She had her hands out, reaching for her purse and phone when he turned around with them. “You’re right about calling the police. Other than Tilly, who would back us up? And no one would ever believe such a wild story. I’m glad to have my purse and phone back. I need a shower, and then I might feel like a whole woman again. But believe me, Sawyer, they are going to pay for this shit.”

“I figured you’d want a long bath,” he said.

“That would take too much time. I’ll be quiet, I promise.”

He opened the bunkhouse door for her. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“You should have the first shower, since it’s your bathroom and since you let me snooze almost the whole way home,” she said. “So go on, and I’ll be quiet while I get cleaned up. I’ll even tiptoe when I’m done so I won’t wake you.”

“You go first. I’ll get the sofa ready and find the golf channel.” He grinned.

“And lock the door?”

“Little paranoid now, are you? They won’t try that tactic again. They’ll be holed up in their fortresses, plannin’ the next move. But for peace of mind, I will lock the door.”

She made a run through her bedroom, shedding her boots and coat and picking up underpants, flannel pajama pants, and an oversized sleep shirt. Then she grabbed her travel pack, a carryall that hung on the back of a door and contained shampoo, deodorant, toothpaste, a hairbrush, and her own shower gel and lotion.

She looked in the mirror before she got in the shower and gasped, “Oh. My. God.”

Makeup smeared, hair a total mess with hay still sticking in it, bags under her eyes. She quickly shucked off her jeans, shirt, and underwear, all of which still bore the smell of beer and cigarette smoke, and sighed when the pulsating hot water hit her tired and sore muscles. She tried to be quick, but it took three times of lather, rinse, and repeat before her hair quit shedding hay and the water ran clear. After seeing her reflection, she scrubbed her body down twice with shower gel and hoped the stink of sleeping in a barn that smelled of rat piss and cows was finally gone.

Nowyoubitchaboutthesleepingquarters, her inner voice said. Last night you were glad to have a roof over your head.

“Oh, hush,” she said aloud. “A roof didn’t keep it from smelling bad.”

She took time to towel dry her hair and run a brush through it, to recheck her reflection and sigh when the bags hadn’t disappeared from under her eyes, and get dressed before she left the bathroom.

“I started the fire so you wouldn’t freeze. I’ll get the sofa bed ready when I get out. My phone is turned off and charging. You might want to do the same with yours,” Sawyer said.

She sat down on the edge of Sawyer’s bed to wait for him. Together they would make the sofa into a bed when he finished his shower. It wasn’t that she couldn’t do that job alone, but that she was too damn tired to want to.

The heat was taking its own good time getting from the living area into his bedroom, and the wood floor was cold. She pulled her legs up and wrapped her arms around her knees. Her toes were like icicles, sending shivers all the way up to her hair, still damp from the shower. Maybe she’d get warm if she pulled the fleecy blanket on top of his bed up over her. It would be a means only to get warm. Now, getting under the covers would be a different thing.

The blanket was like warm clouds on a hot summer day when she tucked her toes under it. She eyed the pillows. One still had the imprint of his head, so the right side was his. She was a left-side person. She promised herself that she would lie down on the spare pillow for a few seconds. It looked so inviting, and she was so tired. She’d be long gone before Sawyer finished in the shower. The water stopped running and she could hear his electric shaver going.

* * *

Sawyer could hardly keep his eyes open long enough to shave, but if he let his heavy dark beard go any longer, the electric razor would bog down trying to get the job done. The room should be semiwarm by now, and the golf channel was already on television. He’d bet dollars to pig shit that Jill had the sofa bed out and was already snoring.

He hurried across the cold floor, only to find the sofa empty. Evidently, she’d given up on him and gone to her room for a nap. Disappointed, he did a quick tiptoe back to his room and stopped in his tracks when he found her sleeping on his bed.

“Got to admit, it’s bigger and more comfortable than the sofa, and, darlin’, I might share my blanket, but you ain’t gettin’ all of it,” he murmured.

She rolled toward him and threw a leg over his body when he pulled the throw up over them. He slipped an arm under her and buried his face in her still slightly damp hair. It smelled like coconut and ocean breezes. It would be easy to get involved with Jill. They were together twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, but if it didn’t work out in the end, they could wind up enemies. And he liked her too well to ruin their friendship.

Andyet, his inner voice piped up, dojust-friends sleep all tangled up like a bunch of baby granddaddy long-legged spiders?

“When they’ve been through what we have, they do.” He inhaled deeply one more time to take the scent of her shampoo with him into his dreams.

Chapter 16

Jill and Sawyer walked hand in hand toward the setting sun. The sand was warm on their bare feet. Sea oats waved in the gentle night breezes on one side, and the ocean’s waves gently slapped the sandbar on the other. Sandpipers darted back and forth with the surf, searching for supper, and gulls circled lazily above them. Everything was in its place, doing what it was supposed to do at the end of the day, and Jill’s heart was at peace.

She didn’t want to wake up, so she refused to open her eyes. It didn’t work. The beach was gone, and the only sounds she could pick up were Sawyer’s soft snores and the crackle of the stove wood as it burned. He was sleeping on his back with one hand up under his neck and the other arm around her shoulders.

Easing out of his embrace slowly so he wouldn’t wake, she propped up on an elbow and studied him without fear of getting caught: dark hair, those thick lashes spread out on his cheekbones, that full mouth that could kiss so damn well, and a broad, muscular chest. But there was more to Sawyer than his quick wit and his outer good looks; he was a hardworking, protective cowboy and had a kind heart.

His eyes fluttered open, and he smiled. “I thought I felt someone or something looking at me. I’m glad it wasn’t a man in a ski mask.”

“Think Tilly made it home okay?” she asked.

“I’m sure he and Bessie were home a while ago. It’s dusk out there,” he said.

“Are you my friend?” she asked, bluntly.

“I hope I’m not sleeping with the enemy.” He smiled. “What is this all about, Jill?”

“I was involved with a man for two years,” she said.

“And it ended badly and you need to talk about it? Why now?”

She sat up and crossed her legs. Indian style, her grandmother called it. “I don’t know. It seems like I should, so that the things that are supposed to end will and the sun will finally go down on it all, and…”

Sawyer pulled himself up to a sitting position, adjusted the blanket over their feet, and laid his hand over hers. “Okay, let’s talk. You go first, and then I’ll tell you about my heartbreak.”

She paused. “This is a bad idea.”

“How long since you broke up?” he asked.

“More than a year ago.”

“Have you talked it out of your system with a girlfriend, your mama, or your aunt Gladys?” he asked. “Don’t look at me like that. I have a sister, and I know how females need to talk everything to death.”