“Fuck,” I hiss, cradling my leg.
Somewhere across the road, there’s movement.
I wait a few seconds.No blood.Probably a sprain.I can handle a sprain.
Still, I’m going to need help.
At least with the stairs.
Of course I didn’t drive for seven hours with a human secret in the trailer just to be stopped by a few broken steps.
I brush the dirt off my pants.
“Not today,” I swear under my breath.
The man from across the road says, “Careful.”
And that’s how it starts.
3
Luke
She tugs her jacket tighter around her even though it isn’t cold.Protective gesture.She isn’t used to people seeing her without at least one layer of armor.
She walks up to the porch steps and tests the first one with her toe like she is fully prepared for it to collapse and take her with it.It holds.The second complains.The third is missing.The fourth—the top one—is the traitor; the board is cracked under the left edge.I know that because I fixed it once, badly, for someone who didn’t listen.
She doesn’t listen either.Not yet.
She trips, cradles her leg.Then dusts herself off and climbs, hesitates at the door.The lock is an old brass thing with no respect for itself.She jams the key in, twists, shoulders the door.It sticks.It always does.She tries again, harder, like every woman who has ever tried to muscle her way through something that wasn’t built for her.
The door groans and stays put.She swears under her breath.I can’t hear the word, but I see the shape of it in the way her mouth moves.It is a good mouth.Not meant for this town.
She pulls back, readying herself for a third try.Definition of insanity and all that.
That’s when I move.
“Careful,” I say.
She freezes.Not the full prey-animal freeze—more like a deer that knows it heard something but hasn’t decided if it is a hunter or just the wind being dramatic.She turns, hand braced on the doorframe, eyes focused a fraction over my shoulder before they find my face.
There it is.
The first look.
She sees a man—mid-thirties, maybe.Hard to tell with calluses and sun.Faded work shirt, jeans that know more about this house than she does, boots that actually belong on gravel.A day’s worth of stubble I haven’t gotten around to shaving.
What she doesn’t see is history.Which is the way I want it.
“You’re going to hurt your shoulder,” I say, nodding at the door.“If you hit it like that.”
She huffs, defensive.“I wasn’t?—”
“You were,” I say.“Third try is where people tear something.”
She bristles at that.She doesn’t like being told what she is about to do.Control issues.Join the club.
“And what do you suggest?”
