She looked puzzled. “I just took a break from power washing—”
“Your driveway, Mags. It looks like someone turned it into a slalom. And why are you limping?”
“I stubbed my toe. Some kids showed up last night, not realizing the place was occupied, and I tiptoed around the side to give them a scare. Ended up tiptoeing right into a rock.”
“You best back that story up and start from the beginning.”
When she merely looked up at him, annoyed, he bared his teeth. “Now, Nichols.”
He heard Jim hoot from somewhere inside, “She got him good and riled!”
“Stay out of this, Coach,” Silas snapped.
“Leave Jim alone,” Maggie shot back, daggers in her eyes. “Who do you think you are, showing up here and demanding to know shit that’s none of your business?”
He leaned in dangerously close. “You’re my business, Maggie. Whether you like it or not. Accept it or not. That kiss last night makes you my business.”
“Please,” she scoffed. “You don’t get to go all Idaho cowboy just because we locked lips.”
“Darlin’， welcome to the Wild West.”
“Oh, I want to slap the crap out of you right now,” she hissed.
“I can’t decide if I want to shake some sense into you or kiss the hell out of you.”
“Maggie? I’m running into town. You want some ice for your foot?” asked Jim’s guy, Rudy, a recent tech school graduate with a baby on the way.
“No, thanks, Rudy,” she said without breaking eye contact with Silas.
“Really should get that looked at.” Jim added his two cents, appearing behind Rudy. “Could be broken.”
Maggie rolled her eyes and blew out a breath. “It’s a toe, gentlemen. Not a femur. Can we all get back to work now?”
“Get her some ice,” Silas told Rudy. “There’s a ten spot in my cup holder.”
“Ice is on me,” Rudy said proudly. “Maggie bought us doughnuts this morning since she couldn’t sleep from all the excitement last night.”
“Tattletale,” Maggie muttered under her breath as Rudy trotted past them. “Hey!” She pulled against his grip when Silas started dragging her toward the steps. “Hands off!”
He shoved her down on the top step. Kevin, unaware of any betrayal, plopped down next to her and begged shamelessly for belly rubs.
“Which foot?” Silas snapped.
The look she shot him could have peeled bark from trees. But one thing Maggie didn’t know about him—when his dormant ire rose, shit burned down.
Finally, she acquiesced and pointed to her left foot and then yelped when he attacked her boot. He felt his nostrils flare at the effort it took to steady his hands. Easing the boot off her foot, he worked her sock free.
“Fuck me, Mags,” he said when her bruised and swollen big toe came into view.
“That’s definitely not happening now, buddy,” she snapped, sounding good and surly.
Gently, he held her ankle in one hand and traced the tendons and bones in the foot with his other.
“Wiggle it,” he ordered.
She did, and he heard her sharp intake of breath. He rested her foot on his knee and dug his phone out of the pocket of his shorts.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
“Hey, Morris,” he said into the phone when his stepfather answered.
“Silas! What brings you to my ear on this fine Saturday morning?”
“Have time to make a house call? I’ve got a mule-headed woman with a potentially broken big toe.” He closed his fingers around the arch of her foot when she tried to pull away from him.
“I don’t need medical attention. It’s a fucking toe,” she argued in a low voice.
“Shut up,” he told her, covering the phone.
“I’ve got nothing but time, especially since this will get me out of helping your mom reorganize the pantry,” Morris announced.
“The woman loves her alphabetized canned goods. I appreciate it.” He looked at Maggie. “I’m up at the Old Campbell Place. Oh, and don’t bring any lollipops. The patient doesn’t deserve any.”
Maggie flipped him the bird as he hung up.
“This high-handed, ‘I’m in charge’ bullshit does not fly with me,” she announced.
“You either tell me what happened or I go inside and get Jim to tell me, since you had no problem talking to him. And if you make me hear this secondhand, I’ll be very, very pissed off.”