“I’ve got to get back to the well,” Honey said as Marlene backed away.
“Enough,” Ethan said.
That tone. It went straight down her spine. Crisp. Authoritative. Decided. The kind of voice that would make people in a boardroom snap to attention. She’d been conditioned to respect that tone. Her muscles tightened with the urge to follow the order, not because she had to, but because something in her wanted to.
She exhaled slowly. Damn it. She liked rules. She liked structure and order and well-defined roles. And Ethan, maddeningly stubborn as he was, fit that mold a little too well when he told her what to do like that.
“Get in the house, Ms. Baxter.”
Chapter 14
Ethan
He didn’t expect her to actually listen, but she looked up at him with those wide eyes, and then nodded once.
“The vine you were wrestling was poison ivy. You’ve got the oil all over you.”
“Oh.” She looked down at her arms.
He didn’t wait for her to process it further. “Follow me.”
And again—surprise—she did.
Ethan led her through the house and toward his bedroom. His pulse ticked faster the moment he opened the door. There was something about her standing in this space that made him feel exposed. Like she could see the parts of his life he kept shoved into closets—literal and otherwise.
He opened the bathroom cabinet and crouched to rummage through the mess of half-used products and expired ointments. “I’ve got a special soap for poison ivy. From when the kids went through that tree fort phase.” He held it up in victory. “Here it is.”
“I can manage,” she said, as much to herself as to him.
“Here,” Ethan cut in.
“Mr. Hale?—”
“Let me help you,” he said simply with no room for argument.
She hesitated, lips parting like she had another argument teed up, but whatever she meant to say fell away. In the end, she held out her arm.
Ethan turned on the tap, tested the temperature, then gently took her arm. Her skin was warm beneath the sheen of oil, and suddenly it was hard to breathe like a normal person. He rubbed the soap into a lather.
She stiffened. “I said I can handle it.”
“I heard you,” he said mildly.
“You’re very”—she struggled for a neutral word—“confident about inserting yourself into other people’s situations.”
He glanced sideways at her, the edge of his mouth tugging upward. “That’s the peach calling the kiwi fuzzy.”
“I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about,” she said flatly, though he clocked the hint of a smile.
The truth was, he shouldn’t have let that bike sit there as long as he had. He should’ve tossed it, or stored it properly, or something. But he didn’t. He left it to rot behind the barn, where the poison ivy crept up and claimed it like everything else Leticia had left behind.
It had felt fitting at the time. Petty, sure, but fitting. When he’d found out that the bureau released Leticia and she hadn’t come home, he was a wreck. He’d gone to look for her only to find out that she had started a new life without them. She chose not to come back, so why should her old things get treated with care? Why should that stupid bright blue cruiser—joy written all over it—get to stay untouched when the rest of them had to carry the ache?
He didn’t think Honey would find it, much less try to clean it.
The old faucet sputtered, warm water trickling over hiscalloused hands. He let the water run over her forearms in a gentle stream, rubbing slow circles with his thumb to rinse away the soap. He reached for the hand towel and patted her arms dry.
Honey hadn’t known what it was. She’d just seen a mess and tried to fix it.
