Hearts On Ice

Hearts On Ice Part 2

Nate sighed, tentatively putting more weight onto his damaged leg and wincing as pain shot through it.

He was pretty sure it was just badly bruised—he'd had enough broken bones in his life to know the difference—but he'd need to rest it properly when he eventually made it home. Having a busted-up leg was going to make it difficult to get out to Chloe and Matt's New Year's Eve party tomorrow night but, hey, he'd find a way.

His heart sank as he looked behind him and clocked the dark clouds pressing in, probably only thirty minutes away now. He needed to get a move on if he was going to get this bloody shed back up and still have a chance of making it out of the dale before the weather made it too hazardous to travel safely.

Despite his anxiety to get away, he felt genuinely bad about making such a mess of the henhouse. It wasn't his usual style to try and skip out on a problem he'd caused, but he'd been so shaken by the crash-landing that his first response had been to get out of there.

Her threats to call the cops had got through to his addled brain though. There was no way he'd live this debacle down if it got back to his colleagues at the station. Plus, once her anger had managed to permeate his focus, his usual keen sense of responsibility had kicked in.

The sight of her standing over him with her hands on her hips, her coal-black hair flying madly in the wind across her flushed cheeks, had almost made him laugh. He was glad he hadn't though; she didn't seem like the sort of person that would take lightly to being laughed at. She'd looked pretty saucy too, standing there with fire flashing in her cool, grey eyes like some sort of enraged sorceress, and he'd had an irrational urge to have a go at taming that fiery temper by dragging her to him and kissing her hard. Just to see what happened.

He'd never do something like that though. Apart from the fact that he was acutely aware of how vulnerable she might feel out here alone with him, his profession meant he couldn't afford to put a foot wrong. He treated everybody with respect, even if they didn't deserve it. Stepping out of line could do too much damage to his career, and he really loved his job.

As a rule, he made sure to keep things strictly professional at work, only allowing himself to think about the perpetrator or victim in terms of the report he had to write on them. In his head, these people weren't in full Technicolor, they were black-and-white versions of themselves. It was a trick he'd learnt as a child after his father had left—a way to stay removed from the emotion of a situation and avoid pain or rejection.

Sally had accused him of giving her the same treatment, and he wondered now whether she'd been right. Not that it would have made any difference had he realised it. It would have been too little too late. The sad thing was, their relationship had been a good one until she'd started making noises about settling down and having kids. It had rattled him, even though he'd not admitted it to himself at the time. He knew he'd let her down, but he just hadn't been ready for that kind of commitment.

A gust of icy wind slammed into him, nearly knocking him off his feet and he gave himself a mental shake. This was no time to dwell on the past.

Rubbing a hand over his scalp to get the blood flowing to his brain, he looked around him at the task in hand, intent on figuring out the fastest way to get this henhouse back up so he could get the hell out of this dale.

*

Hettie tried not to glance out of the window at the too-handsome-for-his-own-good stranger as he battled the mounting wind to re-erect the coop.

He must be extremely strong to heave the wooden sides into place like that. She'd bet her crockpot he had some pretty impressive muscles under that thick, insulating coat.