“Okay, point taken,” I laugh. “But the ground is uneven, like you said, so please be careful.”
Cooper walks slowly in the direction of the orchard shop, trying not to outpace Dorothy, while Harley runs figure eights around trees.
“Doesn’t he ever get tired?” I ask Dorothy.
“Oh no. He’s like the Energizer Bunny,” she says. “In fact, it seems the more he does, the more energy he has, like the activity charges his internal battery.”
Harley runs by with his arms spread wide, pretending to be anairplane, and I try not to think about Cooper’s muscles beneath my palms. Or how he smells like sugar and citrus and laundry detergent. Or the heat radiating from him, warming me from the inside out.
Instead I try to focus on my throbbing ankle. Because I can’t be attracted to a guy who wants nothing to do with me. A guy I’ll likely never see again after I leave Bramble Falls.
“You know,” I say to Cooper, “the last time I was here, I was the one giving you a piggyback ride.”
Cooper laughs. “Don’t remind me.”
“Oh, but I’m going to. You’d just jumped off the floating dock at the lake…”
“Ellis, come on,” he whines, but I can hear his smile.
“And you burst out of the water crying.”
“I had a rusty fish hook in my toe!” he exclaims.
“Yeah, but I didn’t have to carry you because of the injury. You ended up on my back because you were sobbing so hard about the possibility of getting tetanus.”
“A legitimate concern,” he says in his own defense.
“The hook barely broke your skin. You didn’t even bleed,” I laugh. “There was no reason you couldn’t have walked.”
“Did you go to the doctor?” Dorothy asks, reminding me that we’re not alone.
“Don’t, Ellis,” Cooper says quickly.
“Three times!” I say, cracking up. “He went three times that week because he said the doctor was wrong. He was convinced he was dying.”
Dorothy laughs with me, and Cooper squeezes my thighs,making my insides crackle and hiss like a blazing fire.
“Yeah, yeah,” he chuckles. He shakes his head. “I hate you.”
The sentiment snaps me right back to reality. He can’t see me, but I nod, my smile faltering and my voice becoming quiet. “Yeah, I know.” And I can’t stand it, despite trying to convince myself I don’t care.
Once we’re out of the field, Dorothy and I wait in the parking lot with Harley while Cooper goes inside to get a bag of apples for them to take home since apple-picking didn’t go as planned.
“Dorothy, it was so nice meeting you,” I say as Cooper gives her the free apples.
“It was lovely meeting you, too,” she tells me.
Dorothy wrangles her grandson into the car, and they drive off. Cooper carries me inside, toward a hallway at the back, and sets me down in a small employee break room.
“Sit.” He nods at a chair. “I’ll be right back.”
“O-kay…”
Cooper returns five minutes later carrying a first aid kit and an ice pack wrapped in a thin towel. He sits in a chair across from me, scoots close, and pats his leg, nodding at my foot.
I reluctantly lift it, and he takes it in his hands, slipping off my boot and dropping it onto the floor. He pushes up my pant leg, and I shiver when his soft fingertips graze my leg.
“I can do this myself,” I tell him.
