15. Summer #2
“I can do it,” I protest, but he grabs my hand, then wipes the blood away, drying the cut with his shirt. He wraps the bandage around my finger, being careful around the cut, before smoothing it down with his thumb.
With the two of us alone in the truck, I am extremely aware of his fingers on mine and the way it’s setting off little fireworks in my body.
His eyes drop to my lips, and for one moment, the world grinds to a halt.
He leans toward me slightly, like what he really wants is a little sample.
Maybe it’s the excitement of the storm or the way the windows are fogging up from our breath.
It lasts only a second, until my door flies open, and Wyatt is standing on the other side. “Hey, guys, I was just running in when—”
Jaxon snaps back as I pull my hand away so fast I knock my towel off.
Wyatt pauses as his eyes drop to where our hands used to be. “I, uh, wondered if everything was okay?”
“Fine,” we both say at the same time. A flush of heat pricks my neck.
Wyatt’s mouth curves a little. “Okay?”
“I just…cut my finger.” I lift my hand, showing him the bandage as proof.
“Right.” Wyatt nods, like he’s trying to figure out what we’re doing. “Well. I’m glad Jaxon could be so helpful. Guess I’ll leave you to it.”
He shuts the door. Through the rain-blurred window, I watch him jog toward the house.
Jaxon turns to face the wheel, then clears his throat. “Do you want me to drop you at the old barn?”
“Please.” I stare out the passenger window before picking up the towel off the floor. “And I’d prefer you didn’t say anything to Wyatt about this.”
“I wasn’t going to.” He inches forward, squinting to see the farm lane through the rain. “I’d bet money he’s going to tell Grady, though.”
Great. Now everyone is going to be wondering why we were holding hands in Jaxon’s truck.
And it was nothing, really. He just helped me with a bandage. Even if my heart was racing.
He pulls up to the barn doors and puts the truck in park, looking over at me. “Stay there.”
Then he runs around to my side and holds open my door. We run for it, both of us breathing hard by the time we duck inside the door. I turn around and notice that Jaxon is completely drenched. Hair, shirt, even his eyelashes are wet. He looks—I swallow—really good.
I hand him the towel from the truck before I let my thoughts go wild. He drags it over his face, then takes off his hat and threads his fingers through his hair.
I look around at my beautiful, beloved barn, which currently looks about as much like a wedding venue as an abandoned building.
I drag a finger over a dusty windowsill.
It comes back black. “I was hoping to clean up the place, hang some lights today, maybe add a bouquet or two. Just enough to set the scene.”
“Okay,” he says, throwing the towel aside. “Tell me how to help.”
I frown. “I thought you had things to do?”
“I’d planned to fix some fence rail. But Mother Nature threw those plans out the window.”
“You don’t want to work on more spreadsheets?”
He grimaces. “I’d rather muck a stall.”
I survey the mess. The barn is mostly empty except for my flower supplies and some old wood.
“You can start with the leftover lumber stacked against the wall.” He picks up a board while I take a broom and start on the floor.
The heat all week has been unrelenting, so the cooler temperature is a welcome change now that the storm has rolled through.
I’m sweeping near the back corner when I bump a stray board and find a hole in the barn floor big enough to put my fist through.
“What’s this?” I say to Jaxon.
He comes over and pokes around the edges. “Hole big enough for a groundhog.”
I shake my head. “We can’t have wildlife in here. If a groundhog runs across the aisle on someone’s wedding day, the reviews alone would ruin our reputation.”
“So you’re not afraid of a stallion,” he says, “but you draw the line at a groundhog.”
“Stallions are predictable. Groundhogs have no respect for anyone.”
A smile ghosts his lips, before he pulls the board aside. “Rhett was terrified of them as a kid.”
“Really?”
“Stepped on a dead baby groundhog our dog dropped on the porch as a gift. Didn’t get over that for months.”
“That’s truly awful,” I say, covering my laugh. “At least you shared some trauma bonding.”
“I’m not sure I’d call it bonding.” Jaxon stands and picks up a broken piece of wood, then tosses it out the open barn door into the rain.
“Does it bother you—that Rhett’s still playing?” I ask, changing the subject.
He keeps working, not answering right away. “I’ve been a hockey player since I was six years old. I didn’t realize how much a part of my identity it was until I had to let it go.” He throws more wood out the door. “Especially when people still confuse me with my brother in the NHL.”
I stop sweeping and lean on the broom. I understand, better than most, what it’s like to carry something I didn’t choose. I don’t think I’ll ever be ready for Mom’s blank face when she sees me, for the gap in her eyes where recognition used to live.
“That’s the hardest part,” I say. “Letting go of what we’d keep if we had the choice.”
His mouth opens like he’s about to say something, but my phone buzzes in my pocket. I stare at the screen. “It’s the vet. I should take this.”
I walk to the far end of the barn to take the call, explaining a foal situation while Jaxon sweeps, giving me space. When I turn back around, he’s already swept the section I left.
“The vet is coming in thirty minutes to meet me in the foal barn,” I tell him.
I look around at everything still left to do—cleaning every nook, finding a table, making a bouquet, hanging the lights—and feel the familiar squeeze of too much to do with not enough time.
“I don’t know how I’ll get all this done tonight,” I say with a sigh. We’ve scheduled the proposal for the Chance brothers tomorrow.
“Go take care of the foal,” he says. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Jaxon, you don’t have to…”
“You’ve got a vet call.” He picks up another board. “And I can’t fix the fence in the rain anyway.”
I head for the door, then stop, searching for the right words to thank him. But he’d probably just blow it off anyway, so I leave without saying anything.
I don’t make it back that evening. The vet visit takes longer than expected, then one of the mares needs looking after, and by the time I think about cleaning up the old barn, I’m so tired I can barely see straight.
I send Jaxon a text that says, I’m sorry, couldn’t get back. I’ll be there early tomorrow.
He sends back a single thumbs-up emoji.
I fall asleep at my kitchen table with the proposal open in front of me on the computer.
When I push open the barn door the next morning, I’m already panicking at how I’ll get everything done in time.
I flip on the lights and stop in my tracks. String lights circle the rafters, glowing softly. The floor is swept clean, the windows sparkling, all the lumber gone. Even the groundhog hole has been patched. All of it cleared out, leaving a wide-open space of possibility.
It looks just like the wedding barn of my dreams.
In the center of the barn is a table with a mason jar filled with a small bouquet of wildflowers. The same flowers I was cutting when the storm came through.