He took it without comment and angled the beam toward the panel. His forearm braced against the doorframe above my head as he reached, and I became very focused on the breaker switches.
I flipped through the connections, checking for anything obviously tripped.
“You know what you’re doing,” he said.
“I own a ranch. Knowing what I’m doing is the minimum requirement.”
“Not always. Some people own things and hire other people to know what they’re doing.”
I glanced at him, suspicious of the compliment. He was close in the narrow mudroom. Close enough that the flashlight beam caught the damp curl of hair at his temple and the line of his jaw.
I looked back at the panel.
“Found it.” I flipped a tripped breaker. The lights steadied. “Loose connection.” I still sensed heat coming from Graham. “Fixed,” I added, because apparently I’d lost the ability to stop talking.
Graham nodded, but he didn’t move to leave. He leaned against the doorframe, flashlight still in his hand, watching me in a way that made the mudroom feel about half its actual size.
“Rose.”
“We’re not doing the apology thing again.”
“I’m not apologizing.” His voice was quiet. “I just wanted to say thank you. For today. For letting me help with the horses. For not throwing me off the property when you probably should have.”
I didn’t know what to do with that.
Gratitude was harder to deflect than apology. Apology I could reject. Gratitude just sat there, warm and honest, waiting for me to accept it.
“You’re a guest,” I said finally. “It’s my job to make sure you don’t die in a storm.”
“Aye.” The corner of his mouth moved. “But you didn’t have to let me near the barn. Or the horses. Or?—”
He stopped.
Or you.
Neither of us said it. We didn’t need to.
My hand was still on the breaker panel, and I could hear the low hum of electricity through the metal. I focused on that instead.
“We should get back,” I said.
Graham nodded and stepped aside to let me pass.
He smelled like woodsmoke and clean rain, exactly the kind of detail my brain didn’t need to be cataloging.
I cataloged it anyway.
The evening wound down slowly.
Kaya herded everyone toward their cabins with promises of warm beds and an early morning.
I stayed in the kitchen, wiping down counters that were already clean. Washing a dish. Drying it. Washing another one. Doing anything that kept my hands busy and my brain from replaying the breaker room.
Finally, the main house was empty, and I was alone.
I locked up the way I always did. Front door. Windows. Back door. Front door again because my brain didn’t trust the first check. Then I turned off the kitchen light, went out the side door, and walked to my cabin through rain that had softened to a steady patter, almost soothing now.
My cabin felt smaller tonight.
