Chapter 14 #2
It’s as good a time as any to go sink into the cool water of the pond.
The day has produced a sheen of grime and stale sweat over Grace’s skin, the kind that feels like she could actually peel off if she tried.
It’s itchy and heavy and irritating, and she is in dire need of a good scrub.
She grabs an extra set of clothes, a towel from the pile, and the bucket of toiletries on her way out.
Her back and neck protest with each step she takes, and it’s becoming progressively more difficult to even turn her head.
Now that the adrenaline of the day has worn off, it feels like she’s racing some invisible clock to get ahead of this pain.
She hopes the bath will help—she’ll use the time to massage the aching muscles into submission.
She can’t be incapacitated tomorrow. Not when she’s going to ride Waylon for the first time.
The trees surrounding the pond come into view through ripples of heat, like a beckoning oasis on the precipice of disappearing.
She’s stripped of everything except her bra and panties by the time she reaches the small opening between the trunks, and she can hear the water as it collides gently with the rocks scattered throughout and the foliage that lines the perimeter.
A smile blooms on her lips at the thought of being clean—and in less pain—in the very near future.
With any luck, she’ll sleep like a baby later.
Setting her belongings at the top of a small hill, Grace reaches behind her back to remove her bra, winces at the way her back spasms with the movement.
She’s nearly there, nearly completely naked from the waist up, when someone clears their throat.
Grace yips, jumping an inch off the ground.
Leaving her bra where it is, she turns around slowly to see who has dared interrupt her bathing time.
She should’ve guessed—should’ve known simply by the gravelly sound that escaped his mouth.
Crew stands waist-deep in the middle of the pond.
Shirtless. Possibly bottomless, too, but she can’t see anything below his belly button.
Despite herself, her mouth goes dry at the sight of him.
Obviously, she knows Crew is big; she’s five foot five and her eye level is at his bicep.
She also knows he’s strong; she’s seen him lift a half-full horse trough off the ground without breaking a sweat.
But observing these things from afar while he’s fully clothed and just doing his job is entirely different from standing before him now, with all of his physical…
assets proudly, openly, nakedly on display.
There’s no washboard abs, no overly bronzed skin like so many guys sport on television and in magazines.
His biceps aren’t the size of watermelons, and his trapezius muscles don’t look like an Elizabethan collar around his neck, but even if he doesn’t outwardly check all the boxes for fit, or jacked, it’s clear that he is.
He’s built like a weight lifter—strength billowing out of every inch of his body, and absolutely no regard for eating like a bird to maintain an eight-pack.
It looks like he may be speaking. Grace refocuses on his face, on the present moment, and silently reprimands herself for staring—for admiring. He seems to be waiting for her to answer, but whatever question he asked is lost to the ether of her ogling. “What?”
Crew smiles faintly. “I said I’m nearly done. I just need to grab my things,” he says, nodding toward the pile of his clothes and boots on the opposite side of the pond, “and I’ll be out of your way.”
“Oh,” Grace blurts, suddenly and confusingly against that idea. “You don’t have to leave on my account. I was just going to wash up real quick.” She holds up the end of her ponytail, the strands barely moving for how much syrup still remains tangled within. “Got syrup in my hair.”
He smirks. “That happens when you don’t slow down to actually chew your food.”
Grace begins to yank at the hair tie, wincing as she pulls it out.
“Are you judging me?” Her hair falls down around her shoulders, long—too long—and heavy from the buildup of sweat and sunscreen.
“You’re the one who worked everyone to the bone today,” she grumbles, futilely attempting to run her fingers through the strands.
“I had to make up the calories somehow.”
“Ah,” he says. “I figured we’d get the most taxing thing done early in the season. Have more time for easier stuff.”
“Hm,” Grace chirps. “I don’t hate that strategy.”
“Thank goodness.”
Keeping her eyes pointedly on the water and not on the man mere feet away, Grace walks into the pond, locking her mouth shut as it attempts to release a euphoric groan at the sensation.
Immediately, it feels like she’s begun to shed the first layer of her skin.
More loosens up and floats away as she continues to walk, just to the precipice of where she’ll no longer be able to touch.
She’s neck-deep now, and she spends a good minute or two dunking her head in and out, sighing loudly each time she breaks through to the surface.
To be fully submerged in this pool of cold, refreshing water is a luxury she didn’t realize she needed this badly.
Crew keeps his back to her. He lathers his hair with shampoo, and Grace studies the practiced way his fingers massage his scalp.
For a man so gruff and unfussy, he is surprisingly gentle with himself.
Leaving no crevice of his head untended, then rinsing thoroughly in chunks of dark strands until all of the suds have escaped into the water.
Eventually, Grace makes her way back to the shallower part of the pond.
She grabs the bucket of shampoo, conditioner, and soap that conveniently floats next to her as she begins to bathe.
They’re standing parallel to each other now, and it’s strange and quiet and intimidating to be in such close proximity to him as she runs a soapy washcloth beneath her bra to scrub under her breasts, then her ribs and belly.
She doesn’t look at him, even if she is curious what part of his body he’s attending to now.
The water makes a gentle, conceding noise as it laps against him, as he moves within it, as though it has learned that resisting him is a fool’s errand.
It will mold itself to fit his needs, not the other way around.
After about five diligent minutes of cleaning every inch of her body, she refrains from doing any more, realizing that if she continues, she’ll leave raw, red cloth-burns in her wake.
Next, she has to tackle the mane atop her head.
But as she reaches up to lather it up in shampoo, a seizing pain shoots up her neck and back.
“Fuck,” she hisses, dropping her arms immediately.
She blinks through it, letting it subside with a deep breath.
Her neck has given her issues before, when she decides to become her own worst enemy on nights she sleeps in compromising positions.
But it’s never been this bad. She tries again and is met with the same resistance.
The same flashing ache radiates all the way down to her toes, only letting up when she’s staring straight ahead with her arms at her sides.
In this moment, even with Crew nearby and definitely within earshot, Grace feels the weight of the day tumbling down onto her.
The anxiety of getting drunk the night before and making a fool of herself.
The splitting headache that woke her from a dead sleep.
The charitable bottle of Advil left outside her tent because she would clearly need it with how hammered she was.
The brutal, daylong task of mending the fence.
She’s never felt incapable of handling life on a ranch, but right now, she feels a very specific shade of inadequate.
Too delicate, too easily breakable to be rubbing elbows with these ranch hands.
With this foreman.
Hot, frustrated tears begin to well in her eyes.
Difficult as it is to conceal the sound of her breath shaking in her throat, she tries, because she doesn’t want Crew to hear her, let alone see her falling apart.
Stubborn through and through, Grace reaches upward again, resolving to fight through the pain and get it done.
Tears slip down her cheeks with every inch her arms rise, but, slow and shuddering, she breathes through it.
If she can just get through the shampoo part, that’ll be enough.
She doesn’t need silky-soft conditioned hair—not if it means she may stiffen up irreparably and be permanently stuck in this position.
Lathering the shampoo is tough; she needs the assistance of the water to activate the suds, but leaning back—and then coming back up—with her body in this state would be next to impossible.
She gets angrier with herself with each passing second.
Countless times in her life, Grace has pushed through awful, traumatizing situations and come out on the other side.
She’s seen more terrible things, felt more terrible things in her twenty-five years than most will experience in a lifetime.
And yet somehow, by some cruel trick of the universe—by the whims of a vengeful god who is clearly laughing at her in the heavens—shampooing her wild hair, it seems, is what will ultimately be her undoing.
A few more seconds, she tells herself. Just work it into your hair for a few more seconds, and then you can dunk under the water and stay there as long as you like.
So distracted is she by this plight, the fact that another person is sharing this pond with her becomes a distant memory.
That is, until she hears the whooshing of moving water.
Her eyes widen, red rimmed and still teary, but she sniffles and tries to compose herself as ripples begin to spread out in front of her, and a large presence finds itself at her back.