We sat across from each other inside the restaurant, and for a few minutes, it almost felt like I wasn’t being hunted. It was almost possible to forget that someone wanted me dead.
“Tell me about you, Bronson. Where are you from?” I asked.
His gaze lifted to meet my eyes, steady and unreadable for a second.
Then he leaned back slightly, and something in him shifted. Not relaxed exactly, but… easier. He almost looked like “Ben” from the music studio instead of a hired guard with a gun tucked in his waist.
His rough, calloused hand curled around mine, and his voice drawled out like honey slipping over gravel. “Red Oak Mountain. Small town.Realsmall.”
There was something in the way he said it that made me lean in without meaning to.
“There’s a tree-chopping competition every Fourth of July. Grown men swing axes at dawn while the women lay out enough food to feed the entire town.”
I smiled at that, picturing it.
His eyes took on a faraway look. “And mountain trails wind through the woods. We have a crystal cave nearby, and a roaring river in the valley below. Deer come to your doorstep if you stay real quiet.”
It was obvious that he loved that place.
“Our local diner makes the best blackberry pie, and the town lights up for Christmas every year like a damn Hallmark movie.”
I giggled. “I’d like to live in a Hallmark movie.”
“Would you?” he stroked my hand, and the smile that peeked out on his lips warmed my heart. “You could come live there and be my wife. And I’d buy you a pie at the county fair.”
That’s when I realized he’d heard me singing in the bath last night.
The air between us disappeared as we held hands and stared at each other, lost in a magical moment together.
I could almost believe he was my boyfriend, ready to whisk me off to his hometown.
Then he told me about his friends and his family… and Hidden Lake. How cold the north end of it stayed even in August, fed by underground springs. And how he’d spent his summers racinghis cousins to the center and back until he could swim it without stopping.
“I think that lake’s why I ended up in the Navy. I’ve always been drawn to water.” His eyes burned into mine. “You’d love it there.”
I hadn’t realized I’d propped my chin on my hand until I noticed I was just… watching him, lost in the world he was sharing with me. It sounded so ideal.
“You write about places like that,” he said.
I blinked. “What?”
“Small towns. People who know your name. Fireflies in July. An old dog at your side.”
He’s a fan.
Somehow I hadn’t expected that.
“You know my music,” I said, surprised and a little amused.
“I saw you in Dallas.” He shrugged. “Three years ago. Stadium show.”
A slow smile spread across my lips. “That’s not a small-town crowd.”
“No, but the songs were. You sing like you came from a place like Red Oak Mountain.” His eyes locked onto mine. “But after talking to you, I don’t think you did. Where’d you actually grow up?”
“Nashville.” I picked up my fork, suddenly aware of it in my hand. “Population two million.”
He studied me for a second.
