“Well... Well. Fine. I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

She was repeating herself because her real issues were lost in the actuality of being hot for him, and she didn’t know how she was supposed to hide that. Or if she should. Or could.

“I’m actually more than capable of taking care of myself. I know that you caught me at a pretty low moment, but I promise you, I’m not inept.”

“It isn’t that. I don’t think you’re inept. But I think you might have an overinflated idea of what you can handle.”

“Me? Never. I’m nothing if not entirely realistic about the things I can take on.”

“Which is why you brought... What? A knife to a gunfight with your brother?”

“Well, now, that was my mistake. I expected him to act like a brother. And not an enemy.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t say anything about him. I don’t know enough.”

“I made dinner,” he said.

He walked up to her and slung the ax down, the head hitting the ground. Her head only came up to the center of his chest. He was just so large. So strong. She had realized that from the first moment she had seen him, but his strength had been so reduced in that first moment, that she hadn’t fully realized... All of that vitality. Everything he was. That had very nearly been snuffed out, and suddenly it seemed an unspeakable tragedy that it could’ve occurred. That he could have died somewhere out there in the middle of the woods, and she never would’ve met him.

It made her unbearably sad.

“You didn’t have to make dinner.”

“I’m a man who lives alone. I’m more than capable of rustling up grub when I need it.”

“You were also shot three days ago,” she pointed out.

“Yeah. But I’m doing pretty well, all things considered.”

He walked up the porch to the house, and she took a moment to appreciate the way his jeans cupped his backside. And his back. Broad and muscular, tapering down to a narrow waist.

“You’re not all that subtle.”

She jumped, feeling guilty. “What?”

“Nothing.” Then he chuckled. “You’re being a bit of a mother hen.”

And she felt guilty, because she felt caught looking at him. Even if he hadn’t said it.

“I’m not being a mother hen. I don’t even know you,” she said. “If you keel over and die the only inconvenience will be moving the body.”

“Come on now, Tala,” he said. “You don’t mean that.”

There was something about hearing her name on his lips that made her whole body feel shivery. “Yes, Clayton,” she said, his name on her tongue having the same effect, which didn’t seem fair. “I do.”

“Well, wait until you taste what I made for dinner before you commit to that.”

He pushed the door open and held it for her, and she tried not to breathe in when she walked past him, but she failed. Because what she wanted to do was inhale the scent of him every chance she got.