I don’t hear her come up behind me.
“What are you doing?” she asks, voice wary.
I turn, breathing hard. She’s watching me, arms crossed, her expression unreadable.
“Clearing a path,” I say, lifting the machete like proof. “To the river.”
Her eyes flick past me to the brush I’ve already cut down, and something shifts in her expression.
“For me?” she asks.
“Yeah.”
She steps closer, slowly, like she’s afraid of spooking me. “Grant… you haven’t been down there since…”
I swallow hard. “You need to swim. And we’ve got water.”
“It’s not that simple. I know what this place means to you.” She says.
“No it’s not,” I agree. “But it’s worth it.”
She’s quiet for a long beat. Then, gently, she places her hand on my arm.
“Grant...” She takes a step closer, her voice softening. “You don't have to do this.”
“I want to,” I insist, turning back to hack at a particularly stubborn branch. “You need to swim. Simple solution.”
I meet her eyes, finding them filled with a concern that makes my throat tight. “It's just water, Mia. And you need it more than I need to avoid it.”
She studies me for a long moment, then nods, a small smile playing at her lips. “Let me help, at least.”
I nod as she walks over to the toolbox, sliding on gloves and grabbing hold of a sickle.
We’ve been clearing this damn path for maybe twenty minutes, but I’m already sweating like I just finished bronc riding in July. The sun’s high enough now to burn straight through the leaves overhead, and it turns everything into this sticky, shimmering heat. The kind that clings to skin and slides down spines.
I swing the machete through a stubborn patch of overgrowth, the thunk of steel through brush satisfying as hell. But my focus isn’t on the vines.
It’s onher.
Mia moves beside me, tank top clinging to her back, those little running shorts hugging her hips in a way that should be outlawed. Every time she lifts her arms to tug a branch free or twist her hair off her neck, my mouth goes dry. She’s all lean muscle and long legs, sweat glistening at her temples, sliding down the dip of her throat. I try not to stare. I fail, every time.
She catches me looking once. Doesn’t say anything. Just smirks.
Thenshestarts watchingme.
I feel her eyes on my shoulders when I shrug off my flannel and toss it over a branch. The tank underneath sticks to my chest, soaked through, and I catch her gaze drop. Her tongue darts out to wet her bottom lip, quick, unthinking.
God help me.
“Hot?” I ask casually, chopping through another branch.
“Ridiculously,” she answers, but her eyes aren’t on the sun—they’re locked on my chest.
My smirk comes without trying. “That why you keep staring at me like I’m a damn popsicle?”
She snorts, but there’s heat behind it. “Trust me, cowboy. If I wanted to lick you, you’d know.”
Fuck.
