Now, just after Lena dropped me off in the bar’s yard, Denise met me at the rear door.
“Not so fast.” She held up a hand.
A flurry of snow had me tucking my hands into my armpits. “Hey?”
“Give him a minute,” she added.
“Who, Bull?”
“Who else? He drove out to your place.”
Oh! I plucked at my jacket collar, suddenly a whole lot warmer. Yeah, I should’ve expected this. So what if there’d been attraction? He wasn’t about to mess around with me just because I wanted a distraction. Shit, I didn’t even know if he was single.
Despair rose in a wave. Was it too much to ask to have one nice thing? A pair of warm arms and a gruff smile just for me? Perhaps my sister was right and I didn’t deserve it.
The roar of a powerful engine had me scouring the street. Bull’s enormous black truck pulled up.
He clambered out, his sharp gaze finding me. “Get in,” he snapped.
“Why?” If he was taking me home again, that significantly dented the earnings I’d hoped to put away this month. And I wouldn’t see Bull again, except as a customer to the bar.
My little bloom of hope died.
“Autumn.” He gave a frustrated sigh and planted his hands on his hips.
“Fine. Please wouldn’t go astray, would it?” I stumbled to the car and opened the passenger side, misery gathering.
Bull appeared at my back. “Please and thank you,” he said, then he boosted me into the seat and closed me in.
Tingling from his strength—he’d lifted me like I weighed nothing—I settled in while he stalked to the other side.
“Supply run,” he said by way of explanation, landing in his seat.
I opened then shut my mouth. “You’re taking me to buy supplies? I thought you were going to fire me.”
His lips twitched. “Dinna be daft. I’m nae the one to hire and fire bar staff. That’s up to Denise.”
Bull swung the car onto the main street, and we trundled through the small town, raising our hands in greetings to the locals who passed. In no time at all, I had become familiar with many. It was a nice feeling.
A few minutes on, we were in the dense forest with silence so thick around us I could slice it up and serve it from the grill. But this was Bull’s show. He’d decided to take me out with him—presumably entirely unnecessarily as what would I do to help with the shopping?—so it was up to him to talk.
Eventually, he did. “How do you like working in the bar?”
I spluttered a laugh.
“What?” He shot me a look before returning his attention to the mountain road.
“All the things you could ask me, and that was what you came up with?” I shook my head and peered out of the windscreen, putting on his deep voice. “Fine consistency of snow today.”
Bull snorted, his rigid shoulders relaxing a degree. “There was intent behind the question.”
“Which was…?”
“I’m interested to know how long ye plan on sticking around.”
Oh! I pulled my bobble hat from my head and shook my hair out. “A while.”
“How long is a while?”
“To be decided.”
He threw me another glance.
It was wearying, not telling anyone my past. As far as the townsfolk knew, I was on an extended visit for the holidays. Lena hadn’t pushed me any further.
Bull was trustworthy, I could feel it instinctively. Not that I’d share the scariest part of my recent history, but I could maybe relent with one or two details.
“I need to stay away from home for a while.”
“Where’s home?”
“Scotland.”
He raised his chin. “With your husband?”
I stared at him. “Husband? I didn’t even have a boyfriend! I lived with my father.”
Bull slowed the car at a junction then steered us onto a wider, busier road. While he concentrated on the manoeuvre, he worked his jaw. Then, back on track, he asked the question that was clearly bothering him. “Where’s your boy’s da?”
Oh. Did it matter if I told him who I was to Benjamin? Probably not. “Benjamin has a father, but he’s not in his life. My sister told the guy responsible that she was pregnant, and he applied for a transfer to another unit then vanished.” Then I added, in case it wasn’t clear, “Benjamin’s my nephew.”
We cruised into a wide gravel car park. Bull raised a hand to a man outside the busy warehouse then parked at the end of the line of cars, next to a stand of trees.
“Can I ask a question now?” I unclipped my seatbelt and faced him. If I didn’t change the subject, he’d start pressing for more information, and there were too many facts I didn’t want to expose. Besides, there was a lot to this man I wanted to uncover.
“Maybe.”
“You asked me if I had a husband; do you have a wife? Or a girlfriend?” Warmth rose to my face.
Bull squinted at me. “No. Do ye think I’d be here with ye now if I did?”
That was the point—we weren’t just making a supply run. With his simple words, he acknowledged the fact and, all of a sudden, my limbs went tingly, heat rushing in my veins. It was eight in the morning, not prime kissing time. “It’s a step up from you avoiding me.”
“When did I do that?”
“You wrote a contract to dodge exactly this, didn’t you?”
Bull heaved a sigh and hauled on his handle and exited the car. He crunched through the snow around to my side then opened my door. With an unreadable expression, he held out his hand. I took it and slid from my seat.
For a moment, our bodies were aligned in direct, warm contact along our legs and from where my shoulder touched his chest.
Holy hell.
“You didn’t sign that contract, I remember,” he muttered.
“Do you still want me to?” I held his gaze. Bull had the darkest brown eyes I’d ever peered into, thick black lashes framing them, but that wasn’t what had me catching my breath. My head swam from the sheer strength of his focus, like he was trying to figure me out by willpower alone. But there was a gentleness, too. I liked it. It unnerved me.
Then he spoke and ruined it all. “What did ye run from, lass?”
I recoiled and stepped past him. “What makes you think I’m running?” I called over my shoulder.
Bull closed my door and strode after me, the stomp of his footsteps loud. “Autumn, stop.”
I carried on, down the line of cars until I reached the warehouse entrance. Then I marched inside, grabbing a trolley and shaking it until it came loose from its neighbours. “What do we need to get?”
“Just stop a wee minute, will ye?”
I did, pausing at the end of a canned goods aisle. Bull took my shoulder, turning me to face him.
“Ye realise ye just ran from a conversation about running?” There was a smile on his face, his beard unable to hide it.
“And that’s funny?” I demanded.
“Maybe it isn’t, but I know a damn sight more about ye now than I did an hour ago.”
“Why is that important to you?”
Bull shifted his weight on his feet, lifting his chin to an older couple who passed us with a cart loaded with animal feed.