Confined with the CEO and the Bodyguard

head to clear it. I’ve just spent several minutes ruminating about how bad I’ve messed things up. Dakota and I were supposed to quarantine together here. No guests. Just the Hinson family living in the apartment above the barn, helping to care for the horses, until this pandemic is over.
Six weeks, they said. The experts had better be right because otherwise Dakota risks losing the Black Diamond. I overhear his conference calls with the accountant from time to time. A lot of people will be hurting if we don’t get the virus under control.
“Four, seven, five,” I tell her absently, still stuck in my thoughts. Sadie applies this newfound knowledge. The cottage grants her entrance on the first try. Sadie drags her heavy backpack up her back but hesitates at the threshold.
“Thanks. What should I do if I need anything?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Food.” She shrugs. That bandanna she has tied around her face obscures her features. From the way her clavicles stick out I’d guess it’s been a while since she’s had a decent meal.
Sadie reminds me of my mom—only rougher. For one thing, she has tattoos. Not a lot of them, but a colorful one trails down her left arm. Mrs. Reed would never. My mama might look as delicate as a gauze curtain in a spring breeze, but that woman is as indestructible as her favorite cast-iron pan.
One day, that pan will be my inheritance. In the meantime, she made sure I have her genteel manners and a decent education to get by.
“Text me. We’ll see to it you’re supplied.”
She holds up a phone with a screen so spider-webbed with cracks that I bark a startled laugh.
“We have a spare one lying around somewhere. I’ll bring it over.”
“I can’t pay for it,” she says quickly, wary of my offer.
I don’t know what possesses me to say it. “Send me cute selfies once in a while. That’s all I ask.”
Her green eyes glint with unreadable emotion before she glances away. Is it laughter? Or is she offended? I can’t tell.
“I may do that,” she says evenly. “Thank you, Beau. For everything.”
It’s more gratitude than I deserve, considering the way I brought her out here and then almost sent her packing. “Sure thing. I’ll let you get settled in now.”
It’s not the last I see of her for fourteen days, but it’s the last time we get within ten feet.
“How’s she going to eat if she never goes to the grocery store?” I ask my boss that evening when he’s grilling burgers for dinner. We are debating whether to bring her a burger. Or rather, I have proposed the idea and Dakota has given me a speculative look. That’s as far as the argument has gotten. We can’t decide what to do about Sadie.
“She’s your pet,” Dakota reminds me. “You feed her.”
“I’m not the one who adopted her,” I snipe, grumpily.
It’s my fault she’s here. But it’s Dakota’s fault she stayed. As far as I’m concerned, we share equal blame. I go inside and put together a bag of groceries, which I leave on the stoop outside her door. I ring the bell and stand back. It’s dusk and the last glow of sunset casts long shadows over the courtyard. A lizard on the wall moves.
She answers wearing nothing but a loose T-shirt and a towel wrapped turban-like around her hair. The lower half of Sadie’s face is dutifully covered by a clean bandana. I call out, “I thought you could use some food.”
“Thanks so much. This is really kind of you, Beau.”
She isn’t wearing a bra beneath the shirt. The peaks of her nipples tent the fabric ever so slightly. Liquid heat steams in my veins until I force myself to look away. I’m not trying to make her uncomfortable. Yet my voice is rough when I say, “My pleasure. Don’t be afraid to text me, especially if you get sick, okay?”
“I don’t want to be a bother. I had food. You know...” She hesitates. “In my van. But this is a really big help.”
My gaze skims up her slim legs to the hem of her shirt. My throat tightens and turns parched.
“You’re no bother, Sadie. Holler if you need anything.”
“I will,” she says hastily. “I’d better get these in the fridge. Thanks again, Beau. Tell Dakota thanks too.”
I can’t read the emotion in her eyes. It could be wary hopefulness. Clearly, she’s a woman who doesn’t like to show her feelings. The door closes and locks before I can figure it out. Nightfall paints the sky turquoise and orange.
Over the next two weeks, Sadie becomes as much a part of our landscape as the cacti and scrub brush. We see her at odd times, walking around in her private courtyard for exercise, waving to us quickly before she disappears back into the cottage.
If only it weren’t for the damn mask. It’s like Scheherazade and her veils. I know Sadie has the prettiest eyes I’ve ever seen. She has a dancer’s figure—and I don’t mean tutus and ballet. I mean that after glimpsing her in tank tops and cutoff jeans, which is all she seems to wear, my feverish imagination has started imagining her working a stripper’s pole in nothing but a thong.
I don’t know what the rest of her face looks like, because every time I see her, Sadie’s is covered by a couple of layers of fabric. I want to see the precise slant of her nose. I am consumed with the need to study her lips and the angle of her chin. Her ears are slightly too large, and they stick out a bit at the top. I think it makes her look like a fairy.
And then I tell myself I’m being stupid. But it’s clear I’m not alone in my curiosity.
Being trapped alone in the desert for weeks with nobody but Dakota for company is getting to me. It’s getting to him, too. I see the way he times his daily trail rides to