Page 15 of Charlie Takes a Chance

“Remind me why you can’t stay in the main house?” I glance around. It’s really not that bad. It’s not great, with the whole no running water, but it would totally be habitable.

“No water. And funky wiring. Or maybe the water damage caused the problem with the heat pump. Something is circulating back the wrong way. We just have to find it. You’re welcome to help.” She looks at me with a sly look. “But you might need some rubber shoes.”

I raise my hands. “You said you had it all under control here. I’d hate to take all the fun away from you.”

“Why are you here?” she asks as she tips the tub onto its side and shoves it toward the door. I step out of the way, watching the impressive sight of such a small woman single-handedly moving a bathtub.

It’s not something you see every day, that’s for sure.

“Er, just saying hi,” I finally answer when she turns to look at me suspiciously.

She finishes pushing the bathtub out of the bathroom, and it flops to the ground with a thud. She stands straight and plants her hands on her hips.

“Magnolia put you up to this, didn’t she?” Charlie snaps.

“What? No, it wasn’t Magnolia,” I reassure her as I carefully step around the tub to get out of her reach. After watching her gut the bathroom, I have my doubts I’d win in a physical fight.

Charlie relaxes.

“It was Nash, actually. Magnolia asked him to tell me to check on you.” I smile as if that will make it better.

“That’s absolutely ridiculous! She knows I want to be alone and not bothered. I don’t need your pity just because my boyfriend broke up with me.”

Oh, this is an interesting development. I fold my arms across my chest and lean against the wall to listen to the rest of her tirade.

“Don’t look at me like that. I’m way better off without him. I don’t know why Magnolia is worried about me. Good grief. Andasking you to babysit? I’m going to call her and give her a piece of my mind.”

She reaches into the back pocket of her jeans and pulls her phone out.

“Before you do that…I was supposed to make sure you didn’t fall off a ladder each day.”

“Oh.” Her cheeks flush.

“Yup. ‘Oh’ is right.” I grin. “I definitely wasn’t offering to be your breakup therapist.”

Charlie clears her throat and stuffs her phone back in her pocket. “You can just pretend like I didn’t say all of that, right?”

“I don’t know…are you going to move out of the bunkhouse?”

Her face hardens as she shakes her head. “Nice try. Besides, who are you going to tell that my boyfriend broke up with me?” She smiles at that. “I don’t know anyone here, so you could tell the whole town, and I wouldn’t care.”

“Oh, really? You sure about that?”

She raises both eyebrows. “I dare you to tell everybody.”

I smile slowly. “You probably shouldn’t have said that. I love a good dare.”

“You’re so mature,” she snorts.

“I’ll admit it crossed my mind one time that maybe I should grow up, but where would be the fun in that?” I ask as I step away from the wall.

“I don’t know, maybe people would actually want to be around you?” she asks sweetly.

“But I don’t want people around me…”

“You’ve made that abundantly clear. Are you going to stand here the rest of the evening and watch me work?”

I rub a hand across my chin as if I’m thinking about it. “It’s entertaining, for sure. But no, I’m out of here. I’m going to feed the bottle calf, and then I’m going to go into town and have somedinner with friends. There actually are some people who like to be around me.”

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