placing a hand on the back of a chair as she straightened her shoulders. “Who are you?”
The fact that she didn’t scurry away in the face of his anger was also new. Most people he knew would have turned tail already. “What kind of question is that?”
Her eyes narrowed. “The kind I expect you to answer.”
“I’m the paying guest,” he said slowly, enunciating each word.
“Mr. Pierce?” She swallowed and inclined her head to study him more closely. He didn’t care for the examination.
“Connor.”
“You don’t look like the photo on your website.”
“That picture was taken a long time ago.” Back when he was overweight and happy and his heart hadn’t been ripped out of his chest. When he could close his eyes and not see a car engulfed in flames, not feel his own helplessness like a vise around his lungs.
She didn’t question him, although curiosity was a bright light in her eyes. Instead, she smiled. “Welcome to Colorado. I’m sorry you got to the cabin before me.” She bent to retrieve the groceries, quickly refilling the cloth bag she’d dropped. “I was told your flight arrived later this afternoon.”
The smile threw him, as did her easy manner. “I took an earlier one.”
After placing the bag on the counter, she walked forward, her hand held out to him. “I’m April Sanders. I’ll be making sure your stay at Cloud Cabin is everything you want it to be.”
“I want the kids gone.” He didn’t take her hand, even though it was rude. She was tall for a woman but still several inches shorter than him. Her long hair was pulled back in a low knot, revealing the smooth, pale skin of her neck above the down coat she wore. The light in her eyes dimmed as her hand dropped.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I saw you come in,” he said, hitching a finger toward the window overlooking the front drive. “Are those your daughters?”
She shook her head.
“They can’t be here.”
“They aren’t here. They’re with me in the smaller cabin next door.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Their voices had drifted up to him when the girls spilled out of the car. The older one, her dark blond hair in a tight braid down her back, had kept her shoulders hunched, arms crossed over her chest as she took in the forest around the house. Connor had felt an unwanted affinity to her. Clearly, she was as reluctant to be trapped in this idyllic winter setting as he was.
It was the younger girl, bright curls bouncing as she pointed at the two log cabins situated next to each other on the property, who had brought unwanted memories to the surface. She’d given a squeal of delight when a rogue chipmunk ran past the front of the SUV. Her high-pitched laugh had raked across Connor’s nerves, making him want to claw at his own skin to stop the sensation.
She was dangerous, that innocent girl, threatening his stability on a bone-deep level. “I’m at this cabin to work.” He kept his gaze on the window. “I need privacy.”
“I’ll make sure you have it.”
“Not with kids around.”
She’d moved so quietly Connor didn’t realize April Sanders was standing toe-to-toe with him until he turned back. Up close, with the afternoon light pouring over her, she looked young and too innocent. He’d never seen anything as creamy as her skin, and he had a sudden urge to trace his finger along her cheek and see for himself if it was as soft as it looked.
It was a ridiculous thought. Connor didn’t touch people if he could help it. Not for three years, since that drive along the California coast when he’d held his wife’s hand for the last time.
Although he knew it to be untrue, he’d come to believe he could hold on to the memory of his wife and son more tightly if he kept himself cut off from physical contact with anyone else. He’d never felt the need before now.
The fact that this woman—a stranger—made him want to change was almost as terrifying as the deadline looming over his head. He took a step back.
“They have no place else to go,” she said, the gentle cadence of her voice at odds with the desperate plea he didn’t want to see in her eyes. “I promise I’ll keep them out of your way.”
Connor stepped around her, reaching for the sheet of paper on the table at the same time he dug in his pocket for his cell phone. “I’m calling Sara Travers.”
“No.” April snatched the paper with the contact information for Crimson Ranch out of his hand. “You can’t.” The sheer audacity of the action gave him pause.
“Are you going to hold me here against my will?” He almost laughed at the thought of it, but Connor also hadn’t laughed in a longer time than he cared to remember. “I’ll call my editor. He’ll contact Sara. I assume she’s your boss?”
“Please don’t.” Her voice hitched on the plea, making alarm bells clang in Connor’s brain.
“You’re not going to cry,” he told her. “Tell me you’re not going to cry.”
She took a breath, blinked several times. “Sara is my boss at the ranch, but she’s also my friend. She and Josh just left for a holiday vacation, and I don’t want her to worry.” April’s voice had gone even gentler, almost defeated. Another long-buried emotion grated at his nerves. “She doesn’t know about Ranie and Shay yet. If you tell her...”
“She’ll make you get rid of them?” he asked, allowing only a hint of triumph to slip into his tone.
“She’ll want me to keep them.”
He was intrigued despite himself. “Who are those girls to you?” When she only stared at him, Connor placed his cell phone on the table. He couldn’t believe he was considering the possibility but he said, “Tell me why I should let them stay.”
April’s mind raced as Connor crossed his arms over his chest, biceps bunching under his gray Berkeley T-shirt. He was nowhere near the man she’d expected to be working for the next two weeks at Cloud Cabin.
Connor Pierce was a famous author—not quite on a par with John Grisham, but a worthy successor if you believed the reviews and hype from his first two books. She’d checked his website after Sara had asked her to take on this job as a personal favor.
April had worked full-time at Crimson Ranch when she and Sara had first arrived in Colorado. Although in the past year the yoga classes she taught at the local community center and at a studio between Crimson and nearby Aspen had taken up most of her time, she’d booked off these two weeks. April had been a yoga instructor, as well as a certified nutritionist, to Hollywood starlets and movie actors before her life in California imploded. Apparently Connor Pierce had an extremely stringent and healthy diet, and April felt more comfortable than the ranch’s new chef in tailoring her cooking to
