Chapter 2 #3
Or that he could really get behind selling this place for the money to pay down his mortgage, get the best attorney he could to fight this whole Billy thing, and maybe even take that cruise Joe had suggested.
“I don’t get it.” She sounded bewildered and unsettled. “Why would you want to stay so long?”
He stretched out his legs even further in preparation for the nice nap he intended to take.
“Don’t you have to get back to work?”
He wished.
She was close again, her knees brushing the lounge. Her gaze ran over his body. If he hadn’t been so dead…
“Jake? No work?”
“Not for a while.” When he was on the job, he willingly risked life and limb.
And when he wasn’t on the job, he still risked life and limb, just not his heart.
Never his heart. So it really needed to stop thudding uncomfortably at the way she was looking at him.
Had he thought her annoyed? Maybe mildly curious on top of that? And then, finally, concerned?
Where, then, had that heat in her gaze suddenly come from?
“Why would you stay,” she repeated softly, once again hunkering down so they were eye to eye, “when you don’t like being here? Is it because you can’t work?”
He wasn’t ready to admit that, but she was searching for the answer in his words, his face, and he didn’t know what exactly she thought she’d find in either.
She knew this place wasn’t his thing. They were out in the boondocks, with no nightlife, no city sophistication, nothing to do except ride horses and feed the pigs, and possibly try to enjoy the long, endless nights, which was why he’d brought a woman with him on his last two visits.
But he doubted his body could handle that kind of enjoyment now, humiliating as that was to admit. Not that she was offering. “I told you, it’s time to work on this place, give it some value.”
“It has value.”
“Not resale, it doesn’t.”
“So you are selling.”
He closed his eyes because he didn’t have the energy to do anything else.
He understood she had to be concerned about her livelihood, and that of her crew, but he wasn’t a heartless bastard.
At least not entirely. He needed to get out from beneath the ranch and the financial obligation, but he also would do his best to make sure the people here were cared for.
“I’ll make sure you and Tucker get to keep your jobs.
Don’t worry, that will be an important contingency about selling.
You won’t be affected, other than getting someone new to report to, someone better suited than me, I’m sure. ”
She didn’t say anything, and he no longer could even think about opening his eyes. His shoulder was aching again, reminding him he hadn’t taken a painkiller that day. Knowing he’d be driving, and also that he’d need a clear mind, he’d kicked the pain pills cold turkey.
Now he wished he’d at least brought them.
“Does it hurt?”
With his eyes closed, Callie’s voice sounded sweet, warm…caring…
She ran a finger over his scar, from the shoulder tip down to the sensitive skin of his armpit.
Jake’s flesh flinched.
She jerked her hand back. “I’m sorry.”
“No.” He wanted to grab her hand back and place it over the healing incisions. “It’s okay, the area just isn’t used to touch.” He rubbed his hand over it and grimaced. “The nerve endings keep misfiring or something as they regenerate, shooting random points of fire. I’m going mad.”
Lightly, she took over, running her finger down the scar. “You need to reintroduce it to stimulation,” she whispered. She hesitated, as if daring him to make a sexual innuendo, but he didn’t want her to move away so he didn’t say a word.
And with that same light, almost unbearable touch, she glided her finger from the top of his shoulder, downward, to the crux of his arm. “Like this…”
Then back again.
“Callie.”
Her gaze dropped to his mouth. “Or like this…” She leaned in for a kiss—
And he jerked awake, sitting straight up so fast he winced and grabbed his shoulder.
He was alone in the chair by the hot tub, and given the new slant of the sun, had been for quite a while. Someone had covered him in a light blanket.
Callie.
She’d not touched him. She’d not leaned in close for a kiss, and he had to laugh at himself for even dreaming it.
Amy Wheeler thought she might never get used to how quickly night fell out in the high Arizona desert. One minute the sun shone brilliantly, and then the next dusk fell hard, followed by sudden and total darkness.
She stepped inside the cabin she’d been given when hired at the Blue Flame and locked herself in.
She turned on every light, which in the one-room cabin consisted of the kitchen and bathroom lights, and a floor lamp by the futon.
Then she pulled a small bag out of her backpack, the purchase she’d just made in Three Rocks at the hardware store with her last few bucks.
A deadbolt.
No stranger to tools, she spent the next few moments installing it with a drill and screwdriver she kept in her pack. When she had the lock on and in place, she backed to the small couch in the center of the room and sat.
And let out her first breath in what felt like forever.
She took a long look around her. The cabin’s small kitchen and living space opened to each other, and the bathroom was smaller than a postage stamp.
She liked that. She liked that a lot. She could take in the whole place with one sweep of her eyes.
There was an old oak table and two chairs by the even older refrigerator.
There was a fireplace with logs neatly stacked to one side and a rug in front of it.
Then there was the futon on which she sat right now, covered with a quilt.
The self-standing armoire in the corner was for her things, not that she unpacked. She never unpacked.
Everything was small, neat, and tidy. She liked that too.
There were a lot of things she liked today, which was a pleasant surprise, given her life and all she’d experienced in her short eighteen years.
She had a job, one she actually enjoyed.
She worked for a woman she thought she could respect if not actually trust. Amy didn’t do trust. And she had a place to lay her head at night, where she could let herself fall into a real sleep—her first real sleep in too long.
Things hadn’t been this good since…well, ever. With all her tentative heart, she just hoped they’d stay that way.