Ali Olson - The Bull Rider's Twin Trouble

“Did you boys finish putting all your clothes away before playing?” Cassie asked after a few moments.

The children nodded, but Brock noticed they seemed a little hesitant. He glanced over at the chest of drawers. From the look of the bursting bottom drawer, Cassie’s earlier prediction seemed to have come true. She noticed, too, and she opened it wider. “I don’t think you’ll be able to find anything in here,” she told them, with an impressive amount of patience. “How about we work on this together?”

Brock could see this might take a while, so he left Cassie with her kids and went back to the library. This woman just kept getting more and more attractive. A beautiful, hardworking doctor with the patience of a saint. He shook his head in amazement.

He wanted to ask her out. What harm could a date do? He imagined she could use an evening being pampered.

There was one big flaw with that idea, though: What if she said no? He didn’t want the next couple of weeks to be awkward as they worked on her house and ranch together. Or worse, she felt so uncomfortable that she insisted on doing it all by herself, even though it was clearly too big a job for just one person.

So he wouldn’t ask her out yet, then. Not until he was sure she’d say yes, or until enough work was finished that he wouldn’t feel guilty if he got turned down and was asked to never see her again.

He hoped to God that wouldn’t happen.

What about her kids? A small voice inside him piped up.

Well, it would just be a date. Nothing serious. He wasn’t going to turn everything in his life upside down because of a passing attraction. They’d go on a few dates, have a nice time and then he’d leave. If they both agreed to nothing permanent, neither of them could get hurt, right?

Brock felt a twinge of uncertainty but dismissed it. If he had to choose between a temporary relationship with Cassie or no relationship at all, he knew which side he fell on. The thought lifted his spirits, and he looked around eagerly for something to accomplish.

Near the library, leaning against a wall, were some boxes with pictures of small white shelves on them. They were clearly pieces of furniture for her future doctor’s office, and would need to be assembled before she could start seeing patients.

He immediately set to work on the first one.

The task went quickly, and by the time Cassie appeared, he was halfway through the second, with instructions and pieces surrounding where he sat on the floor. Seeing her made his heart beat harder, and he found it difficult to remember what it was he’d been doing. She caressed the top of the completed piece in such a way that it took every bit of his self-control to not ask her out right then and there.

“Thank you for your help,” she said, so sincerely that it squeezed at his heart. It was clear from her tone that she’d desperately needed an extra pair of hands.

“I imagine it’s hard to get much done with two young boys around,” he commented.

She let out a sigh of agreement and nodded. “They’re putting things on their new shelf now, so that should give them something to do for a little while, at least,” she said, sitting down beside him and leaning close to look at the instructions.

For a moment, she was too close, and he wanted more than ever to do something about the feelings crowding in him. As he opened his mouth to say something stupid, she moved away again, and his mind cleared enough to keep quiet. She didn’t seem to notice, and before he could get out of his daze enough to get back to the task at hand, she was grabbing pieces and fitting them together with nimble, quick movements.

With some effort, Brock turned back to his own work, and they flew through the rest of the low-lying shelves, two cabinets and several small drawers. He imagined them holding cotton swabs, latex gloves and myriad other items that a doctor would need in order to care for the people who came to her. From the way Cassie was smiling as she touched each completed piece, she could, too.

When they were finished with the last drawer, Cassie sat back and looked around her at all they’d done. Brock could only stare at her. She was endlessly fascinating. They had worked almost entirely without speaking, anticipating each other’s motions in a way he couldn’t describe. They had been assembling a few inexpensive pieces of furniture, but it had felt more like a dance where they moved in harmony together.

He stood and started placing the completed items against the wall, out of the way until they could be placed into the new office. The silence that had been comfortable a few minutes before became thick, and he grasped for something to talk about. “What’s the next big task on your to-do list?” he said, hoping she didn’t notice the strained sound of his voice.

“Until I have paint, we’ve done about as much on the office as we can. I guess the next big part—”

He hoped she wouldn’t say her bedroom. He’d noticed the boxes and incomplete bedframe, but boy howdy, an hour in her bedroom seemed much more dangerous than jumping out of an airplane or climbing on the back of a bull right now.

“—would be the fence, or maybe the barn,” she finished.

Brock exhaled with relief.

“Well,” he started, considering the best plan of action, “we should probably take a walk along the perimeter, see where the fence needs to be fixed or replaced.”

Brock wasn’t sure if he really thought the entire fence needed to be checked or if he was just torturing himself with a long, private stroll with Cassie. He didn’t need to worry about the latter, though, because Cassie immediately stood and said, “I’ll go get Zach and Carter. They’ll be happy to get out of the house,” before disappearing down the hall toward the boys’ room.

* * *

CASSIE WAS GLAD FOR the twins’ company as they all walked out into the late-morning sun. The hours she had spent with Brock already that day made her very aware that she needed chaperones, if only to keep herself from doing something stupid like kissing him.

Luckily, her children were excellent distractions.

As soon as they were out of the house, the boys were tearing around like two tiny dust storms, creating havoc wherever they went and only stopping occasionally to ask Brock questions about life as a cowboy.

Through his answers, she learned that he was visiting his parents for two weeks and that he worked on the circuit—though she wasn’t entirely sure what that meant. The boys were thrilled to discover that he owned a truck and a motorcycle. And that he liked horses and owned lots of cowboy hats and boots.

From the way he answered each question without a sign of irritation, she also realized that Brock was patient, good-natured and kind. She wished he was just a little bit worse of a human being, so she’d have something to grasp to that might help her get over her overwhelming attraction to him.

Finally, she cut into the questions, both because she wanted to save Brock from the unending list the boys seemed to have, and because she was curious what he was doing as he examined a fence post.

“Boys, why don’t you race each other to that tree?” she suggested, pointing out a small oak a hundred yards or so in the distance. Zach and Carter ran off, their excess energy seeming to burst out of every seam.

Cassie turned to Brock. “What are you checking for?” she asked, wondering if she sounded like the young boys.

“To see if the wood is rotten or not. If you have rot, you’ll need to replace those sections, or they might come down not long from now. It’ll be a lot of extra work, though.”

“And money, I’m sure,” Cassie said, biting her lip.

She would need to get her doctor’s office going, and soon, or at this rate she and the boys would be living off peanut butter sandwiches for the foreseeable future.