Page 20 of In Love with a Ranger

“But you left,” he began, slipping his arm into the jacket she was trying to help him with… and slowly looked up toward him, her eyes meeting his. “You left quickly. and I wanted to walk with you.”

“I’d like that,” she admitted in a hushed voice.

“Me too,” he confessed quietly, not looking away. “Barn buddies, remember?” – and winced as she chuckled, the moment broken by his stupid mouth. She adjusted his coat again and moved to his side so they could walk together.

A part of him wished that conversation came easier, but he felt so out of his element being around her. He felt like a fool, ungainly, and almost like a teenager with his first crush once again instead of a grown man. It wasn’t like he was innocent, but being around Christina seemed to highlight every doubt in his mind painfully.

“We should probably talk about the sleeping arrangements,” she strangled out as they got close to the cabin. “There’s one Murphy bed and…”

“Christina,” he interrupted, looking at her and pulling her to a stop beside him. “I’m not going to touch you. You’re safe from me.”

“I know,” she smirked. “You can’t afford to have another limb incapacitated.” The unexpected bravado and confidence in her statement struck him as funny, causing him to laugh easily as she stood there looking at him. “You think I’m kidding?”

“No,” he chuckled. “I have a feeling that if I crossed a line, you’d give it your everything. I promise I won’t touch you.”

“Thank you.”

“Without your permission,” he amended – and saw her sharp, silent glance as he looked at her, waiting. Instead of commenting or coming back at him with a rebuttal, she turned back toward the cabin and began walking again.

“I thought we could make it simple and use two different blankets, putting the crutches between us as a wall.”

“You want us to… sleep together… with the crutches as a wall?” he repeated, pausing slightly, and completely taken aback. “Um, no.”

“What do you mean ‘No’?”

“My mother would absolutely tan my hide if she heard I was sleeping consistently with a woman – unmarried,” Gideon admitted, shaking his head. He was going to offer to sleep in the recliner because the thought of lying beside Christina was akin to torture. He’d rather shove toothpicks under his fingernails. And what if he woke up ‘happy’? How exactly was he going to hide things from her? What if he rolled over in his sleep and cuddled with her? He’d ‘slept’ with a woman before – but never actually slept with one overnight. Plus, if his mother found out? She’d be all over him about grandbabies which is part of the reason he came here. Now that his younger siblings were having children, the pressure was on!

“Your… mother?”

“Yes!” he said emphatically. “My mother raised us to respect women and honor the sanctity of marriage. If she heard that I was sharing a bed with you, well. You’ve never seen her mad.”

Christina was staring at him with wide-eyed shock combined with amusement as he looked at her.

“Don’t laugh,” he retorted. “She does this weird pincher move on your ear that will bring you to your knees faster than Spock and his Vulcan grip… and then…”

“Oh my gosh,” Christina blurted out, laughing hysterically, waving her hands, and looking perfectly adorable as her voice carried in the still of the darkness. “Vulcan? Are you a nerd?”

“Noooo?” he immediately blurted out and then hedged. “Maybe slightly? Is that a bad thing?” She shook her head at him and instead of answering, she opened the door to the cabin, stepping back to allow him to go in. He hated that she insisted he enter first, because everything in him wanted her to go inside first, but he did need someone to hold the door that was on a spring so it didn’t slam into his face.

As she entered the cabin, he turned to look at her.

“What’s your plan for the sleeping arrangements then?”

“I thought I’d sleep in the recliner.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s not that comfortable.”

“Houghton said it was.”

“It’s not,” she argued. “Besides, when the bed is down, there is no room to get around it which means whoever is closest to the wall will be trapped and unable to go to the bathroom during the night.”

“Wouldn’t that be the case anyhow if I slept in the bed with the crutches between us? Or are you planning on scaling the crutches and me to go to the bathroom?”

“Oh.”

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