Page 4 of Bailey

“You’ve seen me in mine,” Bailey said. “And hanging out in wet denim is your funeral.”

She turned into a small laundry room just off the dining room and put his clothes in the dryer. She added the towels she’d used on the dogs, as they were still mostly dry and would help with the other items. She added a dryer sheet and started the appliance, then took a moment to gather herself together.

Maybe she’d thought a lot about Reeves since moving here, since he’d saved her from freezing in the snowstorm, since taking him peppermint bark for Christmas. Maybe she still wondered what he’d done over the holidays, and if he’d truly spent them alone.

She’d texted him a few times, but if anything, he acted annoyed with her when he had to help her with something in the house, or talk about the climate here in Coral Canyon. Heaven forbid, Bailey thought, some of her own grumpiness shining through.

Out in the kitchen, the kettle she’d put on started to whistle, and Bailey dashed back that way. “I’ve got hot water,” she said. “Do you want coffee, tea, hot chocolate?”

A fire now crackled merrily in her hearth, and Bailey stared at it from the other side of the peninsula as she reached for the handle of the kettle. Reeves sat in the living room as well, and he did have the blanket over his lap and bunched up around his hips.

“I couldn’t sit in the wet denim,” he said. “I laid my jeans on the fireplace.”

“You built a fire while I put your clothes in the dryer?”

He shrugged as if to say, Yeah, of course. “I’d take some coffee.”

Bailey looked down at the kettle. “Yeah, sure.”

She turned off the flame and stepped down the counter to her coffee maker, quickly measuring grounds and pouring cold water in. “I can put your jeans in the dryer.”

“They’ll be fine there.”

“Are you hungry?” she asked.

“No, I just ate lunch,” he said.

Bailey nodded. “I was just taking a break from my paperwork.”

“Do you work from home?” he asked.

“On Tuesdays, I do,” she said, keeping her back to him as she pulled out a sleeve of saltines and a snack-sized bag of shelled pistachios. “I’m in the clinic every other day, including until noon on Saturdays.”

“Wow,” Reeves said.

“We try to do all of our ranch and farm calls on Mondays and Thursdays.” Bailey smiled in the general direction of the living room without meeting Reeves’ eyes. “It’s a pretty decent schedule.”

“Sounds like it,” he said.

“What do you do?” she asked.

“I’m a farmer,” he said, and Bailey remembered the high-end finishes and extreme craftsmanship of his house. There was no way he’d accomplished that on a farmer’s salary. After all, the growing season in Wyoming only lasted for a couple of months, and unless he was growing gold leaf next door, Bailey highly suspected he actually did something else.

Or maybe he comes from money, she thought. No matter what, there was way more to Reeves Durham than farming.

“Has that little stream in the back flooded before?” she asked.

“Yep,” Reeves said. “It’s a bit of a mess, but it usually just flows out fifteen or twenty feet and then sinks back in. It does muddy up your fields back there a little.”

Bailey nodded, because she didn’t have any fields back there. The scent of coffee started to lift into the air, but while the smell usually settled her, today it didn’t. She didn’t want to deal with a flood, just like she didn’t want to deal with taking a date to Boston’s wedding.

An idea flowed through her mind, warping, and twisting as she watched the rain fall outside.

“This might be kind of bizarre,” she said, trying to find and latch onto the words she needed. She turned back to Reeves. “But a friend of mine is getting married in a few weeks, and I’m getting hammered on all sides about bringing a date.”

Reeves cocked his eyebrows, and Bailey heard how crazy the invite was.

“It wouldn’t mean anything,” she said. “I’ve just been too busy with the clinic to meet many people, and I only have one man who works for me, and he’s married.”