Page 19 of Charlie Takes a Chance

“Hey, Magnolia! How are you?” he greets her with a happy smile. A warm one. How dare he. All he gives me are smirks and sadistic grins.

“I’m great! I’m so glad it was you. Charlie said you’ve been taking good care of her. Thank you so much for that,” she tells him in a genuine tone.

“Anything for you. Not Nash, just you,” he teases.

I’m not sure who I want to kill more, Magnolia or Max.

“Well, I’ll let you two get back to it! Bye now!” Magnolia hangs up before I can say anything like ‘liar, liar pants on fire.’

Max looks down at me with a satisfied look on his face. “Taking care of you, huh?”

“That wasn’t even remotely what I said,” I assure him.

He shrugs and bends down to pick up his coat. “Magnolia is a peacekeeper. She’s probably making us friendship bracelets already.”

“I hope that’s all she’s planning,” I mumble as I start toward the barn door.

“You want to ride back in the truck?” Max asks when we step outside.

“Do you think I’m scared of the dark?” I’m definitely not giving Max the same ammo I gave Bryce.

“Nah,I’mscared of the dark, and if you fall on the ice, I won’t be able to look for you until the morning.”

I’m speechless. He’s…well…being sweet. Because there’s hardly any ice on the ground. He’s giving me anexcuse. “That sounds great.”

I jump into the front seat of the truck, and he pulls back around to the bunkhouse, gravel and snow crunching beneath the tires. We don’t say a word until he shuts the truck off.

“Iamscared of the dark,” I admit quietly.

Max shakes his head. “Seems reasonable to me.”

And then he climbs out of the truck. No teasing. No goading. Nothing.

I can’t believe this pain in the neck just healed a little broken piece of me.

CHAPTER 8

Max

The next morningwe have our first solid dusting of snow. Actually, it’s a good couple of inches of snow. When I finish a full morning of work, I hurry back to the bunkhouse, intent on warming up in front of the wood stove.

When I poke my head inside, Charlie isn’t in the house.Perfect. I step inside, smiling at the wood stove. I bend down to unlace my boots but then remember my promise to Nash. I haven’t actually seen Charlie at all today, so I can’t text him proof of life yet.

I stare longingly at the still-warm wood stove…I’ll be back little buddy.

With a grunt, I retie my boots and make my way toward the lodge. I’ll check on her for the second day in a row and report back to Nash. I feel like a stalker at this point.

Although, her sneaking up on me in the barn was rather stalkerish too. I am so glad I caught myself before I’d landed the punch. She’d startled me so much I just reacted, not thinking about who would be in the barn with me.

When I round the corner, I find Charlie is standing next to her car in the driveway with her hand resting on the roof. Herfingers are tapping, and she looks deep in thought. “What is that?”

She glances over her shoulder at me then turns back to the car. “You mean this trusty Honda?” She pats the roof of the vehicle.

“You’re not planning on driving that into town, are you?” I point at the extra five inches of snow we got last night.

She plants her hands on her hips and glares at me. “I thought I would take my unicycle. Of course I was going to take this into town.”

Pine Ridge isn’t far, but there are a few steep hills between here and there that are notorious for dumping tourists in the ditch whenever it snows or is icy. It’s a hill that requires four-wheel drive with this much snow, and she doesn’t have that.

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