Everything felt painfully awkward. “I’m awful at delicate things. Precious china doesn’t have a place on the ridge.”
Poppy chewed thoughtfully, swallowing her small bite and then setting her spoon in her bowl. “Are you calling me precious china?” She scratched my dog on the head. “I grew up hunting and fishing these woods, I bet you I’m a better shot than you are, Maverick.”
She arched her eyebrow in challenge.
“Oh really?” I teased. “Guess we’ll see about that come morning.”
“We will, best of ten makes dinner tomorrow.”
And with that sentence my heart clambered dangerously out of my chest.
A tomorrow with Poppy.
I’d never survive.
CHAPTER SIX
Poppy
The soft, haunting strains of violin music woke me from a dream. Stuck up on the ridge, I smiled softly as I woke and snuggled into a mountain of soft pillow that smelled like leather and pine.
My eyes shot up, the realization that I was not actually dreaming but living a real waking nightmare pulsed through me.
Maverick. The storm. The dog. It was all real.
I rolled in the oversized bed, realizing that it wasn’t the dream that smelled like leather and Maverick, it was me.
He’d insisted I sleep in his master bed last night, promising he wouldn't be far away on the couch, just one floor away.
The soft sounds of violin music wafted into my psyche then. Apparently I had not been dreaming of that.
“No way does a man like that play the violin,” I said to myself, pushing Maverick’s blanket off of me and crawling out of bed.
I padded across the room and stood at the door. The crack was small, only pure darkness beckoning me. And soft strains of a violin.
I opened the door, walking barefoot across the smooth floorboards. The loft area opened up widely, moonlight finally stretching through the windows. Most of the silver light was swallowed by the shadows of the evergreens that wintered outside Maverick’s home.
The soft steady breathing of Maverick, sound asleep on the leather couch below me, drew me in. I imagined what it would be like sleeping next to a man like that, big enough to swallow my body whole three times in the shadow he cast. He was warm but with a wild edge, an amusement in his eyes when he teased me that made my stomach flutter like a schoolgirl.
I’d never fully understood why exactly my father and Maverick detested each other, but I could see why some men might be rubbed the wrong way by the way Maverick filled up a room. He demanded you take notice, towering over everyone, and with a voice rougher than sandpaper and a beard thick and full.
More violin music crowded into my brain, shoving out the thoughts of Maverick sleeping below.
I crossed the loft to the opposite corner of the floor, determined to find the radio that Maverick must have left on before falling asleep.
Rain dripped down the windows as I passed, my fingertips cool against the panes as I imagined watching the storms come in off the mountains.
I could almost see a life up here on Lovers Ridge.
Violent shrieks of a violin pierced my eardrums just as my palm landed on the door knob of a cracked door.
A rush of cool air washed through me, energy crackling in my veins like rogue fireworks before the door slammed closed against my fist with force.
“What in the world?” I tried the knob, surprise coursing through me when I realized it was locked.
No violin music, and a force on the other side of this door trying to prevent me from entry.
I jiggled at the lock again, grunting softly when I realized it wasn’t about to budge.
