I bring the car to a stop. Study her. She’s wearing denim overalls over a thick shirt. Her body is curvy, no way to avoid that observation as her beauty strains against her clothes. Herauburn hair is tied up in a wild bun. She grits her teeth and leans back. Her hold slips on the couch, and she falls, kicking up dust.
What sort of man would I be if I didn’t help her?
Stepping from the car, I take a breath. There’s something about this woman… I need a moment to clear my head. Remind myself who I am.WhatI am. I’m not the kind of person any young, beautiful woman needs in her life.
That doesn’t mean I’m going to let her break her back moving into her new home.
Chapter Two
Elara
I sit in the dirt, struggling to get my breathing under control. The moving guys just dumped all our stuff outside the cabin, said that was all we paid for, and I should’ve read the fine print. I wanted to argue, but I know how men can hold a grudge: how they can take something seemingly harmless and turn it into a vendetta that tears lives to pieces.
We’re here for a new start. Gunnison Peaks, two hours away from our old home, is enough distance between us andthe bad thingso that I can clear my head and start anew, so that Mira can get back some of her old light back.
I grit my teeth and steady my breathing. We’ve been staying with my aunt in California, but she’s got a house full of kids and mayhem, and without saying it, I know we were overstaying our welcome.
Plus, I missed Colorado, the smell of pines, the mountain views.Home. If I can ever rebuild it, or some shadow of what it was.
I’m on edge because I had to go back to the city, briefly, to complete the sale of my childhood home. Leaving the lawyer’s office, a cold shiver ran down my spine, as if there were someone watching, waiting, biding their time to ruin this new life of ours, but the worst had already happened to us, at least it feels like that.
Mira walks over to me. I look up, and for a heart-aching second, I see the girl she was behind her dulled eyes, her nervous mouth. She raises her finger and points to the road.
I leap to my feet, heart pounding.
The man standing there is over six feet tall, wearing a plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up, his forearms sinewy with muscle. His hair swept back and up from his forehead, brown flecked with hints of silver. A light beard covering his strong jaw.
In a different life, maybe, I might think,Whoa, he’s hot.
I quickly step in front of Mira. “Hello, can I help you?”
He stops, narrowing his dark eyes. “I was thinking I could helpyou. Since we’re neighbors.” He gestures at my furniture, my boxes of photo albums, the remnants of our life.
“We’re neighbors?”
“Yes, ma’am. I live up the road. This place has been vacant for some time.”
He says it like he’s annoyed at me for moving in, like I should feel guilty about it or something. But it’s odd. He’s not outwardly hostile. He’s trying to be friendly, a smile on his lips, but I sense a darkness in him. Or maybe that’s just good ol’ paranoia sticking to me.
Hell, is paranoia a bad thing?
“We’re fine,” I say, reaching behind me to put a hand on Mira.
He looks doubtfully at our stuff littering the driveway. “Are you sure…”
“Is this the part where I tell you my name?”
He smiles, and somehow, that almost pulls a smile from me. I fight my lips back into submission. I don’t want to give this man any ideas.
“Not if you don’t want to,” he says. “I’d just feel like a real jackass if I let you haul all this stuff inside by yourself. The moving company should’ve handled this.”
“Yeah, well, they didn’t,” I say, tone prickly. I raise an eyebrow. “Anything else?”
“Not if you don’t want there to be,” he replies, his voice gruff. “Except—my name’s Rhett. Like I said, I live up the road. If you need anything at all, you let me know.”
“Sure, Rhett, will do.”
He turns, and I suck in a breath, watching as he strides away, his shirt pulled taut between the peaks of his muscular shoulders.
