Page 37 of Hometown Hottie

Confusion raced through me, but she pointed at the open door. I left, my head shaking as I wondered what the hell had just happened. It kind of felt like we’d gone back to how she’d acted when I first got home, and I had no idea why.

Jogging through the rain to my truck, I climbed in and turned over the engine. Turning my attention to the chaos around me, I headed out to meet up with the others. Leaves and branches carpeted the ground, with some trees down along the side of the road as well. Water shimmered on the fields, letting me know that the flat parts were probably lakes at this point.

I sighed. It could’ve been a lot worse, but damage was damage and fixing it cost money. Even buying extra feed for the animals if they couldn’t graze normally by morning would be expensive, but I couldn’t worry about that now. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be necessary, and everything would be just fine in a few hours when the rain had stopped completely and the water had a chance to drain.

My headlights landed on George’s truck when I turned around a bend, and my eyes widened when I saw him and Vance wrapping thick chains around the downed tree.

They were wearing heavy raincoats, and when I stopped to join them, George grinned and went back to his truck to fetch another.

“Here,” he said when he came back and handed it over. “We figured you’d need to borrow one of mine. Thanks for your help tonight, Carson. I appreciate it.”

“No problem, sir. Just tell me what to do and consider it done.” I pulled on the coat, popping the hood on and tightening it around my face after zipping up.

“Get on that side and help Vance. We’re trying to secure it before Ryan gets here.”

Vance smirked at me when I joined him, waggling his brows even as he fiddled with the metal. “You have fun with Nova while I was stuck talking strategy with George and Ryan? They’re tackling the damage control like a head coach, man. I felt like I was back in the locker room.”

I chuckled. “They have to. The more they can mitigate the damage, the less it will cost them to fix.”

“You haven’t answered my question.”

I crouched down and tried to slide my hand between the muddy ground and the stump, rolling my eyes at my friend. “It was fine. There was no fun being had. We just talked, is all.”

“Pity,” he joked. “Seems like a wasted opportunity to me.”

Ryan arrived with the tractor and even Vance shut up as we really got to work. By the time we’d removed all the trees that had fallen into the roads and cleared the debris, it was nearly morning, but I’d made Nova a promise.

I needed to go check on the bakery before I headed home. Ryan and George grinned at me as they each gave me a firm handshake, then went to make sure the animals had made it through okay. Vance gave me a pointed look once they were gone.

“Whatever you’re doing with her,” he said. “Be careful. We grew up with him and when he finds out, he’ll go nuclear. He’s her family, Carson. That means something. It means a lot actually.”

“I know,” I assured him. If only he understood how very aware I was of all that, he definitely wouldn’t have told me again. “I am careful. Get home safe, Vance. The sun is going to start coming up soon, but until it does, it’ll be hard to spot debris on the roads.”

“Same to you,” he said before he drove off.

I got in my truck and drove down to the bakery only to find that Nova was already there. Thankfully, the structure seemed to have made it through intact and everything seemed fine. The outside area was a bit of a mess, but I was pretty sure the entire town would look the same way. As for Nova being here, already busy cleaning up, I didn’t know how to feel about that.

I had asked her to stay put.

“What are you doing here?” I jogged over to her and slid my hands into the pockets of Ryan’s sweats so she wouldn’t see the tremor that was running through me at the thought of everything that could’ve happened to her out here all alone.

She frowned at me. “I’m cleaning. We need to be ready to receive customers soon. Pastries and breads don’t bake themselves and I can’t have people pulling into a parking lot that looks like a tornado hit it.”

I shook my head at her. “You could’ve been crushed, struck by lightning, caught in the rain, or got hurt on your way down here.”

She stared blankly. “It’s not even raining anymore. And all those things could’ve happened to you too. Why do you care anyway? You’re obviously done helping my brother, so you should probably get home now.”

“Why do I care?” I echoed as my eyes narrowed. “Didn’t we just kiss?”

“Yeah, well, why don’t you go talk to Ryan and see how your best friend feels about us making out?” With that, she marched back into the building and shut the door in my face.

Letting out an incredulous huff of air, I followed her, opening the door and shutting it again behind me. A lot of other guys might’ve just walked away after something like that, but I couldn’t. I didn’t even try.

I’d walked away once before after we’d kissed and I believed in learning from my mistakes. I caught up to her as she was striding into the kitchen, and I gently circled her wrist and tugged her into me. She squeaked in surprise but didn’t try to pull away as she turned her head up to mine.

I hadn’t been planning on doing it, but when I saw her eyes dart to my lips, I kissed her again before pulling away to look at her. “I will talk to Ryan. If that’s what you want, I’ll talk to him.”

“I don’t know what I want, Carson,” she said, her voice sharp but soft and her eyes shining with something I couldn’t quite place. “I’m frustrated and I’m scared about what all this means. I was already feeling overwhelmed enough with just trying to keep the ranch afloat, but now you’re back and everything just feels so much more complicated.”