She followed my lead and settled daintily on the edge of the chair. “Thank you.”
“Yup,” I nodded and reached for the salt at the same moment she did.
Our fingers grazed, and the contact sent a jolt up my arm that had no business feeling that intense. Her eyes met mine, brown and warm behind those practical glasses, and for half a second neither of us pulled away.
Then she pulled her hand back, touching her hair to make sure no loose strands had run away on her, and the moment broke.
I salted my eggs, then put the shaker down next to her plate. “Are you staying another night?”
The question came out before I could stop it, and I found myself hanging on her answer like it mattered. Because despite what she did for a living, I desperately wanted another night with her.
She hesitated. Something flickered across her face, an internal debate I couldn’t read, and then she said quietly, “Yes. Will that be all right?”
I went hard so fast it almost hurt. She knew what she was agreeing to. Rachel knew the furnace might not be fixed and that we could end up in that bed again, and she was choosing to stay, anyway.
My eyes locked on hers, and a wave of heat passed between us. “Cool. That works for me. You can stay as long as you need.”
She cleared her throat. “Uh, well, I expect to be in town for three days, maybe four. Probably not longer than that. If I can… stay here in the meantime it would be great for me. Driving all the way from Fernwood every day wouldn’t be ideal.”
“Yup. I’m heading that way today myself,” I said, my voice steadier than I felt. “It feels like a longer drive than it should be because of all the winding mountain roads between here and there. I’ll be getting the parts for the furnace. Fingers crossed I’ll have it running by tonight.”
Rachel touched her hair again, making sure nothing was out of place. It was a nervous gesture I was starting to recognize. “That sounds good.”
I grabbed my truck keys from the hook by the door, already thinking about tonight.
I wasdefinitelyin trouble over this woman.
Chapter 5
Rachel
I couldn’t believe I’d said yes to staying another night.
The rational part of my brain, the part that had put me through college and built my career, was screaming at me that I should drive to Fernwood and book a hotel room there.
So what if it added an hour to my commute each way? That was the professional thing to do.
But I hadn’t made that choice.
No.I’d looked into Clayton Armstrong’s sexy dark eyes and told him I was staying, and now here I was, stuck in the mud on some godforsaken back road with rain hammering against my windshield while my rental car’s tires spun uselessly in the muck.
Had I been thinking about that man’s hands around my waist when I’d slipped off the road?
I blew out a sigh.
Thisis what happens when you let yourself get distracted in life.
I’d been fantasizing about what it would have been like to have a morning fuck with that mountain hunk when I’d driven right into the ditch.
Up until this moment, my first day of inspections had gone fine, all things considered.
I’d visited four properties on the east side of town, documenting hail damage to roofs and siding, taking measurements and photographs, and asking the standard questions.
Every single property around here had been built on a slant because apparently nobody in the Ozarks believed in flat ground, and the rain hadn’t let up for a single minute.
I’d slipped and slid around in my heels on those unpaved rural properties, soaked to the bone while I compared claims against reality.
Most of the homeowners had looked at me like I was some kind of exotic zoo animal, a prissy city woman in a power suit who couldn’t possibly know what she was doing. I was used to that reaction. I’d learned to use it to my advantage, actually, because people let their guard down around someone they underestimated.
