Page 23 of The Boxer’s Belle

West backed up another step, two, and turned for the shed, presumably for more lumber.

She dragged tremulous hands across her face before releasing a shaky breath and straightening. One minute was the only indulgence she allowed herself, then she reached behind her to knot the apron strings.

Her weak fingers got tangled up behind her back.

She barely covered her gasp when West’s warmth engulfed her again.

“Allow me,” he murmured. Her hands fell to her sides without permission. How she’d missed his return, she didn’t know. But sure fingers tied a quick bow behind her back.

“Thank you,” she mumbled before adding in a more certain tone, “But I’m perfectly capable of managing on my own.”

“Oh, that I know.” A heavy note filled his voice—critical.

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing, Lady Arabella.”

The urge to snap at him was overwhelming, but she couldn’t very well scold him for doing the very thing she’d asked. Instead, she bit her tongue and turned back to her paints dismissively.

He disappeared again, presumably to collect yet more wood.

Bella reached for her paint, but her limbs refused to cooperate, fingers too twitchy to begin. West’s overwhelming presence threatened to tow her under. It would be so, so easy to accept the little generous gestures, to allow him his playful sobriquet, to let him crowd her. But each impertinence she granted left her more vulnerable to him. And she couldn’t have that.

Two days later, Bella saw her future demise: Death by arousal and the absurd sounds West made.

Because the ground had finally dried out.

With each thrust of the shovel, a huff of breath was followed by an entirely masculine grunt as he lifted his new mound of earth and tossed it to the side. Each and every one of his sounds trailed along her spine with a wanton awareness.

Mother Nature had felt it necessary to add to Bella’s personal crisis. The day was hot and unseasonably muggy. If Bella had been a betting woman—which she certainly was not; she knew all too well the dark side of gaming—she would have put her money on another storm.

West had cast a weary eye toward the sky that morning before he began digging, his thoughts aligned with her own. If they were able to plant Eliza’s blooms along her timeline, it would be a miracle.

Though Bella was loath to touch dirt—let alone kneel in it—she’d made the sacrifice rather than hear more of Eliza’s fretting. Now, she followed along after each of West’s new holes, adding a scoop of lime from the bucket as Eliza had directed her to, before working one of the burgundy chrysanthemums free from its terra-cotta pot and pressing it into the soil.

West had brought the lot over on a cart from the greenhouse that morning. After the two of them had painstakingly acclimated the blooms to the outdoors over several days following Eliza’s explicit instruction. Diagrams were involved. Her brother had married a madwoman because surely a plant—a plant—could survive life outdoors without a training program to rival the one West devised for the ring.

Bella did her best to ignore the sounds spilling from West’s direction, several holes ahead of her. But the sight was proving to be too great a temptation. He’d stripped his vest quickly. The braces followed shortly thereafter—that man and his damned braces would be the end of her. His shirt clung to his sweat-soaked skin in an obscene manner. He may as well not have worn one at all. Though she rather suspected the shirt remained on for her modesty, not his, the sight really was an assault.

Chrysanthemum finally free from its clay prison, Bella plopped it into its new home with much less fanfare than Eliza would have employed. Then she set about mounding the damp earth back overtop the roots before patting it down.

“Afternoon, you two,” a warm, feminine voice called. Bella turned at the waist to see Effie striding across the way with a basket in her arms.

“Mam,” West called in greeting, pausing in his shoveling to lean against the thing in a manner that had no business being as appealing as it was.

“Thought I’d bring a bite to you.”

“You didn’t have to do that⁠—”

“Nonsense. You know I love having someone to cook for,” Effie reached Bella’s side and set the basket a few feet from the new plantings. “Now, go wash up.”

Finger by finger, Bella stripped her gloves as she stood to follow Effie’s directive and made her way to the nearby pump. West followed and stepped around her to work the handle for her before washing his own hands. Then, to Bella’s utter consternation, he dragged those wet palms through his sweat-dampened hair, leaving the droplets to run down his chest in rivulets.

Truly, why had he bothered with a shirt at all—this one barely warranted the name.

She shook away the thought and caught his gaze with a raised brow. He chuckled before rinsing his hands again.

“Point taken. But all of me is disgusting, so this might be the best I can do.”