Page 46 of Love, Hate, Love

After another solid fifteen minutes, I forced myself out from under the blankets and put a hand to the baseboard. It felt colder than the room did.Dammit. Dammit. Dammit.

I pulled the comforter up around my head and shoulders, slipped on my boots, and trudged over to the bunkhouse. Luckily, Elijah was still up. He was the one who fixed all the broken things around this place—well, except me, but it was hard to expect miracles.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” he asked, looking away from the big screen, where he’d been flicking through channels.

I wasn’t sure if it was my showing up late with my hair drenched, or the comforter cape that was putting off desperado vibes. Either way, I’d obviously nailed it.

“I know it’s late, but could you come check my heat? It won’t come on.”

“Yeah, sure.” He stretched as he got up, clearly having been winding down for the night. Working a ranch wasn’t for the weak of heart. A full day here felt like forty-eight hours. When you hit the bed, you were ready to sleep. Except when you were shivering like I was.

Twenty minutes later, Elijah was kneeling at the heater and shaking his head.

“I’m not sure if it’s the element or the limit switch that isn’t working.”

“What does that mean?” He might as well have been teaching rocket science.

“It means I need to swap out some parts.” He poked around and looked at different things as he explained. “It’s so old, it might not even be worth fixing. You might need a whole new system.”

“So you’re saying I’m not getting heat?” I asked.

Elijah finally stopped fiddling and looked over at me like he wasn’t sure what had happened to my brain. “Yes. That’s pretty much what ‘it’s not working’ means.” He stood up, brushing his hands off on his jeans. “You should either come stay at the bunkhouse, or I’ll go talk to Kade. I’m sure he’d be fine with you staying up there at the house.”

I couldn’t have shaken my head any harder. “No, no. I think I’ll be fine here. I’ll just burrow under the covers.”

He looked around the place, as if trying to figure out what I was so attached to that I was willing to sleep in what amounted to an icebox. “We’re getting a cold snap. It’s dropping below freezing tonight.”

“If it gets too cold, I’ll head over. I’m not worried.”

He nodded but then stood there. Clearly he had a different opinion on what I should do but wasn’t quite sure if he was in a place to argue with me.

“I’ll be good. Trust me. Now it’s getting late. I don’t want to keep you up. I’ll see you tomorrow unless I get cold, and then I’ll be over.” I got up, as if I were going to walk him to the door. It was a little odd, since the door was only three feet away. That was shed life for you.

He kept glancing back at me but finally left.

I went through my things that I’d finally put into the dresser and dug out a wool sweater and the thickest socks I could find. I mummified myself in the comforter and settled onto the bed.

There was a knock at the door ten minutes later. I’d been expecting someone to show up ever since Elijah left looking like he was the unwitting driver of a getaway car. There was no way he hadn’t run to someone, most likely Kade or Chuck. The fact that they’d knocked meant it probably wasn’t Kade and safe to answer.

“Come in.”

Chuck took a step inside. “Whoa, it’s like the damned Artic in here.” He gave a mock shiver.

“It’s fine. Elijah said he needed some things in order to fix the heater, but I’m good.” He was going to be a little harder to run off than Elijah but I was confident in my abilities.

“Yeah, he told me. You sure you want to stay here tonight? You can come stay at my place. It’s just a little bit down the road.” He pointed in a vague direction. “I’m not sure you should be staying here.”

“Chuck, I’m good. I swear. Plus, I’m not legally allowed to leave the ranch.”

He rubbed his jaw and grimaced. “Oh, yeah. I forgot about that little issue.”

It was amazing how little my felon status seemed to occur to any of them. “If I get too cold, I can go to the bunkhouse. It’s not like I have nowhere to go.”

He took a second to think about it but then shrugged. “Don’t be stubborn about it,” he said in his gruff way.

“I won’t.”

“Okay. I’ll see you in the morning, then. I’ll be making my famous pancakes.”

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