted the weight of the full barrel.
When she looked up at him, caught in her shameless appreciation of his muscles, her cheeks tinged pink.
“I already took a shower, Dan,” she said firmly, though he was pretty sure her mouth had curved at the corners just a teeny bit.
“Are there laws against two showers in a day? Some kind of drought? Because I’m pretty sure sharing means—”
She clapped her hand over his mouth, and he grinned against it. Too bad there was a fence between them, because he was pretty sure if there wasn’t—
“You need a hose so you don’t have to heft those barrels around.” She dropped her hand from his mouth and pointed to the barrel of water he’d just moved. “Add it to your to-acquire list.”
“Don’t pretend like you didn’t enjoy the show.”
“Ugh.” But now she really was smiling, regardless of how hard she tried to press her lips together.
Something about that, that happiness that he put there filled him with a kind of…he couldn’t even put words to it. His chest felt full and tight and like if he didn’t act, it would all burst beyond any control he had in this strange place.
So he did the only thing he could think of. He hopped the fence and did the first thing that came to mind.
Tackled her to the ground.
She pushed at his chest, but she was laughing. “Lord, you really do have the mountain crazies.”
“If that’s what I have, it’s not half bad.”
She shook her head, but there was a loosening in her muscles, not quite pushing against his chest as hard. The crisp grass under his palms, the coolness at his knees from where they pressed in the ground, even the warmth of the morning sun on his back all faded away as he looked down at her…and that overflowing-chest feeling was back. It didn’t hurt, but it didn’t feel right, and underneath it was a kind of excitement, like being in one of those playoff games.
The pressure. The thrill. Knowing it mattered.
You screwing it up.
Something deflated, went cold, and Mel was just staring at him, underneath him, and this was stupid. Thinking about anything to do with hockey was stupid when Mel Shaw was on the ground beneath him.
He dipped his head lower to press his mouth to hers and forget all that other junk, but she spoke first.
“Your phone is ringing,” she said quietly, her eyes steady on his, searching for something—he wished he knew what. He wished this not-knowing crap would go away already.
Or maybe he really didn’t want to know.
But his phone was ringing in his back pocket, a strange digital loop in the quiet of the mountain valley. “I suppose it is.”
“You should answer it. What if it’s about…hockey things?”