Chapter One
Reese
I don’t normally notice men. Usually, I’m distracted by something much more important… like anything else. Today, though, my eyeballs have made plans my brain can’t understand. Now, I’m in a full out war against my better judgement. First off, the guy is probably twenty years older than me. I have no idea why I’m even staring. Second, he’s got one of those big, strong, macho type looks that I’m totally not into. Somehow, though, the camo pants, tattooed biceps, and dark beard work for this guy.
He looks toward me, and my heart seizes.
Shit! Did he see me staring?
“Everything okay?”
My face burns crimson as I brush back my long red hair. “Yeah, no. I was just… there’s a pack of cigarettes behind you I need.”
“Cigarettes?You smoke?”
I don’t smoke, though it’s not for the righteous reasons you’d think. Mostly, it’s because the habit is entirely too expensive for something that only slowly kills you. For that price, I’d think the death thing would come a little faster.
“No,” I finally say, unable to let this stranger know that I was, in fact, staring athim, not the pack of Camels to his left. “They’re for my sister. She’s a real chimney.” I raise an eyebrow and lean one elbow on the counter, knocking over a display of gum and Mentos into the cashier’s section. Thankfully, Mr. Robinson knows me well. This is the only grocery store in town, and he’s run it since they opened the marketplace. Also, not so thankfully, he’s about to call me out on my mishap.
“Reese!” Mr. Robinson narrows his bushy, gray eyebrows and laughs. “You okay today?”
“Reese?” The handsome stranger looks toward me with a weird grin. “Like the candy?”
I sigh. Damn, he’s basic. I knew there had to be something wrong with him. “Like the poet, Rita Mae Reese. My parents fell in love to her words.” I grin and wave my hand down over my body. “I’m the product of that so… Reese.” Never in my life have I introduced myself so dramatically, but I suppose that time was coming.
“You should tell your sister to try that nicotine gum. It works,” the man says, brushing his hand back through his dark hair as he pays Mr. Robinson. “I was smoking two packs a day before I found the stuff. Now, I haven’t picked up a carton in five years.”
My brows lift as though he’s the most interesting human on the planet. It’s hard to believe he’s ever done anything wrong to that body. “Five years?” I repeat. “That’s a long time.”
I’m such an idiot. Why would I just repeat what he said? I really need to get out more. Turns out spending my time reading books by the river might be more isolating than I thought.
“Are you up here on vacation?” the man asks, grabbing his case of beer and peanut butter off the counter. It’s an odd combo, but to each their own.
“No. I live here, but my sister is in town visiting. I’m taking her camping up in the mountains. Are you from Rugged Mountain? I thought I’d met everyone.”
He smiles. It’s not a basic grin that I’ve seen on a thousand men before. This is a full, sparkling, white grin that makes my heart flip, sink, and sing all at once. I need to run from this store before I’m throwing myself at a forty-year-old man like a crazy woman. “No,” he continues. “I’m in town on business. We’re transporting some materials upriver. Should you two be alone in the woods?”
Okay, maybe he’s not as cool as I thought. My brows narrow. “Why not? We’re two capable women. We’re strong, and—”
“Of course you are,” he says. “It’s just there are a lot of weirdos out there and they—”
I laugh. “Weirdos?Sir, my parents have given me the ‘weirdos out there’talk. I’m good.”
He smiles again, erasing my mind of every sexist thing he’s just said.
“I see you’re very capable.” He turns toward the door as he watches me pay for my groceries, the bright sun filtering in through the clear glass door. “I also know there are a lot of people up in those woods this week, and not all of them have good intentions. So bring a gun, or a weapon of some sort. It’ll help out with the bears if nothing else.”
I pay Mr. Robinson and send him a sweet, apologetic grin before swiping my ice and chips off the counter and make my way out the door that’s being held open for me. This guy just won’t quit.
As we walk to our vehicles, his warning starts to sink in. “Just to be clear, you said that there’ll be dangerous people in the woods. How could you possibly know? There’s never anyone in the woods.”
He tosses his bags into the passenger’s side of a big, black pickup truck. “I told you, there’s work going on up there this weekend. Do you have a weapon?”
I hitch my hand up onto my hip and roll my eyes before sliding my sunglasses into place. “I don’t need a weapon. We’ll be fine.”
“You did let someone know where you’ll be hiking, right?”
“You know,” I say, hitching my hip up harder as I stare back at him in the bright morning sun, “if I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were sizing me up. You’re doing an awful lot of work to find out if I have any weapons or if anyone knows where I’m going.”