But she wouldn’t appreciate me barging in, just yet.
Eve studied the ground. “Thank you for coming up.”
“You don’t need to be so formal with me,” I murmured, sliding my hands beneath her arms to help her up as the last of the wire fell away with the deer’s escape.
A loudsquelchfilled the hollow as Eve rose. Giggles burst from her. She clutched my arms, extracting herself from the mud and taking a whole lot of goop along with her.
“How long did you say you were down there again?” I asked into her hair, attempting not to seem stalkerish as I inhaled her scent.
“A few hours,” she murmured, sliding her hands around my forearms and let them rest there.
“And you really didn’t think to take your phone with you?” I asked, savoring her warmth.
Fuck knew why I chose that hill to die on in that moment, but I’d planted my flag with her name on it, and die for her, I would.
Her skin stood out as pale against the dark red of my shirt, and despite the cold muck seeping between us, I pulled her into me in a backward hug, wrapping my arms tight around her chest.
She sighed, leaning her head back, staring into the entwined branches above us. “Who would I call for help, Archer?”
Still Archer.
We’d have to work on that.
“Me,” I said into her hair, kissing the top of her head.
“But you weren’t here.”
“I said I would be, today. Don’t you remember?” I turned her in my arms, inspecting her, but I saw the same Eve I remembered.
It was her eyes that held the most difference. Instead of locking in on me, they were vacant, rather like her mother’s had been in the days after her father's death.
I crushed her against my chest, winding my arms around her and promising never to let her go.
Until she began to wriggle.
“Breathing.” She tapped my arms.
I loosened them, fairly certain that it was her attempt at a distraction, but I gave her the benefit of the doubt, regardless.
“You can breathe,” I said, pressing my lips to her forehead. “And you shouldn’t be alone.”
“I’m not,” she said, completely reasonably in the circle of my arms, and completely at odds with her words of a moment ago.
I sighed, the pressure I had expected to ease when I finally found her building exponentially. “Let’s get you back to the house. A shower and some clean clothes, alright?”
Eve nodded, letting me curl my fingers around hers and lead her back to my truck, coiling the wire the doe had been trapped in around my other hand.
I didn’t need to ask where her truck was; I knew it was parked in the yard by the big house.
“You came up here alone, did you?” I scanned the tree line as we walked; old habits and all.
Eve shot me a look over when I glanced back over my shoulder that told me she knew exactly what I was doing. “When I couldn’t get workers, Pierce offered me some of his. An offer I couldn't refuse.” She huffed at the irony, but her jaw was clenched tight.
“And how did that go?” Her silence said everything. “Eve?” I tugged her to a stop. For a long moment, she refused to look at me.
After an eternity, Eve raised her stunning face to me. Unshed tears danced in her eyes, a vulnerability I both hated and loved stared back at me, all strong and fierce and proud.
Hell, I loved her.
