“I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?”
She lifted her gaze to him and nodded slowly.
“I don’t believe you.”
Shrugging, she said, “That’s your prerogative.”
She looked so young and beautiful. He still saw the teenager who would flirt with him at the stable when he’d worked as a ranch hand at the Lone Creek Ranch. He’d fallen in love with Julie there. She’d changed his life, and then left him. She had no idea what loving him had done to him. For him.
It wasn’t supposed to be that way. He should have wanted to do better for himself. In time, he’d done just that. But in the beginning, Julie had been the one who drove him to come clean.
“You need help around here,” Julie said, a little smile playing on her lips for the first time since he’d opened the door and seen her standing on his porch.
“I live alone. I’m a guy. It’s goes with the territory I think.”
“Not exactly. I’ve known lots of guys who have clean apartments.”
Lots? His stomach dropped. Hunter didn’t really want to hear about the men that Julie might have known over the years. He didn’t want to think that any man had touched her in ways he had or looked into those amazing blue eyes and seen fire and excitement as he had.
It was as if she were reading his mind. She quickly added, “The men I’ve worked with talk about it all the time. Some of them are neat freaks. I know this because I work with them and seen how obsessive they are. But some of them have a maid who comes in and cleans up all the bachelor messes so they don’t look like they live in a pigsty.”
“Are you saying you think I live in a pigsty?”
She shook her head. “No. But you’re a guy. Like Caleb. Like the others. I’m just saying that maybe you could use a maid to...”
“What?”
She looked around again. “What is it with men and white curtains?”
He glanced at the curtains he’d purchased when he’d first moved into the apartment. “What’s wrong with them?”
“See? Guys don’t get it. Caleb didn’t get it either.”
He frowned as he stared at her and fought to figure out where she was going with this.
“Why does the color of my curtains matter? They’re curtains. They give me privacy.”
She bit her bottom lip. “I’ve offended you.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“I did,” she said, cocking her head to one side. “I didn’t mean to. It’s sort of a guy thing. As I said, I told Caleb the same thing when I moved into his apartment. I bought him new colorful curtains today.”
“You moved in? When?”
“Yeah. I figured it was easiest that way. At some point, he’s going to move into the chapel that he’s been renovating with Katie. He’s not going to need his apartment anymore so I’ll just save the landlord the trouble of finding a new tenant.”
He sat down on the other end of the sofa. “I didn’t realize you moved back to Sweet.”
“I did. Last week.”
“So you plan on staying here.”
“Yes.”
Hunter had a mixed sense of dread and relief flow through him. She was staying in town. She was here. And just like at the post office, they were bound to run into each other. He couldn’t help but think that maybe they had a chance to make things right again.
He wouldn’t push it. It had been his fault she’d run away in the first place. He didn’t know it then, but he could see that now.
“Curtains, huh?”
She smiled wide. “Guys never notice the little things, like dust on pictures or the TV. Caleb made sure that everything was washed and put away. He’s not a slob. But I wonder when the last time he washed the kitchen floor was.”
Hunter couldn’t help but chuckle. “Don’t ask. Just…don’t ask.”
“Gross.”
And then she laughed in that musical way she used to do when they’d been riding horses out on one of the trails at the Lone Creek Ranch. She’d throw her head back and laugh into the sky. They couldn’t see the sky now, but it was just as intoxicating to watch.
Hunter used to think that there were musical notes coming out of Julie’s mouth that flew up into that blue Montana sky. It was ridiculous. He wasn’t as young as she was at the time. But he was a whole lot younger than he was now. And he had been in love. It was hard to see a time since she’d left that he hadn’t been in love with Julie Samuel.
“Well, since you’re in the market for a maid for Caleb, maybe you can recommend someone for me. I wouldn’t mind having someone tidy up a bit so I don’t have to do it on my days off.”
“You just got home, huh?”
He nodded. “How can you tell?”
“Because you’re still wearing jeans that have manure on them.”
He glanced down at his jeans and sure enough he had a few dried spots that he knew probably didn’t smell so great. He’d become immune to it a long time ago and long since stopped being embarrassed. Everyone he knew who worked on a ranch took it in stride. If you worked with animals, you got dirty. At the end of a long day, you scrubbed it all off your skin and your clothes so you could start fresh the next day.
But he knew he smelled funky. She didn’t have to tell him that for him to know.
“I haven’t had a chance to take shower yet,” he said.
She nodded. “I’m keeping you from it. I should go.”
“Wait. I haven’t eaten anything since this morning either. Are you hungry?”
She thought a second. “I could make you dinner.”
“I don’t have much in the cupboards.”
Her
