Page 12 of Smokin' Situation

“Guess so,” he murmured, taking a few steps back to let me pass him, but keeping a hand on my side to steady me. If it were anyone else, I would have shaken off his touch and insisted I was fine, but I had to admit it was nice to be the center of his attention. Even if it was to keep me from hurting myself.

Thankfully, as the sun sunk down below the ridge, the temperature had also dropped, a breeze prickling my skin as we walkedthrough the remains of the festival and toward my truck in the parking lot that seemed a lot further away than it hadthis morning.

Shivering, I crossed my arms, knowing that it was just my body trying to regulate my temperature again. But as Tripp pulled me into his side, rubbing his hand up and down the side of my arm, the chill was the last thing on my mind.

Tristan

Whileshestilllookedexhausted, the color had returned to Rhey’s cheeks, and she seemed in better spirits than before the medic had given her the IV.

Baker had wanted to call her sister, who was apparently an ER nurse at the hospital, but I had a feeling the independent woman currently fidgeting with the hem of her shorts in the passenger seat of her truck would not have been on board with that. She didn’t seem like the type who wanted to draw a lot of attention to herself. And I could relate to not wanting to have younger siblings in your business.

Jayden had graciously let me stay in his guest room instead of being stuck in the purgatory that would have been living in my childhood bedroom under my mother’s care for months on end. He’d mostly just checked in on me to see if I needed anything, but I’d hated that feeling of being under a microscope.

As soon as I’d found out from Marty West, the owner of the ranch I now helped manage, that a small, dated cabin came with the position, I’d been ready to check it out the next day. It’d been a few weeks since I took possession, but now that the cobwebs were cleared out—and hopefully most of my arachnid friends—it was feeling like home.

And I didn’t have to worry about cramping my brother’s style anymore. He hadn’t brought a single woman back to his place in the four months I’d lived there, and I had a hard time believing he went that long between partners. My baby brother had been atotal slut in high school even as a freshman while I was a senior, so I doubted that’d changed much in the last twenty years.

“Do you need me to tell you where to go?” Rhey’s quiet voice cut through the silence in the truck cab, and I glanced at her briefly as I took the turn that’d take me up the mountain pass that separated Butterfly Ridge from Sage Springs.

“While you’re welcome to boss me around,” I teased, returning my eyes to the road and pressing the gas, the engine of the oversized Ram purring. “I know where I’m going.”

“Just wanted to make sure since you said it’d been a long time since you lived here.”

“I could come back in another twenty years, and it’d probably still be mostly the same,” I commented, resisting the urge to watch her because I needed to focus on the road.

“Isn’t that the beauty of small towns?” she asked, but her tone was melancholy. Almost like she didn’t exactly feel like she was a part of things, just an outside observer.

“Or the curse. Didn’t you notice all the people watching us when I came to help earlier?”

“Um, I was kinda passed out when you took me to the med tent, so no, wasn’t exactly aware of people watching that. Although it’d be normal anywhere to be a little curious when a big strapping firefighter is carrying an unconscious woman through a crowd.”

“I meant before you passed out while I was just helping you get the line down,” I chuckled, although carrying her through the crowd had been a memorable moment. But I’d been more focused on her than the crowd parting to let us through. “It was the same when I was in high school, everybody in everybody else’s business. I’m sure there will be some rumors circulating tomorrow.”

“Well, coming inside for your gourmet meal of fried bar food will surely get the tongues wagging.”

Instead of the panic I thought I’d feel at being the subject of additional scrutiny from the members of the small community we lived in, I kind of wanted to double down and give them something to really talk about. It wouldn’t have been the first time consideringhow I had returned to town after over a decade of being on my own.

When I woke up this morning, trying to quell the panic that usually came after the nightmares that had plagued me for months—breathing through the chaos—I hadn’t expected my day to end on a vaguely enjoyable note.

Was I happy that my passenger had passed out from heat exhaustion? Hell no, but I wasn’t sad about the fact that I got to be the one to feel useful for the first time in months and come to her rescue. And making sure she got back to the bar safely where she’d invited me to eat with her was better than the alternative of heating a can of soup on the outdated appliances I needed to update in my new home.

“Let them talk. I have nothing to hide.”

She let out a labored breath in response, leaning her head against the window in the passenger side door. I suddenly wondered if maybeshehad something to hide. But I left her secrets alone, carefully navigating the dark roads while she drifted off in the passenger seat.

Hudson,theownerofthe bar, was waiting at the back door, leaning against the brick wall with his arms crossed, as I pulled Rhey’s truck into the alley behind the building. I could see my boss’ daughter—not so little anymore—Charley West, standing beside him inside the doorway, bouncing on her toes as I downshifted and engaged the parking brake.

Rhey didn’t budge as I pulled the keys out of the ignition on the late model Ram, reaching over to drop them inside her open purse on the seat between us.

“Wake up, pretty girl,” I whispered, squeezing her kneecap lightly. When she didn’t budge, I figured our plans for the evening were going to have to be put on hold. I’d never been so disappointed to miss out on tater tots before. But hopefully since we lived in the same small town, and I knew where she worked, we’d see each other again.

Sighing, I unbuckled my seatbelt, slipping out of the driver’s seat and locking the manual lock on my side before I walked around the front of the behemoth and carefully opened the passenger side door.

“You want me to take her?” Hudson offered as he stepped forward, holding his hand out to take her purse from me.

“Nah, I got her.” Stepping onto the running board and leaning across her sleeping form, I unbuckled the seatbelt, her soft breaths tickling my neck as I pulled back. She was completely asleep as I lifted her out of the truck. Instead of hanging limply in my arms like she had before, she tucked her face into my neck and grabbed a fistful of my shirt.

“I’ll show you where you can lay her down,” Charley whispered before she led the way up a back staircase to a modest apartment above the bar, holding the door open for me before she flicked on the living room light. I followed her down a small hallway and into a sparsely decorated room, laying Rhey down after she pulled the covers out of the way.

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