She’s nothing like what I pegged her as when we first met.
No, Dr. Leah Levee is just the opposite.
Leah
This afternoon, after icing Rhett’s knee and procuring his brace from his truck, Joey and I sent him on his way to work on everything for the big extravaganza tomorrow. They have events to set up and seating to stage and a whole number of volunteers to train and assign.
And although Rhett was poised to take Joey with him, I figured a little bit of girl time and a lunch picnic sounded like a much better idea.
Which it was. We danced and ate a boatload of cheese and sliced meat from the ranch guest market and laughed ourselves silly until my stomach hurt. But once Jenny showed up on babysitting relief duty before dinnertime, Joey went home with her, and I was left to my own devices.
And, honestly, after the amount of manual labor I’ve been doing in Rhett’s place to keep him from reinjuring himself, I was kind of looking forward to it. A little R & R. A little recoup. And a few mindless rom-coms on the old DVD player.
Remote in hand, I lift it toward the small television to hit play, but the soft sound of thumping against my front door stops my finger in midair.
My eyebrows draw together.
Who in the world would be here right now? The whole ranch is busier than I’ve ever seen it, and from what I understand, that’s completely unlikely to stop until tomorrow.
Plus, it’s pretty darn dark outside, and I figured I’d be long forgotten until the end of events tomorrow night.
When another delicate knock sounds from the other side, I toss the remote down on the couch and head for the door. It’s strangely timid, and pretty much an entire half of me is wondering if wild mountain lions can make that sound to fool unsuspecting victims in the middle of the night.
Nevertheless, I can’t Google it, thanks to the lack of Wi-Fi I’m actually starting to get used to, so the only way to find out is to check for myself.
I tread gently to the window and pull back the curtain with the kind of hesitation that suggests I actually think it’ll affect a mountain lion’s ability to sense my presence. Like, if I’m too loud, that’s when it would attack and shoot into my cabin like it’s in The Matrix or something.
Geez, Leah. Get it together.
Scraping the curtains back all the way, I jump when a cute, toothy smile turns to look at me, and it’s very much not the cute, toothy smile of a mountain lion.
Scrambling, I drop the curtains back into place and race around to the door to open it as quickly as possible. “Oh my God, Joey! What are you doing here? Where’s your dad?”
“Still workin’,” she says simply as I shuffle her inside the door, close it behind her, and lock it. She might not be a mountain lion, but for God’s sake, there must be some out there, and she was just standing on my stoop waiting for me to open the door for who knows how long!
I didn’t even have my freaking porch light on.
“Does he know where you are? How did you get here?”
“Oh yeah, he knows.” Joey smiles. “There’s some emergency or somethin’. Bulls broke through the fence, I think. Tiny brought me over after I told everyone you said I could come over here if I needed to.”
I’m not about to discredit a five-year-old for the sake of being right, but I definitely didn’t say she could come over. I mean, I don’t mind, but I definitely didn’t say it. Maybe, though, that means she actually likes spending time with me, and man, does that feel good.
“And what? Tiny just dropped you off and left? What if I wasn’t home?”
“We could see ya movin’ through the curtains.”
Holy hell, what?
Suddenly, I’m reconsidering all the naked dancing I’ve done through the living room on my way to make coffee in the mornings. Somehow, I’d just assumed that being so out in the middle of nowhere meant I was invisible. But evidently, I’ve been performing the ranch’s unofficial burlesque show for everyone within a mile radius. Still, I don’t have time to think about that now, so I scrub my hand down my face to clear that idea from my mind and move on.
“Okay, well, no big deal. I’m glad you’re here, actually. I was just about to pick a movie to watch, and now you can help me.”
“Yay!” she says with a bounce that makes her hair fall in her face. I reach forward to move it aside and notice the smudges of dirt on her normally pristine skin. It seems that even for five-year-old Josephine, today has been a long day.
“Maybe you can take a quick shower first, though. Would you like that? I’m sure I have something you can put on that’ll be more comfortable than your jeans and boots.”