Swinging her legs over the bed, she gave a careful stretch, testing the stiffness in her back and chest. A warm shower would do her wonders. She grabbed some clothes from the bag at the foot of the bed, Cage must have left at some point, and headed to the bathroom.
She turned on the water as hot as it would go and stepped in. The heat from the water soothed her muscles and she found a bottle of shampoo and lathered up her hair. Rinsing away the left over dirt and blood made her feel practically human. She finished up her shower and stepped out. Toweling off, she located a brush and worked the tangles out of her hair and made a quick braid that ended over one shoulder. His mom was kind enough to grab her toothbrush also and she made quick work of getting rid of her morning breath.
Pulling on a fresh pair of leggings and a T-shirt, she took a deep breath and opened the door. She didn’t even know if Cage was home, although she doubted he was going to stray far. He didn’t seem the sort to abandon her. Now that her head wasn’t so dizzy with medication she was fighting the urge to be utterly embarrassed by what had transpired in the last thirty-six hours.
Embarrassing injury, check.
Snogging the boss, check.
Shacked up with boss (although temporarily), check.
Throw in the fact that he kept picking her up, which no bigger girl ever liked a man to attempt. She was amazed she didn’t burst into immediate flames from the horror of it all.
Walking out into the great room, Sophie scanned to see Cage in the attached kitchen looking down at some papers strewn over the counter. The moment she stepped into the room, Cage sniffed and looked up giving her a huge smile.
“Good morning, honey, how are you feeling,” he asked walking towards her.
Sophie was so enjoying the show of him just walking, or stalking as the case may be, towards her, she was completely unprepared to be enveloped in a huge but gentle hug. His strong arms engulfed her. Her arms wrapped around his waist on their accord. She laid her head against his chest and could hear the beating of his heart. It was lovely.
“I’m okay, head is better,” she whispered into his chest.
“That’s good news, darlin’, why don’t you have a seat on the couch and I’ll make you a cup of tea. I’m assuming being British you wouldn’t say no to tea,” he said giving her a gentle squeeze and guiding her to the couch.
“No, I’ve never been known to turn down tea. You wouldn’t happen to have milk and honey on hand would you,” she asked, curling her feet up onto the couch.
Cage took a throw from the back of the couch and tucked it around her. She wasn’t cold, but the throw was fuzzy and warm.
“I always have honey, honey,” he teased kissing the tip of her nose.
Walking back into the kitchen he set the kettle to boil and straightened the papers he was looking at. “Are you hungry?”
“Not really, a little queasy actually,” she admitted.
“No worries, we can try food later. I’ll have to run into the camp later, my mom will come over and sit with you. She doesn’t get a lot of female company out here, but I warned her you are recovering and not to talk your ear off.”
“It will be nice to actually meet her,” Sophie offered.
The kettle started to whistle and Cage put her tea together. Bringing it over to the table by the couch he took a seat on the coffee table and put his hands over her bent knees.
“I’m really sorry you got hurt, Sophie. I want you to know that I’m trying to figure out what happened.”
“I’m sure it was just an accident Cage. I can’t imagine logging is an overly safe profession.”
“We work very hard to make it as safe as we can. Yesterday was not an accident. We’ve been having trouble with sabotage for a while now. Usually small things that no one would get hurt by. Yesterday was different and my brothers and I need to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” he finished.
“Sabotage? Why?” Concern and disbelief coloring Sophie’s voice.
Sighing Cage ran his hand through is already messy hair. “There are groups that don’t like us cutting down trees. They like using the products that come from those trees, but can’t make the connection of how it benefits them. They think we are harming the environment and hurting the animals. When we spend most of our time working on ways to limit our impact on the area we are harvesting. I don’t blame them for wanting to protect the forests, I really don’t. But I also can’t have them jeopardizing the safety and well-being of my workers.”
“That makes sense, so you don’t know who’s been doing these things?”
“No, Conner and Wyatt have been tracking down some of the groups that send us the most hate mail. Even a few that have camped out in our trees before to keep us from cutting. None of them are claiming responsibility. We’ll figure it out eventually,” he promised.