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“What?” he asked, eyes scanning her top to toe looking for blood or injuries.
In answer she sighed and pointed up at the tin roof with a defeated expression. Brendan followed her finger and looked up, confused, and then he heard it. Rain. The thunderous sort that came with a sudden storm. Even the remaining cattle looked up at the sound of it battering the tin roof like the sky had dumped out truckloads of golf balls and not seemingly harmless water.
Brendan and Nicole looked at each other across the shed, and Brendan could only imagine that his expression mirrored Nicole’s scowl perfectly when she cracked a grin and laughed. Brendan started laughing too, rubbing his filthy hands over his face without caring. A pressure valve had been let off between them through some weird silent communication.
Now they just stood at the edge of the shed looking out at the torrential rain that didn’t look like easing up anytime soon.
“The mud is going to be insane…” groaned Nicole, not willing to step out into it either.
“It was fine last time — we ran back.”
“Yeah, but the ground hasn’t had time to dry out, so it’s just going to be sludge now.” She blew a stray lock of hair off her face, looking like she was gearing up for battle.
“I shouldn’t question you,” Brendan admitted, wanting desperately to take that loose strand and tuck it safely behind her ear. “You know this place better than I ever will.”
She looked up at him, expression unreadable, too subtle for him to pick up on after so little time together. If they spent longer in each other’s lives, would he start to know her face like the back of his hand, or would she be a mystery forever, keeping him on his toes? It made his stomach sink to think about her moving on after her contract ended and not being able to have the time to learn every little movement that face of hers was capable of. It always came back to not having thetime…
“Well,” said Nicole, pulling her ponytail tight, which didn’t do all that much to secure her flyaway hair. “I’ll just have to prove you wrong, know-it-all. Dibs on the shower.”
“No,” said Brendan, surprising both of them when it came out a little too fast, a little too severely.
Nicole raised an eyebrow at him. Now,thatexpression he could read.
“I mean,” he fumbled, trying to get a grip on himself. “Let me help, otherwise you’re just going to sink.”
“I won’t sink.”
“You will; you’re three inches tall.”
“I’m quick. Nimble.”
“You’re neither of those things.”
“I fell off that stool likeonce…”
“Yeah, exactly.”
“And helphow, exactly, because I’m not—” Whatever Nicole was going to say was swallowed up in a yelp as he lifted her up, one arm hooked under her knees and the other behind her shoulders.
Trying to convince her wasn’t really going to get either of them anywhere; Nicole was always actions over words. So she was left speechless as she was hoisted above the ground, arms reflexively wrapping themselves around Brendan’s shoulders, her fingers brushing the skin at the back of his neck.
He’d lifted her up half as a practical way to get her back to the house without sinking into the mud like it was quicksand and half as a joke just to push her buttons. But now, with her small, warm body held in his arms, Brendan wasn’t sure what he was feeling anymore. All he knew was that where her hand was braced against his neck, it currently felt like it had been burned, his skin was so hot. He looked at Nicole’s face, thinking maybe this was all in his head, but she was watching him silently, her eyes large and unblinking.
To avoid doing something stupid — he didn’t know what that might be, but he wanted to avoid it — Brendan braced himself and ran out of the shed into the rain. It was worse than the last storm, which he hadn’t thought was possible, but the rain was coming down in sheets and he could barely see three feet in front of him, only knowing where he was going from memory rather than using his vision. Nicole clung to him, curling herself small and tight against his chest, her head ducked low to protect herself against the weather, and Brendan was glad he’d picked her up. He couldn’t run, not properly, without getting his feet stuck in the mud and rushing water that was starting to collect around them, so it took an age to get to the porch, where the sudden absence of water hurtling on top of him made him feel like he was floating.
Nicole reached up and swept his hair back off his face, slicing water away with her fingers so that he could see, her hands warm against the ice-cold skin of his forehead and cheeks that had been exposed to the rain. Brendan just looked at her as her hand faltered as it stroked his now exposed forehead. Nicole pulled her hand back to her chest, fingers folded away, staring up at him like she hadn’t quite meant to reach out and do that. Like she hadn’t been in control. Brendan didn’t feel all that in control himself right now either.
He put her down, making sure she was standing upright on the porch before forcing himself to take his arms away, to keep his hands to himself, to not turn back and stroke his own fingers over her face, brushing her wet hair away.
They stumbled inside, flicking on lights as they went — which, thankfully, still seemed to be working for the moment. Brendan didn’t really care if he was dripping all over the floor or making a mess. He could clean it up in a bit. All he cared about right now was getting a grip on himself and not ruining whatever it was he had with Nicole with some stupid instinct to pick her up again and carry her up the stairs. He shook his head at himself, spraying more water around, and peeled off his coat and boots before he went any further inside.
“Brendan?”
Any sense of sanity he’d grasped hold of vanished when he turned around and saw Nicole standing behind him, her coat and boots gone just like his, staring at him with the intensity of an atom bomb. It was when she walked towards him and put her hands on his chest, her fingers gripping at the soaked fabric, that Brendan was finally able to speak again.
“You’re a mystery, you know that?” said Brendan with a laugh that shook just a little too much to be able to brush off.
At that she frowned a little, but just a little.
