This was absurd. I’d known him less than an hour. I had no business feeling this flutter under my ribs—or imagining what that beard might feel like against my skin.
“Sorry,” I said. “I talk when I’m nervous. I’m working on it.”
“Don’t.”
“Don’t…talk?”
“Don’t work on it.” He took another drink. “I like your voice.”
Four words. Simple. Heavy.
My chest did something strange and unsteady.
“Oh.” I swallowed. “Thank you.”
The corner of his mouth twitched—not quite a smile.
And sitting there in that quiet mountain bar, fry grease on my fingers and stress still humming under my skin, I had the oddest sense that something had shifted. Like panic and wrong turns and blocking that driveway had nudged me exactly where I was supposed to be.
I believed in signs. In patterns. In things lining up for a reason.
Meeting Roarke felt like all of that at once.
3
ROARKE
She talked with her hands.
I’d noticed it back at the trailer when she’d been panicking about her friend. But now, watching her animatedly describe her paralegal classes while we finished our burgers, I found it impossible to look away. Her fingers traced the air as she spoke, punctuating every thought, sketching invisible diagrams to match her words.
“So then the professor says, ‘Ms. Brennan, perhaps you’d like to brief the case,’ and I’m sitting there thinking, I didn’t even read the case because I was up all night helping Peyton study, and—” She stopped short, fork hovering. “I’m doing it again, aren’t I? Talking too much.”
“No.”
She squinted at me. “You’re just being polite.”
“I’m never polite.”
That pulled a laugh out of her—bright and warm. I felt it land somewhere deep in my chest.
“You spent all day rescuing dogs,” she said. “You helped me track down my roommate. And you’re buying me dinner.”
“You don’t know that. I might make you pay for your own.”
“Will you?”
“No.”
She pointed her fork at me. “See? Polite.”
I took a long drink of my beer instead of answering. She wasn’t wrong. I’d gone out of my way for her—more than I had for anyone in years.
The reason was obvious. I just wasn’t ready to say it.
“So,” she said, swiveling on her barstool so she faced me fully. “What about you? What’s your story? And don’t say ‘mountains’ and ‘cabin.’ I want details.”
“There aren’t many.”
