She entered. He barely glanced at her, then pointed to an area under the tub.
“Get the water back there. You’re smaller, you’ll fit better.”
It was a tight squeeze, and Abigail had to get as low as she could without showing off anything she didn’t want to display. The towel she was using was almost full of water, and she wasn’t sure she was actually getting anything drier.
“Here, use this one,” Cade said, and took the wet one away from her. He threw it with the rest piled in the drained tub.
Then he sat on the floor near the door and watched.
He watched her dry the spots under the tub, and then watched as she scooted backward and got the puddles under the sink.
He watched her as, trying to be surreptitious, she adjusted her robe so that she was still completely covered.
She was, but he stared at her anyway.
He sat with his arms crossed against his broad chest, still that glare on his face, but his eyes were darker than she’d seen them.
Maybe it was a trick of the dim light.
Abigail finished under the sink, and looked around.
“I think we did it.”
She threw the last towel into the bathtub, then moved carefully so that she was sitting on the floor opposite him. Her legs stuck straight out. She made sure they didn’t touch his. One hand clutched her robe closed at her throat.
“I’m sorry.”
He cleared his throat and shook his head a little. “How did you manage that?”
“I don’t have any idea. I only went downstairs to make some tea. I was only there for a minute.”
“I heard you walk by my door and then down the stairs. Then I didn’t hear anything for fifteen minutes, until I heard the dripping.”
“That’s impossible. I was only…” Her voice trailed off. “I must have fallen asleep. I sat down in the rocker; I must be more tired than I thought.”
He sighed and leaned back against the wall. Still seated, he let his arms uncross. He looked tired, she thought.
“I am really, really sorry. Have I done any permanent damage?”
His eyes, which he’d closed for a moment, opened slightly and looked at her, then closed again. “Not to the bathroom, no.”
“I mean, the floorboards…”
“Nothing that can’t be dried out. I’ve done it myself.”
“You take baths?”
He frowned. “Even out here on the range, we take baths. You’d be surprised.”
“I didn’t mean…”
“That’s the problem. You didn’t mean. You didn’t mean to get in my way, you didn’t mean to flood the bathroom, you didn’t mean to take over my house with your footsteps and your perfume…You just didn’t mean.”
“I…”
“Don’t say you’re sorry. If I were you, and I were in your shoes, I’d
feel
sorry for me, too, but I wouldn’t
be
sorry, so don’t say it again. It’s getting really old.”
Abigail could think of nothing else to say, so she remained quiet.
He sat, eyes still closed. She wanted to get up and get out of his way, but he was blocking the door. In order to leave the bathroom, she’d have to step over him, and in her short flimsy robe, stepping over him would show off more than she wanted to.
She’d wait. She couldn’t apologize anymore; she’d wait him out instead.
They sat.
After a couple of minutes, Abigail started getting cold. Was he playing a game?
She waited a little longer.
The game was getting old. How long would he keep this up? Then she noticed that his breathing was getting steadier, deeper.
He was taking longer pauses between each breath. His arms relaxed as she watched. His head, against the wall, drooped slightly, hanging to the side.
He was asleep.
She stood, as quietly as she could, touching nothing in the bathroom. She tiptoed toward the door, stepping over him, ever so carefully: one leg, then the other one. Almost out.
A hand wrapped around her wrist and pulled. She fell off balance, falling backward. Another arm came up and snaked around her waist, and she fell all the way down.
But she didn’t land on the ground. She landed square in his lap, as he’d obviously intended, his arms pinning her in place.
Abigail opened her mouth to speak, to protest, but nothing came out.
They looked at each other.
“I must have tripped,” she said, her voice much smaller than she’d meant it to sound.
“You must have. It’s good I was here to catch you.”
“Yes,” she said and tried to pull her arms out of his grasp.
“But we should take a moment and make sure you’re not hurt.”
“Not hurt,” she whispered.
“Are you sure?”
She nodded.
He nodded once, and then pulled her tightly against him, one hand releasing her wrist and going to the back of her head. His head lowered, and his mouth was on hers, hot and rough and persistent.
And she was kissing him back. Good Lord, what was she doing? The hand that he’d released was moving of its own volition, up to the back of his neck, pulling him down so that he kissed her harder. His tongue touched the inside of her mouth, asking, and then before receiving an answer, plundering.
Their mouths moved against each other: He requested, she granted. She’d never been kissed like this. This was more than a kiss. He was making love to her with the kiss, her body responding in ways that were shocking her, and she did nothing to stop him.
Instead, she pressed against him more.
She didn’t want to stop him.
Cade shifted, still kissing her, his mouth warm, his tongue insistently pressing, teasing, licking. She matched him, shifting with his body, not sure what his intent was, but knowing she couldn’t move her lips from his.
His arm, now free of holding her, came between them, and she felt his fingers at the top of her gown. He slipped a finger down, and the robe parted with a silken whisper.
She felt him gasp against her lips, and could tell by what happened under her, his hardness against her hip, that he was far beyond aroused.
Her breasts, exposed to the cool air, felt more vulnerable than they ever had. Her nipples grew tight and high.
He had to touch her. She would die if he didn’t touch her.
One finger brushed one of the rosy peaks, so softly she wondered if she’d imagined it. A throaty groan, was it hers? His? She couldn’t tell.
And then, without any warning, she was sitting on the cold bathroom floor, Cade towering over her.
“What the hell?” she said.
He said, “Godammit. I didn’t want that.”
He turned and was gone, his bedroom door slamming behind him.
Abigail took a gulping breath and pushed her hair back. She closed her traitorous robe tightly, and stood up. Her knees were wobbling and she noticed her hands were shaking.
She hadn’t wanted that either. But now she didn’t want anything else.
She was in trouble.
If it makes you feel better to think you’re in charge of the yarn completely, then go ahead and do that. It won’t change the truth.
—
E.C.
T
he next morning, when Cade opened his eyes in the quiet, still darkness of predawn, he knew something had happened, and struggled to remember what he’d forgotten while sleeping.
Then he got it.
He’d kissed Abigail in the bathroom.
He groaned and rolled over, putting his face in the pillow. He was rock hard the second he thought of her. Again.
Yes, she was attractive. Hot as hell. No, he couldn’t get her out of his mind, even though he desperately wanted her off his property.
But he’d never dreamed he would grab her like that, wrench her down on his lap like he had.
It was something he hadn’t been able to control. He wouldn’t have believed, an hour before he kissed her last night, that he would ever kiss her. Much less ten minutes before he did, when he’d been so furious about the water all over his house, the house that had flooded because she’d been an idiot and had fallen asleep with the tub running.
No, he’d been the idiot. She hadn’t meant to flood the bathroom. He
had
meant to kiss her. With all his body, he had meant that kiss last night.
Abigail had kissed him back, he knew it. He’d grabbed her, pulled her down, but she’d kissed him back as hard, harder, perhaps. Her hand had been in his hair, twisting, pulling him closer, so that their breaths were interchangeable and that breathing was as fast as if they’d been running.
Oh, this was agony. He had to get out of bed, fast, and get out of the house before he saw her.
How was he going to avoid her until she got the cottage in livable order?
It might be impossible, but he could try.
Cade showered, dressed, ate his instant oatmeal, and was out of the house in under twelve minutes. He had most of the barn chores done by six thirty, when the sun was peeking up and Tom was walking in.
“You look like hell,” said Tom.
“I need you to check those ewes again today. Get the vet, just to be sure.”
“No ‘good morning, old buddy’?”
Cade wasn’t in an old-buddy mood. He scowled.
Tom said, “Okay, then. I’ll make my own coffee, I guess?”
“There’s some in the office. Go ahead.”
“Anything you wanna talk about?”
“Nope.” Cade kept raking out a stall that had held until this morning an older ewe that had been struggling with pneumonia. She’d died sometime in the night, and he’d already dealt with her body this morning.
“That ewe gone?”
“Yep.”
“Damn. I thought she looked better yesterday.”
“I did, too. We were wrong.”
“You upset?”
“That sheep cost me money.”
“Have anything to do with that girl up at the house?”
Cade stopped raking and glared at Tom. “No.”
“Okay.” Tom held up his hands and started backing away.
“Why would you ask that?”
“Forget I asked.”
“It’s not about her.”
“I believe you.”
“But why would you ask about her?”
“I’m thinking you have more you want to say to me about it. But I’m going to get some of that coffee. If you want to talk about it, talk. Otherwise, I’m going to get to work.”
“It’s not about her.”
Tom nodded and walked toward the office.
How had Tom known? Why couldn’t Cade just be upset about the sheep? This was his livelihood, after all. It would make any rancher upset.
But Tom was right, and Cade figured they both knew it. Tom knew him well. Cade dealt with death on the ranch the same way Tom did, with regret it couldn’t be avoided, and a stoic conviction that humane and healthy treatment of the livestock would go a long way toward a strong, sturdy fold.
A simple ewe dying of common illness and age—that wasn’t enough to make him look like this, act like this. Cade knew his face was reflecting the exact way he felt—Eliza used to beat him so soundly and regularly at poker that he’d never even played anyone for money. He knew he’d lose.
He’d just have to avoid Tom today. Wouldn’t be so hard, not if he moved those irrigation lines he’d meant to do yesterday, and not if he went up to the ridge line and worked up there—he hadn’t been up to that end in months, and there was some brush he wanted cleared. He’d check to see if it was a burn day in the county; maybe a good bonfire would make him feel better.
And he’d avoid Abigail, too. Forever. Wouldn’t be that hard, would it?
She’d been shivering in that skimpy robe last night. Wait until she saw how cold it could actually get out here. A couple of cold winter storms would probably drive her out. ’Course, they were still so close to the ocean that it never snowed or anything like that, but the nights could still drop down below freezing. The cottage wasn’t well insulated. And the chimney was blocked.
Humanely, he’d have to tell her to get that chimney fixed, at the very least. But that was it. She could think of and install insulation on her own.
Unless that made it take more time for her to get out of his house. Her and that ridiculous robe. Dammit. He needed to distract himself.
As Cade drove the ridge in his truck, he noticed heavy clouds looming to the north. He got out, pulled on his leather gloves, and started hauling brush. He took a break a couple of hours later and walked up to the one point, where, through the trees and over two valleys, he could see the ocean. It was dark slate, and he could tell, even from here, that the water was rough and whitecapped.
From up here, he could see only nature, only trees and ocean. Not even a power line marred his line of vision, though he knew that if he turned his head a little to the east, he’d see an electrical grid of lines marching across the low hill that his neighbor Tuttle owned.
He loved it. Close enough to town. San Francisco within range, if he needed it. There were people around if he got lonely. There were women to date, plenty of them. And Cade liked to date.
But he’d been alone since Eliza moved south, leaving him in charge.
Matter of fact, now that he thought about it, he’d never lived with another person in his life. He’d gone from his parents’ home and then bounced from apartment to apartment, finally to the ranch, avoiding entanglements from every side.
Not that there hadn’t been women who had tried, sneaking lip gloss into his bedside tables and extra pairs of panties into his sock drawer. Every time a woman started that up, he didn’t merely bag up her stuff and return it to her—he got rid of the girl. He didn’t have time for a relationship, no time for love. So he sidestepped it, religiously. People didn’t find that movie-perfect love like Eliza and Joshua had every day. His parents certainly hadn’t. He didn’t want to follow in their footsteps.
And he certainly wasn’t going to let some perfect stranger, a beautiful one notwithstanding, walk in and wreck his solitary happiness.
Mostly Cade preferred to be up here on the hill, looking down, knowing he could be down there and choosing not to be. He knelt and took off a glove. He touched the dirt. Eliza’s husband, Joshua, had loved this land the way Cade did. He’d died when Cade was eleven, of a massive heart attack, but before he died, Cade had seen him kneel down and taste the dirt. Cade had tried it, too. They’d grinned at each other and proclaimed it the most delicious dirt in the world.