The drive was agonizingly quiet. The cab was small—I hadn’t registered how small until now, until his arm was six inches from mine and every time he shifted gears I felt the movement in my peripheral vision like a pull. He kept his eyes on the road. I kept mine out the window. The dark trees blurred past and I watched them and thought about nothing and thought about him and thought about nothing again.
His hand moved on the wheel. I looked. I looked away.
“Turn left at the stop sign,” I murmured a few minutes later. “It’s the blue house at the end of the block.”
He pulled up to the curb and killed the engine. The house was dark save for the porch light I always left on for myself.
I expected him to leave the engine idling and drive off. Instead, his door opened and clicked shut. By the time mysneakers hit the pavement, he was already walking around the front of the truck to meet me.
“I can walk myself up the driveway, Griffin. It’s twenty feet.”
“Humor me.”
I gritted my teeth and marched up the cracked concrete path to the porch. I dug my house key out, aware of him stepping up onto the wooden planks right behind me. I winched as the second one from the top gave under my weight. I prayed it wouldn’t cave in under his. The house wasn’t much, but it was ours. It needed more work than we could afford, but the roof didn’t leak. Yet.
I shoved the key into the lock and turned it, pushing the door open a few inches.
Then I turned around to face him. I caught him taking in the house. I knew, even in the dark, he’d be seen every loose shingle and rusted gutter. But that was him, always aware of his surroundings. When his gaze finally dropped to mine, the intensity effectively killed the smart-ass remark I’d been ready to spit out, replaced by a pulsing awareness I knew better than to feel for a man like him.
“Thanks for the ride. I’ll get the battery sorted tomorrow.”
“What time does your shift start.”
“I work the breakfast shift, but—”
“What time, Keely?”
“Griffin—”
“What time.” He stepped a fraction closer, his eyes dropping to my mouth for one long, agonizing second. Just like the night before, I thought he was going to kiss me. I wanted him to. Oh, how I wanted him to. But then he stepped back. “Lock the deadbolt,” he commanded.
“I always do.” I stepped inside knowing he wouldn’t leave until I was inside. Locked safely behind the door. I threw the deadbolt and leaned against the door for a heartbeat.
Why did this man get to me like this? And why, heaven help me, did I want to know what his kisses tasted like?
CHAPTER THREE
Griffin
The silence in my cabin usually felt like a shield. Tonight it felt like a cage.
I’d stood in her driveway for two minutes after her lights went out. I stood there, my keys in my hand, assessing the dark house like I was on watch. Like if I left something would happen to her. Like the house would finally give up on the losing battle it was fighting against gravity and weather and time, and I needed to be there when it did.
Of course, that just brought the differences between us right back into my face.
She should be dating someone her own age. Someone who slept through the night. Someone whose first instinct in a dark parking lot wasn’t to pin a woman against a car and reach for a weapon that wasn’t there.
I had no business wanting her.
I wanted her anyway. That gap—between what I knew and what I wanted—had been getting wider every night. I’d stopped waiting for it to close.
I gave up on sleep at four in the morning. I drank my coffee black, staring out the window at the peaks of Lone Mountain as the sky turned a bruised purple. By five-forty-five, I was pulling up to her curb.
The blue house looked even smaller in the morning light. I made mental notes of all the things that had to be done. Roof repair, porch repair. A cracked window at the side. The grass needed mowing and the sidewalk was a fall waiting to happen. I started a list. She hadn’t asked me to. She wouldn’t. That was the point.
At exactly six, the front door opened.
And like every other time I’d seen her, it felt like a punch to my midsection. One look and every careful argument I’d made to myself between four in the morning and right now was gone. Just like that. Every time. She was the best thing I’d ever seen.
