“Yeah,thatI picked up on.”
Her fingers smoothed over the soft fabric of his shirt. She loved the way she could feel his heart thrumming just as fast as her own. “Only because you can be a real stickler. But I get it now.”
“I hope you know that I take my job seriously, and that’s why I tend to go a little overboard when it comes to things related to safety. After what happened at the last firehouse—”
“You don’t need to explain yourself, Mitch. We’ve all got our quirks. Goodness knows I have plenty of my own.”
“That you do,” he agreed just a little too quickly.
“Hey. Wait a minute. What quirks areyouthinking of?”
His hands settled at her lower back, fingers knotting together. “Not your insistence on consuming completely burnt cookies. Couldn’t possibly be thinking of that,” he teased, giving her a playful squeeze. “And definitely not the whole obsession with the rotisserie chicken thing.”
“I’m in the food industry. My favorite thing in the world is food.”
“Hey, I’m not judging you. Just answering your question.”
She didn’t need to give him a hard time about this. He was right. She’d asked him, after all.
“I really like you, Faith,” he said, surprising her when his arms flexed around her to pull her completely flush with him again. His lips touched hers, softly, slowly at first. Practiced andyet passionate, the way she’d always wanted to be kissed. “Likea lot.”
She liked him, too. Wasn’t it obvious? And yet, she couldn’t get the words out.
“You don’t have to say anything back.” He decoded her lengthy pause but wasn’t deterred by it. “I just wanted you to know that.” His knuckles gently dragged down her cheek before he curled a few loose strands of hair behind her ear. His fingers lingered there. “And even though I really like you, I need to give you a heads up that I’ll still have to follow all the necessary protocols for the inspection. It’s nothing personal. Just my job.”
She would have been fine not talking about the soiree or the missing permit all evening. Kissing Mitch was a welcome distraction from that whole ordeal, one she had desperately craved. But she understood his need to be completely transparent, and she appreciated him for it all the more.
“I wouldn’t expect anything other than the highest adherence to the rules,” she said, giving him a warm smile. Ever since that kiss, she just couldn’t keep from grinning like a fool. “I’m just keeping my fingers crossed that everything gets pushed through in time, and I’m trying my hardest not to stress,” she continued. “Because if it doesn’t, there won’t even be a soiree for me to stress about at all.”
CHAPTER 19
“You really don’t have to do this.”
“I’m happy to help,” Mitch said, pitching another forkful of manure into the wheelbarrow set up in the barn aisle just outside the horse stall.
“I gotta hand it to you, Mitch. You’re the first person to willingly volunteer for pooper scooper duty. Most of the time, it was used as a punishment for us kids back in the day.” Spencer chuckled as he bent over the hind hoof of Alpine, Josephine’s big palomino gelding. He had lifted the horse’s massive hoof onto his knee before pulling the shoeing nails from a magnet fixed onto his farrier chaps.
The guy did a little bit of everything when it came to farm life. Horse shoeing and managing the chores. Feeding and tending to the animals. And Mitch knew that with Josephine still laid up in the hospital, they were down a ranch hand. Some might think her age would slow her down in the productivity department, but the woman had a determination and grit that never grew tired, nor old.
And if Mitch had learned anything during his time in Snowdrift, it was that neighbors helped neighbors, even if theaddresses weren’t contiguous. It was all one big community, one extended family.
Spencer’s hammer pounded a small nail into the hoof, and much to Mitch’s surprise, the horse didn’t even flinch. That right there proved he knew next to nothing about equine care. Give him a human and he could handle all sorts of ailments and care, but horses were a different story altogether.
“You ride?” Spencer asked, looking up.
“I don’t.” With another shovel of manure loaded onto the fork, Mitch tipped it into the wheelbarrow. Spencer had instructed him not to get too many of the pine shavings in with the waste. It had taken Mitch a few tries to shake it out just so, but he was quickly getting the hang of it. “I’ve never even been on the back of a horse.”
“We’ll have to change that,” Spencer said. He had a nail pressed between his lips the way a seamstress held a needle while he continued fitting Alpine’s shoe. “We’ve got a couple good beginner horses around here,” he spoke around the nail. “Once the snow melts and the trails reemerge, we’ll get you up in the saddle.”
Mitch knew it was odd that he didn’t jump at the chance. Most of his colleagues likely would. He just wasn’t the adrenaline seeking junky he once was, and he was okay with that.
“Can’t say I’m too excited about that,” he said, tacking on a hearty laugh to politely convey his reluctance. “But I’m more than happy to help with the chores that involve two feet planted firmly on the ground.”
“We’ve got plenty of those around here.” Spencer stepped back, dropping Alpine’s hoof to the ground. The horse shifted his weight, readying for the next shoe. “Good boy.” He gave the big animal a pat on its rump. “You going to the soiree?”
Mitch paused in the doorway of the stall he’d been mucking and looked at the cowboy. “Planning to.”
“You ask anyone yet?” Tugging his hammer from a loop on his belt, Spencer swung against a new shoe he’d just placed on the anvil. It was a cold shoeing process, Spencer had informed Mitch. Shaping the metal without using a forge or heat.
