CHAPTER ONE
Griffin
The road stretched dark and empty ahead of me, my truck’s headlights cutting through the night. The wedding had been fine—good even—but it left a bitter taste in my mouth. Watching my old military buddy tie the knot, seeing him happy, settled, was like looking at a version of myself that had died in a desert a long time ago.
I should be happy for him. Hell, I was. But it reminded me of what I didn’t have. Most of us came back broken. Some more so than others. We found ways to survive, patched ourselves up with work, routine, a purpose. Lone Mountain, Montana had given me that—a job, a home, a reason to wake up every morning. But at the end of the day, my place was too damn quiet. Too damn empty.
The guys at the wedding were like me. I could see it in their eyes—shadows of old ghosts, the kind that didn’t fade, just lingered. A few of them had wives, kids even, but that haunted look never really left. The war had taken pieces of us we’d never get back. Some of them had patched the holes with love. I hadn’t even tried.
I told myself I was fine alone. It was easier that way. I wasn’t the kind of man who could give a woman a fairytale. I wasn’t prince charming. More like the big, bad wolf.
Except…
The first time I’d seen her had been weeks ago at the diner where she worked. I’d gone in for something to eat after a long day. She’d moved fast, balancing plates on her arms, smiling at customers even when they didn’t deserve it. I’d sat in a corner booth. Watching her, something inside me had shifted. Woken up.
Not gradually. Not the slow creep of attraction that I might have brushed off. No, this was something else. Something fast and solid that I knew I wasn’t going to shake. I’d sat in that corner booth that first night for two hours telling myself I was tired, lonely. That I just needed a decent meal. I’d driven back the next night. And the next. And the next. Until I’d become a damn regular.
It wasn’t just my body taking notice—though it sure as hell had. Each night after I’d driven home, I’d jacked off, remembering. Remembering the way she tucked her hair behind her ear. The soft curve of her cheek. The way she bit her lip in concentration when she totaled up a check.
Each night, I’d groaned, low and rough, as I’d found my release, images of her flooding my mind. The generous curve of her hips when she walked away. The way her uniform shirt pulled tight across her chest when she reached up to grab something.
I’d lain in the dark staring at the ceiling with the miserable clarity of a man who had seen exactly what he wanted and knew he had no business wanting it.
She was too young. Too sweet. Too good.
I was none of those things.
I was too broken and too damn old for someone like her.
Twelve years. That’s what separated us. Twelve years of wars fought, and sins committed and pieces of myself left in the dirt on the other side of the world. She was twenty-three with thekind of hope in her eyes that hadn’t been beaten out yet. I’d lost mine somewhere between my second tour and the third funeral I’d attended in a single month. A girl like her deserved a man who could match that hope. I had nothing left to match it.
I didn’t need a damn wedding to remind me what I didn’t have.
I pulled into the diner’s parking lot, the sign buzzing above the door. I killed the engine, sitting there for a long moment, debating whether I should go in. I knew I shouldn’t, but her face wouldn’t leave my head. And for the first time in a long damn time, I wondered if maybe—just maybe—I didn’t want to be alone anymore.
And then I hated myself for thinking that. Because wanting her didn’t make me any less wrong for her. That made me selfish.
My hands moved on their own, shoving my truck door open. The bell over the diner door jingled as I stepped inside, and the scent of fresh coffee filled the air.
And there she was.
One look and the noise in my head went quiet, even though there was torture in wanting something I had no right to touch.
Her name was Keely Nash. She was twenty-three years old, had no husband or boyfriend—I’d made sure of that, picking up what I could from the gossip that moved through the small-town diner the way water moves over rock. She lived with her mother, helping raise her two younger brothers. I’d built the picture of her life piece by piece over these last few weeks.
As I headed to what I now considered my booth, I watched her as I always did. Tonight, she had a pen stuck through her hair and was wearing a white apron over a brown polo and pair of jeans.
She had a build that could bring a man to his knees. A deep, generous waist that flared into wide, lush hips meant tobe gripped hard and bruised. The cheap denim of her jeans was straining against the heavy, dragging thickness of her thighs. Thighs that looked like they could take the punishing weight of a man my size and beg for more.
I sat there and hated myself a little for noticing. For the way my hands had gone tight around my coffee mug. For the fact that I was going to come back tomorrow and sit in this same booth and do it all over again.
She was so damn soft everywhere I was hard. Looking at her had my body thickening against my thigh, heavy and insistent. I sat there, waiting for her to come take my order, completely consumed by the urge to strip off her clothes and bury my face between her legs and taste every inch of her.
God, I needed to stop thinking like that. Thinking about her.
But I couldn’t. Something about her drew me in. Maybe it was because she didn’t give me the wide-eyed look most people did when they saw the scar along my jaw or realized I was one of the men they told tourists about. The loners, ex-military, ex-cons even, who lived high up the mountain. We were dark and broody bastards, scarred on the inside and out.
Stay away.That was what the whispers warned.
