He drew a deep breath as if he was just as unexpectedly shaken as she by the physical contact, then pressed his face into her hair. “Charlotte?”
“Yeah?”
“I like this.”
“Yeah, well, don’t get used to it.” Not that she made any effort at moving away.
And maybe the best part of all was that he didn’t either. Closing her eyes, she let herself absorb the feel of a man’s arms around her. This man. He was big and warm. And he smelled good. Too good. Up against him like this, she found it suddenly far too easy to let her walls down and be vulnerable. Only she never did those two things.
Just then Jane opened the back door. “Hey, Charlotte—” She stopped short at the sight of them hugging. “Ohmigod, so sorry.” She started to go back in, then stopped and grinned. “Carry on!”
And then she was gone.
Charlotte buried her face in Mateo’s neck. Not out of embarrassment. She just wanted one last big sniff of him before forcing herself to pull back.
He was smiling. “Did you just smell me?”
“I believe it’s called breathing.”
Onto her, he smirked, but didn’t press further. Instead, he looked up at the holiday lights, half still on her eaves, the other half dangling from the roof to the ground. “Need help?”
“No. I—” But then she was talking to herself because he was climbing the ladder. “What are you doing?”
“It’s called lending a helping hand.”
“I’ve got it,” she called after him, doing her best not to stare at his butt, but honestly, it was a pretty great one, so she might not have tried as hard as she should. He was wearing work boots, dark jeans, and a black T-shirt with an unbuttoned flannel shirt over it, which flared away from him at the breeze. “Why doesn’t anyone wear a jacket around here? You’re going to turn into a Popsicle.”
“The way I see it, you’ve got two choices,” he said. “You could ask me to come down so you can do this all on your own, or . . .” He was rolling the lights up as he unhooked them from the roof, the strings fully cooperating and coiling in a nice lasso around his shoulder.
“Or?” she asked, curious in spite of herself.
“Or you could accept some neighborly help in the spirit it was intended, which is not to make you feel helpless, but to free up your rare free time for something else.”
Hadn’t she just lectured Jane about accepting help? Yes. Yes, she had. So maybe it was time she took some of her own advice. “Fine.” Her eyes were back on his very fine ass. “But you have to let me do something for you in return.”
He glanced down at her, smiling when she jerked her gaze off his butt. “You have my full attention,” he said.
She rolled her eyes. “I’ll feed you after.”
He grinned. “Sold.”
Chapter 11
Jane was on hour sixteen of what should have been a twelve-hour shift. Her stomach was now eating itself. When she finally got a break between patients, she dashed into the cafeteria, grateful to be at Sierra North’s urgent care today, as she could run to the adjacent hospital and to the cafeteria there. She piled up a tray with food and sat with a grateful sigh. She picked up the can of soda that was her treat for surviving the day so far—briefly wishing that it was something with alcohol—and cracked it open.
It sprayed her in the face. With a gasp, she stilled in disbelief as it dripped off her nose. “That’s what I get for wishing you were alcohol.”
“Here.” A woman handed her a stack of napkins. “And yeah, a martini would be great about now.”