It’s no wonder it went out of business. The only things I’ve seen to hunt around here are a couple of squirrels and a wayward deer. A fox that Stella’s named Guinevere.
“Are you running a bed and breakfast on the side?”
Evelyn collapses onto the bed with a happy little sigh and I immediately avert my gaze to the trunk full of extra sheets and blankets at the foot of the bed.
“Some days it feels like it,” I mutter. If one of my sisters isn't here crashing in a spare room, it’s Layla, working too late at the bakery and too damn tired to drive herself home. Or Luka, saying he needs guy time and pretending he’s actually going to stay the entire night instead of wandering back to Stella’s before midnight. Or Charlie, Stella’s half-brother, snoring so loud the rafters shake with it.
“Blankets are in the trunk,” I tell her. I grab Vixen from the back of my neck where she’s valiantly trying to climb to the top of my head. Cupid leaps from me to the bed and kneads her little tiny pink paws into the pillow. Evelyn reaches out a hand and smoothes her palm down the kitten’s back. “Spare towels in the bathroom. You’re welcome to anything you find.”
I feel awkward, uncomfortable, kicked out of orbit and floundering to find my way back. I clear my throat twice. “I’ll be up and out early, but help yourself to whatever you need.”
“I won’t be in your space long,” she says quietly. “Jenny is supposed to ring the phone tree tomorrow. Find me a place to stay.”
A lot of good that will do. The phone tree is easily the most useless thing in this town. I ignore the flip in my stomach and the spike of protest that flares in response. I’m confused by the reaction. I have no reason to want her to stay any longer than she needs to, but I’ve always been a bit out of my mind where Evelyn is concerned.
“Alright,” is what I settle on, collecting the cats in my arms and turning to leave. I’m afraid of what I’ll do if I stay in this bedroom a second longer. If I took two steps forward, my knees would knock into hers. I could place my hand next to her hip and lean over her, pin her down to the mattress with my hips. She’s nothing but temptation splayed out on the bed like that, windswept and warm.
I picked this bedroom for a reason. It’s the very furthest from mine on the opposite side of the house.
“Beckett?”
I glance up from where I’ve been trying to untangle Vixen’s claws from my sleeve cuff and focus on Evelyn, sitting in a wedge of moonlight that filters in through the window. She looks tired, her hair beginning to slip from her ponytail, her white button down wrinkled with travel, one of the sleeves half rolled and the other caught at her elbow. She is deliciously unraveled, a little blurred around the edges, and I only want to mess her up a little bit more.
She gazes up at me, and I shove the urge away.
“Thank you,” she says, voice whisper soft.
I breathe in deep through my nose.
“It’s no problem.”
It won’t be. She’ll stay here, she’ll find what she needs, and she’ll be on her way. It’ll be fine.
I’ll be fine.
CHAPTER SIX
BECKETT
Dawn brings with it a pounding headache and a storm cloud of foreboding. I take back what I said last night.
It is a problem.
I am not fine.
I didn’t sleep for shit. I jolted awake at every floorboard creak, every scratch of a tree branch against the window, every single sound the house made as it settled around me. When I finally did drift to sleep, it was to dreams of Evelyn standing in front of that window in the living room, the moonlight on her bare skin, those dimples at the base of her spine tempting me. I dreamt of my hands smoothing around her hips and my lips trailing up the column of her neck.
I wake up frustrated, desire pounding through my bloodstream. I groan and drag myself out of bed and force myself into the coldest shower I can manage. The last thing Evelyn needs is me thinking about her like that while she’s working through something.
I curse as I pull on my jeans. I somehow manage to stub my toe on the edge of the dresser and the table in the hallway. I burn my hand on the coffee pot and fall down the bottom two porch steps when I’m leaving the house.
The woman has made a damn mess of me.
She said this trip wasn’t planned and I have no idea what that means in terms of how long she’s staying, or what she’s planning on doing now that she’s here. She said something about—something about remembering how to be happy, her lips turned down at the corners, her eyes somewhere on the ground by our boots. It was like she was embarrassed about it, her voice catching in the wind and drifting away from the both of us.
Has she not been happy? It’s hard to imagine Evelyn feeling anything other than absolute joy. Filled to the brim with—fucking sunshine and butterflies. The last time she was here, she had a permanent grin on her face, her laugh loud and bright as it slipped through the trees. But that’s the thing about happiness, I guess. You can show whatever you want to the world and not feel a lick of it inside yourself.
“But I’m not new anymore.”
“You’ve been working here for two days.”
Voices carry around the edge of the barn, a low grumble in response before a heavy sigh of exasperation. I turn the corner just as Jeremy pushes a hand through his hair, hip cocked against the side of the tractor. I’m glad to see he’s wearing boots today, even if they look like something out of a magazine. “Beckett said the newbie shovels rocks. I’m not the newbie anymore.”
“One day of farm work doesn’t remove the newbie title.” I clap him on the shoulder and he jumps about ten feet in the air. “You’re the newbie until someone else comes along.” I hand him the shovel and he groans. “Not much left to do today.”
Barney chuckles and runs both hands over his balding head. “Plenty left to do today. Young hotshot over here can’t shovel for shit.”
“These arms were made for love, baby. Not labor.”
Barney and I exchange a look. I bite the inside of my cheek so hard it almost bleeds.
“Good to know.” I grab another one of the shovels and nod towards the fields. “C’mon. I’ll help you.”
A little mindless physical work will be good for me. The tractor engine kicks up and I catch a flash of white bounding across the field towards us as Prancer settles into her spot on the tractor, a thinly veiled look of disgust shot in my direction. She never did come to her usual spot on my bed last night, probably busy carving death threats into my couch upholstery for daring to bring another woman into her home.
Barney rubs her head and we’re off. The work is slow moving, especially with Jeremy shoveling at the rate of a small baby bird, his arms limp at his sides and his grip all wrong. I roll my eyes and lose myself in the work, my mind drifting with each repetitive movement.
Push. Dig. Dump. Did she sleep last night? Push. Dig. Dump. Did I wake her this morning when I fumbled my coffee mug across the kitchen floor? Push. Dig. Dump. How long is she staying? Push. Dig. Dump. Why isn’t she happy? Push. Dip. Dump. How can I help?
Push. Dip. Dump.
Does she want me to help?
Harper calls it my hero complex. She says I fix other people’s problems to avoid my own and she’s probably right about that. I don’t like to see anyone struggle.