6. Max
CHAPTER 6
Max
Check on Charlie. It’s the one thing left on my list for today. One thing to do before I drive into town for dinner. Because I, for sure, am not going to go sit at the house with Charlie there.
Last night was a disaster. From her just being in the house, her teasing, then when she clung to me when she ran from the dogs? Yeah, no. Too much togetherness already. This is why I know this is a bad idea. I’m not immune to Charlie. Because if I’m not careful, I’ll start thinking about the fact that she’s gorgeous. Or the fact that it felt nice to have her arms wrapped around me.
Nope. This is a well-traveled road that is shut down for repairs until I find my forever.
Charlie is only here for a few weeks. And we definitely are not off to a good start together. Even if I did want to ask her out—and I definitely don’t—she would laugh in my face. Or maybe ask for a restraining order.
I open the lodge’s front door and follow the thumping sounds. I find her in the downstairs bathroom just off of the kitchen. There’s a pile of Sheetrock on the ground in the hallway, and Charlie is in there, standing on the toilet, using a crowbar to pull at the shower walls.
One whole wall is pulled down to the studs. The floor is ripped out, and only the subfloor is left. The insulation is in a pile on top of the Sheetrock.
“Did you use gloves to handle that?” The question slips out before I have the chance to think that through. She’s definitely not going to like the way that sounds. Like I don’t think she would know what insulation is.
To her credit, she doesn’t jump or yell at my sudden arrival. Instead, she moves the crowbar in a slow, deliberate stabbing motion as she peels the shower siding off the walls.
“Don’t you have something better to do?” She drops the crowbar and begins pulling on it with both hands. The whole panel starts to pull away from the wall, and she steps off the toilet, letting her weight pull the rest of the panel off.
“Not really.” Because this is entertaining.
She lifts the panel over the edge of the tub and sets it on the pile next to me.
“I’m a little busy,” she says as she returns to rip off another panel.
“Why exactly are you tearing the shower out?”
“Mold.”
“There was either water left on in here, or the pipes froze and started leaking,” I try to give her an explanation, but the truth is, I don’t really know what happened. This is the most amount of time I’ve spent in this house. I’m not a caretaker; I’m a ranch manager. My job is the cattle. Whatever goes on with this lodge has nothing to do with me or my job description.
“Yeah, whoever was in here almost seemed hell-bent on messing some stuff up.”
“It was the Whitlock’s nephew.” I probably shouldn’t have said that, but I was distracted by how quickly she loosened the tub and was sliding it out.
Charlie pauses and looks over my shoulder. “Wait, the family did this? Nash didn’t say anything about that.”
“They had a little bit of a falling out, I guess. You know. One where the nephew tries to get rid of a family member and keep the inheritance for himself.”
Charlie’s eyes bulge. “It sounds like I should talk to Magnolia more. It’s been a busy year. When she was dating Nash, she said there were some weird family dynamics. I knew it was bad, just not this bad.”
I shrug. “I don’t interact with the extended Whitlocks. I mainly talk to Nash and Alexander Whitlock, his grandpa. But if the rest of the family is like the nephew…” I shake my head. “I’d run.”
Charlie smirks at that. “I’ve heard some stories. What do you think of Magnolia?”
I study Charlie’s face. It feels like I’m walking a fine line of her judging me and deciding if I’m a decent person or not…but I don’t feel like lying just to spite her. “She’s only been out here a couple of times, but I liked her. She was nice. Didn’t invade my space. Was polite. Didn’t try and steal my dogs or sleep on my couch.”
Charlie’s expression gradually grows darker as my words sink in. “It’s probably because she didn’t have the pleasure of enjoying you in your natural state. She probably didn’t get physically dragged out of the house by you.”
I lean a shoulder against the door frame and watch as she pulls the bathtub away from the wall.
“Remind me why you can’t stay in the main house?” I glance around. It’s really not that bad. It’s not great, with the whole no running water, but it would totally be habitable.
“No water. And funky wiring. Or maybe the water damage caused the problem with the heat pump. Something is circulating back the wrong way. We just have to find it. You’re welcome to help.” She looks at me with a sly look. “But you might need some rubber shoes.”
I raise my hands. “You said you had it all under control here. I’d hate to take all the fun away from you.”
“Why are you here?” she asks as she tips the tub onto its side and shoves it toward the door. I step out of the way, watching the impressive sight of such a small woman single-handedly moving a bathtub.
It’s not something you see every day, that’s for sure.
“Er, just saying hi,” I finally answer when she turns to look at me suspiciously.
She finishes pushing the bathtub out of the bathroom, and it flops to the ground with a thud. She stands straight and plants her hands on her hips.
“Magnolia put you up to this, didn’t she?” Charlie snaps.
“What? No, it wasn’t Magnolia,” I reassure her as I carefully step around the tub to get out of her reach. After watching her gut the bathroom, I have my doubts I’d win in a physical fight.
Charlie relaxes.
“It was Nash, actually. Magnolia asked him to tell me to check on you.” I smile as if that will make it better.
“That’s absolutely ridiculous! She knows I want to be alone and not bothered. I don’t need your pity just because my boyfriend broke up with me.”
Oh, this is an interesting development. I fold my arms across my chest and lean against the wall to listen to the rest of her tirade.
“Don’t look at me like that. I’m way better off without him. I don’t know why Magnolia is worried about me. Good grief. And asking you to babysit? I’m going to call her and give her a piece of my mind.”
She reaches into the back pocket of her jeans and pulls her phone out.
“Before you do that…I was supposed to make sure you didn’t fall off a ladder each day.”
“Oh.” Her cheeks flush.
“Yup. ‘Oh’ is right.” I grin. “I definitely wasn’t offering to be your breakup therapist.”
Charlie clears her throat and stuffs her phone back in her pocket. “You can just pretend like I didn’t say all of that, right?”
“I don’t know…are you going to move out of the bunkhouse?”
Her face hardens as she shakes her head. “Nice try. Besides, who are you going to tell that my boyfriend broke up with me?” She smiles at that. “I don’t know anyone here, so you could tell the whole town, and I wouldn’t care.”
“Oh, really? You sure about that?”
She raises both eyebrows. “I dare you to tell everybody.”
I smile slowly. “You probably shouldn’t have said that. I love a good dare.”
“You’re so mature,” she snorts.
“I’ll admit it crossed my mind one time that maybe I should grow up, but where would be the fun in that?” I ask as I step away from the wall.
“I don’t know, maybe people would actually want to be around you?” she asks sweetly.
“But I don’t want people around me…”
“You’ve made that abundantly clear. Are you going to stand here the rest of the evening and watch me work?”
I rub a hand across my chin as if I’m thinking about it. “It’s entertaining, for sure. But no, I’m out of here. I’m going to feed the bottle calf, and then I’m going to go into town and have some dinner with friends. There actually are some people who like to be around me.”
I turn around and walk down the hallway.
Charlie calls after me, “It doesn’t count if you have to pay them to be there!”
When I step outside onto the porch, I tell Jim to stay. I don’t want to think about her here alone while I’m in town. Jim will keep an eye on her.