It was official. She could never leave this town. Not when she and Jules worked at the same freaking site.
She took another sip. Good God, it just got better. She wanted to bathe in the stuff.
When she reached the cabin that doubled as the entrance to the park, she passed the reception desk and went into the office beyond. She’d just sat down and taken another sip of her hot chocolate when a knock sounded at the door.
She looked up and choked on the hot liquid.
Noah. All six foot three of him. Jesus, he basically took up the entire doorframe.
He stood there wearing a tight white shirt with Wilderness Adventure Park embroidered across the front. But it was the way his thick muscles stretched the material that really had her staring. Well, that and the bronze of his skin that made the shirt look glaringly white.
She forced her gaze up, and her breath immediately hitched. Because his eyes…they were gray like steel, and so intense she couldn’t bring herself to look at anything else.
“Noah. Hi. Good morning.” She swallowed hard. Tongue-tied. She was totally tongue-tied. It happened every dang time she saw him.
“Hi, Addison.”
She used to correct him because no one called her Addison, not even her parents. But over time, her full name had started to grow on her. Maybe because it had started to feel personal. Like it was his name for her, and his alone.
There was no smile on his face today.
She frowned at the way he stood by the door, not coming any further inside the room. Usually, he came straight over to her. Leaned over her desk, sometimes stealing a chocolate from her jar.
But that hadn’t happened since the incident.
She cleared her throat. “Is everything okay?”
“I want to talk to you about what happened last week.”
Okay, she’d been expecting this…so why did her belly do a big roll? “Okay.”
“I’m sorry I haven’t talked to you sooner.”
“It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine.” He shot his gaze over his shoulder. “Would you feel safer having this conversation outside? Or with a third person in the room? I could get Colt, or—”
“No.”Jesus Christ. “I’m okay with you, Noah. I told you, what happened was not a big deal.”
He cursed under his breath. “I threw you onto the floor and put my hands around your neck.”
Her fingers twitched to touch the skin of her throat. Because yes, it had scared her. But only for the smallest fraction of a second. Then he’d blinked and come back to her. “You weren’tin control. You were having a flashback of something.” She stood and stepped forward, but he immediately moved back. “Noah, my dad has them too sometimes. And he’s been out for a decade. I’m not scared of him, and I’m not scared of you.”
Pain creased his brows. And she hated it. He was a soldier. He was used to protecting people. And last week, something had triggered him to get stuck in his head and it brought up bad memories, which made him do something that he was struggling to forgive himself for.
“You wouldn’t have hurt me,” she whispered.
“You don’t know that. And if you don’t feel safe with me, if you don’t want to work here anymore—”
“Please stop. Ilovemy job here. I feel perfectly safe around you. I think we should just let it go.”
His jaw clenched. He wasn’t going to let it go. She knew that just by the look in his eyes. The guilt. Maybe even some self-hate.
And that was how she knew she was safe with him. Because he hated himself for what he’d done. Because he was a good guy.
CHAPTER 2
Noah Hayes watched the deep blue of Addie’s eyes darken. He’d avoided her for a week. An entire damn week and hestillcouldn’t wrap his head around what he’d done. They’d been at the reception desk, talking, laughing, when suddenly he was having a flashback to the worst day of his life and he was ready to hurt her.
