I shake my head, plastering my grin to my face. “Nope. Meant to do that. Had too many brain cells up there, anyway.”
She rolls her eyes. “Ah, he’s cocky too.”
Yeah, what the hell was that?
I touch my forehead again to make sure I’m not bleedingtoohard, and my fingers come away with a somewhat worrisome amount of red.
She shakes her head and turns on her heel, gesturing for me to follow along behind her. “Come on, I’ll fix you up at the house.”
I raise an eyebrow, wondering if I heard her correctly.
She pauses, turning around to face me with wide eyes. “What is that, your best tree impersonation? Do you want my help or not? Because without it, you’re going to be bleeding all over that fancy BMW you tried to hide at the bottom of the hill.”
I swallow, quickly falling into step behind her. “I wasn’t trying to hide it. It’s the only place to park it on my lot.”
She eyes me, her arms crossed over her chest as she easily navigates a pile of stones along one side of the river. “You can use my parking lot.”
I can’t help the grin that comes to my face as I follow her footsteps along the rocks.
When I’m quiet for a few seconds, she glances at me, a glare immediately falling over her features. “Okay, it’s a parking lot, not my first-born child. There’s no reason to look that happy.”
“Why would your first-born child make me happy?”
“Can only assume that’s what you eat for dinner.”
I snort. “No, I’m partial to second-borns actually. Usually a little tougher meat.”
She pauses, turning to look at me. “That was truly disturbing.” Then she lets out a little disbelieving snort. “Funny, though.”
Is that a point in the Eve Harper playbook?
As we come to a stop along the stream, I touch my forehead again. And yup, still bleeding. I do my best to wipe the grimace off my face when she turns to me.
But I’m too slow, and for a moment, that harsh look she’s giving me fades. “You’ll be fine,” she says, glancing at the cut. “You’re bleeding but not in a super dramatic way. We should probably just make sure you don’t have any tree left in your head and throw some antiseptic and a band-aid on there for the night. No biggie.”
I nod, warmed by her caring tone. “Thank you.”
She gives me a quick smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “You’re welcome.” She turns back to the stream. “There are a couple rickety rocks in here, so just step where I step, okay?”
She reaches behind her to offer me her hand, and though there’s part of me that wants to refuse—to scoff at the insinuation that I, a big manly man, need help crossing the stream—something tells me to shut up and take it. To not interfere with her kindness and instead, let her help me.
So I take it, but I make sure not to hold on flimsy like a scared man baby.
Her hand is warm in mine—delicate and small but strong—and though she was the one to offer it to me, I’m pleased to note that by the time we reach the other side of the stream, I was steadier on my feet than she was. That even though I’m certain we both felt a little zip between our fingers as our skin connected, I stayed steady and lithe while she went tense, her hand clamming up ever so slightly inmine and her movements less sure than only moments before.
When we reach the other side, she drops my hand like a bad habit, quickly crossing her arms again. “I guess you didn’t really need help crossing the stream, did you?”
“That one rock almost threw me off. You must have missed it, but I was really glad I had you there to help me,” I say, and when she turns around to shoot me a narrow-eyed look, I continue, “Almost had another foot-in-stream situation there. Doubt it would have been an accident.”
She purses her lips as she takes off toward the bungalow, a number of visitors milling about in the area she referred to as the backdrop. Families take pictures of one another and filter in and out of the gift shop, sunglasses on and paper bags in hand. And as we weave through the ever-thickening throng of people, she says, “I’m being nice to you.”
I raise my eyebrows. Her actions are nice, but her demeanor tells me she’d rather be anywhere else.
When I don’t answer for a few seconds, her head whips toward me. “Right?”
I hold my hands up in surrender as a woman taking a picture of her kids in front of the sunflowers eyes me, her gaze caught on the gash on my forehead. “Real nice. Nicest person I’ve ever met. My god, this level of adoration is uncomfortable, but I think I can bear it.”
She shakes her head. “I came over to offer you one of my guys for the day,” she says, her attention focused on the bungalow we’re rapidly approaching.
