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Now I knew what he had done. He had taken care of the distribution of his funds so I wouldn’t have to. He had also left me a lump sum that should be enough to fix the house, since I anticipated that it was enough to tear the whole damn thing down and start over again if I wanted.
When I saw the state of the house, I called Camden and asked if I could stay at his place. He loved the idea and told me to come by whenever. I spent one night in the old house, gathering things up to take with me and calling various contractors to price certain repairs.
I had a feeling some of those repairs could be done without hiring them out. Between me, Ryan, and Graham, I was sure we could do a lot of them if we needed to. Ryan especially was good at that sort of thing, and if he guided us through them, I was sure Graham and I could do it.
In the meantime, I was going to be staying with Camden on the ranch. As I got out of the car, pulling my luggage out of the backseat and decoupling the trailer so I could drive the truck without it while I was there, I saw him making his way around the back of the house. I waited by the car for him to arrive, and as he did, he held his arms out for a big, back-slapping hug.
Right behind him was Carmela.
It was all I could do not to stop in my tracks and stare.
5
CARMELA
I was certainly surprised.
I hadn’t expected to see Mark back in Murdock, probably ever. When we saw each other at the bar a year before, we had hit it off quite well, but I got the impression that he was only interested in being there if he absolutely had to be. His father had been sick, and he’d come back to help him for a week or so at most. Then he was going to be back off to Austin or Dallas, whichever one he was living in then.
Then again, I probably shouldn’t have been all that shocked. His father had passed away recently. It had a huge effect on the community since he was the primary doctor for most of the folks in town and was the only doctor in that practice. People were having to go to the other side of town to the main hospital, even when they just had a case of the sniffles.
I felt for him when I heard about it, but when I didn’t see him around, I assumed that he was probably with his father wherever his father was spending his last days. It was apparently not in Murdock, but I didn’t know where. I figured that if I hadn’t seen him in the days around when news of his father’s passing got around the grapevine, I likely wouldn’t.
But him being in town made sense. His family house was still here, and there would be matters of his father’s estate to take care of. I could only imagine how difficult that would be as an only child.
“Mark, hi,” I said.
“Hello, Carmela,” he said, his voice just as velvety and smooth as it had been the last time I’d heard it. Like warm chocolate.
“Mark is moving in for a bit,” Camden said. “Do you mind helping us get his stuff inside?”
“Moving in? Here?” I asked.
Camden nodded, grinning.
“Yeah, my dad’s place isn’t really ready to live in right now,” he said. “So, Camden suggested I stay here at the ranch while it’s being fixed up.”
My surprise was doubled by that. Not only was Mark going to be in town, but he was going to be at the ranch? Where I was all the time?
A flicker in my chest, just like at the bar last year caught my attention. A hitching in my breath that I couldn’t quite control. The warmth running up my cheeks.
The persistent voice in the back of my mind repeating over and over that not only had Mark grown up, that he was incredibly attractive. Unnervingly attractive. Dangerously attractive.
“Cool,” I said, trying to maintain a level of composure that would be taken casually and not as a desperate attempt to pretend I was okay. “What do you need me to get?”
“If you could grab my laptop bag and some of the leather bags, I would appreciate it,” he said, grinning at me. “Camden and I can get the heavy stuff.”
I nodded, grabbed the bags he’d asked for and brought them inside. Camden had a couple of guest rooms at the house, mostly for the veterans that came to work with the horses for help with their PTSD when they needed to decompress. The largest of the rooms, the one closest to the front of the house, had a bathroom and a big closet in it, and Camden guided us there.
