Page 132 of Mountain Boss

“You gotta turn the heat on, Honey. You’ll freeze to death.”Honey? I’ve never called someone Honey in my fucking life.

“Doesn’t…”

I can’t catch the second word.

“What was that?” I lean closer.

“It doesn’t work.” She’s hard to understand, still half asleep.

“The heat doesn’t work?” I clarify.

She grunts a reply.

I glance back toward the main room. “The thermostat was off.”

This time her groan sounds annoyed. “I know,” she tries to snap but is still too groggy. “I didn’t want a fire.”

“A fire?” She tries to pull the blankets up over her head, but I move my hand from her shoulder and grip the fabric so she can’t. “What are you talkingabout, Cookie?”

“The cords are chewed up,” she murmurs like she’s falling back asleep. “Too expensive. Can’t afford one.”

Can’t afford one?

The fuck?

“That’s not for you to worry about.” Barbed wire twists around my rib cage. What the hell is she talking about saying it’stoo expensive? “I’ll fix it, Courtney. It’s my responsibility.”

She makes a sound in the back of her throat. “…a burden.”

I close my eyes.

I couldn’t make out the first part of what she said.

But I didn’t need to hear it.

I could feel it.

“You’re not a burden,” I whisper as those barbs scrape across bone. “You’re never that, Little Worker.”

But her breathing has changed, her body relaxing again into sleep, so she can’t hear me.

I lower my head to her shoulder and rest it there.

If this woman doesn’t strangle me through sexual tension, she’s going to drown me in guilt.

She’s here freezing herself and literally sick because she thinks it’s too expensive to fix the fucking heater.

Because she thought she’d have to pay for it?

Because she felt like a burden.

Because she’s felt like a burden before.

I rock my head back and forth.

If she was in the Bunk House, she wouldn’t feel this way. Because the heat would be for everyone. But she’s here. Alone.

The only one in the cabin. The only one using the heat.

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