Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
CALLIE
The boxes of garland and ornaments are tucked away in the loft of a small stone outbuilding.
I want to call it a shed, but in my experience, sheds are built from wood and meant to keep bikes and lawn mowers out of the rain.
This little building looks like it was put together by men wearing kilts five hundred years ago before they went hunting for their dinner in preparation for clan warfare.
We’ve found two Christmas boxes so far, neither of them very large, both of them extremely dusty. I’m beginning to wonder if Gavin’s hiding a secret Scrooge beneath his Ted Lasso veneer.
“You alright for one more?” Gavin asks, his voice muffled by the box in his arms.
I hurry around the piles of junk and reach toward him. “Load me up.”
This box is significantly heavier than the last two. I take it with an oof and head back toward the door while Gavin climbs down from the loft ladder. He swoops the box from my hands. I’d complain and say I’m fine to carry it, but my arms are grateful.
“What’s in there anyway?” I ask.
“Just baubles.”
I wait for more, but nothing comes. The other boxes are lighter, but Gavin still takes one of them, leaving me with one box to trek back through the snow.
It’s coming down in quick, fat flakes, covering Gavin’s shoulders and hair.
The clouds overhead don’t look like they’re going to clear anytime soon, making his claim of another storm plausible.
I take advantage of Gavin’s huge boot prints and step in them, following directly behind him to return to the house. My boots cover my ankles but don’t go any higher, and while they’re waterproof, this snow is taller than my boots already.
The trouble is, I’m watching the ground, so I don’t realize when Gavin stops, and I run into him.
The box bounces off his back, and I fall backward.
Snow might look soft and pillowy, but it doesn’t feel like a bed of feathers when you fall on your butt.
My tailbone stings while I lay there, looking up at the gray-white sky and blinking at the snowflakes in my eyes.
Gavin drops to his knees near my head. “Where does it hurt?”
“I’m not telling.”
“So, your butt?” My glare only seems to make his smile grow. “Good. You didn’t hit your head, then?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
He offers me a hand. How childish would it be to refuse at this point? Too much? I slip my fingers around his, and his whole hand practically swallows mine like the daddy shark eating the baby shark entirely.
Gavin pulls me softly into the seated position. “Catch your breath.”
I inhale as cold wetness seeps through my pants, making my skin numb along the back of my legs. In this light, his eyes are unreal. His pale blue irises resemble a husky’s, made bright from the natural light eking through the snow clouds. Snowflakes fall on his beard and melt.
“It’s caught.”
Gavin tugs, putting his hand on my back to help me stand. When I bend to lift, a twinge goes up my back and I spasm.
He notices, and concern flashes over his face. “You need to see someone.”
“I’m fine.”
“Your back’s not right.”
To prove him wrong, I reach for the box again, more slowly this time. My back tweaks again. “Good grief that hurts.”
Gavin lifts the box and trudges toward the house, picking up the other two boxes on the way. He puts them down in the house and pulls out his phone.
“Don’t call anyone,” I yell from the yard.
I’m still making my way toward the house, but I’m much farther behind, carefully stepping in his gargantuan boot holes so I don’t slip again.
Do doctors even make house calls anymore?
If they do anywhere, rural Scotland seems like the place it would be, and I don’t want Gavin making someone travel in this weather for a back tweak.
“You’re hurt,” he says.
“I just need ice.”
Gavin doesn’t look like he agrees, his brow furrowed into a frown. Here’s the broody Scot I’ve been waiting for.
“So the golden retriever can scowl,” I say, stomping my boots lightly on the mat before toeing them off in the boot room.
His expression immediately drops, lips flattening as I pass him to move into the house. “If you’ll not see a doctor, at least let me speak to one.”
“There’s no reason to.”
Gavin closes the door, blocking the cold wind at once. “I would feel better.”
I have to turn my entire body to look at him, because twisting to glance over my shoulder is too painful. “It’s nothing. If I was injured, I wouldn’t be able to walk.”
Gavin puts out a hand. “While that is sound logic,” he says sarcastically, “I can’t help but feel like a phone call isn’t a terrible idea.”
Rolling my eyes, I turn my entire body back toward the living room and leave. I’d do a cartwheel or something to prove I’m fine, except I think that would cause lasting damage.
He doesn’t need to know that.
Gavin doesn’t waste any time. I hear him on the phone moments later. He pushes through the doorway into the living room.
“Aye, she can walk.”
I face him, hands on my hips.
His expression is unrepentant, the concern clear in his eyes. “Does it hurt to bend, Callie?”
I don’t move.
Gavin’s eyebrows rise. “Hang on a tick, Rory. We’ve hit a wee snag.” He mimics bending side to side.
I still don’t move.
Gavin stares into my eyes while he speaks into the phone. “Can I ring you in a bit? Aye. Cheers.” He puts his phone in his pocket. “Want me to give you a hand?”
The mere thought of him touching my waist sends blood rushing to my cheeks. “Who was that?”
“My mate. He’s a doctor. I didn’t ask him to drive here, but if he needs to, he will.”
I scoff. “You’re threatening me.”
“I’m not going to be responsible for any lasting injuries.”
His thoughtfulness is overbearing and kind of sweet. I can see why he’d want to be sure I’m fine, but people fall all the time and nothing comes of it. The whole doctor thing feels a bit much. His earnest concern is definitely too much.
This might be one of those times where I swallow my reservations and just do the thing. “Fine. Call him back.”
“Grand.” He waits. “You can bend first, maybe?”
I do it slowly, and when I move forward, I feel the twinge shoot up my lower back. A hiss slips through my teeth.
“There it is,” he mumbles. “Hiya, Rory. She only gets a twinge when she bends forward. Aye.”
Gavin listens on the phone for another minute, so I walk toward the window. Partially to show him that I can walk fine, and also to put some distance between us. Maybe the cool glass will help my cheeks chill out. I keep seeing flashes in my mind of Gavin assisting me bend and it’s not helping.
“Will you sit for a moment, Callie?”
I turn back too quickly and the twinge returns. Gavin clocks it, so I scowl at him as I move to sit on the sofa. He sits beside me. “Rory thinks we should check for tenderness and swelling on the spine. I can look or we can FaceTime him.”
Call in a doctor? This is getting worse. I turn away and lift my shirt enough for Gavin to see my lower back.
“No bruise or swelling,” he says into the phone. “Is it tender to touch, Callie?”
“I don’t know,” I say.
He clears his throat. “Can I press a bit, just gentle?”
There my face goes, betraying me once more. “Sure.”
He lowers his voice, so I imagine he put the phone down. “I don’t want you to be uncomfortable.”
The thing is, I’m not. He’s a total gentleman.
My pride is more injured than my back. But I am athletic, I run and do yoga and pilates and play tennis on occasion, so the idea of my back giving me grief is a little stressful.
I inhale slowly, reminding myself to be polite, all while a blush bleeds into my neck, suffusing me with fire.
“I’m not uncomfortable. Just don’t press too hard.”
“Where do I push?” he asks, and I realize he’s speaking into the phone again. Rory must be giving him directions, because his cool fingers press against my skin at the spine, moving up one side and then on the other. A flush of chills volleys over my skin, but there’s no pain.
“Doesn’t hurt,” I squeak.
Gavin repeats this into the phone, his voice totally level.
He tugs lightly on my shirt, so I drop it, then shift to sit back.
He leans back beside me, and I can hear Rory speaking but not well enough to make out what he’s saying.
After a few minutes, Gavin nods. “I’ve got ice.
We’ll be grand, even if the leccy cuts out. Do you have everything you need?”
My finger finds a frayed edge on the hunter green sofa and runs over it.
“Have you looked in on Douglas?” There’s more talking on the phone. “Aye. I walked to Rhona’s this morning. She’s fit. Patty? Aye.”
Listening to their back-and-forth is like trying to decipher a code.
They’re clearly going down the list of people they feel need to be checked on due to the snow and the inability most people have to leave their houses.
Not Gavin, evidently, since he walked somewhere this morning to check in on a neighbor.
His phone is off and sliding into his pocket shortly. “Rory reckons rest and ice or heat will sort you. If it bruises or swells though, we’ll need to call him again.”
“I don’t think I injured myself.”
A sole eyebrow rises.
“A little twinge isn’t an injury. You’re worrying over nothing. People put their backs out all the time.”
Gavin’s face turns to stone, his eyebrow slotting into its regular position like a robot returning to its original settings.
Something I said hit a nerve. I should be grateful for his concern, but it all feels dramatic and over the top.
He’s like one of those puzzle boxes with all the different shapes.
If I put every piece in the exact right position, it holds, but when they don’t slot together right, it collapses.
With Gavin, I can’t figure out where any of the pieces go.
Which is incredibly frustrating since I’ve been in school for over five years studying psychology.
My endgame is a doctorate in minds. My counseling thus far has been successful, even though my supervising clinician can’t stand me.
Understanding the human brain is what I do.
It’s why I put up with teachers who hate me and overpriced apartments and living so far from my family—to get my hands on the piece of paper that’ll open the doors allowing me do this full time.
I have a feeling Gavin would be a challenge for most people.
“I’ll fetch the ice,” he says, leaving the room.
I shift on the sofa as he moves, watching him go.
If Luna and Rhys were here already, there would be so much noise and activity and laughter we wouldn’t have time to be in each other’s space.
But we’re alone, surrounded by several feet of snow with no means of escape.
It has shoved us together for the day, at the very least. Possibly two.
I close my eyes and press my heels against them. It’s time to make the most of it.
“Are you in pain?” he asks.
I drop my hands and look up. Gavin is holding a Ziploc bag of frozen…are those carrots? His eyes are glued to me, so I reach for them. Yep, peeled and chopped and totally frozen. “These will defrost.”
“Figured we could do a stew. The weather’s fair begging for it.”
“Agreed.” I put the bag against my lower back and position it against a pillow to keep it in place. When Gavin sits beside me, a wave of his woodsy scent drifts my way, and it takes effort not to inhale it slowly. He smells divine. He looks divine. He cooks divinely. “Why are you single?”
Gavin’s eyes snap to mine.
“This is a purely professional inquiry,” I say quickly, my mind jumping to that moment when my hand gripped his lapel in front of my hotel. “I’m studying to be a psychologist.”
His face clears. “That does explain a few things.”
“So?” I know how presumptuous I’m being, but the question slipped out on its own, and now that I’ve asked, I can’t help but commit. “From this angle, it’s hard to imagine why the ladies around here have let you remain single.”
Gavin leans back on the couch, his hand brushing over his chin thoughtfully. He gives me a wide smile, his teeth on full display. “Who says I am?”
Then the blasted man walks out.