True North

by Amy Knupp

  “You should’ve answered Mason’s texts or calls this morning.”

  “My phone is busted. Shattered it at the gym.”

  Cole swore to himself. “If you were better at showing up when you say you will, he wouldn’t assume you’d blow it off.”

  “You should talk,” Drake said.

  Cole halted as they came to an intersection in the hall. He leaned his upper body against the wall, the doorway to their mom’s room in his line of sight. “If I say I’ll be somewhere, I’ll be there.” He was smart enough most times to not promise much, but if he did, he followed through. Drake, on the other hand, had a rep for overpromising.

  Drake took up a similar position on the opposite wall and shook his head. “This is Mom. I wouldn’t skip out.”

  At the sudden rawness that rang through his brother’s voice, Cole backed off. “You know Mason,” he said with a shrug.

  “Directing a multimillion-dollar circus isn’t enough. He’s got to micromanage the family as well.”

  “Hit the nail on the head,” Cole said. “He was about to flip his shit by the time he called me.”

  Drake smirked and shook his head. “It must suck to be him.”

  “It must,” Cole said, cracking half a grin himself. Their high-strung oldest brother had always been something they could agree on.

  “Mom seems more like herself today,” Drake said.

  “She gave me the fighting doesn’t solve anything lecture, so yeah.”

  Drake laughed. “Maybe one day you’ll take that one to heart.”

  Cole scoffed. “You should talk.” He checked the time on his watch, saw it was crawling toward nine a.m. “You need to go buy a new phone?”

  “As soon as I’m done here,” Drake said. “I don’t have my next shift at the gym until this afternoon.”

  Cole glanced toward their mom’s room again, where the nurse still hadn’t come back out. “Go ahead. I got this.”

  “Don’t you have to get to work?”

  “I took the day off. You might as well take advantage of it.” Cole straightened, seeing the nurse emerge from their mom’s room.

  Drake’s gaze followed his. “You sure? I could stand to get some food too.”

  “Goes without saying,” Cole said. “I’m here. If I didn’t want to stay, I’d say so.”

  Drake nodded. “I’ll slip in and tell Mom bye, come back tonight between the gym and my date. Thanks, man,” Drake said as they started back down the hall toward her room. “I owe you one.”

  Cole didn’t point out that Drake was already doing him a favor. While their mom was unquestionably the priority, it sure as shit didn’t suck to have a legit reason to avoid Sierra for the day.

  Chapter Twelve

  It was almost quitting time Friday afternoon, and the crew was finishing up for the week at the Draper home, cleaning the site for the weekend, loading up what equipment they wouldn’t need next week. Sierra was pondering important questions as she secured her laptop and some papers in her truck: Red or white wine? Happy hour solo in her apartment or out at the bars with Hayden?

  One way or another, there would be a happy hour.

  It’d been a hell of a week, between the challenges of a hundred-year-old house with an attitude, getting her ducks in a row on the Eldridge app as she waited for Cole’s input, and, well, personal stuff. Personal Cole stuff. Stuff she shouldn’t let bother her, but dammit, it was bothering her.

  Since Monday morning, when she’d swan-dived over the line and kissed Cole in her office, he’d managed to avoid spending any private time with her. After his day off on Tuesday, which she fully understood and supported, he’d made a painful point of not starting or ending the day at the Dunn & Lowell offices, as he normally did several times a week, and he showed up at the Draper site as close to starting time as he could get without being late, giving them zero opportunity to discuss anything but the day’s work. Which was his objective, obviously.

  She didn’t need to hash out the kiss or their feelings, but she’d thought they were past the stiff, impersonal professionalism stage. Long past it. Clearly, kissing him had been a mistake. Message received. But what had happened to the companionship, the camaraderie they’d built up over, oh, either three years or, at the very least, last weekend?

  Red wine it was. She needed the mellow relaxation…plus the ability to stop picking apart every interaction—or lack thereof—with Cole. Though it was getting chilly as the sun lowered in the sky, maybe she’d see if Hayden was up for red wine on the balcony with a warm blanket or two this evening.

  Sierra shut the door on her truck, intent on one last trip inside to make sure the guys had cleaned their work area to her standards. As she made her way past the back end of the truck, toward the house, and tried to step up on the curb, she somehow misjudged and stepped wrong and—

  Shit!

  She went down in excruciating pain, biting down on a stream of swear words as her ankle bent in ways it wasn’t meant to. Tears burned in her eyes as she sat there at the side of the street, trying to figure out what had happened, but then she couldn’t think around the pain. It radiated out from her ankle, up her leg, down into her foot. She sat there frozen, dumbfounded, the breath squeezed out of her by the pain.

  As she gradually came out of her stupor, her first thought was to get up before someone discovered her. She got her left foot under her and tried to baby her right foot into following suit but— No. Hell no.

  Shit, this was bad.

  With a slow, shaky inhale, she tried to maneuver to the curb, with the intent of pulling herself up to it to evaluate the situation. With some effort and a shit ton of determination, she made it and sat there on the concrete curb, panting.

  “Sierra?”

  She closed her eyes at the sound of Lee Barrett’s voice behind her, several dozen feet away. Her instinct was to brush off her injury and stand up to face her most recent hire, but the truth was, she was barely managing to get oxygen in and out of her lungs over the throbbing pain.

  “Sierra!” he called again, concern creeping into his voice, and she heard his steps quickening to a jog across the grassy yard behind her. “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” she managed. “Sort of. I twisted my ankle.”

  “Let me help you up,” he said kindly.

  As much as she was wired to do it herself, she couldn’t deny she needed a hand, so she let him grip her arm as she got her left foot solidly under her again and tried to get her right one in position just for balance if not for support. Right foot was having none of it though, and she swore before she could stop herself, sitting back on the curb hard.

  “That’s not good,” Lee said as Sierra squeezed her eyes shut against tears again.

  “Hey.” Cole approached from behind, and she could tell he, too, was moving faster than a walk, and she hated that she was causing a scene. “What’s going on?”

  “She hurt her ankle,” Lee said since she couldn’t get her voice to work, mainly because she was fighting so hard not to cry like a damn girl. “It seems pretty bad. I was just trying to help her stand.”

  “She shouldn’t stand,” Cole said, aggravation in his voice. “I’ve got this. You go close up after the others.”

  “You sure? I can—”

  “Go,” Cole barked out. He came around to the front of Sierra, studying her face instead of her ankle, and she reluctantly met his gaze, trying to hide how much she hurt.

  “I think it’s just a sprain. I somehow missed the curb—” Emotion crackled through her voice and she bit down on it, shook her head in sheer frustration with herself.

  “It’s okay,” Cole said in a quiet, gentle voice. “Let’s get a look. I’m going to take your boot off, okay?”

  She nodded as she blew out another shaky breath. “I hate this.”

  He let out a low sort-of laugh, but instead of irritating her, it soothed with its understanding. “Most people don’t like pain too much.”

  Oh, she hated the pai
n, but even more, she hated being laid out, useless, weakened.

  Her entire lower leg pulsed with pain as Cole rolled up her loose cargo pants leg and unlaced her work boot. When he eased it off, she bit down on a whimper. She shut her eyes against the pain, and the next thing she knew, Cole was brushing his finger across her cheek, intercepting a tear she hadn’t realized had spilled over. Mainly because she was trying so hard not to scream.

  “I’m going to take you to the ER,” he said. “It’s already swelling up like a balloon.”

  “No ER. It’s not broken, just sprained.” All she wanted was home, an ice pack, and that bottle of wine.

  “How do you know?”

  “There was no snap,” she said stubbornly.

  He put his hand just above her knee on her uninjured leg, and she couldn’t help noticing the intimate touch, his first since Monday. It almost made up for the amused look on his face. “That means nothing, and you know it.”

  She shook her head adamantly. “I’m not going to the ER. It’s Friday night and it’d take forever. Besides,” she said, eyeing her ankle as she gingerly eased her sock down, “it’s too swollen for them to tell anything. They’d make me come back on Monday for an X-ray.” At least she thought she remembered something like that happening to her brother years ago.

  Cole stared at her fat ankle, then trailed a finger halfway down her bare shin, his touch featherlight, pulling away before he got to the injured area. All she could think was, Thank God I shaved this morning.

  “You’re probably right,” he said. His gaze moved to something behind her, and she turned to see the rest of her crew, all four of them, rounding the corner of the house, carrying their belongings, talking and joking among themselves with a light, Friday-afternoon air about them.

  “Oh,” Carlos said when they were a few feet away. He was young, only twenty-six, but he’d been working for her for almost seven years. “That doesn’t look good.”

  “Better have that checked out,” Troy, Dunn & Lowell’s master plumber, said.

  “See?” Cole said.

  “I will,” Sierra answered. “Monday.” Maybe. “Did you guys get everything cleaned up for the weekend?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Demetrius said. “Dust vacuumed up, tools put away.”

  “Thank you. Have a good weekend.” Sierra threw a casual wave over her shoulder to all of them, more than ready for them to move on and stop gawking at her ankle, which, admittedly, was getting uglier by the minute.

  “You have a way to get home?” Carlos said. “’Cause I don’t think you’re driving.”

  “I’ll get her home,” Cole said, standing and emanating his silent but unmistakable take-charge manner—and maybe a hint of possessiveness? Was she imagining that? “See you guys on Monday.”

  Her crew got the message and called out their goodbyes as they made their way to their various vehicles.

  Cole squatted in front of her again, his focus back on her ankle.

  “I’ll ice it and stay off it all weekend,” she said before he could lobby for the emergency room again. “Promise.”

  “Let’s get you in your truck. I’ll take it and you home.”

  “And do what? Your truck will be stuck here.”

  “I’ll come get it later.”

  She scanned for his bright blue Ram, found it parked a ways down the residential street. With no other immediate options, she nodded.

  “Ready for the hard part?” he asked her, his palms on his thighs as he stood again. Before she could ask what the hard part was, he extended a hand to her.

  Yeah. Standing.

  She eyed his hand for a moment, mostly trying to gather the nerve to put weight on her bad foot but partly also taking in every detail of Cole’s strong, masculine hand. He had his share of callouses, just like her, and…

  And she wasn’t going to think beyond that.

  When he raised his brows in question, she took his hand and snapped back to the challenge of standing. The pain on her right side just from shifting her leg slightly had her biting down on a gasp.

  “Can you put any weight on it?” he asked.

  “I don’t think so. Not until I get a bottle of wine down.”

  Cole bent over her, and before she could fully register the male scent that filtered to her nose, he grasped her torso under her arms and prepared to hoist her up. His palms were a hairsbreadth away from her breasts and she couldn’t think about anything else—until he lifted her to her feet, and though she held her right foot up, balancing on her left, the pain stabbed at her. She let out a sharp exhale and grabbed his arm even though he hadn’t yet let go of her.

  “I’ve got you,” he said. “We’re not moving yet. Just get your balance.”

  Her balance would be an easier task than her equilibrium, what with him so close, supporting her with such an intimate touch. They were standing a couple of feet away from the tailgate of her truck, and she sized up the distance to the passenger’s door. Maybe ten feet, but those were going to be ten excruciating feet.

  “I can carry you,” Cole said.

  “No.” Her protest came out quickly. It was broad daylight, they were in the middle of a neighborhood with plenty of people coming and going, including some of her crew who had yet to drive away, and she was not going to have him lugging her around. “If you could just support me and walk by me, I’ll make it.”

  “Your call,” he said, his tone saying he thought she was being stupid.

  It took forever and a day, but she finally made it to the door, a sheen of sweat breaking out all over her body with the effort. She’d put minimal weight on her bad side with every step, and her eyes were still burning with tears from the ache. Cole had opened the truck door, and it hit her how tall her damn vehicle was. It didn’t normally faze her, but this was going to take some doing.

  “If you’d like to drop your stubbornness for about five seconds, I’ll lift you up there and it’ll be over with,” Cole said.

  One more glance at the truck, the height of the running board, the additional height of the cab…

  “Okay,” she said. “You win. Please help me.”

  He scooped her up and set her on the high seat seemingly without effort, shutting her in before she could exhale. She waited for him to open the driver’s-side door, and when he didn’t, she checked the mirror to see where he’d gone. It took a few seconds, but she finally spotted him at his truck, with the door open as he stretched inside for something. When the door closed, she could see he carried a duffel bag and was still wearing his tool belt.

  As he headed back toward her, she turned her attention to her seat belt. He pulled the driver’s door open, put his bag and tool belt behind the seat in the extended cab, and climbed up to the driver’s seat. When he closed the door, the space shrunk and the air between them seemed to pulse as they looked at each other, neither one speaking. After a few seconds, Cole held his hand out. When she glanced at it, he said, “Keys?”

  Keys. Of course.

  Sierra dug into one of the baggy pockets in her cargos, pulled out the key ring, and handed it to him.

  Her usual country playlist filled the cab with a Maren Morris song, and Sierra turned it up loud enough it wasn’t necessary for them to talk. They made most of the twenty-minute drive without conversation, with the exception of Cole asking whether she needed him to stop at the office for anything. She declined and texted Reggie, who’d been working back at the shop behind the office today, making sure he would lock up for the weekend.

  Cole turned into the alley behind Sierra’s apartment and parked in her spot, turned off the engine. “How’s your pain level?”

  “My leg hurts up to my ears,” she said with a strained smile.

  “Stay there.” He got out and came around to her side, opened the door, stepped closer.

  “I can get down on my own,” she said, planning to turn sideways and slide and land on her good foot.

  “I’m sure you can, but what are you going to do ab
out the stairs?”

  The damn stairs. She hadn’t gotten that far in her mind yet. She sagged into the seat, closed her eyes for a moment, then appealed to him with a tired, sheepish smile. “Hope for some hot, muscular guy to take pity on me and carry me up.”

  “Since you said hot…”

  With a hint of a grin, he scooped her up again before she was ready, careful not to bang her leg against the truck door, and Sierra wound her arms around his neck.

  “My laptop…” she said as he headed toward the exterior steps.

  “I’ll come back and get it.”

  As he carried her upstairs, twenty-two steps without breathing hard or breaking a sweat, she relaxed into him gradually. When they reached the outer door, her head rested on his shoulder, and she was lost in the aroma of a man who’d worked his ass off all day—a little natural musk and the slightest hint of shaving cream left over from hours ago. He used her key, and by the time they reached her apartment door inside, she wanted to spend more time with him like this, with their guard down, the stiff, professional boundaries gone.

  “Cole?” she said, lifting her head to look him in the eye as he carried her across the threshold into her apartment. He was being so gentle and caring, so different from the hard, seemingly unemotional man she was used to. It made it a challenge for her to think straight, because, while she genuinely liked the nine-to-five version of Cole, this version… He was hard to resist.

  She didn’t want to resist.

  “Yeah?”

  “Is your mom waiting for you tonight?”

  “No. I’ll see her tomorrow. My cousins are entertaining her tonight.”

  She waited until he set her on the chaise end of her sectional, so there was some space between them, suspecting that would put him more at ease and work in her favor. Then she debated with herself.

  She wanted wine, ice, and acetaminophen in the next five minutes. But once she took the edge off the throb in her not-broken ankle, she wanted to get personal with Cole. Work policy be damned. Because she’d been thinking about what Hayden had said all week, and her points were all valid. Maybe Cole was special, maybe it was significant that he was the first guy to make her want to break her own rules.