He strode toward her, reached out and took the travel mug out of her hand. “For me?”
Before she could answer, he took a long sip of the hot beverage. Then he grimaced. “What the hell is that?” he asked as the sickly sweet, borderline syrupy concoction slid down his throat.
It was her turn to grin. “Hot chocolate.”
“That’s not hot chocolate. That’s a cup of hot sugar.”
“It’s four packets and a handful of marshmallows.”
He handed the mug back to her. “That’s disgusting, Clara.”
She sniffed and treated him to a very haughty look. “I assume you were hoping for coffee? Because I think that’s disgusting.”
He snapped his fingers. “I knew it.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fine.”
“You like hipster boy. You don’t like coffee.”
Without deigning to answer, she stomped down the steps, heading toward the path to the barn. “Are we going to stand around talking about boys or are we going to go work? I’ve already braided my hair, Alex, so I don’t need your help there.”
He chuckled and followed her, forcing himself to find amusement in the determined set of her shoulders, and to keep his eyes off her ass.
He collected all of his tools, then opened the barn up. While Clara waited, he went back and got his truck, bringing it in so he could load it up with fencing supplies.
The whole time Clara watched, mute.
“You want to help me with this fencing?”
He knew she wouldn’t say anything about being a lady and not doing heavy lifting. Because if there was one thing he had figured out about Clara in the short time he’d been here, it was that she had that same stubborn streak her brother had.
Though, there weren’t really any other similarities between them. Jason had been bold, brash. Quick with a joke, and quick to run toward danger if he thought someone was in need of help. Alex had liked the guy on sight.
Jason had had it rough, there was no doubt about that. By the time Alex had met him, his mother had been sick for most of his life. They’d both enlisted in the military at eighteen. And when they were twenty-two Jason’s mother had passed away.
When Jason’s father died, he’d left the military for a year, returning home to take care of his sister. But once Clara had reached age, he’d enlisted again. Ultimately, Alex and Jason had found themselves on the same base over in Afghanistan. At first, he had imagined it would be a good thing to be out there with his buddy. A guy who had his back.
Of course, now he would give a hell of a lot to make sure that Jason was never there. Or to take his place if it were possible.
Jason had more than had his back. Jason had been a friend, a brother Alex had never deserved.
On summers spent in Copper Ridge Jason had been the one to bring him into a group of friends. To treat him like he belonged. His own father hadn’t had an interest in him. A group of strangers actually wanting to spend time with him had been healing in a way he hadn’t known he needed.
And it had been because of Jason.
He stopped thinking about his friend then. About the differences between him and his sister. Jason with his dark hair and gray eyes, and Clara with her pale beauty and sparkling baby blues.
He had to focus on the present. Focus on this fence.
“I suppose I could help,” Clara said, looking stubborn.
“Better get some work gloves. You don’t want to tear up your hands.”
She rolled her eyes. “I do know how to do basic ranch work, Alex. I grew up here.” She walked to a wooden box that was up against the wall and opened it, taking out a pair of leather gloves and smacking them against the edge of the box. “I do not need to put my hand in there and grab a spider,” she muttered, smacking them a few more times.
Then she put them on, curling her fingers as if to signal her readiness.
“No spider?” he asked.
“Am I fetal and weeping on the floor and threatening to amputate my own hand?”
“Doesn’t look like it.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “Then no.”
“Excellent,” he said.
He walked over to one end of coiled-up fence length and picked it up. She grabbed the other. Granted, she wasn’t contributing a whole lot, but there was something he enjoyed about goading her into helping out. They lifted the fencing into the back of the truck, then repeated the process with the next roll of metal. When they finished with the fencing, they began to move the posts. They worked in silence, and there was something oddly companionable about it.
He looked up, and noticed that some pale wisps of hair had escaped the braid, falling into her face. As they worked, she would stop and shake her head sometimes, trying to flick the hair out of her eyes. But she never stopped. Never stopped working. Never asked for a break. Not even to fix her hair.
Clara was soft in a great many ways, and she was hurting. That much was obvious. But she was also tough. Determined and stubborn. A whole host of big, deep things were contained in that petite, compact frame.
“Okay, that’s enough for now,” he said, when they had the bed of the truck mostly full. “We can drive out and get the lay of the place. Start replacing some of the fencing. Should go pretty quick since we don’t have to dig new post holes.”
“Right,” she echoed. Still wearing the leather work gloves, she opened the passenger-side door of the truck and got in. She grabbed hold of the handle just above the window, as if she were bracing herself for a bumpy ride. And right then she looked like some kind of ranching wet dream. Pretty and soft, but ready to work with those gloves and that very practical flannel top.
He nearly grabbed a wire cutter to cut his thumb—anything to redirect that line of thinking.
He got into the truck and started it, hoping she wouldn’t notice his momentary distraction. His moment of lecherousness.
She didn’t, and the fact that she didn’t was a testament to just how messed up it was that he would think of her in any way other than as Jason’s little sister.
“So...do you have some kind of rancher fantasy or something?” she asked after they’d been driving along the dirt road for a few moments.
Judging by the way he’d been reacting to her, he apparently did have some kind of rancher fantasy, but presumably not the kind she was asking about.
“No,” he responded. “But I made my life about the military. About brotherhood. That’s what Jason and I had. Brotherhood. You don’t leave a fallen brother, Clara. You don’t.” He kept his mind purposefully blank when he spoke the words, because he didn’t want to relive that moment. Didn’t want to see it in his mind. “And when he’s gone, when you can’t help him anymore, you do what you can for those he left behind. It’s the right thing to do.”
He heard her swallow, looked over and saw a tear slide down her cheek.
“I really do miss him,” she said, her voice soft.
“Me too,” Alex said. “He was the first friend I made here during the summers I spent with my grandpa. Do you remember that red Jeep of his?”
“Yes,” she said.
“We used to stand up in the back while he drove.”
“That was stupid,” she said.
“Yeah.