a way she was.
Carolina Cruthers.
He tasted the name on his lips. She wasn’t what he’d expected at all. The Carolina from the website had looked pretty enough, but he’d figured she’d be loud and crass and obnoxious. A cowgirl in overalls, a cowboy hat and with a piece of straw hanging out of her mouth. This Carolina was shy and innocent and, yes, pretty.
And as he listened to her feet fly down the steps, he couldn’t decide if that was a good thing...or bad.
Please let him find a shirt. Please let him find a shirt. Pleasepleasepleaseplease.
“You ready?”
She jumped.
He stared at her with concern. “Easy there, sparky.” He smiled, his big strong jaw with its ridge of muscle along the bottom jutting out. “You’ll give yourself a heart attack.”
He wore a shirt. Thank God he wore a shirt. But for some reason, the sight of him with clothes on wasn’t any better than the sight of him half-naked. Damn that Colt Reynolds. Why hadn’t he told her he’d come home? Then again, maybe he had. Maybe she’d been so distracted by James’s latest text she’d missed that tiny tidbit of information. It wouldn’t surprise her. Not that it mattered. Nothing could have prepared her for the sight of Chance Reynolds in the flesh. Something about the man made her want to melt into the ground. Maybe it was his eyes. Or maybe it was his height and the way his bearing and short hair had the stamp of a military man. He was taller than Colt. His face was shaped differently, too. Chance was one of those guys who could easily be in films, with his sweeping brows and thick lower lip. He had scruff on his chin, too, and along the ridge of his jaw, a stain of color that turned his tan skin a darker brown. She’d taken one look at him and turned as stupidly speechless as a starstruck teen.
“Sorry.” She forced a smile. “I’m a little jumpy today.”
He gave her a look that she didn’t quite understand, maybe because she had turned away too quickly. It had almost seemed like sympathy, although he had no reason to feel sorry for her...unless. Goodness, he didn’t know about James, did he?
“Here.” He headed toward her truck, holding what looked like a butter knife in his right hand. “Let’s get you squared away.”
He did know. Of course Colt had told him. Why wouldn’t he? One of his employees had come to him battered, bruised and scared. The cops had been called. James had been arrested. Any responsible employer would share that news with a new employee.
Not an employee. His brother.
Whatever. But Colt didn’t know about the threats that had been coming more and more steadily in recent weeks. She’d told no one about those except for law enforcement and her social worker. Having a boyfriend beat her within an inch of her life was enough. No wonder Chance looked at her so sadly.
She was sad.
Click.
The sound startled her. Chance had opened her truck door, and she had no clue how he’d done it.
“That’s incredible,” she said.
Movie-star man simply smiled. “You should see what I can do with a spoon.” He grinned, tossed the knife into the air and caught it by the handle like a ninja warrior. That’s what he looked like, his arms huge, muscled and toned. His chest had been pretty spectacular, too. He had a deep ridge between his two pectoral muscles, and beneath that, square-shaped mounds, each one smaller than the other. His skin had looked as soft as lambskin, and so toned and hard she’d flushed like a piece of fruit in the summer sun when she’d spotted him standing at the top of those stairs. She’d never had a reaction like that to a man before. Never.
Movie-star man stared at her oddly.
“Th-thank you so much,” she stammered. And now she couldn’t even talk right.
“You’re welcome.”
She hated that she found him attractive. She would be working with him. That should have made her feel depressed, not...titillated.
“I should call the tow company,” she said, shuffling past him, pulling her truck door open and reaching for her purse. Sad that she had the tow company’s phone number memorized. She grabbed her phone...and saw it.
Twenty missed calls. Thirty text messages.
Oh, dear Lord.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
She couldn’t tell him what was wrong. This man was her new boss. The last thing she needed was to give him a bad impression by admitting how messed-up her life was.
“Is he stalking you?”
So he did know about James.
His eyes said it all. I know enough.
“Is he?”
She wanted to crumble. It made her so angry she fought back tears. She was not that woman, the one from some reality TV show who allowed a man to beat her and terrorize her and then crumbled at another man’s feet. She was strong. She could handle this. She could.
She was not her mom.
“Let me see your phone.”
She didn’t want him to look, and that killed her all over again, so much so when he reached for the phone she didn’t try to keep it away from him. It fell limply into his grasp.
“Wow.” He looked up from the screen. “Have you read these?”
She shook her head. What could she say? That she’d been too scared, and that had upset her all over again. How had it happened? How had she turned into such a complete loser? How had she followed in her mother’s footsteps?
James, she admitted. He’d beaten the confidence out of her.
“We’re calling the cops.”
“I called them already. Yesterday.” At least she’d found her voice again.
“And what did they say?”
“That they’d done everything they could. They talked to him. Warned him. I’ve filed for an emergency restraining order, but it’s not doing any good. He...” She swallowed. Why was this so hard to admit? “Follows me.”
He might even be outside the gates of Misfit Farms right now. He had been before.
“I’m taking you home.”
She straightened. “No. I can handle my ex.”
His expression was firm and implacable. “You don’t have a choice.”
“And you don’t have a vehicle.” She hadn’t seen one other than Colt’s big pickup truck.
