about steps, don’t you?” He hummed an affirmative and nodded, his mouth too full to state the obvious about deadly dry rot.
“It would be nice to get them fixed. Then maybe I could work on my yard and put in a little barbeque and some paver stones.” She chuckled. “Maybe even some flowers that I couldn’t kill.”
Jeremiah swallowed his food. “You mean your weed and gravel patch?”
Eden tossed a crumpled-up paper napkin at him. “Tell me how much I owe for lumber and your time.”
Jeremiah took another bite and closed one eye, squinting at her. “You couldn’t afford me, so let’s call it repayment for the kindness you showed a stranger.”
She snorted into her coffee and muttered, “Right.”
He leaned back and picked up his cup. “I was serious.”
“You realize it is going to cost hundreds of dollars for the lumber and your time to build them, right?”
He nodded. Not like he had much else to do while he was here. Gen wasn’t joking when she said she was a one-person show. Her processes were economical and timed to the minute. Getting in her way only threw her off her game plan. That’s why he’d been at the hardware store the second it opened at eight. Before that, they visited as she waited on the people who wandered in at six in the morning.
“Well, I’ll pay for the lumber and your time or you can’t work on them.” Eden emptied her coffee cup and sighed. “I have a patient due in ten minutes. Do we have a deal?” She extended a hand to him.
He grasped her small hand and flicked his eyes to hers. Her soft but hurried pull of air told him she felt it too, the connection between their skin. He tightened his grip when she moved to pull away. Her face flushed a dark pink and she glanced around the small cafe. “Let’s make it a trade. I love my sister, but I don’t want to get in her way. Show me the Black Hills, introduce me to your town, make me eggs fried in bacon grease, or sit on your front porch with me and tell me stories about the people who walk down the street.”
Eden tugged at her hand again and he released it. “Why?”
He shrugged. “I told you, I want to stay out of Gen’s hair, especially since I’ll be staying longer than a week.”
She stopped her slide to the edge of the bench. “When did you decide that?”
Just now. When I held your hand. “I’m not sure.” He wasn’t sure of anything at the moment except that her blue eyes were beautiful, and he had nowhere to go. They were reason enough to stay. For now.
She stared at him for a moment before she smiled. “I’ll take that deal, but only if you allow me to pay for the lumber. Not negotiable.”
“I can work with that. I’ll be over to measure the stairs and landing before I head to Belle Fourche.”
She stood and tugged down her scrub top. “Thank you. Beers on me tonight. That bench, about sundown.” She nodded to the wooden bench outside her clinic.
“I’ll be there.” He watched her walk away, turning a bit to see how the scrubs clung to her pretty little ass. As he turned back to his biscuit, he met the stare of at least eight women who’d made no pretense at watching the interaction. He gave them a rakish smile and winked. Instantly, several huffed and turned around, but one with graying red hair and green eyes smiled at him and winked back. The lady sitting beside her placed a hand on his new friend’s forearm and pulled her back into the hushed conversation.
He downed the biscuit in four bites, chased it with coffee, and took his dishes back to the wash station in the kitchen. Gen darted through to plate up an order, and he took the opportunity to let her know he was heading out.
Setting the GPS on his phone, he put it in a cup holder and headed south. A smile spread as he realized he had a date tonight. A beer with a pretty lady. The day was looking up.
Chapter 8
Eden wiped down the exam room, cleaning up after her last patient. Ryan Conklin, the ranch foreman for the Hollister Ranch, had sliced his palm open. It was deeper than they felt they could patch up at the ranch, so they’d called, and she’d waited on them. She also updated his tetanus