by Nicole Helm
She couldn’t ever remember crying until she was spent. The few times she allowed herself to cry, it was usually a quick thing. Get it out and over with. She didn’t have time for long fits of self-pity.
But she had officially cried her eyes out. On Dan.
The embarrassment climbed deep, made it impossible to pull away from the hard, comforting safety of his chest. Because, if she pulled away, she’d have to face him.
She’d rather stay in the cocoon of warm, sturdy comfort that smelled like sawdust and pine. That felt like heaven.
Because she couldn’t remember the last time anyone had hugged her. Not since Dad’s hospital room. Caleb had hugged her then—they’d hugged each other, but that had been the last time.
She felt that loss acutely, so acutely she could almost tell herself she didn’t care who was offering it now. Strong arms holding the weight of her, holding the weight of everything.
How long had she wanted that? Too bad it was from the guy who was going to disappear in a few months.
Actually, that was good, because this way she couldn’t forget that this offering of…whatever…was a temporary thing. Not something she could depend on or get used to.
Dan would leave, like Mom had. Like Tyler had when she hadn’t been able to give him everything. It was an inevitability. She wasn’t cut out for…people’s love.
Which meant she couldn’t be hurt by it.
Comforting in a way, but problematic in another. Because if she knew it was temporary, if she knew she couldn’t be hurt by it, why would she resist it?
Oh, so dangerous to think such a thing. Dangerous enough that she pulled away from the hug and the comfort. From Dan.
Dan, who you don’t have to resist.
But she did. She didn’t know why; she only knew in some part of her that he was dangerous and needed to be resisted, no matter what that dark, quiet voice in the back of her head said.
“We should go unload your lumber,” she managed, her voice rusty.
“That sounds like a euphemism.” There was humor in his tone, but it was tempered with something. Something that made her chest ache.
Not pity. Pity was too gross of a word, and this wasn’t gross. It was sweet. Sympathy or commiseration or, God forbid, care.
“We have to work.”
But his hand reached out and touched her face, brushing tears off her cheeks. Dan stepped closer, like he was going to hug her again. She would stand firm against it this time, she would—
His hands cupped her jaw, green eyes fixed on her face. On her, the cool of his calloused palms a welcome relief from all the heat in her cheeks. From the crying, from the embarrassment.
“You know, the other day, when I said I wanted you to teach me to be such a hard-ass?” he asked.
“Yeah, you changing your mind?” She tried to step away, but his gentle hands tightened on her, keeping her in place.
“I didn’t even have a clue how deep it goes, how strong you are, and I thought you were pretty damn strong.”
She didn’t know what to do with words like that. Like he admired her, respected her.
She’d had respect before. Respect for her work was not a problem, but someone being impressed by her was…well, most people looked at her with half respect, half pity.
That feeling rushed into all the aching breaks in her armor, slipping through the cracks. Dangerous, she knew. She should not let anything he felt for her do anything, be anything. Except, she was weak. Vulnerable. And she wanted the danger, the hard edge of this wrong feeling, the wild heartbeat that came with him standing too close, his hands cupping her face, strong and sturdy like he could take on everything that was on her shoulders.
An illusion, and she’d never been one for believing in illusions, but she saw their appeal now. The appeal of losing herself in it, in him.
“Mel.”
She may have closed some of the distance between them, but she wasn’t the only one. She had promised herself to be strong, to resist, but Dan’s mouth on hers, his hands on her face, it was so much better than resisting.
No one had ever kissed her like they couldn’t help themselves. Like it was all that mattered. This was the second time he’d done it, but it still wasn’t the same. This wasn’t angry, frustrated kissing that burst into heat and flame.
It was soft. His tongue traced her bottom lip, swept inside her mouth with a languorous ease that matched the way the heat and ache spread through her. Slow, steady, until she was all but humming with it. With the word more.
The ripple of fear settled somewhere underneath desire. She felt it, but she didn’t act on it—couldn’t. She was drowning in a sea of want. She wanted him to touch her, to follow the spiral of electricity that wound through her body. Every time his mouth touched hers, it was all she could think about. His hands on her skin. Her skin on his skin.
Until a bleating cracked through the peace of a quiet mountain afternoon.
Mel jerked back, eyes falling to where Mystery Llama was standing at the edge of the fence. Staring. Judging.
Not judging, wacko.
“He’s hungry,” she said, pointing to the llama even though Dan’s hands were still on her face, even though she could feel his body heat through her clothes and feel his breath on her temple. Even though everything inside of her was still reeling from confusion mixed with desire.
“The llama will keep.”
It would. It probably would, and as much as she wanted to throw up her hands and say sure, why the hell not, it was the middle of the day. They were in the middle of a project. You did not just leave something undone because you wanted connection. Wanted sex.
Oh, but I bet it will be really awesome sex.
She shook her head, stepping away from Dan and the idea that she could ever forget a responsibility. That she could let a few aches and desperate fantasies change the fact of her reality. She raised her chin, determined. “We have work to do. And you’re paying me. So, that makes this weird.”
He was quiet for a few beats, eyes steady on hers. “One of these days, you’re going to run out of excuses.”
She wanted it to feel like a threat, something she could fight against, be angry about. But it didn’t feel like that at all. One of these days sounded like a gift.
A gift she could have if she ever wanted it.
Not for you.
Why did that keep getting lost in all this…whatever it was? Dan was not for her. She knew that. But she also knew she could have him, however briefly, and she wasn’t sure she was strong enough to resist that forever.
* * *
Dan put every last ounce of energy into work. He wasn’t going to push Mel. The way he saw it, she had enough people trying to take things from her, and he was determined not to be that guy.
Even if it gave him blue balls in the process.
Every time he thought he got to the bottom of all of Mel’s stress, everything that made her so rigid and careful and tough, he fell down some other chasm.
He couldn’t say he was surprised that her mother had abandoned her family. She obviously had issues with people leaving, and she’d never mentioned a mother. What he was still working his way through was the anger, the absolute disgust in the way she’d explained what happened.
Then she’d cried. As if the anger had just been hiding this vulnerable hurt underneath, as if that’s what her tough-girl attitude was always hiding.
Seeing that filled him with an unease he didn’t know how to fight. Hurt was not something he liked to deal with. Was not something he’d ever had any skill at dealing with.
He had cracked under all the emotion of his parents’ crumbling marriage. Fallen apart, trouble and tears and too much. Too much for me to handle with an absent husband, Mom had said when she’d thought he hadn’t been listening. He had been her last straw.
&nb
sp; Then Dad had taught him to skate, and he’d skated away from all feelings since then. From his own, from his mother’s. His grandparents’. He’d used hockey as an excuse not to visit. Grandma’s decline had been much worse, much sharper than Grandpa’s, and the way that broke Grandpa’s heart was written all over his face.
Always.
Dan’s chest ached, a deep, helpless pain he didn’t know what to do with. That pain he always chose to escape. So he didn’t do any more damage, like he had done with his parents. Except there was no skating, no escape in his immediate future. Just…fence building and llamas.
Well, at least it was something.
“It’s seven. I need to head out.” Mel yanked off work gloves and slapped them against her knee. “Think you can handle getting it closed up?”
He looked at the two posts they had left, which would bring the enclosure to a new, expanded rectangle.
“Yup.”
She nodded once then turned on a heel and headed for her truck. No good-bye. No “thanks for letting me cry on you.” No “hey, now that it’s quitting time, how about some sex?”
Which was good, really. This afternoon had given him this feeling of being strong and a take-care kind of guy, but he couldn’t let that feeling go to his head. Hugging someone while they cried did not equal being capable of handling much of anything.
When was the last time you tried?
She got to her truck, pulling open her door without a pause. He should not say something. He should focus on the fence and just…leave things as they were.
But he could remember what it had felt like holding her while she cried, wiping away the tears and kissing her with the salt of them still on her lips, and even knowing it was false, fake, and would probably come back to bite him in the ass, he felt like maybe—just maybe—he could be of some help to her. Be some kind of white knight, even if he’d always sucked at it.
“Mel?”
She paused, one foot on the step of her truck, hands braced on either side of the door frame. She cleared her throat, shoulders straightening, always bracing for the next blow.
He was not going to be the one to deliver it. If he could promise himself one thing this summer, it was that he was not going to be someone who added to the load she had to carry.
Even he could manage that.
“What, Dan?”
“My door is always open.”
She looked over her shoulder at him, eyebrows scrunched together in that whole “I do not get you” expression she wore more than occasionally, but then she smoothed out her features and nodded, pulling her cowboy hat down a little on her head, like a tip of the hat. “I’ll keep it in mind,” she said quietly.
That was enough that he found himself smiling as she drove away.
Because something about vulnerability on Mel drew him. The fear and the discomfort didn’t disappear, but stronger than both those things was this strange and powerful urge to help. In whatever lame way he could.
So, he would. Being in Blue Valley was all about learning new things, after all, so that’s just what he’d do.
Chapter 10
Mel peeled off her boots and dumped them onto the mat. The empty mat, because Caleb was in here somewhere with his damn boots on. Tracking dirt. Not giving a damn.
He’s trying as much as you are.
Oh, she didn’t have the energy for this. She didn’t have the energy for anything. She was wrung out—from crying, from working her ass off on a damn llama fence, all so she didn’t have to think about that crying, that kiss.
Was it too much to ask to come home to boots on the mat and dinner on the table? Yes, too much to ask. Everything was too much to ask. That was her life.
Except for the times Dan made her forget. The hug, the kiss, the door-always-being-open thing. It wasn’t real, but it was there. Possible.
The kitchen was dark, as was the living room. Everything was quiet and heavy, and she wanted to scream. Scream and scream and scream until something changed, something clicked.
But she didn’t. She walked through the house, finally going out to the back porch. Caleb was sitting in one of the old rocking chairs, staring moodily at the mountains.
There was a glass next to him, the kind of glass that made her stomach clench. Except, she’d give him the benefit of the doubt, because aside from too many beers the night Dan had come over for dinner, he hadn’t been drinking.
It was just pop. Not a drop of Dad’s whiskey in it.
But when she wrenched her gaze away from the glass, Caleb’s gaze was on her. He didn’t bother to hide the scowl, and she tried to hold on to that last glimmer of hope. She needed him not to have done this.
“Fiona quit,” he said into the dark silence.
“What?” Those weren’t the words she’d been expecting. “Why?” It had to be some misunderstanding, something she could fix. Maybe with the extra money Dan was giving her, she could offer a raise…
“Dad did something, she wouldn’t tell me what.” Caleb waved an arm. “She only said it was too hard, and she couldn’t do it anymore.”
“What are we going to do?” Fiona had been a godsend. Mel hated the thought of going through the process of finding a new nurse who would come out here.
“You could run an ad, I guess.”
“I could?” Under the exhaustion and the sadness and the fear, a lick of anger flamed to life, and there was just enough kindling to make it blaze.
“My hands are kind of full, Mel.”
“So are mine,” she replied through gritted teeth.
“Yeah, having that guy buy you lunch every day at Georgia’s must be rough.” He pushed out of the chair, taking an angry step toward her. “You know I don’t hear much gossip, but I’m hearing plenty about you and Dan gallivanting around town.”
“Gallivanting?” She was so angry, the repeated word barely exited her throat. He thought she was gallivanting.
“I don’t know if you noticed, but I’m kind of carrying this ranch on my back right now.”
“And what the fuck am I doing, Caleb?” He had been drinking. She could tell, because he hadn’t been like this in a long time. Belligerent. “What have I been doing the past five damn years?”
“I need a drink,” he muttered, pushing past her. “You want me to have this conversation, I need a lot more booze in my system.”
“You’ve had enough,” she said firmly, following him into the kitchen.
“Easy, Mom.”
He’d never laid a hand on her, but he may as well have with that. “Don’t you ever, ever say that to me.”
His shoulders slumped, hand resting on the outside of the cabinet she thought to be empty. But he must have more alcohol in there.
He rested his forehead on the door of the cabinet next to his hand. “I’m sorry for that. I am.”
“You need to tell me what this is. Why you keep doing this.” They couldn’t keep dancing around this, and she couldn’t keep ignoring what was happening. Not if he was drinking. Not if he was lashing out. She couldn’t do this again.
He straightened and seemed to use great effort to remove his hand from the door. But when he turned to face her, his expression was completely blank. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Bullshit.
It was all too much, and his apology was worthless without an explanation behind it. So damn worthless. All of this. What was she fighting so hard for? When he couldn’t just explain himself. When he had to turn anywhere but to her. “Fuck you, Caleb.” She had to get out of here. Go somewhere…
She knew where she shouldn’t go, but everyone else got to do what they shouldn’t do, so why not her?
“Mel.”
But she didn’t stop, not for a second. She was going to leave. She was going to go be selfish and stupid, and Caleb could deal with that
for once in his life. She grabbed her boots, pulled the first on.
“Where are you going?”
“Out.” She jammed her foot into the other boot. “Don’t wait up.”
“What are we supposed to do?”
She turned to face him, and the anger was so big and bright and glowing, she didn’t care what she said, or what they did. “Grow some balls. The pair of you.”
“Nice. Real nice. After all the shit I’ve dealt with today—”
She didn’t listen. She looked down at her boots. No, she couldn’t go in boots and work clothes. So she stomped upstairs to her room. She could still hear Caleb grumbling, but she was done, and nothing he could say could change that.
She pawed through her closet, trying to find something that wasn’t denim or flannel or plaid. She had nothing. Not one scrap of feminine, seductive clothing.
Damn it.
So she did what any smart, resourceful woman would do. She grabbed a pair of scissors from her sorely neglected mending box and cut a pair of jeans into shorts.
Short shorts.
She changed into her nicest underwear—which was black cotton instead of nude cotton, but hey, it was something. She shimmied into the short shorts, and found a red tank top she usually wore under another shirt.
Yanking her hair out of her braid, she stalked to the bathroom. It was all kinky and weird, so there went that idea. But instead of re-braiding, she just pulled it back into a ponytail.
It took about five minutes of searching through her bathroom cabinets to find her makeup. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had occasion to wear it, and the nail polish in there had long since separated, the lip gloss tube all dried out and cracky.
But she had eyeliner and mascara, though not the best hand at putting it on. She frowned at her reflection. The eyes were okay, dark and dangerous, but she needed lipstick.
She looked around the bathroom, then finally got a Q-tip wet and shoved it into the lip gloss tube. She managed to create enough color on her lips that, as long as she didn’t chew it off, should stay for at least a little while.