“Momma.” He scoffed and looked away. “I’m not gonna do that.”
“Yes,” she said. “Repeat it back to me.”
He met her eyes again, his cells blazing in such a way that told him he wore a fierce look on his face too. “I’m not ten years old.”
“You need to hear yourself say it,” she said.
Henry took in a big breath as Daddy started taking boxes to the porch. He exhaled and looked at his mother again. “I know you and Daddy are proud of me.”
“We love you.”
“I know you and Daddy love me.”
“You’re going to be the best farrier Lone Star has ever seen.” She smiled at him, her lips painted a perpetual red that Henry had grown up with.
He grinned back at her and chuckled, so glad she’dbroken the tension inside him. “I’m going to be the best farrier Lone Star has ever seen.”
Momma nodded, like what she wanted would absolutely come true. “Good. Now, let’s go move you in and go to lunch. I’m starving.” She turned and opened the back door while Henry moved around her to lower the tailgate.
He went up the steps first, and he knocked once before opening the door. “Levi?”
The person standing in the kitchen wasn’t Levi, but a woman, and since Henry was already in motion, he couldn’t stop himself as she turned.
Angel White stood there, holding a steaming mug of something, stirring it with a spoon. “He’s out in the stables,” she said coolly, those blue eyes sending fire right into Henry’s lungs.
He came to a complete stop, for he hadn’t anticipated finding her in his house.
“I’ve got everything you need, cowboy,” she said, and oh, she shouldn’t say things like that.
She doesn’t mean it that way, he chastised himself.Get control of yourself and your hormones.
Henry forced himself to move forward, because he could hear someone’s boots coming up the steps behind him. His father, and that only made Henry’s pulse clatter through his body even more than it already was.
“The final contract?” he managed to croak out as he went past the dark brown couch in the cabin. He’d seenit in the video walk-through, but it looked even more comfortable in person.
“Yes, sir,” Angel said, her gaze switching to the doorway behind him. “I can wait until you’re settled, but I’ve got it here.” She moved over to the small round table in the corner of the kitchen and pulled out a chair. A manilla folder sat there—with his final contract, he assumed—and Angel sat in front of it and set down her coffee mug.
Henry carried a box he suddenly didn’t know where to put, and he had to watch his father turn to go down the hall to the bedrooms. Of course. Most of Henry’s stuff would go in his bedroom.
“Uh, yeah,” he said, not sure where his brain had gone. “Let me put this down, and I’ll come right on back.” The box in his hands slipped, and Henry lunged to catch it. Embarrassment squirreled through him at his sweaty palms, and he hurried to follow his father once more.
“I just have to sign something,” he said as he dumped the box on the floor. “You guys don’t have to unpack without me.”
“We got it,” Daddy said in a chipper voice. “You go do what you need to do.”
Henry nodded, turned, and as he walked down the hall toward Angel, he wiped his palms on his jeans, hoping when he shook her hand he wouldn’t leave hers dripping wet.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Angel pushed against the nervous masculine energy flowing toward her. Henry was a bundle of anxiety this morning, and she couldn’t say she was surprised. She hadn’t been able to sleep much last night, and she’d been telling herself it was because today was move-in day. And move-in day was stressful for her on a lot of levels.
But faced with the tall, broad-shoulders, handsomely hot Henry Marshall, Angel knew she’d been lying to herself. She’d known it last night too, but it had been easier to rationalize away.
Not anymore.
“I just need your signature for the rental agreement,” she said, refusing to make eye contact as Henry neared the table. “It’s separate from the apprenticeship.” She shrugged one shoulder in an attempt to be nonchalant,but if he could see her pulse, he’d know how he affected her. At least she’d broken up with her boyfriend, so she didn’t have the crushing guilt she’d had back in February. When she’d kissed Henry Marshall back.
“I mean, they’re connected, but separate.” She fake-glanced at him as he sat down right next to her. “So you need to sign this.”