“Oh,” Grace blurts, suddenly and confusingly against that idea. “You don’t have to leave on my account. I was just going to wash up real quick.” She holds up the end of her ponytail, the strands barely moving for how much syrup still remains tangled within. “Got syrup in my hair.”
He smirks. “That happens when you don’t slow down to actually chew your food.”
Grace begins to yank at the hair tie, wincing as she pulls it out. “Are you judging me?” Her hair falls down around her shoulders, long—too long—and heavy from the buildup of sweat and sunscreen. “You’re the one who worked everyone to the bone today,” she grumbles, futilely attempting to run her fingers through the strands. “I had to make up the calories somehow.”
“Ah,” he says. “I figured we’d get the most taxing thing done early in the season. Have more time for easier stuff.”
“Hm,” Grace chirps. “I don’t hate that strategy.”
“Thank goodness.”
Keeping her eyes pointedly on the water and not on the man mere feet away, Grace walks into the pond, locking her mouth shut as it attempts to release a euphoric groan at the sensation. Immediately, it feels like she’s begun to shed the first layer of her skin. More loosens up and floats away as she continues to walk, just to the precipice of where she’ll no longer be able to touch. She’s neck-deep now, and she spends a good minute or two dunking her head in and out, sighing loudly each time she breaks through to the surface. To be fully submerged in this pool of cold, refreshing water is a luxury she didn’t realize she needed this badly.
Crew keeps his back to her. He lathers his hair with shampoo, and Grace studies the practiced way his fingers massage his scalp. For a man so gruff and unfussy, he is surprisingly gentle with himself. Leaving no crevice of his head untended, then rinsing thoroughly in chunks of dark strands until all of the suds have escaped into the water.
Eventually, Grace makes her way back to the shallower part of the pond. She grabs the bucket of shampoo, conditioner, and soap that conveniently floats next to her as she begins to bathe. They’re standing parallel to each other now, and it’s strange and quiet and intimidating to be in such close proximity to him as she runs a soapy washcloth beneath her bra to scrub under her breasts, then her ribs and belly. She doesn’t look at him, even if she is curious what part of his body he’s attending to now. The water makes a gentle, conceding noise as it laps against him, ashe moves within it, as though it has learned that resisting him is a fool’s errand. It will mold itself to fit his needs, not the other way around.
After about five diligent minutes of cleaning every inch of her body, she refrains from doing any more, realizing that if she continues, she’ll leave raw, red cloth-burns in her wake. Next, she has to tackle the mane atop her head. But as she reaches up to lather it up in shampoo, a seizing pain shoots up her neck and back. “Fuck,” she hisses, dropping her arms immediately. She blinks through it, letting it subside with a deep breath. Her neck has given her issues before, when she decides to become her own worst enemy on nights she sleeps in compromising positions. But it’s never beenthisbad. She tries again and is met with the same resistance. The same flashing ache radiates all the way down to her toes, only letting up when she’s staring straight ahead with her arms at her sides.
In this moment, even with Crew nearby and definitely within earshot, Grace feels the weight of the day tumbling down onto her. The anxiety of getting drunk the night before and making a fool of herself. The splitting headache that woke her from a dead sleep. The charitable bottle of Advil left outside her tent because she wouldclearlyneed it with how hammered she was. The brutal, daylong task of mending the fence. She’s never felt incapable of handling life on a ranch, but right now, she feels a very specific shade of inadequate. Too delicate, too easily breakable to be rubbing elbows with these ranch hands.
With this foreman.
Hot, frustrated tears begin to well in her eyes. Difficult as it is to conceal the sound of her breath shaking in her throat, she tries, because she doesn’t want Crew to hear her, let alone seeher falling apart. Stubborn through and through, Grace reaches upward again, resolving to fight through the pain and get it done. Tears slip down her cheeks with every inch her arms rise, but, slow and shuddering, she breathes through it. If she can just get through the shampoo part, that’ll be enough. She doesn’tneedsilky-soft conditioned hair—not if it means she may stiffen up irreparably and be permanently stuck in this position. Lathering the shampoo is tough; she needs the assistance of the water to activate the suds, but leaning back—and then coming back up—with her body in this state would be next to impossible.
She gets angrier with herself with each passing second. Countless times in her life, Grace has pushed through awful, traumatizing situations and come out on the other side. She’s seen more terrible things, felt more terrible things in her twenty-five years than most will experience in a lifetime. And yet somehow, by some cruel trick of the universe—by the whims of a vengeful god who is clearly laughing at her in the heavens—shampooing her wild hair, it seems, is what will ultimately be her undoing.
A few more seconds,she tells herself.Just work it into your hair for a few more seconds, and then you can dunk under the water and stay there as long as you like.
So distracted is she by this plight, the fact that another person is sharing this pond with her becomes a distant memory. That is, until she hears thewhooshing of moving water. Her eyes widen, red rimmed and still teary, but she sniffles and tries to compose herself as ripples begin to spread out in front of her, and a large presence finds itself at her back.
A soft voice asks, “Did you hurt yourself?”
As if on command, Grace hisses at a red-hot stab of pain in her lower back. “No, I—” Another hiss, followed by a little contorting until she finds relief. “I just slept wrong, I think.” But she continues, wholly certain that the middle section of her hair is coated in shampoo while the top and bottom remain untouched. “It’s fine.”
“It’s not,” Crew argues, and his voice sounds closer now. “You’re in pain.”
Grace sighs, struck by the need to keep his attention elsewhere, so she says through a watery laugh, “My pain tolerance is pretty high, if you recall.”
He doesn’t take the bait—and when he speaks again, it’s directly into her ear. As though he’s standingrightbehind her. And now that she’s homing in on it, she thinks he is—thinks she can feel the heat of his chest against her bare back. “Let me help you,” he commands gently.
Despite herself, despite the radiating aches coursing through her limbs, she scoffs. “You know, you don’t always have to come to my rescue. I can take care of myself.”
He’s quiet for a few heartbeats. “I know you can.”
Grace nods. “Good.”
“But I’ve seen those scars on your hands,” he says unceremoniously, and Grace tenses up, eyes squeezing shut at the pain that follows. “And I know you didn’t so much as whimper when I reset your shoulder. But I also know you’re crying right now.”
“It’s the water,” she lies, eyes remaining shut. “It feels great. They’re happy tears.”
“Don’t,” Crew interjects. It’s faint, barely there, but the press of his chest against her back has her movements halting. Her hands freeze in her hair; her shaky breath catches in her throat.His lips are touching her ear now. She can feel them, hot and insistent as they caress the skin on her lobe. He breathes against her, and the sound—thefeeling—makes her knees weak. “Don’t lie to me.”
“I—”
It’s a futile effort, trying to contradict him. Crew Caldwell is not a man to be toyed with or manipulated. He has always seen right through her to the darkest, rawest parts. Now is no different.
“Let me help you,” he says again. His lips travel downward, and when they move across that wondrous spot between her ear and jaw, Grace lets her arms fall. She couldn’t stop them if she tried.
