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“He walks up to the rototiller, and apparently his inspection absolutely requires that he bend at the waist because squatting is not an option, and his grubby jeans decide it’s time for a southward migration.”

By now, Mac was having to stop every few feet to laugh. “Sorry.”

“What are you sorry for? It wasn’t your jeans and hairy ass crack.” She covered her mouth. “Not that I think your ass crack is hairy.”

Mac roared.

“Are you sure I’m not too heavy?”

“You are not too heavy, Jodie. Please continue.” Mac started walking again.

Jodie had no choice but to go on. “So, he decides he’s going to take it, right? He asks me if I can load it into his truck for him.”

“Wait. He what?”

“Yeah. Load it into his truck. Me. All by myself. By now I’m coughing because my entire yard is full of smoke from his oil-burning truck. I must have been delirious from the fumes because I didn’t tell him to leave, I told him he’s going to have to at least help me.”

“Oh no. Jodie.”

“I know. He at least agrees to that, so I wheel it around to the back of the truck and all this smoke is just pouring out of the tailpipe. It took years off my life, Mac.”

“I don’t doubt it.” He readjusted her, lifting her higher, and she got a Grade-A view of his biceps in motion.

Mercy.

“Am I hurting you?”

“Nope, not at all.”

“So what happened?”

“Well, we try and lift this thing like a couple of idiots and that doesn’t work. And then I ask him if he could maybe tell his son to get out of the damn truck and help us. And he tells me, ‘That’s my nephew. He can’t help us.’ I ask him why not, and…” Jodie snorted. “He says because he’s not wearing any pants today.”

Mac stopped dead. “He’s not…pants?”

“Nope! No pants day, I guess.”

Mac leaned against the high, steep bank lining one side of the trail and roared again.

“Did he end up taking the rototiller?”

“He did. We finally got it into the truck bed. He’s going to use it for his organic pot farm. If that doesn’t work out, he’ll grow tomatoes.”

The laugh that came out of Mac was warm and real and completely unguarded, and Jodie felt it all the way through her body like a struck bell.

Oh boy, she thought.

I am in so much trouble.

Mac stopped three times on their way down to make sure Jodie had enough water and to give her a couple of ibuprofens. Her ankle had swollen and now she was a little tiny bit worried about a hairline fracture. She was also worried about Mac in this heat, carrying her down a damn mountain.

Mac set her down gently on a rock. “You need some more water,” he told her.

“So do you. It’s blazing hot out here.”

The quick, questioning glance he gave her made her add, “And you’re carrying me in it. I mean, we both need water, right?”

Mac said nothing, only knelt to remove her shoe and examine her foot.