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“Well, why don’t you tell me when you’re ready to have an adult conversation instead of a knee-jerk, worst-case scenario reaction to every damn thing I say?”

He gave her a little mock salute. “Will do, Doc.”

Oh, she could just punch him. But it wouldn’t do any damage, so she whirled around and stomped to the driver’s side of her truck. “Fuck you, Gabe.”

He had no retort to that, but then again, he was already halfway back to the barn and might not have even heard her. She thought of yelling it after him, but from a look into the truck, where the dome light was on from her opening the driver’s side door, she could see Colin’s concerned expression.

Crap.

Fixing a bland expression on her face, she slid into the driver’s seat. She started the car, urging the heater to fire up, urging her boiling temper to calm.

Great, amazing, soul-flipping kiss followed by irritating, purposeful misunderstanding argument. It was so very Gabe Cortez, all in all, why should she be surprised?

“Mom?”

“What?”

Colin was silent for a while. “You said the f-word.”

“Yes, I did.” She let out a sigh and glanced over at Colin. It was not the gleeful pointing out of swearing he usually did when she slipped up. He was concerned. Worried. And he was looking back in the direction of Revival.

She pushed the truck into drive and started down the hill. It was only a short drive home to their cabin over on Shaw property, so she didn’t have time to really think things through. But she had to reassure Colin that nothing he’d witnessed was going to alter his life.

“I’m sorry you had to witness Gabe and me fight,” she said sincerely, because she was. She hated that she’d let anger and hurt and who knew what all take over when Colin was within witnessing distance. “We both let our tempers get the better of us. I’m sure we’ll work things out so we’re friendly again.” She wasn’t that sure, but she’d at least pretend for Colin’s sake, and Gabe probably would too. “Nothing Gabe and I argue about will changeyourrelationship with him. I will always find a way to be friends with him for you.”

Because as much as she wanted to throttle him, he was a good man, and Colin had developed an attachment. She wouldn’t end that for Colin no matter what she felt.

Maybe Gabe was right. Maybe they had the same exact problem. Her actions didn’t back up her words, and neither did his.

She wasn’t particularly proud of that, and if she analyzed it closely, which she’d been avoiding doing for something like months, she realized far too late what that was.

Not a mask, not a boundary, but a deflection. A protection. He’d kissed her, and she’d felt utterly powerless, so she’d used her position to get some of that power back. She’d used it to protect herself and the weakness she’d felt in allowing it to happen.

That was wrong. Utterly wrong. But how did you right a thing you hadn’t even been aware you’d been doing? And for how long?

Colin yawned, leaning his head against the door. “I like Gabe,” he murmured sleepily. “I wish he was around us more.”

Monica stared hard at the road, ignoring the tears stinging her eyes. “I like Gabe, too,” she replied.

But she didn’t know how to navigate him, and she didn’t know how to let herself go enough to let there be no navigation.

Chapter 12

Gabe did his regular chores the following morning, and for the first time since winter had struck hard and vicious, he was glad for the icy bite. The relentless, stinging discomfort of it all. It felt right. So did swinging the little pickax and breaking the ice of the water tanks.

He’d decided to shovel out around the tanks too. It wasn’t expressly necessary, but he needed the hard kind of physical labor involved in chipping away at inches of trodden snow and ice.

When Jack appeared sometime around lunch looking happy as a damn clam, Gabe realized the morning of hard labor hadn’t done a whole lot to work him out of his mood.

He parked the UTV in the stables and glared at Jack’s approaching form.

“Where’ve you been?”

Jack frowned and stepped into the stables with him. “Doctor’s appointment. I told you that yesterday. Rose and I found out the sex of the baby this morning.”

A bunch of words he didn’t want to think too deeply on. “Oh. Right. Well, I chopped the ice, fed all these guys. Probably going to need to hay the north pasture, then I might take on the roof patching here.”

When Jack didn’t say anything, Gabe glanced over at him.