Chapter 8 #3
“Excuse me? I could use some help here. I’m not tall enough to stand, I’m half naked, and according to Kell, hot water makes the oil get in my pores even more. Can you please get me out of here so Kell can put more soap on me?”
“She touched a grandfather vine with bare skin.”
Luke’s alarmed look validated Kell.
“Why would you do that?”
“Just get the blankets!” Kell snapped as he wiggled carefully into his Tyvek suit, knowing it would insulate him a bit.
Luke was, at heart, a practical man. He jogged to his car, pulled some Mylar blankets out of his trunk, and by the time he was back, Kell had fished Rachel out of the water.
Luke helped her with a blanket, while Kell wrapped the other one around his shoulders.
“I need another one for my legs.” Rachel spoke through chattering teeth.
Kell instantly handed his to her, and she took it gratefully. Luke handed Kell a new one.
“A ride to my car would be much appreciated,” she said archly to Luke, giving Kell side glances that made him wonder more and more about that kiss.
“Let me soap your arm and leg one more time,” Kell said to her.
“I can do it,” she protested. “At my trailer.”
“Use as much as you can. And shower in lukewarm water.”
“I need to get to my car first. That is, unless Randy impregnated it,” she muttered, which didn’t make a lick of sense to Kell, but maybe the trauma of what just happened fried her brain.
Luke began to laugh, though.
“Get in my car. Both of you. You need to go home, shower, warm up, and rest.”
Rachel grabbed her bag and started after Luke, who turned, waiting for Kell.
“I’m fine. Cleaning up here. Get her settled.”
A single wave was his brother’s reply.
As they disappeared, Kell surveyed the scene in disbelief. He needed more than a little time to process that kiss.
Almost kiss.
Another one.
Rachel’s red coat was a partially frozen chunk. Her boots lay at tipsy angles on the bank. Something resembling a pant leg floated close enough to the edge that, once he found a long-enough stick, he was able to retrieve her pants.
And then there was his kit. Fortunately, plastic bags were standard equipment for a poison ivy puller, because containment was job one.
He put all her stuff in a big black trash bag, picked up the kit, and started walking up toward the parking lot, a shortcut to where he was parked on the street. By the time he got there, Luke was pulling in, his passenger seat empty.
“Hey, idiot. Let me give you a warm ride to your truck.”
“Nope. Too much exposed equipment.”
“Then let me talk some sense into you.”
“Good luck.”
“Oh, I have zero expectations. Can’t help but try, though.”
“I don’t need a lecture.”
“When are you going to make it official and ask that woman out on a date?”
“When hell freezes over.”
“Given the weather, not impossible.”
“You think I want to date her?”
“I think you want to do way more than just date her.”
“Are you kidding? She represents everything I hate in the world.”
“You cared enough to go caveman on her.”
“I’d do that for anyone.”
“Really? Like to see you try that with Greta. You’d float together in the steamy hot springs as you took her clothes off and soaped her up?”
“Shut up, Luke. You’re the last person who should be talking about anyone else’s love life.”
Luke went stone faced.
Damn.
Kell took in a shaky breath and pulled the emergency blanket tighter around himself. “Sorry. That was a stupid thing to say. I didn’t mean it that way.”
“You’re not wrong.”
Luke’s wife, Amber, had died fifteen months ago, in a freak car accident. She’d been walking on the side of one of the winding roads on the outskirts of town when a driver had a heart attack and died at the wheel. He’d slammed into her.
Luke and his rookie partner had found her while driving on backroads, Luke training the new guy.
Nothing could be done.
Now, his older brother was a single dad to the sweetest six-year-old girl on the planet, though Kell knew he was biased about little Harriet.
“Still wasn't fair of me.”
“Nothing in life is fair, Kell.” Luke looked across the parking lot to where Rachel's car was pulling out, turning right to head back toward Kenny's. “But sometimes, life hands you something you need to explore.”
“I'm not getting entangled with that woman.”
“It's a little too late for that.”
“Absolutely not. I was trying to help her. I warned her not to touch the grandfather vine. If that oil had stayed on her hand, she'd have had burns for sure.”
“And the kiss was helping to heal her, huh?”
“Uh.” That's all Kell could manage.
“Uh is right,” Luke said with a laugh. “Get your butt back to your truck, go home, take a cold shower, and help that poor woman with her designer clothes and her useless boots get her head on straight. She might be here to do something you don’t like, but you owe her an apology.”
“Apology? I just saved her from third degree contact burns!”
“I’m not talking about that.”
Luke gave him a look, and Kell realized he was talking about what he’d said to Boyce.
And Silver. And Colleen. And a handful of other people.
Just enough to get people upset about Lucinda selling to Markstone's.
“I did the right thing. You know places like Markstone's are all about coming in and changing everything.”
“You maligned Rachel’s reputation.”
“Maligned is a strong word.”
“It is. And you did it. You did it because she hurt you, not because she might hurt the town.”
“Come on, Luke! That’s b.s. and you know it.”
“What’s b.s. is the long-suffering hurt you’ve been nursing all these years about her.”
“You think I’m overpersonalizing this?”
“Never heard that word before, but it fits.”
Rachel’s words stung him twice.
“I think you need to go find her tomorrow and have a real talk. The kind adults have when they need to figure something out. The kind Amber and I used to have.”
Pain shot through Kell’s chest at the mention of his late sister-in-law. For Luke to play that card, Kell really must be screwing up.
“And get her stuff dry cleaned. Least you can do.”
With that, Luke rolled up his car window and drove off.
A rustle in the woods made him turn to find Randy the Moose standing there, giant eyeballs on him.
Weak man, those eyeballs said.
Weak man.