Page 19 of Still A Cowboy
Cal stared, his brain stalling for a second as he tried to process the scene.
Surprise, concern, and a solid hit of what theactual hell all tangled together in his head.
“This,” he said slowly, “was not what I expected to find up here.”
Willa groaned again, sinking lower in the tub like she could disappear. “Just… help me, okay?”
Cal dragged a hand over his mouth, biting back a grin. “Sure. But you’re going to have to tell me how this happened.”
She glared at him. “Do I?”
“Yeah. I think you do.”
Willa let out a long breath and leaned her head back against the tile. “I’ve been watching a lot of old movies lately.”
Cal crouched beside the tub, careful not to jar his knee. “Yeah?”
“Last night I watchedThe Seven Year Itch.” She glanced at him, her expression sour. “You know, Marilyn Monroe. There’s this scene where she gets her toe stuck in the bathtub faucet.”
Cal blinked. “Okay…”
“And I thought, well, that’s stupid. That would never actually happen.”
He waited.
“So I tried it,” she finished.
His eyebrows shot up. “You tried it.”
“And now my toe is stuck.”
He pressed his lips together, fighting the urge to laugh. “So you were basically fact-checking an old movie?”
Her glare sharpened. “Look, it was a slownight.”
Cal leaned in, inspecting the faucet, careful not to brush against her towel. Her foot was wedged at a weird angle, but her skin wasn’t turning red or purple. No bleeding. No swelling that he could see.
“Well,” he said, sitting back on his heels, “the good news is, your toe’s still in one piece.”
“That’s great,” she muttered, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Any chance you know how to get it unstuck?”
Cal rubbed his jaw, already thinking through his options. “I’ve got a few ideas.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Any of them involve me keeping my dignity?”
“Not a single one,” he said, his grin finally breaking through. “But I’ll do my best.”
Cal got to his feet and opened the cabinet under the sink. “We need something to help slide it out. Soap, lotion, oil… something.”
He shuffled through the shelves until he found a small glass bottle tucked in the back. He picked it up and read the label. The wordsMidnight Temptationwere written in a loopy, romantic font.
He raised his eyebrows. “Massage oil, huh?”
Willa sighed. “It was a gift from Fia. She thought I needed to spice up my love life.”
Apparently, Willa hadn’t checked to see if it did the job since the bottle was unopened and the cap even had a little dust on it. He cracked the seal and poured a small amount around hertoe, careful not to overdo it. The scent drifted up immediately, warm and sweet, like vanilla mixed with something he couldn’t quite name but was definitely not helping his focus.
He worked the oil gently around her skin, easing it between her toe and the metal. His fingers brushed over her foot, and his mind, traitorous as ever, kept circling back to the very obvious fact that she was naked under that towel.
