A few hours later, Mystery sedated and dry in the stables, Mel and the vet long since gone, Dan finally forced himself to leave her in search of dry clothes.
When he stepped inside the cabin, Mel was in the kitchen, scribbling something on a piece of paper. But she turned to him and smiled. “I was about to come get you. Sit. You’re probably starving.”
“I don’t know what I am,” he said. Which was true. He was beyond hungry, beyond exhausted. But Mystery was okay. So said the vet, as long as infection didn’t set in, and Dan was sure as hell going to make sure it didn’t.
Mel placed a bowl of soup in front of him, and then slid a piece of paper next to it. “What’s this?” He frowned down at the paper. There was a stick figure drawn on it, Rancher Badge written across the top.
“You’ve just earned your first rancher badge. Dealing with a hurt animal. Congratulations.”
He slumped in the chair, exhaustion settling even deeper. He’d actually handled it. Really well, all in all. Maybe not on his own, but he’d gotten in there and snipped the fence and helped the vet. “I think I’m going to need something a little more official.”
She crossed to him and framed his face with her hands—something he wasn’t sure she’d ever done. Her calloused palms were rough against his damp skin. She felt warm and dry and perfect, and her smile was like a blanket on a cold day.
“You, Dan Sharpe, did it.”
“I had a lot of help.”
“You knew just what to do, and you directed it. If I hadn’t been there, you’d have done it on your own. It would have been harder, but you would have done it. Because you didn’t once back away.”
He didn’t say anything to that, didn’t know what he could say. Beneath the tiredness and the headache and chill of the rain and the night and the fear…satisfaction bloomed, soft and warm.
You didn’t once back away.
She brushed a kiss over his mouth. “Now eat.”
She went to step away, but he liked having her there more than his stomach rumbled for the soup. So he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her to him, resting his cheek against her abdomen.
She chuckled softly, but her hands brushed over his hair, then her fingers trailed through it. He was pretty sure he could fall asleep right here. Sitting in a chair, pressed to Mel.
You didn’t once back away. No, he’d handled the whole thing, and there hadn’t been time to overthink it or worry he was screwing it up. He’d just done it.
Mel kissed the top of his head. This was the weirdest damn day.
“I’ll work on getting you a more official-looking badge.”
Dan looked at the sad little drawing and managed to laugh. “Actually, this might be about perfect.” He released her and focused on the soup.
Just about perfect. Huh. Wasn’t that something?
Chapter 20
Mel woke up to her phone alarm and Dan’s clock chiming at the same time. It was like the sound track to the past week. This weird normal that wasn’t normal at all.
Sharing a bed with somebody. A shower. A morning routine. Working together to build something.
No, that wasn’t normal, and it would be stupid to entertain any thoughts or feelings or fantasies that it ever might be.
She wished the routine, the difference, Dan would smooth over everything else, make her forget. But it felt more like limbo, a world that didn’t really exist. She was putting off the inevitable, only she didn’t know what the inevitability was going to be.
For the seventh day in a row, she woke away from the house she’d grown up in. She had never been away for so long before, and while waking up in Dan’s bed wasn’t such a bad exchange, it did nothing for the worry that gripped her every morning.
Were they okay? Had Caleb found a nurse for Dad, had he drunk himself to death, had the cows escaped and no one knew or cared? Should she go back? Was that weak? Was being here weak?
Was there some right answer she couldn’t find because she wasn’t strong enough?
She hated it. Hated this feeling. Hated that she didn’t know what else to do. She tried—she failed. She walked away—she failed. Everything was a failure when it came to Shaw.
And every morning she woke up next to Dan and wondered what the hell she was supposed to do now? When nothing she could think of fixed anything, and Dan was so damn careful with her. Like she was delicate, broken. Someone who needed ease and comfort, sweet touches, calming words.
Those things did nothing more than piss her off. Make her snappy and bitchy, but he just kept being so damn sweet and quiet and there. Saving llamas and changing their bandages like…
She didn’t know what. And she didn’t know what to do.
So for the seventh damn day in a row, she had tears in her eyes before she got out of bed, and Dan’s arms came around her, a comforting embrace that was anything but.
This wasn’t something to treat her like glued-together glass over. It was just life. Life once you gave up the illusion of anyone being able to endure, to give, to rise to the occasion. No one could do that.