Chapter 17

“What’s your favorite movie?”

She turned back toward him. “Huh?”

He shrugged carelessly. “Well, I figured out what you don’t want to talk about, so I’m picking something else. Some people have sucky parents who don’t deserve the airtime. I get it. So let’s talk about movies.”

She tipped her head like she couldn’t quite tell if he was for real, but he just shrugged like it was no big deal. And in that moment, she wanted to hug him.

She took a deep breath, smiling as she lay back in the grass. “Pretty much anything with Ryan Gosling in it.”

“Great.” He sighed dramatically. “So, say, Gosling in a Stetson?”

“Kryptonite. Who’s yours?”

“Alan Alda.”

“Shut up.”

“I’m serious.” He laughed. “There’s just something real about that guy. My mother used to watch old M*A*S*H reruns when she thought we were asleep, but we’d sneak down the hallway and watch from there. The theme song still brings me back.”

“All right, if we’re admitting to strange penchants, I kind of love the old black-and-white shows. I’m a sucker for those classic-movie channels, or the ones that play the old sitcoms. Totally cringe-worthy sometimes, but I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I like them.”

“Seriously?”

“Totally. Just feels like a simpler time.” She rolled her eyes. “And I know—polio, the Cuban missile crisis, Russia. Nothing simple about that time. But the shows are. Everybody kind of just…fits. My gramma used to watch them all, and I’d pretend they were the lamest thing ever.”

Jasper was silent for a long moment, then reached for her hand and laced his fingers through hers.

“Miss her?”

She squeezed his fingers. “More than I can believe is possible.”

“Well, I know a lot of folks at Shady Acres would be more than happy to adopt you as a stand-in granddaughter.” He squeezed back. “And I know that doesn’t replace her. Never could. But maybe you were drawn to this work for all the right reasons, despite your parents.”

“Maybe.”

“And I might be going way out on a limb here, but maybe—maybe you don’t belong in a Florida office doing paperwork. Maybe there’s a reason you’re the one they keep sending out for these assignments?”

“Oh, I don’t know. This is their management-track pathway. You have to put in so much boots-on-the-ground time before you can move up the food chain.”

“And have you already put in that much time?”

“Yes.” She closed her eyes. “And thank you for pointing out that despite fulfilling all of the official management requirements, I’m still a second-floor desk jockey.”

He laughed quietly. “I think you’ve got it all wrong.”

She disentangled their fingers and propped herself up on one elbow, eyebrows firmly hiked. “And you would know this, how?”

“Because.” He shrugged like his conclusions were so damn obvious. “I see you with the residents. The nurses see you with the residents. The residents see you with the residents. And they talk. And I imagine upper management listens.”

Emma thought back to the way she’d bumbled through her first week here, and she cringed at whatever anyone would say at this point.

“I might be totally out of line,” he continued. “But I have a feeling whoever your boss is knows exactly where you belong, and maybe he’s waiting for you to figure that out.”

Emma closed her eyes again, flopping back to the grass. Could he be right? Could all of the hours she’d spent sitting at that damn Florida desk writing up proposals and doing research and crossing every t and dotting every i have been for naught? Did Duncan have no intention of promoting her? Like, ever?

After her last idea—the one about bringing animals in—had gone down in smoke, she went back to her office and sent the stupid thing through the shredder. Then she’d printed out another copy and shredded that one, too. I mean, seriously. It was a good idea. It wasn’t even groundbreaking or outside the box. Every-freaking-body was doing it, and still, Duncan had put the kibosh on even trying it.

It hadn’t made sense then, and it hadn’t made sense a week or a month later. And then he’d dropped this Montana assignment on her, and in her lowest moments over the past two weeks, she’d come to the conclusion that Galway had lost all confidence in her abilities and had sent her out West so she’d be too busy to come up with anything else they had to squash.

But you know what? Duncan wasn’t out here. And Duncan couldn’t stop her from doing an innocent little experiment that she already knew would be fantastic for everyone involved.

“What was that thing you said about ask-forgiveness-later?”

Jasper turned to look at her, and a smile broke out on his face as he studied hers. “It’s the opposite of ask-permission-before.”

“Exactly.” She sat up, hugging her knees to her chest. “You know what? Duncan sent me out here to Timbuktu with explicit instructions to not rock any boats or try any experiments or not do any possibly insubordinate things, and at the time, I nodded and smiled and intended to follow those instructions.”

“But now?”

“But now? You’ve planted the wholly unhealthy seed of doubt in my head that I have any future at all with Galway Health.”

He sat up next to her, shaking his head. “That’s not what I said.”

“I know. It’s what I heard.”

“But—”

“Not your fault. I have selective hearing. But you know what? If you’re still willing, I want to bring the kittens to Shady Acres. I want to do it every day. I want the residents to have the same kinds of fuzzy critters in their lives now that they had when they were in their own homes.”

“I like it.”

“I can see you biting your cheek, you know. And I know this was your idea—”

“Yours first. You did the proposal. I just offered the critters.”

She smiled, standing up. “You know what? I might go wild and see if I can find some dogs.”

“Easy, champ.” He laughed as he stood up, too. “Maybe one animal at a time?”

“Hey, I’m on a short timeline here. I have a lot of proposals stored up. Duncan liked none of them, but as you’ve suggested just now, maybe he just doesn’t like me all that much.”

“I never said—”

“No! It’s all good!” She took a deep breath, feeling strangely drawn to spinning around like Maria in The Sound of Music. “I feel so free right now! If I’m not on the management path, anyway, then why not get in trouble a little, if there’s a chance I could actually make some changes that are good?”

He laughed again, putting his hands on her shoulders like he was gluing her back to the ground. “I think you might be misconstruing what I said.”

“I know exactly what you said. I’m just taking it to the next level, because it suddenly seems like a very, very good idea to do so.”

“But you’re not going to blame me if it fails miserably?”

“Oh, I’m totally going to, but how can it? I mean, kittens!”

He shook his head. “We have unleashed a nursing home monster.”

“Absolutely.” She bounced her eyebrows up and down. “Want to be my partner-in-crime?”

“Well, this Duncan person’s not my boss. I can only get in trouble with the current nursing home director.”

“She’s a total pushover.”

He laughed. “Then let’s do it. I’ll bring the beasts on Monday.”

“Perfect.”

“Hey.” He looked down at her boots. “Think you can climb in those?”

“Depends. What are we climbing?”

Jasper turned around and pointed up the hill. “That.”

“That is a tree. I’m wearing borrowed riding boots that are two sizes too big. Unless you’re planning to videotape this for one of those funny video shows, me climbing that tree sounds like a bad idea.”

“We don’t have to climb far, and I’ll help.” He took her hand and started up the hill. “Come on. You won’t believe the view.”

“I already don’t believe the view, and I’m safe on the ground.”

“It’s better. I promise.”

Emma laughed as he pulled her toward the huge, old tree, but a little piece of her was having second thoughts.

“Hey, Jasper?” She pulled up short, ten feet from the tree. “I know this is probably weird and all, but…I have no idea how to climb a tree.”

“Seriously?”

“Cross my heart. The only ones in my backyard had black widows and scary snakes lurking in the branches.”

Jasper mock-shivered. “That’s just wrong.”

“Well, in their defense, it was their habitat first.”

“True. But lucky for you, it’s not that hard.”

“Says the man with six-pack abs and pecs of steel.”

Jasper paused like he was waiting for her to realize what she’d just said, and then turned toward the damn tree to hide his smile.

Emma felt heat slide up her cheeks. “And also I appear to have lost my self-censor filter somewhere back on the trail.”

“Pecs of steel?”

“Don’t let it go to your head, Superman.”

He flexed playfully. “Hey, it’s not every day a beautiful woman calls me Superman. Or accuses me of having a six-pack.”

“Yeah, yeah.” She rolled her eyes. “Just show me how to climb the tree.”

“Okay.” He smiled, pointing at branches. “One hand there, and one hand there. Lift up and sling your feet over that branch there.”

Emma looked at the branches, which were at least a foot over her head. Lifting and slinging were not gonna happen.

“I’ll help you,” he said, grinning. “Not everyone is blessed with Superman muscles, after all.”

“Is this one of those things a woman says in passing, and then the guy never, ever, ever lets her forget she uttered the words?”

“Definitely. It’s out there.” He shrugged. “Not my fault.”

She rolled her eyes again but couldn’t help smiling. “I’m done talking.”

“Good. Get climbing.”

With Herculean effort, Emma grabbed the two branches he’d indicated, and she did her best gym maneuver to fling her legs high enough to reach the branch they were supposed to land on.

She really needed to go to the gym more.

“Need a hand?” he asked, as she landed back on the ground.

“Nope. I will do this. Five-year-olds can climb trees. I can climb a tree.”

“Okay. Suit yourself.”

She tried and flopped three more times before she growled in frustration. “Fine. I would love a hand, please. Or a magical growth pill.”

“Here.” He cupped his hands. “Grab the branches and step on my hand. I’ll lift you up.”

“And you won’t comment that I weigh more than a rhino afterward?”

He laughed. “No promises.”

She got a grip on the branches, then stepped gingerly into his hand. He lifted her like she was as light as one of the chickens she’d seen scurrying around behind the stable, and in one second flat, she was up.

“Oh!” She settled carefully on a branch. “That wasn’t so hard.”

“Nope. Now keep going. See where those branches form a vee up there?”

She craned her neck to see where he was pointing. “Four stories up, you mean?”

“Just one, maybe.” He laughed. “Head for that spot, and I’ll follow you.”

“Oh, jeez.”

“The view will be worth it, I promise.”

“Before I go—and I’m not actually saying I will—how are the hospitals around here? Like, with broken bones and busted heads and things like that?”

He laughed again. “Excellent. They get a lot of practice. You can ask Decker’s wife, Kyla—apparently she got to try them out more than once on her first trip out here.”

“And she stayed?”

“Stayed, got married, helped revamp Whisper Creek into what it is today. That’s why she thinks everybody should drink the water.”

“I bought a case of bottled. Just saying.” She stood up unsteadily, looking for branches above her head to grab onto. She found a couple, then convinced her legs to climb onto different branches, and before she knew it, she was just below the spot Jasper had aimed her toward.

“Almost there,” he called, then launched himself into the tree. “I’m on my way.”

She pulled herself up the last few feet, then felt her eyes widen as she reached the vee in the tree. “Oh, my God! This is awesome!”

At this spot, the wide trunk seemed to split into three huge branches, but where they all joined before heading off in their own directions, there was a circular, flat spot that would make an incredible tree house, were someone of the right age to find it. She could easily have stood up, but when she looked down and realized how high up she was, she opted to stay planted on her butt.

Effortlessly, Jasper pulled himself up beside her, looking like he did the tree-climbing thing for a living.

“Pretty cool, huh?”

“Pretty cool doesn’t begin to describe it.”

He shifted, sliding a ways out on one of the big branches, then lying backward. “Check this out over here.”

Emma shook her head. “Um, yeah. No. I’ll stick with the trunk over here. The trunk isn’t going to drop me.”

“Neither are these branches.” He smiled. “They’re a hundred years old.”

“They could be very, very tired.”

“Come here.” He reached out a hand, and reluctantly, she let him take hers.

“How does one call for help out here? I mean, just asking? My cell signal died about an hour back.”

“I have a radio.”

“Oh. Well, good, then. But let’s try not to need it, okay?” She shuffled a few feet out on the branch, then stopped. “I really think I’m more of a not-branch person.”

He laughed. “Just turn around so you’re facing the trunk, and scoot back. You can lean on me.”

“I climbed the tree. Isn’t that enough?”

“Nope. Now you have to be the tree.”

“Oh, for God’s sake. You are not one of those people.”

“Might be.” He winked. “You don’t know.”

“Fine.” She shook her head. “But if I fall out of this tree and go splat, I leave my worldly goods to my nieces.”

“Of course. Now come here.”

His hands grasped her waist firmly, and before she knew it, her back was pressed against his chest, and his arms wrapped around her stomach.

“Now lean back.” His voice was soft, enticing, so, so low in her ear, and she was powerless to argue.

She leaned back slowly, feeling every plane of his stomach against her back, and finally, she let her head fall back onto his chest.

“Open your eyes,” he said, and she could feel his stomach shake.

“How do you know they’re closed?”

They were totally closed.

“Because you’re spring-loaded, envisioning an epic, flailing fall out of this innocent tree. I can tell.”

“Am not.”

He tightened his arms around her, and she felt herself relax, inch by inch, as her body rose and fell with his easy breaths. “I’ve got you, Emma. Open your eyes.”

Finally, she did. She looked up, and then had to blink hard, because what she was seeing didn’t look real. Amid broad leaves and branches, the bluest of blue skies sprinkled through, and she could feel dappled sunlight on her face. As the leaves danced in the breeze, she could hear the hushed, brushy sound of them as she felt the sweet tickle of that light wind on her skin.

And cradled in the branches, she could feel him. All of him. She closed her eyes again, drinking in the sensation of his warmth pressing against her…his hands resting clasped on her stomach…his breath close to her ear.

“What do you think?” His chest rumbled under her when he spoke, and her ear tingled as his lips touched it.

By accident, she was sure.

But maybe not.

“It’s incredible. I have no words.”

He squeezed her gently, then laid his head back. “Then my work here is done.”

“How many trees did you climb before you found this one?”

“None.” He laughed quietly. “This one just called to me.”

“Do you come here a lot?”

“I used to.” He paused, his voice quieter. “But not so much anymore.”

“Well, that’s a crime. I think I’d visit this spot daily, if it were my property. Seems like a perfect thoughts-sorting kind of tree.”

“Definitely.” His hands loosened, flattened on her abdomen. “And are you sorting any thoughts right now?”

“Might be. A few. Sort of.”

One hand inched higher. “Your heart is thumping.”

“I just climbed a redwood for the first time in my life. Of course it is.”

He laughed. “Not a redwood.”

“Feels like one.”

“That’s not why, though. Is it?” He kissed her ear, just the tiniest brush of lips, and her whole body tensed.

“You’re going to make me fall out of this tree, bozo.”

He kissed her again. “I was Superman a minute ago. Now I’m bozo?”

“Any man who tries to put the moves on a woman in a freaking tree qualifies, yes.”

She was trying to keep it light, trying not to turn her head, but holy hell, his other hand had slid downward an inch. He was so close. So damn close to touching her in places that would never let her go back.

He tightened his grip gently. “I’m just making sure you don’t fall out.”

“Hey, Jasper?” She felt her eyes go wide.

“Mm-hm?”

“I’ll freely admit here that I’m not doing a lot of thinking with my head right now, but do you see those clouds?”

She felt him look up, then tense. “Oh, boy.”

“It was bright blue a minute ago.”

“We’re about to get doused.” His hands stilled as a soft rumble of thunder rolled over them. “An-nd that’s not a good sound.”

“We’re in a tree.”

“Yeah, and we need to get out of it, like yesterday.”

“Oh, my God.” Emma scrambled to sit up and scoot down the branches toward the trunk. “Here I was, thinking maybe I was about to get kissed, and instead, I’m about to get struck by lightning.”

“It’s a possibility. Climb.”

“Well, thanks for being reassuring and all.” Emma half-laughed as she tried to pick a path back down the tree as quickly as possible, but her stomach jumped as a clap of thunder made it feel like the tree was actually quivering.

“You’re doing great. Just keep moving.”

His feet hit branches as soon as her hands left them, and in thirty seconds flat, they were both out of the tree.

She brushed her hands on her jeans, looking up at the sky, which looked like a living, breathing thing coming toward them from the west. How in the world did a storm blow in that quickly, when that same sky had looked so pristine just moments ago?

“What do we do?” she asked.

He scanned the sky, then looked at her like he was appraising her. “How fast do you think you can ride?”

“Are you serious? We’re going to race that storm?”

“It’s not as close as it looks.” He grabbed the reins of her horse and led it toward her. “It’ll be fun.”

She mounted and took the reins from him. “You’re crazy.”

“Maybe.” He swung onto his own horse. “But when’s the last time you got to try out-galloping a storm?”

“Um, gee. That would be never.”

“Perfect.” He grinned as he tapped his heels. “Then you can check this item off your bucket list.”

“I don’t have a bucket list!” She twitched the reins to get Honeydrop moving.

“Good time to get one, then, isn’t it?” He laughed, then trotted toward the trail they’d used to get to the meadow. Within a few yards, his horse was cantering smoothly, and Emma had no choice but to urge Honeydrop to follow, since her other option was to sit here in this field playing dodge-the-lightning-bolt.

Half an hour later, adrenaline coursing through her veins, Emma pulled Honeydrop to a stop just outside the stable, next to where Jasper had just dismounted.

“Well?” He winked as he took her reins. “How’s the adrenaline?”

“Sky high, thank you very much.”

He smiled, placing a hand on her leg. “Careful getting off. Your leg bones are definitely gonna question whether they’re attached to your hips by now.”

“Excellent.” She slid carefully down, trying to ignore the heat of his hand as it helped her—trying to ignore the burst of giddy survival-glee coursing through her body, making her want to giggle in relief that they’d made it back alive.

“You good?” He slid his hand slowly away, peering into her eyes from under his Stetson.

“I’m good.”

“Better than the office? Despite fearing for your life more than once, and all?”

“Definitely better than the office. I might even start a bucket list. I mean, look! I have three things I can check off already, and two of them are things I didn’t even know were—well, things!”

He touched the brim of his hat. “Excellent.” Then he pointed toward the end of the barn. “I’ll get the horses taken care of. If you want to take a break or use the facilities or whatever, the tack room’s down there. I’ll come grab you when I’m done.”

Emma nodded, then set off for the end of the barn before she could look at Jasper’s eyes for one more life-altering second. Good Lord, that man could melt the panties off a nun.

A few minutes later, she was settled on a hay bale, nursing a bottle of water as she watched Jasper and Mr. February—or maybe January—unsaddle the horses and swipe their coats with big, long-bristled brushes. It wasn’t her fault that she was staring. Jasper had a body meant for staring.

Not her fault.

She sighed dreamily, looking out the window instead, where the storm clouds were framed by two huge oak trees.

Then she felt her stupid smile fall slowly downward while she watched them build and crash into each other as a deep roll of thunder shook the barn.

She wasn’t the mystical type, but if she was, she’d sure be studying those clouds, and she’d be looking at the calendar, and she’d be putting bright orange traffic cones around her heart, because damn, falling for Jasper was just asking for heartbreak.