“Are you okay?”
She hesitated, and then nodded. “Just on edge, I guess.” They hadn’t come close to hitting the car, and the other driver seemed to have things under control. But it was a bit too much, too soon, for her liking. “I thought the roads weren’t supposed to be that bad?”
“It’s below freezing now, so there are going to be some icy patches forming here and there, even if the pavement overall is safe to drive on. Safe, unless you’re an idiot who slams on his brakes,” he muttered, before turning his head her way. “Look, I know I was just a total ass to you, so you have no reason to value my opinion. I’m going to be honest, though. I’d feel better if we didn’t drive all the way back to Lakemont. It’s only fifteen minutes, but that’s fifteen more minutes for conditions to deteriorate, and that road around the lake isn’t the greatest, even with four-wheel drive.”
She could feel her pulse kick up even higher. “You can take me to the motel up the road.”
“I can,” he agreed. “And if that’s what you really want to do, I will. Although it wouldn’t be my personal choice for accommodations.”
“What about the inn in town? The Black Walnut.”
A shadow passed over his face. “I wish you wouldn’t.”
That was definitely a topic to revisit later, particularly given the gossip flying around Clancy’s earlier today.
Was that just this afternoon? It seemed like days ago.
“You obviously have something else in mind, so why don’t you just tell me.”
He seemed to hesitate, but then sighed. “I’ve been staying at my parents’ place while they’re out of town, but you’ve seen some of what that road is like, and their driveway is even worse. I’d rather not risk it, because even if I can get there safely tonight, I might not be able to get back out tomorrow, and I have a lot to do. I have an apartment over the clinic, and I was planning on staying there. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s warm and it has all of the essentials. More importantly, it’s nearby, and the roads shouldn’t be bad getting there.”
Adeline considered all that he’d said, and even a few things that he wasn’t saying. Neither of them was dumb, and there was no point in pretending they didn’t know where this was eventually heading. Maybe not tonight. Almost certainly not tonight, because she was probably going to be too sore to do anything.
But this was without question another step toward the doing.
Even though he had been an ass.
“Okay,” she agreed, because it was time to live a little. Or a lot, she considered, unable to stop her gaze from traveling over his body.
His eyes stayed focused on her face, and Adeline felt those little snaps of electricity beneath her skin again, but in a very… exciting way.
“Good,” he said, and the light changed to green. Sutton turned his attention back to the road, and drove with extra caution.
SUTTON placed his hand on the cold glass, and stared out the window. Main Street was even quieter than usual for this hour, the weather keeping everyone inside. The sleet had slowed to a sort of light mist that, illuminated by the street lamps, scattered with each gust of wind. He wasn’t sure how long he stood there. Long enough for both his hand and his mind to begin to feel blessedly numb. He’d been on an emotional rollercoaster much of the previous day, so he more than welcomed the lull.
“You let me fall asleep.”
He turned to see Adeline sitting up on the sofa, the blanket he’d put over her falling down around her waist. Her hair stood up at odd angles, and in the soft light from the unshaded window, he noted a sleep crease on her right cheek.
She looked unguarded and vulnerable. And powerfully appealing.
“There was no letting. As soon as that muscle relaxer took effect, it was all over.” He studied her expression. “Speaking of which, are you in pain?” It was around the time her pills should be starting to wear off.
“Some,” she admitted. “But not enough to want to take anything else at the moment. I still feel pretty drugged.” She glanced around. “What time is it, anyway?”
Sutton squinted at the clock on the oven. “A few minutes past two a.m.”
Her eyes widened when she realized that she’d been asleep for almost six hours. “Why are you still awake?”
He lifted one shoulder. “I went down and took care of some things in the clinic that I’d neglected to finish earlier today, and made a pot of coffee. Now I’m wired.” He waited a beat. “Would you like to move to the bed? I didn’t want to risk disturbing you earlier.”
“You should sleep in your bed.”
“The sofa is fine.”
“Sure, for me. But I’m not eleventy feet tall.”
The corners of his mouth turned up. He started to say that he was used to squeezing himself into tight spaces, but thankfully his brain kicked in, and he realized how that sounded.
“Besides,” she added, forcing his mind back out of the gutter, “there isn’t enough room for both you and Colonel Mustard.”
Sutton cast a resigned gaze at the cat curled on the end of the couch. “He would just sleep on top of me, like he usually does.” Generally, with either a paw or his butt in Sutton’s face.
Adeline reached out to stroke him, and Sutton held his breath, half waiting for him to take a swipe. But the cat lifted his head to her palm, giving it a nudge before extending his legs in a leisurely stretch.
“Amazing,” he said.
“What?”
“That he didn’t try to eat your face.”
She frowned. “Why would he do that?”
Rather than waiting for his answer, she grunted as she stretched her arm out, grabbing her glasses from the wooden packing crate serving as a temporary table.
“Are you sure you don’t want another pain reliever?”
“I’m fine,” she said, sliding on the glasses. “But th – is that snow?”
Sutton angled to look back out the window. “Kind of? If you really want to stretch the definition.”
“I’m from Florida,” she reminded him. “It totally counts.”
Excitement lent her a degree of agility, although he could tell from the way she moved from the sofa that she was feeling the after-effects of the accident.
However, she made it to the window, and rested her forehead against it like a child outside a candy shop.
“Wow,” she said, the sound little more than a wisp of warm air. “Look at that metal awning. See? It’s starting to turn white.”
Sutton gazed out over the top of her head. Indeed, the flurries were accumulating, although he knew they wouldn’t amount to much. If anything, they just disguised the much more problematic black ice that was currently forming on the roads. But he could understand the charm they held for someone who’d rarely seen them. “If you like that, you should stay through the winter. We don’t get a lot of snow, but when we do, it sure is beautiful.”
She was quiet for several seconds.
“I would like that.”
Sutton looked down. From this vantage point, he could see the top of her head, and the brown roots showing through the messy layers of cherry red. He lifted a hand to brush over it, but stopped when the ends lifted before he could touch it.
Realizing what he’d been about to do, Adeline reached out and touched the metal window latch, discharging the static buildup. But then she leaned back against him, no hesitation at all, and tenderness engulfed him.
Christ, he really was an ass. “I’m sorry for what I said earlier.”
She didn’t ask him to clarify which thing. She knew what he meant. “Why did you say it?”
He’d been considering that while he was working downstairs, and she slept on his couch. He’d been so afraid, after he heard the description of her car coupled with the Florida license plate, of what he’d find when he got to the scene. And as was often his case, the fear manifested as anger, and he’d had time to build up a good, solid head of it while he waited for her to be checked over by the docto
r. By the time he’d handed her his phone and then gone outside to warm up the truck, he’d been ready to commit violence. Unfortunately, she was the handiest target.
But it wasn’t as simple as that.
“To push you away,” he admitted. “Since I don’t seem quite capable of staying away from you myself.”
Adeline shivered, and Sutton realized how cold it was standing beside the window.
“Let me turn up the heat.”
“No.” She started to turn her head, but realizing that was a bad idea, shifted her whole body instead, until they were facing one another. “I mean, it’s chilly, but that’s not why I…” She closed her eyes, and then released a slow, steady breath. “That’s not why I shivered. It’s you. Us. I keep having these physiological reactions that are new to me. Or maybe I’m just experiencing them… differently than I have before.” She lifted her gaze, and he felt it traveling over every plane of his face until it finally collided with his. “Maybe because there’s something about you that makes me let down my guard.”
“I really, really want to make love to you.” The words were out before he could consider them. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m not even suggesting we cross that particular bridge right now. But I had to say it.”
“If you want to make love to me so badly, then why were you trying to push me away?”
The reminder was timely, if unpleasant. It pulled him back from the edge of possibly taking things too far.
Sutton glanced at the clock again. It was late, and they both needed rest – especially Adeline. But the quiet dark, with the scattered flurries falling outside the window, made him feel like they were in a cocoon, just the two of them. A safe place to reopen old wounds.
“Let’s sit down. Can I get you anything? Hot tea, or…”
She shook her head. “I’m fine.”
She went back to her end of the sofa, and Sutton stared hard at Colonel Mustard, who remained unimpressed. Resigned, Sutton nudged him off the cushion, earning a hiss and a swipe in the process. Thankfully, he was wearing long sleeves.
With the cat out of the way, he dropped onto the other end of the sofa and glanced at Adeline. “Bad things tend to happen to women I care about.”
“Well.” Her eyebrows inched up. “So much for foreplay.”
“You did ask.”
“Yes, but I was expecting more just the tip than bite the pillow.”
Sutton coughed, pounding a fist against his chest until he could breathe.
“Sorry,” she said, lifting her free hand. “I’d blame the pain meds, but I think we both know that’s a lie.”
With a shake of his head, he smiled at her. “You do keep things interesting.”
“I’m not so sure that’s a compliment. But enough about me.”
Amusement fading, Sutton tried to figure out the simplest way to explain. “I told you earlier tonight that I volunteer my services to the fire department, and have to various heavily volunteer departments over the years, because I’m paying off a debt. I’ve had people over the years try to tell me that I can’t blame myself… but I can, and to some degree I still do. While I was in veterinary school, I was shadowing a large animal vet who provided services for a local dairy farm. Small farm, small herd that was treated more like pets in a lot of ways than as a source of income. The family who owned the cows produced specialty cheeses and whatnot. The family had also produced a daughter, who was about a year younger than me.”
“You fell in love.”
“Not at first, no. Eliza was very strong-willed, as well as damn knowledgeable, and we butted heads over a professional diagnosis that I made – keeping in mind that I wasn’t quite a professional yet. But I did have a healthy ego when it came to what I saw as my area of expertise.” He waited a beat. “Eliza was right.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah. It was a good lesson in humility. Anyway, long story short, Eliza and I did eventually decide that we didn’t hate each other. In fact, I was planning to ask her to marry me when I finished school. Not too long before that happened, a couple of her cows got sick. They tested positive for Mycobacterium bovis, which in layman’s terms is cow tuberculosis. That’s a pretty devastating diagnosis for a dairy farm that specializes in making cheese, because eating cheese from infected cattle can lead to transmission to humans. Of course, pasteurization should take care of that, but there’s still a lot of hoops that the farmers have to jump through in order to get the FDA and USDA off their back, including culling some of the cattle.”
“As in killing?”
He nodded. “Most dairy farmers engage in culling anyway, sending underproducing or older cows to market, but not Eliza’s family, and especially not Eliza. To her, they were basically companion animals that allowed her family to earn a living.” He scrubbed his hands through his hair, dreading the next part of the story. “I went out to talk to Eliza one evening, found her out in the barn with her sick babies, as she insisted on calling them. I sympathized with how she was feeling, because I’m not heartless, but tried to get her to understand why this was the best thing to do. Being Eliza, she countered. We argued. I got frustrated and told her, basically, that she didn’t have a choice. I left in a huff, but I hadn’t driven five miles when I started to cool down, and questioned whether I’d been too harsh in my approach. So, I turned around. Now, you went to school in Gainesville, so you know how rural some of that area is after you get away from the city. And their farm was pretty damn rural. So rural,” he said, the words feeling awkward in his mouth, as if his tongue had gone numb “that the nearest fire station was miles away, and entirely staffed by volunteers. I called, as soon as I saw the flames coming from the barn. But they didn’t get there in time.”
He felt her warmth before he realized she’d moved, and stared down at his lap to where she’d taken his hand.
He glanced up, and saw that she was crying.
“Shit. I’m –”
“Don’t you dare say you’re sorry. Not when you sat, and listened to me open an emotional vein, with nothing but empathy.”
He considered that. “Okay.”
“That’s why you volunteer.”
He nodded. “And why I almost gave up my veterinary career before it got started. I felt responsible, like I’d failed her on all fronts. Like I’d been so caught up in the logic of the thing that I was more callous than I should have been. It’s been a problem for me, relationship-wise, so I’ve worked hard to express that empathy you mentioned.”
She squeezed his hand, but Sutton didn’t look at her. Couldn’t.
“The, uh, police questioned me,” he continued. “We’d had a fight, by my own admission, and now Eliza was dead. And there’s this convenient fire to cover things up.”
“You’re kidding.”
He shook his head. “I understood – my dad was a sheriff, after all – but it was still awful. Especially when Eliza’s parents, who were in bed at the time, because life on a dairy farm begins early, weren’t too sure they believed my version of events.”
“Jesus. That had to hurt.”
“Oh yeah.” He huffed a small laugh. “Even if I did understand that their suspicion was reasonable under the circumstances. But it turned out that Eliza accidentally started the fire. She kicked over a heater that she wasn’t supposed to have in the quarantine barn in the first place, because it didn’t have all the safety equipment as the main one. But it was cold that night for Florida, and she wanted to stay up with one of the cows that was really sick. I guess the animals panicked when the hay caught fire, and she was trampled when she tried to release them. Being hurt, she couldn’t make it out of the barn in time.”
Adeline was quiet for a long moment. “I remember you telling me that sorry seemed insufficient. But my God. I am so incredibly sorry.”
Sutton let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, and squeezed her hand in return. “Thank you. Um… I was just trying to remember the reason I divulged all of this, and came up blan
k for a moment. But you recall the women I told you about meeting the other night, before I came to your place with pizza? One of them sort of hit on me that night. Nothing serious, but she suggested she’d like to get together later, gave me her number. I threw it away,” he added, wanting to clarify that he hadn’t intended to follow up. “And I feel kind of shitty about that now. Anyway, she fell off the second-floor balcony at the hotel. She died, which is awful enough as it is, but I also got to enjoy the super fun experience of having my own brother question me about it because of our interaction the night before. It… brought up a lot of bad memories.”
“I guess so.”
Pretty much drained, he sighed. “I was actually thinking about you this afternoon, and how it might be better for you if I stayed away, given my particularly terrible luck in this department. And that’s when I heard about your accident on the scanner.”
“That is both the sweetest and yet the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Blinking his surprise, he looked over.
“Correlation does not equal causation. I know that, and I’m not the scientist.”
Sutton’s jaw slid to the side. She had a point.
“I want you to know that I’m not trying to cheapen what you just unloaded, or make it all about me. But it’s kind of a turn-on that logic went out the window because you were worried about me getting hurt.”
“That’s me.” He laughed again, chagrined. “Harnessing the power of social awkwardness to capture women’s hearts.”
“You are not socially awkward.”
He thought about his conversation with Katie earlier, and all of the clues he’d apparently missed. It was impossible not to wonder how many other times he’d been similarly clueless throughout his associations with women. “If you say so.”
“I say so.” This time, she began to stroke her thumb over the palm of his hand.
Sutton looked down at it, and then at her. Her eyes reminded him of the cat’s, shining in the light from the window. And just like when Colonel Mustard was about to strike, they telegraphed her intent.
Slow Burn (Rabun County Book 1) Page 22