Marshall flinched. He wanted to tell her he was sorry for being such a bastard, to admit that, despite what he’d said, he was grateful for her help and touched that her children were being so kind to him when he certainly didn’t deserve it.
He really wanted to tug her into his lap and kiss away her glower, which he knew was as impossible as him getting up and marching across the house to find what she wanted.
“Kitchen, top drawer left of the sink,” he finally said. “You can’t miss it. It’s on a blue carabiner and marked shed.”
“Thank you.”
She said the words in a tone as barbed as fishhooks, then turned and marched from the room, leaving behind that spring wildflower scent.
He frowned after her, feeling even more like a bastard, if that were possible.
She had done nothing to deserve his foul temper except try to make life a little easier for him. It wasn’t her fault he was frustrated and sore and beginning to long for things he knew he couldn’t have.
CHAPTER SEVEN
ANDIE QUICKLY FOUND the carabiner with the shed key hooked to it and hurried out to Wyn’s beautiful stone patio that bordered the Hell’s Fury River.
In summer, this was a lovely, tranquil spot where one could sit and listen to the river and enjoy the view of the mountains beyond.
The snow hadn’t been cleared here. Because the patio faced north and was shaded by the house and the bordering trees, it seemed as if each wintry storm that had hit since before Thanksgiving had left a few inches behind that never had a chance to melt in the sunshine.
Even though she wore boots, it was still a struggle to crunch across the foot-deep snow to the garden shed. She didn’t mind. The exertion took her mind off the emotions roiling through her.
When she reached the shed, she paused to catch her breath. Deep belly breathing had been a big part of her therapy this summer and she still found it immensely useful.
She closed her eyes and focused on expanding and contracting her diaphragm while she listened to the river’s song and the scrape and rustle of tree branches in the brisk wind, heavy with the promise of more snow.
When she opened her eyes a few moments later, she felt much more centered. At least she no longer wanted to scoop up a bucket of this crusty weeks-old snow and dump it on a certain frustrating sheriff.
She didn’t lose her temper very often. Growing up in the household her grandfather ruled with harsh words that hit much harder than iron fists had taught her young to learn how to contain any excessive emotions. She had always rather prided herself on her self-control, her ability to pause and think before she responded instinctively to a given situation with anger and words she couldn’t take back.
For the first time in a long while, she had almost let that control slip away and had come dangerously close to giving Marshall Bailey a big, angry piece of her mind.
Did he seriously think she had nothing better to do than traipse back and forth between their houses, making up excuses to drop in on him?
Remembered hurt sliced through her again, a hurt she didn’t understand. He hadn’t exactly made it a secret that he didn’t want her help. She supposed she had thought—hoped—that perhaps they were becoming friends.
She had to ask herself why his words seemed to cut so deeply. Did she really care what the sheriff thought of her? She barely knew the man. Until a few days ago, she would have said he made her nervous and uncomfortable. He had always seemed a cold, hard man.
Somehow she had convinced herself there was something more beneath the surface. She thought she had seen glimpses of kindness, a vulnerability she never would have suspected until she spent a little time here.
She was a fool.
He was exactly as he appeared—humorless and ungrateful and arrogant.
If it wouldn’t break her children’s hearts completely, she would march back inside, toss the shed key on his lap—broken leg and all—and tell him just where he could stuff the Christmas tree she was on her way to find.
The temper she had just tried to cool in the December air flared all over again, with an intensity she found more than a little disquieting.
When was the last time she had been truly angry?
For the last two years, she had been living in a kind of limbo. She had grieved for Jason until she was sick with it, but about four months after his death, she had forced herself to shove down the worst of her grief so she could focus on caring for her children.
That raw sense of loss had always been there inside of her, just muffled as if she had wrapped it in layer after layer of cotton batting.
She had finally been coming to terms with the grief when Rob Warren had destroyed everything in one terrible night when his obsession spiraled out of control and he refused to take no for an answer.