Can't fix the weatherstripping on cabin three without smelling vanilla on the wind. Can't chop wood without hearing her laugh carry across the property from wherever she's working. Can't sit at my kitchen table without staring at the chair she sat in that first night, eating stew with trembling hands, looking at me with those exhausted, beautiful brown eyes.
She's avoiding me. Politely, professionally, with the kind of careful distance that tells me she's thinking about it as much as I am. We eat meals at the same table but she keeps the conversation to work. What needs fixing. What supplies to order from Durango. Whether the roof on cabin two will make it through December.
Her hands don't shake anymore. Noticed that yesterday.
Right now it's raining. Hard. The kind of mountain rain that turns the creek into a roar and makes the cabins smell like wet pine. A guest was supposed to check into cabin one today butcancelled because Holloway Pass flooded. That means no guests, no income, no distraction from the woman walking toward my front porch through the downpour wearing my jacket.
She still hasn't given it back.
"Pipe burst in cabin four." She's soaked. Dark hair plastered to her neck. The jacket hangs off her shoulders, drenched, but she's still wearing it. "Under the bathroom sink. The fitting I told you was wrong."
"The one my dad installed in '97."
"That's the one."
She's standing in my doorway dripping onto the floorboards, breathing hard from running through the rain, and her scrub top is wet enough that I can see the outline of her bra underneath. Dark. Lace, maybe.
Don't look. Don't.
"Got a shutoff valve under the access panel." Grabbing a towel from the hook by the door, I hand it to her. Our fingers brush. Neither of us pulls away. "I'll go deal with it."
"Already shut it off." She towels her hair, her neck, the collar of my jacket. "Water's contained. Mopped it up with the spare linens from the closet. You'll need a new fitting, though. Half-inch copper, not the three-quarter that's in there."
A woman who knows pipe fittings.
"You an ER nurse or a plumber?"
"Twelve years in a hospital that was built in 1974. You learn to fix things or you drown." She drops the towel over the porch rail. Pushes wet hair off her face. "The rain's not stopping anytime soon."
"No."
"And cabin four's got no running water now."
"No."
"So I'm stranded in the main house with you."
The rain hammers the roof. Water sheets off the gutters. The whole world has narrowed to this porch, this doorway, this woman looking up at me with rain on her face.
"Come inside, Carmen."
She steps past me into the kitchen. The jacket drips on the floor. My jacket, on her body, soaked through, and the possessive satisfaction that rolls through my chest at the sight of her wrapped in my clothes is completely unreasonable.
"You want coffee?"
"God, yes."
The kitchen is warm from the woodstove. While the coffee brews, she peels off the jacket, hangs it on the back of a chair. Underneath, the scrub top clings. Full breasts, soft stomach, hips that curve into her jeans. She catches me looking. Doesn't look away.
"Owen."
"Carmen."
"We can't keep doing this."
Pouring two mugs, I set hers on the counter. Close enough that she has to reach past me to get it. Close enough that her arm brushes my chest.
"Doing what?"
