Seth
The water would be cold, but he calculated there was enough stored in the retention tank to get Josie’s hair sufficiently washed, even with the electric pump for the well currently out of commission. But they would have to move quickly. He knew Josie wouldn’t be able to do that with just one arm.
Washing Josie’s hair for her was really the only option.
She hadn’t responded all that well to the suggestion of using a candle to light her way in the bathroom, so Seth hoped the several he had already ignited around the house wouldn’t garner the same reaction. Without them, they would both be stumbling and bumbling about. Power outages and candles went together, but so did romance and…
Seth cut his thought off before it could trail any further into a rabbit hole he couldn’t climb out of.
He slid a ladder-backed chair from the dining nook over the floor and then pushed it up against the cabinets directly under the big farmhouse sink, creating a makeshift salon chair and shampoo basin.
“Take a seat.”
“Seth, I can do this on my own.” There it was, that anticipated stubbornness, sure as the sunrise.
“I know you can.” He took her by the shoulders and pressed lightly to walk her a few steps backward. Her knees hit the edge of the seat and locked.
“Honestly, Seth—”
“Will you just let me do this one thing for you?” There was an edge in his voice that he hadn’t meant to be there. He recovered his tone. “The storage tank only has a certain amount of water in it and I want to make sure you’re all cleaned up before it runs out.” Reason was going to be the only thing to convince her. Hospitality certainly wasn’t enough. “Please. Just sit back and let me take care of things.” Take care of you, he thought, but he left off.
Josie’s cheeks ballooned as she pushed out a fiery breath of air with the resignation Seth knew she fought to give. “Okay.” She dropped into the chair and threw her hands into the air. “Fine. Have at it.”
Seth rolled up a towel as padding for her neck and placed it along the hard edge of the sink. “Don’t most women like getting their hair done? Isn’t it some sort of pampering thing? Going to the salon and all.” He flipped on the faucet and let the cool water pour out.
“I wouldn’t know. Never been.”
“You’ve never had your hair done before?”
She leaned back and squinted her eyes shut to avoid the sprays of water. “Nope.”
“Not for a haircut or anything?”
“I cut my own hair.”
For some reason, that didn’t surprise Seth one bit. But what did surprise him was his sudden desire to make sure she enjoyed every minute of this particular shampooing. He cupped his hand under the stream of water and then cradled her head with his other palm. Immediately, Josie stiffened under his touch.
“Relax,” he urged. He rocked her head to the side to angle a stream of water down the long length of her honey colored strands that collected in the basin like swirling threads of gold.
“I’m trying,” she admitted, grimly. She pushed out another forceful breath that hit Seth’s cheek and she gave him an exacerbated look. “Believe it or not, I really am trying.”
When her eyes slipped softly closed, Seth interpreted that as a good sign. He collected the shampoo bottle and squirted a dollop into his palm, then massaged it onto Josie’s scalp, digging his fingers gently into the crown of her hair while he washed away the mess from their evening. As he continued to move his hands across her scalp, her lips parted and something an awful lot like a sigh eased through.
She cleared her throat with a small cough.
“You doing okay?” Seth tried to hide his smile.
“Yep.” Her features tensed back up. “Just fine.”
“Only fine?”
Josie’s eyes popped open. “Do you want me to say this is the best shampoo of my entire life?” she mocked in a tone several octaves above her usual one. “Is that what you’re hoping for?”
“Something like that, sure.” This time, Seth didn’t hide his snicker. He let it out completely. “You trust me, don’t you?”
It took a moment, but she finally answered, “Yes. I trust you, Seth.”
“Then just try to relax while I get this caked-on cow patty out of your hair.”
“Gotta admit—not words I ever thought I’d hear,” Josie confessed, but something did shift in her composure after that. She slunk just a little lower in the chair, angled her head back just a degree more, and her tight features loosened enough to allow a moderately peaceful look to slide onto her face. This would be the closest version of relaxed Seth would ever get.
He reached for the conditioner and spent the next few minutes working it into her hair, making the cream become a foamy lather. He tilted and turned her head until the water ran clear, then took up the towel next to the sink basin and wrapped it over her sodden strands once he switched off the faucet. He gently nudged her to sit forward.
“There we go. All done. See? Not so painful.”
For a beat longer, Josie’s eyes remained closed. A blissful exhale, followed by an easy grin, culminated in a thank you she didn’t have to speak. She opened her eyes and met Seth’s. “Okay,” she drawled. “I’m starting to understand this whole pampering thing.” She stood and flipped her head over, then refit the towel onto her wet hair by twisting it into a coil with one hand. “That was pretty great. Not gonna lie.”
“Think I’ve got what it takes to open up my own salon?” He winked because he was clearly joking.
“I wouldn’t quit your day job just yet, cowboy.”
“Oh, come on. You know I have magic fingers.” He wiggled all ten and grinned devilishly.
“I’m not even going to answer that.” She made a face, then glanced over his shoulder and into the family room behind him. “Do you think we could get that fire going? It’s great to be clean, but it’ll be even better to be warm.”
“I’m on it. But while I do that, why don’t you go back to my bedroom and get yourself one of my old sweatshirts to swap out with yours. Top drawer in the pine dresser under the window,” he instructed. “No sense being cold and wet if you don’t have to.”
Josie didn’t put up a fight about that. She disappeared down the hall while Seth got right to work.
He had a cord of firewood already collected by the hearth so he took a few from the pile and pitched them into the brick fireplace. Then he tore long strips from an old newspaper and stuffed them in between the logs for kindling before he struck a match and launched it in. A small spark ignited, then slowly spread across the paper, burning up the words and pictures from yesterday’s news to give them new life in the form of a bright, orange flame. Within minutes, the fire popped, crackled, and warmed the room by several degrees.
“I hung the towel over the shower stall in the bathroom to dry,” Josie informed when she appeared several moments later, hair damp but no longer dripping.
Seth had been crouching by the fire, and thankfully so. The sight of Josie in his gray Ford Ranch sweatshirt was enough to trip him up, big time. It was undoubtedly oversized—it had been pretty big on him, too—and the way it fell loose on her shoulders, teasing him with the feminine slope of her slender neck and delicate collarbone, made it a beautiful, startling sight. He pushed off his knees and swiped his hands together. “Fire’s good to go.”