Page 43 of Roping Her In

“You said you’ve got sick and injured calves.” She raised her eyebrows, then looked at the sheaf of papers in his hands. “And that doesn’t look promising.”

Thunder once again boomed overhead, and they both looked up as the remnants of it chattered through the sky.

“Let’s get inside,” he said, and he rolled the papers and stuck them in his back pocket. “We don’t want to be out here when the rain starts.”

Bev followed him into the sick shed, and Smiles exhaled heavily as he took in the several cases in front of him. “Okay, let’s get through this, because a cupcake sounds amazing about now.”

An hour later, the rain on the roof of the shed changed, making Smiles pause in his assessment of the last calf in the last stall in the shed. “That’s strange.”

It sounded like pellets hitting the roof—like hail, but not quite.

Bev had likewise quieted, and while Smiles didn’t truly need her help, going through the calves with her had been calming. She provided the support he needed, and a rational answer to the problems of this birthing season.

Yes, he could do it by himself. He hadn’t wanted to, and Bev would be paid for her time.

All at once, a cascading, ripping sound rent the air, and Smiles flinched at the violent sound of it.

“It’s ice,” Bev said suddenly. Her dark eyes locked onto Smiles. “I bet the rain’s been freezing on the roof, and it just slid off.”

The sudden, increased noise made sense for it to be ice, but Smiles still moved to the door and pulled it open. Sure enough, the last remnants of ice dripped from the roof, and a decently sized pile of it sat on the ground in front of him.

All up and down the length of the shed, in fact.

And the ground glittered in front of him, everything encased in clear glass. “Ice,” he said.

Bevvy crowded in beside him, took in the gorgeous winter wonderland, and sighed. “Ice,” she confirmed. “Look how it looks like someone’s poured glass over my truck.”

“I see it,” Smiles murmured, trying not to be so dang happy that she couldn’t drive away from him. He turned into her, and they stood nearly chest-to-chest. His pulse rioted, and he let a wide smile spread across his face.

“I bet we can make it to my place, where you can tell me what kind of cupcakes you brought, and whether one of them is for me.”

Bev blinked out at the flat, gray light of the freezing fog hovering over the ranch, and then faced him. “How far is your cabin?”

Smiles hooked his thumb over his shoulder. “Thatta way about two hundred yards.”

“We’re going to slip and fall a thousand times in two hundred yards.”

“Well, I’m not staying in this sick shed.” Smiles took the first step outside. “I’ll get the cupcakes.” He turned back to her. “And if you fall, Bevvy, I’ll help you up.”

17

Beverly Russell couldn’t believe she was tippy-toeing across an ice-covered road with Stetson Glover’s hand in hers.

“I missed all the texts from Finn about the storm,” Stetson said in front of her. “He’s this friend of mine who has a weather station, and he alerts us when there’s a big storm coming in.”

“Funny, a meteorologist does that too,” she said.

Stetson chuckled, slipped, and caught himself. “We’re almost there.”

“This is a lot further than two hundred yards, Mister Liar-Pants.”

He laughed harder, and Bev reveled in the sound of it. She’d brought cupcakes for a specific reason, but she hadn’t told him why yet. She wanted to, though, and that felt significant to her.

She’d spent so much of the past couple of years avoiding conversations like the one she wanted to have with Stetson, and her pulse bounded through her body as she slid around behind him. His hand in hers felt like a vice, and she really liked holding his hand.

The truth was, Bev felt like she’d turned a corner with the arrival of the new year a few weeks ago, and she thought she might want to start dating again. She wondered if she could simply tell Stetson, and they could go to dinner.

At the same time, Bev didn’t want to venture out into dating again after her terrible, abusive, controlling marriage by going out with Stetson. She felt like a baby deer learning to stand on spindly legs, and she needed to cut her teeth on someone who didn’t matter quite so much to her.