by Zoe York
“Gabe, you don’t have to do that. He knows how to handle being told no.”
“I know he does,” he replied quietly. “That’s why I don’t want to tell him no right now. Let’s head back and get what we need to fix the fence. You have a post-hole digger and a wire stretcher, right?”
“I’m pretty sure.”
“We have to head back already?” Cody asked.
“If you want to go get pizza tonight,” Gabe said, “yes, we do. Your mom and I need to get that fence fixed.”
She hadn’t realized the passage of time, but they’d already been out riding for close to two hours, and by the time they returned to the barn and unsaddled the horses, it was almost one. Since they hadn’t eaten, Gabe volunteered to find and load the requisite materials and what tools he didn’t have into his truck while she made sandwiches to take along. Another thirty minutes gone. Because the downed fence was on the far corner of the ranch from the cabin with only a primitive, rock-strewn, rutted trail to it, it took almost half an hour to get back to it. Two o’clock. They scarfed their sandwiches and got to work.
Please let this be an easy fix. She did not want to postpone their date any more than her son did. They’d been looking forward to it all week.
Tugging the leather gloves she’d remembered to grab out of her truck at the last minute before they’d left the cabin, Annemarie rolled up her sleeves. The air was still cool, but the sun was hot, beating down on her with a relentlessness that would soon have sweat dampening her skin. It had to be sixty degrees already, and after the cold and fitful snow flurries of the past week, her body wasn’t used to the heat.
While Gabe pulled the tools out of the back of his truck and Cody perched on the tailgate to watch, she lifted the downed post and examined it. Its base was rotten—no doubt because it was right in the middle of a narrow ditch where water ran when it rained or the snows melted—and it probably hadn’t taken much to snap what had been left. The barbed wire appeared to be intact, but she straightened the post to see. Sure enough, though they were rusty, all three strings were whole and undamaged, so they only needed to replace the post. She dropped the old one and turned toward the truck to grab the new post.
That shift in position saved her face and neck.
The top wire snapped, and it sprang back with the sudden release of tension, whipping a barb across the forearm she lifted to protect the side of her face. It snagged in her upper arm just below her shoulder, and she let out a yelp.
“Oh, Jesus, Annie!” Gabe cried, leaping to her side. “Are you all right?”
She carefully plucked the barb from her arm and released the wire. “Ow.”
“Let me see.”
The barb had torn a long gash from the outside of her wrist nearly to the inside of her elbow, but it appeared to be narrow and shallow. Gabe’s hands were as gentle as they were strong as he inspected the cut, and the concern in his eyes was a powerful distraction from the stinging. When he delicately peeled her shirt and bra strap down over her shoulder, lifting the material away from her skin so he didn’t drag it across her wound, she sucked a breath through her teeth. He briefly met her gaze with apologetic eyes, probably thinking he’d hurt her. The puncture in her shoulder burned and ached at once, but it too was relatively small.
“I don’t think you’ll need stitches, but we should get these cleaned up.” He glanced over his shoulder at her son, who had jumped off the tailgate and inched his way closer to see if she was all right. “Cody? Would you grab the first aid kit out of my truck? It’s under the passenger seat. Come sit on the tailgate, Annie.”
She did as he asked, and Cody zipped around from the cab of the truck with a large, well-stocked first aid kit in hand.
“How practical of you,” she mused, catching Gabe’s gaze.
He held out one of his hands for her inspection, and for the first time, she noticed the numerous fine scars. As much as those capable, long-fingered hands fascinated her, she’d never paid much attention to the details, and she realized that, no matter how careful he was, minor injuries were par for the course in his line of work—both as an electrician and on the ranch.
She winced when he cleaned her wounds with antiseptic.
“Sorry,” he murmured.
“For what? Taking care of me?”
One corner of his mouth twitched, but the frown returned as he concentrated. The puncture was easy enough to bandage, but the jagged cut on her forearm was so long that it took several non-stick pads to cover it. He wrapped a gauzy bandage around her entire forearm and tucked the ends under. She liked the way he let his hands linger as if he were reluctant to break contact. When he spoke, his voice was quiet.
“There you go. All patched up.”
“Is Mom going to be okay?” Cody asked.
“I think so, squirt,” Gabe replied. “It looked worse than it is.”
“I’m lucky,” Annemarie agreed. “If I’d turned away even half a second later, it would’ve gotten me in the face.”
“Lucky indeed.” Gabe tugged her shirt back into place and reached into the bed of his truck to grab the new post and post-hole digger.
Annemarie remained where she was for a few minutes, assuring Cody that she would be just fine. The sound of the post-hole digger striking the ground drew her attention to Gabe. She felt like she was watching someone dance and waiting with anticipation for the right moment to step into the swing of it with him. There was a strange and wonderful rhythm between them, and more and more as the days passed, she was anxious to embrace it fully.
Without a doubt, she’d never felt anything like it with Tom.
“Is Gabe gonna be my dad now?”
Her head whipped around to her son faster than the barbed wire that had attacked her. “Wh-what?” she stammered. “Where did you get an idea like that?”
“When I told Caleb about last weekend at Gabe’s ranch, he said Gabe might want to be my dad like Tad wanted to be his dad.”
“I don’t know, Cody. Maybe.”
“How come Tom doesn’t want to be my dad?”
“I can’t answer that, Cody. All I can say is that he doesn’t know what he’s missing.” She wrapped her arms around him, wincing when her injuries complained. “Because you are a wonderful little boy.”
“Do you think Gabe thinks I’m wonderful?”
She shifted her gaze to the electrician and smiled. “I know he does. But being a dad is a big job—even more so when one man’s already turned it down—and Gabe may not want to take that on. He may just want to be our friend.”
“That’d be okay, too,” he said thoughtfully. Then he smiled. “But I’d rather have him as my dad.”
Annemarie was torn between amusement at her son’s response and the pain that he’d been robbed thus far of the happy family so many of his friends at school had. Until he’d started kindergarten in the fall, he hadn’t been aware that his situation was unusual, but he certainly was now. She considered herself lucky that he hadn’t quizzed her relentlessly about it like he quizzed her about everything else.
“We’ll see what happens, bud. In the meantime, I’d better go help Gabe or we will have to postpone our pizza date.”
Gabe had the hole dug by the time she reached him despite needing to knock some rocks loose with the pick-ax. It was several feet over from where the old post had been, and when she glanced to the other side of the sandy water track, she saw that he’d dug a second hole. Smart. Replacing the single, ill-placed post with two, out-of-the-waterway posts would ensure this repair lasted longer.
“I’m going to owe you at least another week’s worth of bookkeeping for this. At this rate, it’ll be Christmas before I fulfill my end of our deal.”
“You don’t need to add this to our deal.”
“Yes, I do. Because you’re right. I need reliable help around here.”
“We’ll talk about it later.”
“By later, I assume you mean so much later that you hope I’ll forget about it.
”
He answered with a chuckle and picked up the new fence post and dropped it in the hole.
“All right, boss. What do you need me to do?”
“Hold this upright.” He grabbed the shovel and started filling in around the post.
They worked well together, but it still took time to secure the two new posts, run and stretch new wire, and clean up. When the tools were loaded in the truck, Annemarie glanced at her watch. Four o’clock. Four-thirty by the time they got back, probably five-thirty by the time they were showered and changed. And it would take forty-five minutes to get into town. Too bad they had to cross the Grant Ranch. It would’ve shaved fifteen minutes off the trip if they could take the Garrett Ranch road.
“One more thing on the list,” she muttered. “Fix the road.”
The auction was this Friday, and that was a major relief, but she’d already spent the money three times over, so she doubted there’d be any left over for road repairs. And who knew how much it would cost, anyhow? Several thousand dollars, probably, even if she only filled in the part that had washed out without worrying about having the full half mile of it graded.
“Whatever you’re worrying about,” Gabe interrupted, “quit. The fence is mended, and we’re going to have a fun evening. No worrying allowed.”
“Right you are.”
Back at the cabin, they quickly stowed the tools and the materials they hadn’t needed. Annemarie sent Cody to his room to change. Since Gabe had done most of the work—again—she was clean enough to forgo a shower. That should save some time.
“Clock’s ticking,” she said and shoved Gabe into the bathroom.
He turned around to face her. “Since you’re in such a hurry, would you mind grabbing my clothes out of my truck? They’re in the little duffel bag on the passenger seat.”
She nodded and pulled the door closed, once again surprised by his practicality. Since his original plan for the day was to spend most of it in the attic, he must’ve brought a change of clothes so he wouldn’t have to ride home covered in itchy insulation. Of course, he hadn’t ended up crawling around the attic, and she was both glad he’d have to come out at least another day to finish wiring her cabin and annoyed that she was imposing so much on his generosity.
“Oh, towel.” She trotted into her bedroom. Because the cabin had precious little storage space, her closet was the only place she had to store linens. She grabbed a clean towel and returned to the bathroom. Gabe opened the door a crack, standing in the tub and holding the sea-themed shower curtain so a blue-and-green polka-dotted starfish obscured the most sensitive part of his anatomy.
“You might need this,” she said, holding the towel out to him and stubbornly refusing to let her eyes wander.
“Yeah, that might come in handy. Thanks.”
Again, she closed the door and swallowed a giggle as a delightful playfulness bubbled through her. There was a naked man in her house, and the moment was appealing for reasons far beyond the spark of carnal intrigue. Temporary though it was, it held the promise of what it would be like to share her house and her son and her life with that man, to have her own family, to embrace life rather than struggle to survive the circumstances of it.
She opened the front door and immediately jerked back. Her smile disappeared. “Tom. What are you doing here?”
Cody’s sire stood on her front porch with his black Stetson perched on his head and that devastating, cocky smile lifting one side of his mouth. Her stomach lurched simultaneously, and she braced her hand on the doorframe, suddenly dizzy.
“Hello, Annemarie.”
“Why are you here?” she asked again.
“I came to talk to you about the Torrington auction on Friday.”
What about it? she almost asked. The way he glanced behind him at Gabe’s truck struck her wrong, so instead, she asked, “Isn’t your phone working?”
“I was out this way checking the fence line with Jim, so it was easier to stop by. He said—”
“Does your wife know you’re here?” she interrupted.
“No.” Undeterred, he hooked his thumbs in his pockets and narrowed his eyes. “Jim said you’ve hired a driver.”
“Not exactly. Gabe offered, and Jim knows that.”
“Gabe.” His brows dipped and then rose—too smooth to be genuine confusion. “The electrician?”
“Yes.” She shouldered past him and strode out to Gabe’s truck with stiff, determined steps. The duffel bag was exactly where he said it would be, so she snatched it and headed back inside, fully intending to shut the door in Tom’s face if she had to.
“I can spare Jim to drive for you so you don’t have to pay Mr. Collins. We hired another hand to fill in for Johnny.”
“Thank you, but that won’t be necessary.” As an afterthought, she added, “I hope Johnny is healing well.”
“Well enough, but it’s sounding like he may not be able to come back to work for me.”
“What a pity.”
“What’s with the cold shoulder?” he asked when she brushed past him, shooting out his hand to stop the door from closing after her.
She spun on him. “The only time you’ve stopped by since Cody and I have been living out here was that first day, and then you only came because your mother and father dragged you along. And you’ve spent the last six-plus years making it very clear I was nothing more than a conquest or a… a dalliance to you.” She cursed her trembling voice and clenched her fingers around the handles of Gabe’s bag so tightly her knuckles ached. “So give up the chit chat. Why are you really here?”
“I told you. I—”
“The truth, Tom.” Bitterness raged through her so forcefully that she shook with it, but she would not cry. “For once in your life, why don’t you give it a try?”
She heard the door to the bathroom open, and the way Tom’s expression turned from charming to frigid was all the answer she needed. She stepped back—not to invite Tom in but to face Gabe. He walked over from the bathroom door with a towel around his waist, rivers of water streaming down his body, and a dark look in his eyes that made her shiver. In the doorway to the left of the bathroom, Cody appeared wearing only his jeans. If Tom weren’t encroaching on her sanctuary, the sight of him imitating Gabe’s arms-crossed pose and looking like a shorter, scrawnier, and blonder version of him would have melted her heart.
Irritation at Tom’s intrusion flared hotter, burning away the threat of tears.
“Everything all right, Annie?” Gabe asked in a carefully level voice, his eyes locked on Tom.
She turned back to Tom just in time to catch a glimpse of his sneer at Gabe’s familiar name for her. As if that tiny clue made it clearer that Gabe was more than her electrician than him standing in only a towel in her living room dripping water onto the scarred pine floor. “Tom was just stopping by to say he can spare Jim to drive my cows.”
“I’ve already made the arrangements to use my family’s truck and trailer and cleared my schedule,” Gabe said to Tom. “But thank you. If it’s not too much trouble, please tell Jim we appreciate the offer. Would you also let him know that he doesn’t need to worry about the fence? We fixed that this afternoon.”
If Gabe’s nickname for her had triggered annoyance, his reference to them as a couple made Tom seethe. He was too practiced, though, to let it show anywhere but in his eyes, which flashed with a possessive gleam that made Annemarie inch away from him and closer to Gabe.
“I thought you were an electrician,” Tom remarked, glancing over Gabe.
“If you’ll excuse us, Tom,” Annemarie said through gritted teeth, “we’re already running late.”
“Late for what?”
“None of your—”
“Gabe’s taking us out for pizza,” Cody replied.
“Is he now?”
“Yep.”
“You have two seconds to leave before I slam this door in your face.” Because two seconds was all she had before she lost what little remained of he
r composure.
“Too bad you never thought to say that before now.”
Disgust muffled her shriek, and it came out as a whimper as she grabbed the door and swung it hard. He jumped back as it rushed toward him, narrowly avoiding getting hit by it. The loud crack as it slammed brought a smirk of satisfaction to her face, but it did little to assuage the surging tidal wave of self-loathing and queasiness.
“Are you okay?” Gabe asked gently after a moment, grazing her shoulder with his fingertips in a show of support.
“I’m fine.”
“Why don’t I believe that?”
“Allow me to clarify. I’ll be fine.” Cringing, she pinched her lips between her teeth and squeezed her eyes closed. “I’m sorry, Gabe. I didn’t mean to snap at you. That was rude and inconsiderate, especially after everything you’ve done for me, and you deserve it least of anyone.”
“I can handle it, Annie. I’m a big boy.”
She snorted. You’re definitely that. She opened her eyes and stared at the closed door when she heard Tom’s truck leaving. She’d known Gabe was taller and broader than Tom, but it wasn’t until just now when they’d been standing eye to eye—or rather eye to chin—that she’d realized he had a good four or five inches and easily thirty pounds or more of muscle on Tom. She couldn’t begin to explain why that reassured her. “I know you can handle it, but that’s beside the point.”
“I’d rather you unload on me than beat yourself up over it. Everyone needs someone sometime. Even a strong, independent woman like you.”
“I don’t know that I’m all that strong or independent, but thank you. Here.” She handed him his bag. “Would you mind getting dressed in my room?”
“Uh, sure. Why?”
“I changed my mind. I do want a shower after all. Sorry that we’re going to be even later.”
“After that, I’m surprised you don’t want to reschedule.”
“After that, I need our date even more.”
He cleared his throat. “There should be plenty of hot water left.”
She inhaled deeply, held it for a count of five, and then let it out slowly. With her stomach settling and her head clearing, she became suddenly and fully aware of the man beside her, and she pivoted toward him like iron toward a magnet. Though the warm air in the cabin had stopped the rivulets, water still glittered on his skin, clinging to the lines and planes of his body. Only the sight of her son standing in the doorway of his room kept her from reaching out to brush the droplets away.
