After breakfast, Brooke had a shower—a glorious, steaming shower that thawed her out all the way for the first time since yesterday—and finally felt ready to face the rest of the day. Once the roads were cleared, she and Hayden piled into his truck to go check on all the animals still at the rescue. He was quiet on the drive. Brooke glanced over at him from beneath her lashes, trying to gauge his mood. She felt bad for shooting down his idea, but generous though it was, it wasn’t practical. And if this attraction ended up being the product of forced proximity rather than something real, she didn’t want the strain on either of them of working where he lived.
Brooke deflated, her pleasure in the morning waning. She didn’t want this to be just a fluke of shared space and body heat. Hayden wa
