Page 49 of Close Quarters

“Ah!” I snapped, jerking back. “Something moved.”

“Don’t let Mona see you acting like that,” Reno warned before dragging the wood away to pry the nails from it.

Right, as if I’d needed more reasons to think Mona might actually be one of the scariest people ever to live. Not more than an hour before, we’d accidentally encountered a rattlesnake hiding in the collected debris pile. The damn thing had been pissed and intent on sending someone to the infirmary. Its chosen target had been Riley, and it would have had him, considering all of us were frozen in fear at the sight of it.

That was, except for Mona. I had never known it was possible for someone to be that fast, but Mona had snatched it out of the air when the snake had lunged to tag Riley with its fangs. Calmer than anyone holding a pissed-off snake at arm’s length, she had someone get a bucket so she could get rid of the thing. My dad had always killed them whenever they got into our small backyard, but apparently, Mona had other plans for the reptile.

“It wasn’t a snake,” Dom said with a roll of his eyes. “Plus, you’d hear if it was another rattler.”

“Well, sorry for being a little jumpy,” I grumbled, squatting to start rooting around again. I’m not exactly willing to get bit.”

“Why? You’ve been bitching nonstop.”

“And how would that help me?”

“You get bit, they’re going to send you to the clinic for the rest of the day.”

Which for a moment was sorely tempting because the heat was more brutal than it had been previously. It turned out that having heavy storms for a few days did not cool everything down like I had hoped. Instead, it was intensely hot and humid, which meant even the shade wasn’t worth a whole lot. So we were all left to bake in the sun and sweat our bits off.

“Tempting, but sitting on my ass while being treated for a snake bite sounds worse than getting heat stroke out here,” I said with a sigh.

Being forced to sit around all day was probably the worst thing I could imagine. As a kid, it had been, well, not painful in the literal sense, but holy hell, it felt as close to pain as you could get. Thankfully, my adult years had some decline in that feeling, but it hadn’t gone away. At least now I could dive into my thoughts or distract myself with hobbies like drawing.

Dom’s voice was quiet when he spoke up. “So, what’s up with him?”

“With who?” I asked, confused.

“Shh,” he chided with a roll of his eyes. “I’m trying not to have a conversation with the whole ranch here.”

“With who?” I asked, dropping my voice to a whisper as I tried to figure out what he was talking about.

“What, did you think I didn’t notice that Reno is…well, I wouldn’t say friendly. But he’s not going around looking like he’s waiting for an excuse to take someone’s head off,” he said. “Shit, he just had what amounted to a friendly conversation over drinks with me.”

“What, because I live with the guy, I’m suddenly supposed to know everything that goes on in his head?”

“Live with, sleep with, eat with, work with, spend all your time with.”

All incredibly valid points that I couldn’t find a counterargument against. I mean, I knew why Reno was doing better, or at least had a strong suspicion. The thing was, I didn’t think it would go well if I informed Dom that Reno was in a better mood because of me. That would just lead to the inevitable jokes that would get under my skin, and I’d probably get flustered and end up blurting out the truth.

I’d wanted to tell Dom what had been going on the past few months, more specifically, the past month and a half. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Dom to keep a lid on anything I told him. I knew I could trust him with my secrets. It was just that if I told him, I wasn’t so sure how Reno would take it. He was about as private as a person could get and wasn’t all that fond of, well, anyone. Of course, that had changed with me, or at least I liked to think it had.

“The guy’s getting better sleep,” I said with a shrug, going with the truth without going into details. His dreams had petered off in the past couple of weeks, and while he grumbled and bitched if I stayed up with him when he was woken in the night, it seemed to have had a positive effect. “That’s bound to make anyone a little less cranky.”

“Well, yeah,” he said, still watching me.

“And we’re getting along better.”

“That wouldn’t really take a whole hell of a lot.”

I laughed. “Okay, true. But we are getting along a lot better.”

“So, what? No arguing and bickering?

“I said better, not perfect.”

It was always hard to say precisely what was going on in Reno’s head, but I liked to think he was starting to enjoy having me around. Not just because the sex continued to be mind-blowing but because I had managed to slip past his prickly exterior a little. He was still uncomfortable with the idea, something I understood, but didn’t get his reasoning behind. I barely knew anything about Reno except the vague idea that his childhood had been shit. That he’d gone to prison over a violent crime he wouldn’t elaborate on and that he loved his sister and late grandmother fiercely.

Oh, and the guy had self-worth issues that put mine to shame.

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