Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
LUKE
Have you ever tried to attach a plastic tarp to a slate roof five feet over your head while a stiff, cold Vermont wind whips your hair into your eyes and turns your fingers to icicles?
No?
As I lay sprawled on the roof of said portico, blinking up at the afternoon sun, I wanted very badly to say that I hadn’t tried that either…
and that the wind hadn’t then gotten underneath the tarp, creating an inadvertent parasailing situation, which had then caused me to kick the ladder down to the ground and left me stranded twelve feet above the ground…
But that would be a lie.
“What the freak was I thinking?” I asked the puffy clouds drifting overhead.
The answer was that I hadn’t been thinking. Not even a little.
I’d been hungover and hurt and desperate to get something done—to fix something, even if it was just putting a tarp on the roof—to make myself feel better.
Clearly, I had been wildly successful.
“Nothing says empowerment like being stranded on your own roof,” I muttered, thinking of the phone I’d left safely in the camper to charge.
I peered over the edge of the roof at the giant snowbank where the ladder had landed and pondered whether the snow would break my fall… or just break me.
It was tempting to jump because I really did not want anyone to find me up there—no, seriously, parents, other than the missing child, the drunken bugle blowing…
oh, and that one hilarious time I threw a hissy fit and got stranded on my own portico, I’m the best role model ever!
—but if one of my students heard Mr. Williams had jumped off a roof and decided to try it, I’d never forgive myself.
So, instead, I resigned myself to being stuck until Murray came on sheep duty and decided I’d try to enjoy it.
Positive thinking for the win.
I leaned back against the roof, looked up at the sky, and started humming a tune when a deep, conversational voice from way too close below me yelled up.
“‘Sweet Caroline’? You know, I’m beginning to associate that song with terrible decisions.”
I startled so badly I nearly lost my perch.
“Holy shoot. Webb?” I peered over the edge of the roof again, and sure enough, there were the world’s thickest forearms, folded in judgment over the world’s broadest chest. My heart gave a little squeeze that had nothing to do with my situation and everything to do with the memory of Webb’s stony face back at Panini Jack’s. “What are you doing here?”
“Me?” He snorted. “You’re on your roof without a ladder, Luke.” There was a tremble of something in his voice, and I couldn’t decide if it was anger or amusement.
God, why did all of my worst and most embarrassing moments happen around this guy?
“Am I?” I said airily. “I hadn’t noticed. I’m enjoying the lovely view. So much… snow.”
“And how are you planning to get down?”
I sniffed. “I’ll figure something out. Eventually. Probably.”
“Fair enough. And when you don’t, I’ll have them inscribe that on your tombstone. Here lies Luke Williams, who would have figured something out… probably, eventually,” he said dryly. “Now, move back from the edge so I can prop the ladder back up there.”
“You know, I’m not certain I’m ready to get down, but thanks anyway.” I stuck my chin in the air stubbornly, though I was pretty sure he couldn’t see me. “I might stay up here a while longer. Doing yoga. Meditating. Expanding my consciousness.”
“If you don’t come down, you won’t get to see what I brought you.”
“You brought me something?” I peeped over the edge again, reluctantly curious. “Is it arsenic?”
He snorted. “No. Jeez.”
“Another Rusty Spike?”
“Definitely not,” he said with feeling. He shaded his eyes as he looked up at me. “I wouldn’t do that to anyone ever again.”
“Even though I’m nothing to you?” I shot back.
Dang it. I hadn’t intended to bring up the scene at breakfast, but apparently I was spending all my shame pennies that afternoon.
Webb hesitated. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded earlier. I was blindsided by the scroll thing. I told you last night that I want to be friends, and I mean it. I just… wasn’t a very good one to you earlier.”
Hmph. “I was blindsided, too. And it’s not like I want to be handfasted to you, you know.
I barely knew what handfasting was before this morning.
Heck, I’m still not sure I know. But if I were going to inadvertently betroth myself to a guy, my baseline minimum standard would be to pick a guy who could have the slightest inkling of attraction for me. ”
Webb opened his mouth to speak, hesitated, then shut it again. “Can you come down? I’m getting a crick in my neck talking to you.”
I pondered how much I cared about his neck—sadly, a lot—and whether I was ready to face the further embarrassment of being on ground level with him—nope.
I lay back down against the shingles. “I appreciate your concern, but just leave the ladder propped up here, and I’ll come down later. Also, it must be said, you are terrible at apologizing.”
“I’ll apologize when you come down. And… I brought ice cream.”
I sat up and leaned forward again, eyes narrowed. “Ice cream?”
He held up a white plastic bag that had been lying on a snowbank. “Two pints of Boston Cream Pie.”
“That’s… that’s my favorite,” I said suspiciously.
“No kidding. You’re always buying out Chuck’s entire supply so there’s none left for m—for anyone else who’d like to buy some.”
I rolled my eyes, but I had to admit I was getting cold… and ice cream, even in the dead of winter, was my kryptonite. “Fine, then. Hoist the ladder.”
Webb did more than hoist it—he kicked away the snow on the ground to find a stable place to set it, and when that didn’t work to his satisfaction, he braced the ladder with both hands.
“Come on down,” he directed. “Take it slow, okay?”
Once again, I rolled my eyes. “I know how to descend a ladder. I got up here, didn’t I?” I swung myself carefully off the roof and onto the top rung and quickly clambered down. “I don’t need your… h-help.”
My hand brushed Webb’s arm, and too late, I realized that the way he stood meant that I was essentially climbing backward into his embrace. My knees were on a level with his head, and if I kept going, my ass would be—
I swallowed hard, my face going hot. “I’m almost down. You can let go now.”
“Nah. Go ahead and get all the way to the ground.”
“I’ve got it from here,” I insisted.
“You’re too high,” he shot back. “Three more steps. And quit rocking the ladder.”
“I’m not rocking it! You’re making me nervous. Step away!”
“Get down first!”
“For heaven’s sake, I’m perfectly safe—” I tilted sideways to glare at him, and my foot slipped on the metal rung. I grabbed for the ladder and overbalanced, making the ladder tip precariously… with me on it.
“Jesus fuck, Luke,” Webb cried. He pushed the ladder away with one hand and hauled me back against his muscled chest with the other.
His beard tickled the exposed skin at the back of my neck, and suddenly, I was very aware that he was holding me.
Hugging me. His free hand came around my waist, where my jacket had rucked up, and held me tighter, his bare fingers somehow hot against my skin.
It was not a big deal, but it also was. And an uncomfortable truth I’d been trying not to acknowledge for months bubbled up from my chest.
I was attracted to Webb Sunday.
And not attracted in a “yes, he’s a handsome man of symmetrical features” sort of way, which anyone would have to admit about Webb, but in a “holy son of a beaver, I would like to lay myself out in the snow like a buffet and beg this man to lick me up” way.
Despite all the other mortifying things I’d done in Webb’s presence, this one struck me as extra embarrassing.
He was the father of my student. The straight father of my student.
He’d actively disliked me until the night before, and I wasn’t sure he liked me much better now for all that we were “friends”…
And yet, when his finger accidentally slid a millimeter below the waistband of my jeans to glance over my hip bone—my hip bone, of all places!—my dick twitched.
So much for my baseline minimum standards.
I was so screwed.
Mortified, I squirmed out of his grip and launched myself sideways into the snowbank—note to self, snow wasn’t nearly as soft as it appeared—which would have made for an awkward move under the best of circumstances.
But I’d somehow forgotten that Webb was still clinging to me, trying really hard not to let me fall, and since he was unaware that I’d been trying to get away since I’d failed to use words, I’d pulled him with me… then landed on top of him.
“Hnn—ffff,” he groaned from beneath me.
“Sorry! Oh, shoot. Shoot, shoot, shoot. I’m so sorry!” I rolled off him, heedless of the ice pellets going up the bottom of my jacket and down the back of my jeans, especially when I saw he was lying in the snowdrift with his eyes closed, unmoving.
“Webb?” I ripped my glove off with my teeth and stroked a hand over his cheek. His beard was softer than it looked, which was really kinda…
Mother trucker. That was really not something I should have been noticing at that juncture.
Keep it together, Williams!
“Are you okay? Did you… are you injured? Speak to me.” I pushed Webb flat on his back and knelt in the snow, running my hands over his hard, hard chest and equally hard abdomen.
Focus, Luke.
I couldn’t feel a wound through his jacket, which was good. But when I gripped his wrist, I couldn’t find his pulse, which was bad.
“Oh, God, don’t die!” I glanced toward the house and the camper beyond it, where my phone was. It felt miles away. “Should I do CPR?”
I studied Webb’s lips for a second. They were good lips. Plush and firm. Kissable.
Not the point! Sweet caramel corn, Luke, think!
I moved my hand over his nose to check if he was breathing—
“Planning to finish me off?” Webb asked, clearly teasing.
I glanced up in horror and found his green eyes wide open… and locked on me.
“No!” I snatched my hand back. “I…”