Despite the almost-kiss, their moment of awkward conversation, and the Butterflies’ persistence, she really had had a great day with him.

Right up until she’d asked him about his leg, and he’d clammed up.

She’d noticed his leg bothering him before, a slight hesitation sometimes when he first stood, but she’d never mentioned it. She knew whatever had happened to him, whatever caused his pain, was why he was no longer in the military.

It wasn’t that he didn’t still want to be a soldier. It was that he couldn’t be.

Why hadn’t he told her what had happened? Maybe he had been on some top-secret mission he couldn’t talk about. More likely, Bodie didn’t like talking about anything personal.

Regardless, that something had wounded him so irreversibly triggered an ache deep in her chest. The thought that he had been hurt, possibly seriously…that he could’ve died, and she wouldn’t have even known…had her taking a deep breath.

As she went outside to get the small stepladder out of the small storage shed, Harry at her side, she contemplated how much she actually knew about Bodie.

Or more accurately, how little she knew about him.

If she wanted to know more all she had to do was mention it to the Butterflies. They’d no doubt be happy to hand her a whole dossier on him, probably with color-coded tabs.

But Sarah didn’t want the Butterflies to tell her more about Bodie. She wanted Bodie to tell her. She wanted him to want her to know who he was, what made him tick, his likes, his dislikes.

Ha. He was her repair guy. Not her boyfriend. What made her think he would ever choose to tell her anything personal?

Just because she wanted to know didn’t mean he wanted to share anything with her. If his reticence told her anything, it was that obviously he didn’t want to open up at all. Not with her.

Making sure not to scrape the hardwood floors, she dragged the ladder into the living room and set it up near the tree. Grabbing some heavy-duty scissors, she climbed up the steps to cut away a few stray branches.

As she came down from the ladder, she regarded the tree and noticed one little branch near the top that was like a bad stray hair.

It had to go. Going back up the stepladder, she reached over to snip the little limb.

“What are you doing?”

Spinning at Bodie’s voice, she almost lost balance on the ladder, only steadying herself at the last second.

Quick as a flash, he was near the ladder, ready to catch her if she fell.

“Be careful,” he ordered.

“I was fine until you came in and startled me,” she pointed out, a little annoyed.

“What if Harry had bumped against the ladder?”