She walks inside like she owns the place.
I stand there with my hand still on the doorframe, watching her go, my heartbeat doing something it hasn't done in a long, long time.
Trouble.
Forty-eight hours of trouble in bourbon-colored sweaters and useless boots.
I close the door behind us and lock it.
2
SIMONE
The cabin smells like coffee and cedar and something that might be him, which is a problem I'm going to have to solve later.
I drop my duffel on the couch and do a slow lap of the main room. High ceilings. Stone fireplace that looks like it could cook a small pig. Leather chair by the window that's clearly his because the cushion's worn in the exact shape of a man who sits and watches.
He watches a lot. I can tell that already.
I've been in the cabin for ninety seconds and he's looked at me four times and every single one felt like being X-rayed.
"Kitchen's through there," he says behind me, voice low and unbothered, like we're negotiating the rental agreement on a beach condo. "Bedroom upstairs on the right. Mine's across the hall. Bathroom between. Don't wander outside after dark."
"Don't wander outside after dark." I turn on my heel. "Got it. Anything else? Should I tug my forelock when you enter a room?"
His jaw does a thing. Small tic at the hinge.
"Your brother said you'd be difficult."
"My brother says a lot of things. Most of them overrated."
I walk past him to the window and make a point of not looking at him while I do it, which is harder than it should be. The man is built like something someone carved on purpose. Dark hair, gray at the temples. Beard that's got a little silver in it too. Eyes the color of a storm most people would run from.
I'm not running.
I spent twelve hours on a plane and a car to get up this mountain, and the last thing I did before I left Toronto was wash my grandmother's cast iron pan and leave it drying on the counter. If I was going to be scared, I'd be scared already.
I push the curtain back half an inch and look at the tree line.
"You're going to give yourself away if you keep doing that."
"Doing what."
"Curtain's already open. You framed yourself in the window. Anyone watching from up there with a scope just got a clean shot at your profile."
I let the curtain drop.
Turn slowly.
He's two steps closer than he was. Didn't hear him move.
"You serious."
"Yeah."
"There's nobody out there, Gray. We're in the middle of nowhere. The driver said the route was clean."
"The route was clean until it wasn't."
