Page 64 of Silent Threat
“Can I grab you something?”
They were so close to each other, she could see the golden flecks that ringed his dark irises. His gaze dropped to her mouth as he waited for her answer.
He looked at her mouth a lot. She knew he had a perfectly good reason. Awareness zinged through her anyway.
Knock it off.
“An egg-salad sandwich and a bottle of green tea would be great.”
He turned to grab what she’d asked for and handed it over, keeping his gaze on her mouth in case she asked for something more.
The guys talked about the game they’d watched on TV the night before. Cole didn’t join in.
She was as acutely aware of his silence as she was of his body. It occurred to her that his need to read lips might be even more isolating than she’d realized before. Maybe he felt uncomfortable watching other men’s lips. Or maybe other men didn’t talk as much to him because having another guy stare at your mouth for an extended amount of time was weird. Not to mention, trying to follow a conversation among six people had to be challenging. Just finding the speaker would take time, making Cole miss part of the conversation. And if two people spoke at the same time?
Annie didn’t have a large family, but she was friendly with a lot of people. She talked to a dozen different people a day. Cole’s isolation made her heart hurt. She wanted to lean into his massive side and put her arms around him.
Bad idea.
She snapped herself right out of it and was so studiously professional for the rest of the day, it made her teeth ache.
After the break, they finished planting the trees. All went well, until the very last one, when Dale stabbed the shovel into his foot, right through his sneakers. He swore. Blood ran everywhere.
Kyle just laughed. “City boy.”
The others too were more amused than worried. Apparently, their idea of grave injury was on a different level than Annie’s.
Annie’s head turned woozy at the sight of flowing crimson. She stepped forward anyway, her heart pounding. “Let me see.”
Cole came through between them like a bear galloping through the woods. He tackled Dale at the waist and kept going, slinging the big fellow over his shoulder. “I’ll take him in for first aid.”
“Put me down, dammit.” Dale’s voice was strangled with embarrassment.
Cole couldn’t have heard, but he responded anyway, probably because Dale was trying to break away. “Wouldn’t want you to die from your little paper cut.”
The rest of the guys laughed, then went back to work. They watered everything they’d just planted. The forecast promised plenty of rain, but they still gave two full buckets—carried from the showers at the pool complex—to each tree.
After they finished and cleaned up the site, they headed in for a real meal—dinner. Annie usually ate with the patients, but today she sat at the staff table and chatted with Dan Ambrose about a new study on behavioral therapy. By the time she finished eating, she needed to head back home again.
Cole waited for her in the parking lot as usual, leaning against his silver pickup, looking as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
“I’ll drive you.”
She was ridiculously aware of his gaze on her lips, his wide shoulders, his strength that had propelled her out of the pool that morning ... and how much she liked his company.
“You don’t have to do this. It’s not your job to protect me.”
He gave a one-shouldered shrug. “I’ve decided I like driving a pickup and doing the country-boy thing. It’s definitely not Chicago’s South Side. And I’m finding the gentleness of the llamas healing. As a therapist, you shouldn’t discourage me from a healing experience.”
“Don’t mock my llamas,” she said, but got into his pickup.
“Who says I’m mocking?”
She tried not to like his wry humor so much. She failed. Gave up. “Thank you for helping Dale.” He’d been back by dinner, with stitches.
“The guy needs to cut down on the bean burgers.”
“You didn’t have to carry him.”
