For a split second, Joely and I looked at each other. Then she took off after Fabio. With no choice but to follow, I took off after her, calling back to my brother as my boots pounded on the pavement. “Keep an eye on the other animals.”
Trusting him to handle the tent, I sped up, easily overtaking Joely as Fabio ran between two buildings. Nellie would strangle me if she lost one of her critters, though I wasn’t exactly in a big hurry to get my hands on that skunk again. I could barely breathe through the stench that surrounded me. In all my years hiking through the mountains, I’d never found myself on the wrong end of a skunk.
He ran through the doorway of the Hard & Handy as a customer came out. My buddy Trace owned the place and would shit bricks if a skunk sprayed any of his customers inside.
“Hey, Thatcher. What’s going on?” Trace yelled as I followed Fabio right down the candy aisle.
“Nothing.” I stopped while Fabio paused to check out the bottom shelf. A package of Whoppers had caught his eye, or more specifically, his nose. He sniffed the air, his nose twitching, then dove onto the shelf.
Joely caught up, her chest heaving while she tried to catch her breath. “He’s a fast little guy, isn’t he?”
I put my finger to my lips and signaled her to be quiet. Then I got down on my hands and knees, gesturing for her to do the same. Fabio crouched at the back of the shelf, nibbling on a piece of candy. Hoping Joely could interpret my hand gestures, I signaled her to be ready as I went in for the grab.
With my heart pumping so much adrenaline through me that my hand shook, I reached out and caught Fabio with one hand.
“What the hell is this?” Trace stood over me, hands on his hips.
“Crisis averted. One of Nellie’s animals got out.” I tucked Fabio under my flannel shirt.
Trace squinted and pinched his nose. “You smell like?—”
“I know. Trace, meet Joely. She’s staying at Nellie’s cabin.”
Joely got up and held out her hand.
Trace shook his head and took a step back. “No offense, but could you both please get the hell out of here?”
“Of course.” Joely let her hand fall to her side. “No offense taken. Maybe we’ll meet again under better circumstances.”
“I don’t think I have an air freshener strong enough,” Trace said as he backed away. “Can you go out the back?”
“Yeah. Sorry, man.” I glanced at Joely and nodded toward the door to the storage room. “Follow me.”
CHAPTER 4
JOELY
“You owe me a cinnamon roll. I never got to finish mine.” I sat in the front seat of Thatcher’s truck with the windows wide open. As soon as we’d taken Fabio back to the tent, Nellie handed us each a blanket to wrap up in to try to contain the stench and sent us back to Thatcher’s with a huge bottle of something she called her “homemade de-skunking magic.”
“I never even got to start mine,” he said. “Knowing my nephew, they’re probably already all gone.”
“How old is he?” I asked, hoping to get a real conversation going. So far, he’d mostly answered my questions in grunts and grumbles.
“Six. He’s like a human garbage disposal, though.” Thatcher looked over, meeting my gaze for a split second before turning his eyes back to the road. “I don’t know where he puts it.”
“And he’s your brother’s kid?”
“Yeah. Holt’s a year younger than me and my brother Dane is a year younger than him. I’ve got a sister, too. Jessa’s the baby of the family.”
I’d never say that being sprayed by a skunk was a good thing, but something had shifted between me and the grumpy mountain man. Like he’d let down his guard a little. Not much, but at least enough to act like a regular human. And he was actually kind of cute when he wasn’t frowning.
“Your poor mother. Three boys that close together couldn’t have been easy.” I let out a soft laugh.
“My mom’s dead,” he said, his voice flat. And just like that, whatever defenses he’d let down slid right back into place.
“I’m so sorry.” Biting down on my lip, I wished I could take back what I’d said. It wasn’t the first time I’d opened my mouth and inserted my entire foot. With the way things were going between the two of us, it probably wouldn’t be the last.
The truck bounced over the rutted dirt road as we neared Thatcher’s cabin. Nellie said that would be the best place to go since he had a creek running through his property and we could easily scrub the skunk smell off of us there. But the closer we got, the more I wondered whether it was a good idea to go to his place. I wasn’t worried about something bad happening, I just didn’t want to make things worse between us.
