Chapter 11
Rachel
The morning light had long since turned to afternoon by the time Clayton finally let me out of bed. And even then it was only because my stomach growled loud enough to make him laugh.
“Guess I should feed you,” he said, pressing one last kiss to my neck before rolling away.
I didn’t fight him too hard on staying in bed all day, even though I should be working right now.
What was happening between us was complicated, tangled up in the way his hands felt on my skin and the way my brain kept short-circuiting every time he touched me.
I justified it by telling myself I needed more time to figure out what I was going to do about the claims. Mrs. Andretti’s file sat in my bag like a ticking time bomb, and I still hadn’t decided whether I was going to detonate my career or her life.
But mostly I just wanted to stay wrapped up in him for a little while longer. Losing myself in Clayton was a good way to forget about my worries.
By the time we made it to the kitchen, my body was wrecked in all the best ways. My thighs ached. My lips felt swollen. And there was a pleasant soreness between my legs that reminded me of everything that had happened between us. I felt intoxicated by this man, drunk on his touch.
He’d let me borrow one of his shirts since he’d destroyed my pajama top last night, and I was currently wrapped in one of his old flannels, cozy and warm.
I settled into a mismatched kitchen chair while he moved around the small space, pulling ingredients from the fridge and setting a pan on the stove. Nuts and Bolts watched him with hopeful eyes from their spot by the back door, tails thumping against the floor whenever he glanced their way.
He threw them chunks of sausage scraps, then set a coffee mug in front of me.
I stared down at the cup, steam curling up from the surface. Two spoonfuls of sugar and a splash of cream. Exactly the way I’d made it for myself yesterday.
Clayton hadn’t even asked how I took it. He’d just paid attention and remembered.
That hit somewhere deep in my chest. Wasn’t that the kind of man you were supposed to keep?
Wrapping my hands around the warm ceramic mug, I watched him crack eggs into the pan, his movements easy and unhurried. The muscles in his back shifted beneath his worn t-shirt as he worked, and I found myself wondering things I had no business thinking about.
Would he want a life with me?
The thought felt ridiculous, even as it formed. I’d known this man for less than a week, but somehow we had a connection that defied every logical explanation I could come up with.
I’d been so busy assuming he wouldn’t want anything real with me that I’d never even consider asking.
But what if he did?
What if this rugged mountain man actually wanted more than just a few nights of incredible sex? Worse, what if he didn’t want more than that?
My heart clenched at the thought.
Clayton slid a plate of scrambled eggs and toast in front of me before settling into the chair beside mine. His knee pressed against my thigh under the table, warm and solid, and he didn’t move it away. Just let it rest there like it belonged.
“You’re thinking too hard,” he rumbled, picking up his fork. “I can hear the gears grinding from here.”
“Sorry,” I took a bite of eggs to avoid having to elaborate.
We ate in comfortable silence for a few minutes, and then his hand found my knee under the table. His palm was warm, his thumb drawing circles against my kneecap while he chewed.
It was such a casual touch. So easy and natural, like he’d been touching me this way for years instead of hours.
“What’s it like seeing the country? I’ve only been outside the Ozarks a handful of times,” he asked as he leaned back and watched me eat.
“It probably seems more exciting than it is. I’ve learned that most towns feel the same if you group them by size. There are a thousand places like Red Oak Mountain in the world.”
Clayton smirked, “Naw. If you let me show you around, you’ll see that there’s nowhere like this town anywhere else.”
“How can you know that when you said yourself you’ve hardly traveled?”
That caught his attention. Now he was the one with gears turning behind his eyes.
“Maybe you’re right,” he growled. “I’m a small-town guy. I’ve never had much interest in seeing the rest of the world. It’s not high on my bucket list.”
He squinted at me. “My days are simple. Nail, meet hammer. But you… I bet every day is a little different.”
“Not really. Even traveling turns into a routine when you do it all the time. But there are moments. One time I got lost in Missouri during a flash flood. My GPS failed, and I was stuck on a road that was literally called ‘E’. Who names a road E? The low water bridges were flooded over and there were no businesses around anywhere. I ended up pulling over on the side of the road and spending the night in my car.”
“Damn,” he dead-panned. “I can see why you love your job. Sounds thrilling.”
“My wildest claim was in New Mexico,” I said, forking another bite of eggs. “The homeowner tried to tell me his termite damage was hail damage.”
Clayton’s eyebrows lifted. “Termites?”
“Termites,” I confirmed. “He had photos and everything. Except the ‘hail damage’ had eaten straight through the support beams. He made the mistake of thinking I was a prissy little princess.”
Clayton barked out a laugh, “And you didn’t do anything to lead him to that conclusion?”
“No, of course not!” I said with a grin.
“Were you wearing your sexy heels that day?”
A small chuckle slipped out of my mouth. “No. I only wear those for you.”
“Yup. You’re a devil, Miss Rachel Williams. I’ve got definitive proof. You wield your sexy body like a weapon.” His fingers drifted to my wrist, stroking the sensitive skin on the inside, right over my pulse point.
“Sexy? Really? Not every man is into a woman like me. I don’t think that old farmer was impressed.”
I was a nerd and a plus-sized girlie, which… didn’t seem to bother Clayton. In fact, last night he’d seemed to worship my curves. He’d literally nibbled on my love handles, groaning like just doing that was going to make him come again.
“Who wouldn’t be entranced by you? I couldn’t believe it when I opened my door and saw you standing on my porch. I wanted to bend you over and fuck you on the spot.”
That made me flush. Clayton seemed like he was really into me.
“What’d you do to the poor termite man?” he asked.
“Denied the claim and recommended an exterminator.”
“You’re cold, Rachel. So cold.” He grinned at me, his face wide open in that moment.
I studied him while I talked, searching for traces of the surly man who’d made a snap judgment about me when I first landed on his porch. The one who’d looked at my company logo and decided I was the enemy before I’d even opened my mouth.
That man seemed like a distant memory now.
One thing I knew about Clayton Armstrong was that he was the most loyal person I’d ever met. Loyal to his town and his family, to Mrs. Andretti and all the other neighbors who couldn’t afford to pay him fairly for his work. Loyal to Nuts and Bolts, who followed him around like furry shadows.
If we turned into something real, I had no doubt he’d be just as loyal to me.
He was nothing like my last ex, who couldn’t even be called a real boyfriend. I’d stopped dating after Thomas, but not because he broke my heart. We hadn’t been invested enough for that. But I’d thought to myself, if this is as good as it gets with men, I might just live without them.
Clayton made me reconsider that philosophy.
“Your job’s so different from mine. Tell me what the draw is,” he rumbled.
I knew he was subtly digging at the edges of me, trying to find out how I could have a job he despised.
I thought long and hard before answering him.
“I think I’ve been looking for stability my whole life.
I grew up with one emergency after another.
My family got a utility cut-off notice in the mail every other week, always living right on the edge of disaster.
But I’m starting to see that the lifestyle my job requires might not match what I want from life anymore. Money isn’t everything.”
He sat up straight, his attention riveted, even though he casually asked, “Oh? Have you something else to worship instead?”
“Yeah.” Our eyes met and something silent passed between us. Then everything about him relaxed.
We talked for a few more minutes before he pushed back from the table and stretched. His shirt rode up to reveal a strip of tanned stomach that made my mouth water despite everything we’d already done.
“I need to head over to my buddy Grady’s place,” he said. “I scored a deal on some tile he needs for a fix-up project at his neighbor’s house.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “Let me guess. Another elderly widow in need?”
Clayton shrugged, a sheepish grin tugging at his lips. “Yup.”
“You’re going to go broke helping everyone on this mountain.”
“Probably.” He didn’t seem particularly concerned about it. “You want to come along? Grady’s wife makes a good pie. Afterward, we could go see the town. It’s stopped raining.”
The invitation hung in the air between us, and I wanted to say yes. Wanted to climb into his truck and meet his friends, pretending for a few more hours that this was my life.
That I belonged here with him.
But the claims files were still sitting in my bag, unfinished. And I’d already played hooky for most of the day.
“I should focus on my work. I’ve been putting it off long enough.”
“Yeah. Of course.” A flicker of hurt slid across his face. I saw it shining in his eyes before he looked away, and my chest ached with the weight of everything I couldn’t say.
He was on edge because of what might happen with Mrs. Andretti and all the claims on this mountain. He knew I held people’s futures in my hands, and he was waiting to see what kind of person I really was.
I swallowed hard as he grabbed his keys from the counter.
My heart was telling me to rebel. To lie on the claims and lose my job and move in with this destitute carpenter I’d known for a few days. To choose love over logic for once in my carefully controlled life.
But my logical side was screaming that I didn’t even know what he wanted. I could be another Michelle to him. Someone he enjoyed sharing a bed with but didn’t want more from.
Someone who would eventually leave because he’d never actually asked me to stay.
“I’ll be back in a couple hours,” Clayton rumbled, pausing at the door. He looked back at me with an expression I couldn’t quite read. “Don’t work too hard.”
Then he was gone, and I was alone with my coffee and my doubts and a stack of paperwork that suddenly felt like the most important decision of my life.
The house felt too quiet without him.
I spread Mrs. Andretti’s file across the kitchen table, forcing myself to focus on the photographs and damage assessments instead of the lingering scent of Clayton’s soap on my borrowed flannel.
Nuts and Bolts had gone with him, so there wasn’t even the comfort of their gentle snoring to fill the silence.
My eyes burned as I flipped through page after page, searching for something I might have missed. A loophole that would let me do my job without destroying a sweet old woman’s life.
The unpermitted repairs Clayton had done complicated everything.
If I reported them, her claim would be voided.
And depending on how far back HomeGuard Insurance wanted to dig, Mrs. Andretti might have to pay back thousands she didn’t have from a claim she’d filed several years back.
In addition, Clayton could face legal consequences for working without proper permits.
But if I lied on my paperwork, I was committing fraud. I was stuck in a moral dilemma, just like the one that had nearly cost me my career early on.
I rubbed my temples and reached for my coffee, which had gone cold while I agonized.
There had to be another way to fix this.
I pulled up the HomeGuard policy manual on my laptop, scrolling through sections I’d read a hundred times before. Standard coverage limitations. Exclusions for pre-existing damage. Requirements for licensed contractor work.
And then I saw it.
Section 7.4.2: Emergency Stabilization Coverage.
“Oh my god,” I whispered to the empty kitchen, as relief flooded through me. “I found it.”
My heart started pounding as I read the clause more carefully.
Temporary repairs made to prevent further damage during weather emergencies could be covered under a separate provision, even if they didn’t meet standard permitting requirements. The policyholder just had to demonstrate that the repairs were necessary to protect the structure from immediate harm.
An ice storm tearing open a roof definitely qualified as immediate harm.
If Mrs. Andretti would state to me in writing that his repairs were temporary and not the final repair, I could approve the current hail damage claim based on its own merits and simply document the previous repairs as emergency stabilization.
What she did with the insurance money after that was outside my control.
If this gets audited, I’m done.
Not because what I was doing was illegal. But because I knew my bosses always wanted me to side with the company.
But it was worth the risk.
In fact…
I pulled my phone out and dialed, aware that this simple act was going to change my life completely.
There’d be no going back after this.