Chapter 34 - Summer
THIRTY-FOUR
SUMMER
Alec snaps into action. As he steps out of the shower, I get a brief, full-frontal view of his naked body, and…
Good God. Thick thighs. A broad, muscled chest dusted in a smattering of black hair. And he’s hung like a goddamn horse. His erection is hard and flushed, jutting proudly from the curls of dark hair. I spin away as he grabs a towel from the rack.
“Bring her to the kitchen,” he orders. “I need to see her under the light.”
I do as he says, fleeing.
Oh my God. He was wanking. I walked in on him jacking off. I should have knocked, but I was so panicked, I didn’t even register the sound of the shower.
I can feel Crumpet, cold and shivering against my skin. “It’s gonna be okay,” I murmur to her. “Alec’s going to come and help you. You’ll be totally fine.”
The door to Alec’s bedroom flies open, and he stalks into the kitchen to join me. He’s only half dressed. A pair of joggers hang low on his hips, and his black hair is still wet. His cheeks are flushed as he heads to a cabinet under the sink and pulls out a large first aid kit.
“What happened?” he demands. “Take her out. I need to see her.”
My fingers fumble on the zip of my coat. “I was just in the barn, and she was like this. I don’t know what’s wrong with her.” My hands are too cold to unzip my jacket.
Alec’s large hand closes over mine, efficiently sliding down my zip. He stares at the bulge in my shirt.
I carefully unpeel Crumpet from inside my cleavage. “Is it okay that I put her in my boobs?” I ask frantically. “It’s my warmest place!”
“That is—” He looks slightly distracted. “That’s fine.”
“Okay. Phew.”
Alec takes her off me, studying her under the light. He turns her around, manipulates her limbs, slips a finger inside her mouth.
“Well?” I demand impatiently.
“She’s hypothermic,” he says simply. “The wound is superficial. Viola probably kicked her.”
“What?”
“We need to warm her up. We have heaters in storage, but—” He swears. “There’s no time.” He carries her into the lounge. “Sit.” He nods at the rug in front of the fire. “Rub her body to get her blood flowing. I’ll stoke the fire.”
I do as he says, sitting and rubbing Crumpet’s cool little body as he opens the grates and starts shoving logs inside. The fire crackles, heat flushing the side of my face. “Why would Viola have kicked her?!”
“She’s rejected her,” he says, adding another log. “The lamb will have tried to feed, and Viola got aggressive.”
“That’s so sad.”
“She senses Crumpet is weak, so she’s decided to focus on the two with the strongest chance of surviving.
” He slams the grate shut. “I should have seen this coming. God knows how long she’s been in the cold.
She needs her mother’s body heat to live.
If she survives the night, we’ll have to keep her in the house. ”
“If?”
“There’s a decent chance she won’t,” he says grimly. “She’s half gone.”
Fear flushes through me. I cast around. “What else can we do?”
“Ideally, we’d have some warm air on her, but I don’t want to leave her to get a heater.”
I think. “What about a hairdryer? Would that work?”
“It would, but I don’t have one.”
“I do! Hang on.” I pass her over, jump to my feet, and stumble back to the guest room. I yank open my suitcase, sorting through hair irons and rollers until I find my lilac hairdryer. I run back to the lounge. “Do you think we should use the diffuser?”
“What?”
I yank the attachment off. “Sorry, I’m panicking.
It helps define your curls. If I just used my hairdryer straight up, I’d turn into a puffball.
” I plug the hairdryer into the wall. “When you’re better, I’ll do my full curly girl routine on you,” I tell Crumpet.
“You’ll look amazing. Everyone else will be jealous of you.
So stop dying. Please, please, please.” I can feel Alec looking at me as I turn on the hairdryer and hold it a few inches from Crumpet’s back. “Like this?”
Alec nods, and I settle in for the most important blow-dry of my life.
For the next couple of minutes, we both work on her, me drying her wool as Alec rubs her limbs. I can feel my blood pressure rising with every second passing. It’s not working. She’s not moving. She can’t die like this.
Alec’s face is darkening. “Summer,” he says quietly. “Maybe you don’t want to be here for this.”
“No, I’m helping.” I start rubbing her little butt as I frantically dry her.
Finally, after what feels like forever, she stirs in Alec’s arms, bleating weakly. “There you are,” he tells her softly. “Come back to us, okay?”
Slowly, her movements become less sluggish, and her eyes open more. She makes a few tiny squeaks.
Then she bounces out of Alec’s arms, kicking me in the boob.
“Ow,” I say, cuddling her. “Oh my God. You’re alive. Thank God.”
Alec’s clearly just as relieved as I am. “Good girl,” he rumbles, stroking Crumpet’s cheek. “You just decided you wanted to scare us, eh?” He straightens. “I’m going to make her a bottle. She needs sugar. You can bring her to the sofa.”
I nod, carrying a wriggly Crumpet to the couch as she bleats happily.
I feel like my heart has restarted. Alec comes back a minute later with a bottle.
He sits next to me, tucks her efficiently into the crook of his elbow, and starts to feed her.
She immediately latches on and begins glugging the milk down.
Now that the danger has passed, I can’t help but watch as he holds her to his bare chest. The firelight throws golden light over the hard slabs of his abs.
My cheeks burn. “I’m sorry. For running in on you like that. It was dramatic.”
“Why would you apologise?” he murmurs, not looking up. “She would have died if you hadn’t.”
He resettles his weight, and the side of his strong thigh brushes against mine. I feel heat flutter in me.
Sue me. A hot shirtless man is feeding a baby lamb next to me.
I hug a cushion. “So…you always do this? Drop everything whenever one of them is sick? You have, like, hundreds of sheep, right? I guess it’s part of farming that some of them die.” Maybe it’s not a burst-into-the-shower kind of emergency whenever one is ill.
“It is part of farming,” he agrees. “But it’s a reducible risk.
When my father ran Lochview, we lost five percent of the flock annually.
He said the time was better spent doing other things than constantly checking in on the livestock.
” His mouth presses into a line. “I disagreed. As a child, I used to get up early before school to check on all the animals myself.”
I smile slightly. “That’s kind.”
“It’s just what’s right. Father didn’t like it though. One day, he found me nursing a hypothermic lamb after dark. He made me put her down.” His massive finger strokes Crumpet’s tiny cheek. “There now, sweetheart,” he rumbles. “Be good and eat.”
My mouth falls open. “He made you put her down? Are you serious?”
“It was his favourite job to give me,” he says drily. “Euthanasia. Said I needed to toughen up. And he’d rather get rid of an animal than pay a vet bill. We have…different ethoses.”
I watch as Crumpet pulls away, and he gently guides her face back to the bottle. “What’s your ethos?” I ask.
He looks up at me, eyes sombre behind his glasses. “They’re mine,” he says simply. “Every animal on this farm is mine. And when something is yours, you do everything in your power to take care of it. That’s your responsibility.”
My stomach quivers. “Even if she needs all of this extra attention?”
“Aye. She’s a creature, not a machine. Creatures have needs. If you’re not willing to give them what they need, you don’t deserve to have them.”
“Oh,” I breathe. As he turns his attention back to Crumpet, Fraser’s voice echoes in my ears.
He feels like he has to take care of everyone.
I wonder what it’s like to be taken care of by Alec. I’m so used to taking care of myself. Ever since I was a kid, I tried to look after myself as much as I could, so I didn’t bother my mum.
I bet it’s nice being taken care of by someone like Alec. I bet you never have to worry.
Alec looks up at me suddenly, his gaze cutting into me like a chill. “How are you?” he asks.
“Me? Oh, I’m fine.” I wriggle uncomfortably. “I’m sorry about crying on you last night.”
He doesn’t respond. A curl of hair has fallen over his forehead, and I get the weirdest itch to push it back.
“Er. Anyway, I spoke to my mum, and it turns out I’m, like, negatively impacting her business, so I’m going to stop posting for a bit. If you want, I can leave Lochview too.”
He flinches, knocking the bottle tip out of Crumpet’s mouth. She bleats, annoyed, and he makes a soothing noise that makes heat pool in me. I’m awful. “Leave? Didn’t Fraser tell you that you could stay longer?”
“He asked me to stay until the end of the month. I just know that you don’t really like me.
I’ve caused a lot of trouble for you. With the boxes, and the fire alarm, and, er, walking in on you in the shower…
” His entire body tenses, and I curse myself.
“And the whole Fraser and Cameron thing,” I finish.
“Which I assume you know about, because the soundproofing on this place is super bad. I just…feel like all I’ve done is cause you stress. ”
“You said that yesterday, as well,” he says softly. “That I don’t like you.” His face darkens. “You said that I hate you.”
“Oh. Well, don’t you?”
“No. I don’t hate you.”
“Sure, sure. It’s just, I’m embarrassed that my drama is affecting everyone else. So if you do want me to go—”
“Summer,” he repeats firmly. “I don’t hate you. If I’ve given you that impression, I’m sorry. You’re dealing with enough hatred.”
I don’t know what to say.
“I don’t hate you,” he repeats. “I find you…distracting.”
“Right,” I croak. “Because I’m a massive mess.”
Alec closes his eyes briefly. “Okay,” he says, as if to himself. “Okay.” He looks down at Crumpet, who’s finished her bottle and started chewing on his joggers. “One moment, please,” he says, standing.
I watch as he carries Crumpet to the corner of the room.
Holding her with one arm, he opens a cupboard and pulls out what looks like a baby’s playpen.
I guess this isn’t the first time they’ve nursed sheep inside the farmhouse.
He settles her carefully inside and rejoins me on the sofa.
This time, he sits closer to me, his knee pressing against mine.
“Summer,” he says firmly. “You’re staying on the farm. For the next three weeks, you’re staying.”
“That’s very kind of you, but—”
“No, it’s not,” he says. “I’m not being kind. I’m keeping you here because I don’t want you to leave.” A log shifts in the fireplace.
I shiver. The air between us feels loaded. “What? Why?”
He wipes a hand over his face. “I haven’t thought about women at all since my father died,” he says slowly.
“But since you’ve been here, I can’t get my head on straight.
You’re here. Every day. All the time. You’re in my house.
You’re in my fields. You’re drinking coffee at my table and sleeping with my friends and wearing these…
” His eyes dip down to my legs. “These skirts. I can’t get away from you. ”
Okay, ow. “Like I said, I can get out of your hair—”
He cuts me off. “And I can’t focus,” he says emphatically. “Because I want you so badly.”
My stomach crunches. “What?”
The firelight shimmers over the planes of his face.
“Two nights ago, I had to listen to two of my best friends making you come through the wall. I heard everything.” His expression gets hazy.
“I don’t even know what they were doing to make you…
” His Adam’s apple bobs. His voice roughens.
“Some of the sounds you were making,” he finishes.
I’m going to hyperventilate. Where has all the air in the room gone?
“So you see,” he says slowly, “I don’t want you to go home. I want to keep you here. In my house. On my land. And I know you’re with Fraser and Cameron. I know I’m probably going to go to hell for it, but, God—” His breath catches in his throat. “God,” he repeats.
I’m spellbound. “But what?” I whisper.
His eyes flash to mine. “Please,” he says hoarsely. “Let me kiss you.”