Page 8 of Wild Sanctuary

As I stand at the kitchen sink, watching water run cold over my hands, I try to remember how to breathe like a normal person. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. Simple mechanics I’ve been doing my entire goddamn life without once thinking about it, until Daisy stepped out of that beat-up Honda and knocked the ground out from under me.

Again.

Seeing her shouldn’t have knocked me clean off my axis. But here I am.

She’s so fucking beautiful.

I hate how fast that thought comes. Like it’s been sitting there waiting.

I’ve got no business noticing it. No business holding on to it. But it’s there all the same.

And it’s not the makeup or the clothes. It’s the way the sun caught her hair, and the freckles across her nose, and the lift of her chin when she saw me, like she wasn’t about to let me get under her skin.

Her eyes are the same warm brown as Tom’s were, but that’s where the resemblance ends. Tom was patient. Steady as the trees. Daisy looks like she hasn’t stood still a day in her life, and I can’t decide if that makes me want to run the other way or step closer.

I spent twenty years working alongside Tom Monroe. Knew him better than I’ve known most people. Never once imagined I’d be standing at my own kitchen sink trying to talk myself out of wanting his daughter.

Shit!

I turn off the water and grip the edge of the sink, staring out the window at the guest cabin. The lights are on, meaning she’s settling in. Making herself at home in a place that holds a thousand memories of summer evenings when she was just a kid trailing after her dad, trying to keep up with his stride.

She should feel like a memory, but she doesn’t. She feels a whole lot like trouble.

That horse left the barn a long time ago, you sorry ass son of a bitch.

I’m still standing there, trying to get my shit together, when I hear boots on the kitchen floor behind me.

“You look like you’re tryin’ to strangle the faucet.”

I don’t turn around, simply snort in his general direction. “Colt.”

My brother drops into a chair at the kitchen table, props his boots up on the one beside him, and tilts back until he’s balanced on two legs, that cocky grin already in place. At thirty-one, he’s still the best-looking Hartley by a mile, and he knows it, which is the goddamn most irritating thing about him.

“So, Tom’s girl rolled in.” He picks at a loose thread on his sleeve. “Didn’t realize she’d turned into such a knockout.”

I keep my expression neutral. “She’s here to write an article, is all.”

“Uh-huh.” His grin widens. “You think she’d want a tour of town? I could show her around. The Rusty Spur’s got half-price appetizers on Thursdays.”

Over my dead body.

“She spent her summers here for years. Pretty sure she knows where everything is.”

“People change. Towns change.” He shrugs. “Besides, she might appreciate a friendly face. Someone to help her remember the good times. I was thinkin’ I could take her to⁠—”

“Don’t you have cattle to move?”

“Finished an hour ago.” Colt’s sharp blue eyes study me. “You got a problem with me bein’ neighborly?”

“I got a problem with you sniffin’ around Daisy Monroe like she’s another belt notch.”

“Ouch.” He clutches his chest in mock pain. “You wound me, brother. Maybe I’ve reformed. Maybe I’m looking for something real this time.”

I shrug, leaning back against the counter. “She’s Tom’s daughter. Show some goddamn respect.”

“I am showing respect. And respect looks like makin’ sure she feels welcome. Can’t have her spending all her time cooped up in that cabin waitin’ to ask you boring questions about herd rotation and the Elk Creek fence line you’ve been putting off since the snow melted.”

“I’ll get to the damn fence line.”