"Carmen."
"A temporary person in your temporary cabin with a temporary deal." Backing toward the hallway, I grab my jacket from the hook. His jacket. Still wearing his jacket. Pulling it off, I drop it on the chair. "You should've told me. Before the soup. Before the kiss. Before you asked me to stay in your bed. You should've told me this place might not exist in six months."
"I'm not selling."
"You can't afford not to."
His hand grips the counter edge. Knuckles white. "I'm handling it."
"Alone. The way you handle everything." Stepping into my shoes by the door, I don't look at him. Can't look at him. "You take care of the cabins. You take care of the town. You take care of me. But nobody's taking care of you, Owen, because you won't let anyone close enough to try."
The door handle is cold under my palm.
"Where are you going?"
"Cabin six. My cabin. Where the temporary woman sleeps when she's not in your bed."
"Carmen, wait."
But my feet are already on the porch, then the steps, then the gravel path between the cabins. The morning air bites through my scrub top. Without his jacket, the cold finds every inch of exposed skin.
Behind me, his boot steps don't follow. He's standing in the doorway watching me walk away. I can feel it. The weight of his attention on my back, steady, even now.
At cabin six, I lock the door. Sit on the edge of the bed I haven't slept in for a week. Press my palms to my eyes.
The sheets smell like cedar from the closet. Clean. Unfamiliar now. Not like his bed, which smells like pine and sex and the space where his body was.
My phone buzzes.
Cat:
How's my big sister? Haven't heard from you in days. Everything ok with the job?
Owen treating you well?
Hello??? Should I worry???
My thumbs hover. What do I say? The job isn't real. The man is drowning in debt. The property is probably getting sold to a developer who'll tear down the cabins and build condos. I slept with him. Multiple times. In his bed, in his kitchen. He makes me soup every morning. My hands don't shake anymore. I might be falling in love with a man who's going to lose everything, and when he does, I'll have nowhere to go again.
Me:
Everything's fine. Just busy. Tell you more later.
Cat:
That's what you said last time. You sound weird. Call me.
Putting the phone face-down on the nightstand, I pull the quilt around my shoulders. The cabin is cold without a fire in the woodstove. Cold without his body heat.
From here, I can see the main house through the window. His kitchen light is on. His silhouette moves past the glass, stops, stands at the sink for a long time. Looking out toward my cabin, probably. Watching my light the way I'm watching his.
Stubborn man.
The property tax notice was dated a month before I arrived. He was already behind when some well-meaning member of his family posted him on a matchmaking site. Already sinking when a burned-out nurse showed up on his porch thinking she was applying for a job.
He didn't take me in because he needed free labor. He took me in because the door was open, the soup was hot, and Owen McCall doesn't know how to not feed someone who's hungry.
That makes it worse.
