“That would be Mrs. Henderson?”
“Yeah. Listen, I can call you a cab or something?”
“You think I’m leaving you?”
Her face scrunches up, like I just suggested we cook bacon in the nude. Although us being nude is not such a bad idea.
“Why would you stay?” she asks.
“I’m responsible for you banging your head. I’m not about to abandon you out here, in the heat…” I pause and wave to the trees in her trailer. “Carrying heavy shit like that.”
“It’s not shit, it’s trees.” I’m about to protest when she grins. “I spread the shit, or as we call it in the landscaping world, manure, down earlier.” We both laugh and then she goes serious. “You don’t have to stay, Alek. I’m sure you have much better things to do.”
“You would think, wouldn’t you?”
“What is it you do exactly?” she asks, her big green eyes narrowing as she scrutinizes me.
“I’m sort of in between things.” Again not a total lie. I’m in between hockey seasons. “So it looks like I’m free and I don’t have anything better to do than help you. We do have one problem, though.”
“Oh?”
“I don’t know your name.”
“That’s because I didn’t tell you.” She walks to the back of her trailer and opens the gate.
“You didn’t want to exchange insurance information and you’ve yet to tell me your name. Are you in the witness relocation program or something?” I take in the wide expanse of yard and the greenery for miles. “Buttfuck nowhere is usually where they send people.”
She laughs and whacks me. “This is not Buttfuck nowhere, and I’m here because it’s home.” She tugs on a pair of gardening gloves. “If you don’t like it here, then what’s keeping you. Move along, city boy.”
“Captain Jack,” I say, leaving out the part where I’m seeking solitude. “He’s kind of counting on me.”
“Captain Jack?”
“My buddy’s Jack Russel terrier.” Other than my teammates, no one has really counted on me or expected much, and I’m not about to let Tyler, or Captain Jack down.
She laughs, and the sound fills the air. “Clever name.”
She tosses me a pair of clean gloves. “What are these for?” I ask.
“If you insist on staying, you’re working.”
I step up to her and touch her arm. Her gaze jerks to mine. “Seriously, are you okay to work?”
I lightly bru
sh her hair from her forehead, and wince as I take in the swelling. “You have a bump on your head.”
She shakes her hair back into place and shakes off my concern. “I’m okay,” she says and I’m not sure I believe her. She reaches for the heavy tree, and I stop her.
“At least let me do the heavy lifting.”
“Alek,” she says, her voice so steeped in concern my stomach tightens. I turn back to her and note the uneasy way she’s shifting from foot to foot. “I can’t really pay you for this.”
Shit, does she think I’m doing this for a paycheck? Then again, why wouldn’t she. I’m driving around in a beater I purchased a few days ago. I wasn’t going to drive around in my sports car when I’m incognito. Besides, I have enough of my own money. I don’t need hers, and from the looks of things, she doesn’t have any to give.
“Then it’s a good thing I’m not doing this for the money.”
She angles her head. “Why are you doing it?”