Caleb chuckled and knocked on the top of her cubbyhole wall with his knuckles. “Just don't overdo it. First day back is a doozy.”
“I remember.”
Caleb had been out for a few weeks over the winter when the beam in the church that he and Katie Dobbs, his fiancée, were renovating fell on his head, leaving him hospitalized.
“Hey, did you get your occupancy permit on the chapel yet?” she asked. “Last time I saw Katie she said things were coming along.”
“They are. But we’re not ready. There’s still too much left to do.”
“Make sure you give me the grand tour when you’re finished. I’m dying to see what you’ve both done there.”
“Will do. Let me know if you need anything,” Caleb said before heading out the door.
Once Harper was done rearranging her desk, she reached in her bag for her cell phone. Her new cell phone. She still wasn’t sure how to use all the new features, but she was getting there. She checked it for messages, although she didn’t know why. Nash didn’t have cell service up at the cabin.
But checking her phone was becoming a bad habit. One like biting your nails or eating potato chips out of the bag and not paying attention to how many you were eating until it was too late and the bag was empty. Harper knew what she was doing. She was waiting for Nash to text her or come down from the mountain and call her and say…
What? She didn’t know. They’d spent nearly a week together, part of it holding each other and kissing. And she didn’t know what she wanted him to say.
She'd known that her being there had been an intrusion for him, although he had done his best never to make her feel that way. He had been engaging, friendly, neighborly, and charming. He’d been funny and kind and a pure gentleman, even when they were cuddled by the wood stove.
But circumstance had thrown them together. That’s all it really was.
It didn't matter anyway. She knew how spotty cell phone service was up on that mountain. He lost a week’s worth of work with the snow and when she’d left, he probably dove right into it to make up for lost time. He wasn’t up there for a vacation. He was there work.
Now she was at work and needed a distraction from thinking about Nash and why he wasn’t calling her. How completely pathetic was that?
She'd gone about her day. There were three accidents on slick roads that she needed to dispatch an ambulance for. But none of the injuries were anything too serious. Mr. Cummings carbon monoxide detector went off and when it continued to go off after he'd change the batteries, he’d called dispatch. Half the fire department went to the scene to find the source of the problem, which ended up being a clogged stovepipe.
Carbon monoxide was so dangerous. Harper recalled the first year that she'd worked as a dispatcher and she'd gotten a call from someone who said the newspaper was piling up at a neighbor’s house and things didn't look good. Upon inspection by the fire department, she'd learned that a family of four had perished in their beds due to carbon monoxide poisoning.
Hearing the devastating news brought back so many memories and just punctuated the dangers that existed. It also made her cherish life for its fragility. She had more than one occasion for that since she'd been working as a dispatcher at the police station. And even more since she’d met Nash.
At the end of the day, Scarlett strolled into the dispatch room holding a box of tissues in her hand and her dinner in the other.
“Did you catch the kids’ flu?” Harper asked.
“They’re so good at sharing,” Scarlett said with a roll of her eyes. “But at least neither of them have fevers anymore.”
Harper gave Scarlett a current run down of the calls she'd had that day and the status of anything pending. She let her know of any potential problems that she might hear about on her shift.
As she walked outside, she glanced at her watch. Five-thirty. Lois, the nurses’ aide who visited with her grandmother twice a week, had probably left for the day and her grandmother was home alone. In Harper’s mind, that was never a good thing.
The people who knew of her grandmother's condition had been fabulous while Harper had been stranded up on the mountain. They’d seen to it that someone had stayed with her overnight. When the power had gone out at the house, Lucy’s son had driven over to the house and brought her grandmother over to stay with Lucy because she still had power.
Now that her grandmother was getting on in years, her health was always a worry. After losing her parents at such a young age, it was hard for Harper to think that she could lose her grandmother in the future.
Harper drove to the market and had to circle in the parking lot a few times before she found a free parking space. As she ran in the entrance, she saw Brenda Collins.
“Looks like everybody's out of milk, bread and eggs,” Brenda said. “I can’t remember the last time it was this busy.”
“Seems like the whole town is here,” Harper said.
Brenda chuckled as she made her way out the door with a cart full of bags. “Pretty much. Good running into you. I’ll see you at the potluck!”
Harper grabbed a shopping basket and started her usual routine of walking through the aisles. She wasn’t hungry, which was the perfect time to shop. But she knew that like most everyone else in Sweet, her cupboards at home were bare. She decided to pick up the basics and come back another day when it wasn’t so crowded.
That’s when her heart stopped. Nash was here.
Sweet Montana Rescue: Chapter Nine
Nash grabbed a shopping cart and made his way through the produce department. He had a craving for fruit and that was definitely something he couldn’t get from an MRE bucket.
He hadn't expected to come down the mountain so soon. Normally when he went into a remote area, he stayed there until every last provision was gone. But he’d had a sample of huckleberry bread from the bakery when he’d come to the grocery store on his way into town to get bottled water. Now he had a craving for more.
“The more you get today, the longer you’ll be able to stay up in the mountains when work really gets busy,” he said to himself, looking at all the fruit.
He was just about to head down toward the vegetables when he saw Harper pushing an empty cart. His heart pounded in his chest. He half thought of turning around and walking in the other direction, or walking straight out of the store. But that would be ridiculous. It would be childish. There was absolutely no reason for him to avoid talking to Harper just because he'd kissed her.
No. It was because just looking at her now made him want to kiss her again.
He was a coward. She was a woman, not a grizzly he needed to fear.
“I didn't expect to see you here,” she said.
Unlike him, she wasn’t a coward. She’d seen him and smiled. Then she’d pushed her empty cart right over to where he was standing.
Instead of pretending she was inspecting the heads of lettuce stacked up in the bin, she gave him her attention fully. And he'd noticed. Some women were so busy doing whatever it was that they thought was important that he felt a little awkward, like an afterthought. Almost part of the furniture. It was one of the reasons why he’d been drawn to Carol. And one of the reasons he hadn’t dated anyone since she’d died.
“I had to pick up some things,” he said.
Her eyebrows stretched high on her forehead as she looked at his empty shopping cart. “I can see that.”
“I just got here.”
“Me, too. Just a warning. You may have to elbow your way through the aisles. It looks like everyone in Sweet is here now that the weather is better. I can't believe that last week we had such a horrible blizzard and now the snow is nearly gone.”
“Down here. Up on the mountain there’s still a good bit of it. But that's Mother Nature for you. A good pack of snow should bring some beautiful spring flowers though.”
She cocked her head to one side. “Really?”
“A heavy snow is a poor man’s fertilizer.”
&nb
sp; “Huh. I didn’t know that.”
They were making small talk and it made him feel like a stranger.
“Well… I guess I'll just be getting what I need.”
She opened her mouth to speak but then didn't. His eyes were transfixed on her lips, lips that he revisited kissing in his mind for the past week since she'd been gone.
“So that's it?” she finally asked.
“What do you mean?”
“After spending almost a week together we’re just going to be passing strangers in the vegetable produce section of the grocery store?”
She had a smile on her face that he was sure was forced. Her eyes gave her away though. He'd remembered that when talking to her in front of the fire her eyes were so expressive, and sometimes so animated. But right now, she was hurt by his brush off.
Guilt should be eating away at him. But he'd been here before. He wasn’t like a lot of the other men around town. Men she’d known. Nash didn't have to know them by name or have grown up with them his entire life to know that.
It was the same wherever he went. He was meant to be alone. Carol had been the only one to bring him out of his shell and make him think there was a place for someone else in his life. She’d fit there. But she was gone now. He wasn’t about to allow another person in no the matter how much Nash ached to touch Harper's hair and run his fingers through it. He could almost feel it against his fingertips.
Good God, how was he going to get any work done if all he did was think about Harper Madison? Her name alone sounded like a candy bar. She was sweet and gentle and her heart was something that she wore for the world to see just as easily as the jacket on her back.
“I have to go,” he said.
She looked confused. “But you just got here. You didn’t buy anything yet.”
“I know. I thought what I had would last me. But there were two of us up there and…”
Her expression collapsed. “Oh, of course. I didn't realize. I made all your food. I can give you some money for it or bring you some fresh food to make up for it.”
He shook his head. He was fumbling this badly. “No, no. That’s not what I mean. If anyone comes to my door, any hiker or something or someone who is lost, I feed them.”
“Someone or something. Was I a something?”
“You really want to talk about this now in the middle of the grocery store?”
She looked away for second and then turned her eyes back to him. “Yeah, I guess I do. I’d like to know exactly what that was up there on the mountain.”
People were staring and he hated that. He didn’t like it when people got into his business, especially when he didn't fully know what his business was. At least not with Harper.
“It's simple. You were stranded and I gave you shelter.”
“Yeah, I guess you did,” she said quietly. “You kiss everyone you give shelter to that way?”
He shifted uncomfortably when a woman who'd been intently looking at some broccoli lifted her gaze to them with interest.
“You really want to talk about this here?”
“Actually, I’d like to make you dinner. My famous lasagna.”
He wasn't used to women being this forward and he both liked it and was unnerved by it.
“Dinner?”
“Sure, I told you my lasagna was prize-winning. We can eat at my house or I can cook it and bring it up to the cabin.”
“Your grandmother won’t mind my coming over?”
“She won't know. Or actually she will know because I'll tell her. But she won't be there. She has friends in town that she gets together with every so often. She and Lucy play bingo and then go out to eat on Thursdays. Does that sound like something you'd like to do?”
“Bingo or eat dinner?”
She smiled. “Well if you'd rather play bingo with my grandmother and Lucy, that's totally up to you.”
“I'd like you to make lasagna,” he said without hesitation which surprised him. As soon as the words came out of his mouth, it filled him with panic. When Harper had left the cabin, he was resolute in the notion that he wouldn't see her again except in passing. Here he was accepting a dinner invitation.
He needed to either get out of Sweet or get his head examined for even entertaining the idea of being alone with Harper Madison again.
* * *
Harper hated that she kept looking at the clock as she waited for Nash to arrive. She’d gotten out of work early so she could start on the lasagna. It had been baking for a while and now the kitchen smelled heavenly. She’d bought a bottle of wine that she knew went well with Italian food and set out two crystal glasses.
And she was alone.
Maybe Nash had decided not to come. Or maybe he had gotten stuck up on the mountain doing whatever work he was doing.
Harper glanced at the clock on the stove. Her grandmother would be at bingo for at least an hour and a half after she finished dining out with Lucy. Based on when they’d left, that didn't give her a whole lot of time to be with Nash. But it was something.
She had no idea what she was doing. Why had she invited him here? She had dated some, but with working and taking care of her grandmother, it was hard to maintain any type a romantic relationship. And he’d seemed so odd at the grocery store. It was like all the magic they’d shared up at the cabin had disappeared. Except in his eyes. Harper could see he was holding back. She just didn’t know why.
Lights from outside bent across the wall as a vehicle pulled into the driveway.
Her heart pumped in her chest as it always did the moment she saw Nash. Trying to act normal as if she hadn't been busy working in the kitchen for the last twenty minutes, she checked the oven to make sure dinner wasn't burning, and then pulled the bottle of wine out of the refrigerator and placed it on the counter next to the glasses. That should give him plenty of time to get to her front door without her hovering next to the window waiting for him.
She was a grown woman. It wasn't as if she’d never dated before. She'd just never met a man like Nash.
The doorbell rang and her heart leaped.
“You really are pathetic, Harper,” she said to herself.
She answered the door and Nash came in holding a small bouquet of flowers.
“You mentioned spring flowers,” he said, handing them to her.
“Actually, you were the one who mentioned them. I just love them. Thank you.”
He stood by the door and looked around.
“Come in. You don’t have to stand in the doorway. Dinner is almost done.”
He followed her into the kitchen and stood by the table while she found a vase to put the flowers in. Once she filled the vase with water, she stuck the flowers inside and placed the vase in the center of the table.
“I won’t be staying.”
Harper wasn’t sure she’d heard him right.
“What did you say?”
He took a deep breath. “This was bad idea. I shouldn't have come here.”
Harpers stomach dropped. Not because she had a party size lasagna in the oven. He was threating to leave before they’d even said anything to each other. She was suddenly sick with the idea that he'd leave and they wouldn't even have a chance to say all the things she’d rehearsed in her head all day.
“Is something wrong?”
He shook his head. “I came here to tell you that it's probably best that we don't see each other.”
“Excuse me?”
“I mean, socially. I know this potluck thing the town does is big deal and I don't expect you to ignore me if you see me in town. That's not what I'm saying. You know what I'm talking about.”
She licked her lips and thought about her words carefully as she stood there. “I sure hope so. You're running away.”
He straightened his back “If you want to think of it that way.”
“Isn't that what you're doing?”
“I’m trying to be honest. I was not prepared for what happened up at the cabin. I wasn’t prepared
for you. Neither one of us was thinking straight. It's a common thing, you know, when you go through something like we did together.”
“You mean like almost dying?”
He nodded.
“Some people feel thankful that they lived.”
He shrugged. “That's not what I'm saying either.”
“What are you saying? Because it sure does feel like you're running away from talking to me or facing what happened between us instead of meeting it head on.”
He sighed. “I'm not what you think I am. “
She crossed her hands in front of her chest. “Enlighten me. Because the person I met and spent all that time with was pretty amazing. To me anyway. I’ve met a whole lot of great people in my life. I'm lucky that way. But you…”
“See, that's what I mean. You think I can give you something that I can't give you.”
“Oh? And what is that?”
“A relationship. A real one where a woman cooks dinner and the man comes home from work and they live a normal life. That's not me. It never will be me.”
“Is that what you think I expect?”
“I don't know. I don't know you well enough, to be honest.”
“Well, we agree on that one. But instead of running away, I was hoping we could get to know each other better.”
“These things don't work for me. I don't expect you to understand.”
She released her arms and they fell by her side. “Look, let's just have dinner and talk. At the very least, it's a thank you for saving my life.”
“I can't.”
“Why not? You just going to leave it like this? Without talking about anything or getting…”
“Closure? There is no closure to this.”
She chuckled without any humor. “What you talking about? You want to leave it like that? Me being picked up by a police cruiser as if I were a stray dog who happened on your property? You just turning around and heading back up that mountain? I don't believe for one minute that you're going to go to that town potluck. I think you're afraid. I think you’re up at that cabin hiding. What kind of life is that?”
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