What if he wasn’t alone?
What if he was?
Spotting a small break in the trees lining the right side of the driveway, Teri slipped the car into the grassy clearing and switched off the headlights. The house, ablaze with lights, loomed ahead. She stared at the lovely old structure, hungry for repairs to the sagging front porch and the chipped, damaged gingerbread finish. The clapboards badly needed paint, while the weedy, overgrown front yard cried out for pruning and decent landscaping.
If Monroe was a general contractor, would his place really look like this? Talk about bad advertising. But maybe he’d just bought the house and was planning to restore it. There was a stately grandeur about the structure that had appeal despite its condition.
Thunder boomed overhead, drawing her out of her strange reverie. The rain had become a storm sweeping in undetected. Although every minute counted, common sense told her to head back to civilization until morning.
But she was so close.
And so was the storm bringing more rain. Water already pooled at the bottom of this street. More rain meant deeper water.
Putting the car in reverse, Teri backed under the trees in an effort to get the car turned around. The rear wheels began to sink.
“No!”
Bogged in mud, the tires spun uselessly. Sweating, she tried to calm, rocking the car forward and back. She didn’t have to get out and look to know she had made the situation worse. She was good and stuck unless she got some traction under those rear wheels.
Cursing, she put the car in Park and turned off the engine, mentally running through the items she had with her. She had nothing that would work. There was no help for it. She was going to have to go to the house now, if only to get some assistance.
It would be okay. She’d scope out Monroe while pretending to be a lost motorist who’d made a wrong turn. Removing her gun from her purse, Teri stuffed her keys in her pocket, pulled the hood of her jacket up around her head and stepped outside.
Immediately, wind whipped the hood down and back and sent her hair flying about her exposed face. Rain pummeled her skin. Yanking the hood back into place, she closed the car door, gave a furious glare at the half-buried rear wheel and hurried toward the brightly lit windows. Water soaked her tennis shoes and jeans in seconds.
Caution made her stop shy of the covered front porch on a rise of ground that allowed her to see inside the house clearly. The downstairs windows were bare of drapes. A string of bright floodlights illuminated the main rooms where a dusty, masculine figure bent over a makeshift worktable in the opening between the living and dining rooms.
As he straightened, she saw he was tall and lean and extremely well-muscled. His torso was bare to the waist. A pair of ragged, hacked-off jeans hardly decent enough to be called shorts covered a minimum of skin. They displayed distressingly muscular thighs and long, fit legs covered in a fine white dust like the rest of him. Thick white socks, heavy work boots, and a pair of goggles completed his attire. He definitely looked like a contractor.
It was something of a relief to see that. Obviously he had purchased the place to fix it up. Dust swirled in the air, stirred by the two giant oscillating fans he had running. They didn’t stem the sweat that sheened off the hard planes of his chest under the intensely bright lights. All the windows were closed against the storm.
Teri watched as he tugged off the goggles and rolled those firm shoulders to stretch bunched muscles. Sweat trickled down one high cheekbone, leaving a visible trail in the dust that coated his tanned face around the line left by the goggles. He wiped at it absently with the back of his arm, leaving streaks of dirt behind.
He looked tired and brooding and magnificent. She tamped down that last thought instantly as he ran long fingers through lightly curling dark hair—almost, but not quite, in need of a trim—that clung to the back of his neck.
Teri hadn’t expected him to be so big—or so strong—or so angry-looking. That last gave her pause, but at the same time there was something almost compelling about him. Mesmerized, she watched him lift a trimmed panel of drywall with an ease belied by the bunch and pull of muscles that strained across his back. For a lean man, he was deliciously well-developed. He worked the panel into place against the bared furring with deft experience. Hefting a hammer, he drove the nails in with precise hard, almost rhythmic blows that sent her blood hammering as well.
There was quiet symmetry in the way he moved, completely focused on his task. As he turned to pick up a tape measure, she had an unrestricted view of his face. The symmetry carried to his features as well. He was unsettlingly handsome, and he appeared to be completely alone until a large black animal lifted its head from its curled position on the floor.
Teri froze. The dog gathered itself slowly and stood. It shook itself and stopped. It seemed to look straight at her.
She told herself he couldn’t possibly see her, but she didn’t move. For the first time in several minutes, she became aware of her surroundings. The storm was growing in intensity. She couldn’t have been wetter if she’d gone swimming fully clothed. And she was cold. So cold her teeth were starting to chatter.
Coming here tonight had been stupid. She didn’t know what she’d expected, but this dark brooding man and his big dog weren’t it. He continued working with an economy of movement that she might have appreciated under other circumstances, but she’d swear the large dog’s gaze remained focused on her.
Better to spend another night in her car under the trees than knock on that door. There was nothing the least bit welcoming in the man’s dark scowl or the dog’s intent stare.
Lightning speared the sky. Teri turned and ran, driven by the echo of thunder in her ears.
FRUSTRATION DROVE every blow of the hammer. Guilt and anger ate at R.J. in equal parts. He’d promised Valerie she’d be safe at Heartskeep. Yet she’d gone missing all the same. Either she’d played him for a fool or he should have done more to keep her safe.
He hoped it was the former. He wasn’t sure he could live with the guilt if the person responsible for her battered condition had managed to get to her despite all the safeguards they had in place at Heartskeep.
He hadn’t seen Valerie since her brother’s funeral several years ago. Then she’d been a teenager, inconsolable over the death of the big brother who’d died so senselessly in a military training exercise. R.J. had wanted to cry as well as they lowered his best friend into the ground. And even though he’d lost touch with the family after they moved away a few months later, he’d never forget the debt he owed Eric and his family.
When the rest of Stony Ridge had labeled R.J. a troublemaker and worse, Eric’s family had welcomed him into their home, treating him as they did all Eric’s friends, making him feel at ease the same way his foster parents had done.
Lightning flared so close that a thunderclap rattled the windows. Without warning, the house plunged into cavernous black and abrupt silence, save for the howling of the wind and the battering rain.
R.J. tore his thoughts from the past and swore. “Great. Just great.”
Lucky suddenly flew to the front door. The low, deep growl of warning that issued from his throat captured R.J.’s full attention.
“It’s just a storm, fella.”
Lucky clawed at the
