She was going to disrupt my damn life—all because of my grandfather.
I still didn’t know what the old man had been thinking.
Eventually, the cabin came into view through the trees—small, sturdy. Neat and clean on the inside and outside. I parked in front and watched her pull up beside me. She should have looked out of place against the backdrop of wilderness, but she didn’t. Because of her damn dress and wind swept hair. Her brown boots and the denim jacket completed the picture. She looked just like a mountain bride.
She got out slowly, staring at the cabin. The late afternoon light hit her just right—her hair down around her shoulders because I’d told her to leave it, the dress moving when she turned. She tilted her head back and got that expression on herface. The one she’d worn in my sister’s office when she’d first seen me and said,there you are.
She was greeting the cabin the same way. As if she’d been looking for it for a very long time.
“It’s perfect,” she breathed.
“Far from it.” I had already had to replace the roof and do some structural repairs. Plus, I’d put in solar power, because I liked my creature comforts. But there were still a lot of repairs and upgrades to make on the cabin.
“Thorne, it’s perfect.” She turned in a slow circle, taking in the trees, the mountain rising behind us, the creek you could hear but barely see. “This is exactly what I needed. No one asking me what my plan is.”
“My plan is survival,” I muttered, thinking how that was going to work out with her looking so damn good.
“Show me around?” She grinned at me. That same charming, flirty smile she’d given me at Kate’s office. The one that had been noticeably absent at the courthouse. She’d been nervous then.
I grabbed two of her suitcases from her trunk—she had four, plus a few boxes—and led her inside. She’d packed like she intended to stay.
She grabbed the flowers I’d given her from the front seat and followed me inside.
I stood behind her and watched her take it in. The bookshelves, the stone fireplace, the big window with the valley spread out below. Photos of me and Kate as children on the wall. Of my grandparents and parents. Family everywhere I looked.
Was that why my grandfather had insisted on the crazy clause to his will? And why did he’d known I’d do almost anything to keep the land.
Even marry a stranger.
A beautiful, curvy stranger.
“It’s cozy,” she said.
“It’s small.”
“Cozy,” she insisted. “Where’s my room?”
Right. Her room. The one I’d spent a week making right for her, which had seemed like the practical thing to do. I carried her suitcases down the long hallway and tried not to think about the fact that my bedroom was right next door to hers. A thin wall the only thing separating us.
I pushed open the door to the front bedroom—my room until three days ago, now hers—and stepped back.
She walked in.
I watched her face do the thing it kept doing—that unguarded light that she didn’t seem to know how to manage or didn’t bother trying to. She touched my grandmother’s quilt I’d put on the bed and placed the flowers I’d given her on the dresser.
“There’s a closet and the window faces east so you’ll get morning light.” I’d hung long white curtains I’d found tucked away in the back of a closet. I’d never bothered with curtains. Who was going to see me? A bear? But I knew that layer of privacy would mean something to her.
“Not that I’ll see it,” she said, grinning. “Since I don’t wake up at ungodly hours like some people probably do.”
At least Kate had been honest about that in the profile she’d created for me. I’d read Maddie’s—at least a dozen times, trying to understand why she’d agreed to this craziness. Sleeping in seemed to be one of her secret pleasures in life. “Five o’clock is not early.”
“It’s barely human.”
I almost smiled, then caught myself. “There’s only one bath, so we’ll have to share.”
“That’s fine. I’m a good roommate. I don’t hog the hot water, and I promise not to leave my girly stuff everywhere. Mostly.”
Immediately visions of girly stuff swirled through my mind. Pink lace panties, black satin bras. I felt my body respond and warned myself not to respond. My blood was heavy and a slow thrum of heat settled in my gut.
