Page 29 of Hold Me Until Morning

The air shivered and lashed, tension binding the space.

I stumbled back until I was pressed to the wall.

Intensity radiated from his flesh.

All the easiness had vanished.

I could almost feel something vicious pulse through his veins.

He leaned in, so close that I could smell him.

Spice and cedar and the earth.

“I can’t stand the thought of some asshole doing you wrong.” It rumbled from him like a threat.

Shivers raced, and I was worried he could feel the way I was shaking.

I’d been done wrong, but not in the way that he imagined.

“You don’t even know me.”

“I remember you. Sweet. Innocent. Kind. You had everyone on that ranch wrapped around your finger.”

How could he say that after what had happened?

My lungs quaked. “I’m not that girl anymore.”

Gold-hewn eyes blazed, and he reached out and touched the divot on my chin again.

A fire lit in my belly.

“Aren’t you?”

“You don’t know anything about me,” I attempted again, the words ragged.

A smile wobbled on his face, somewhere between a grimace and a grin. “Then I guess I’m going to have to get to know you better, aren’t I, Shortcake?”

My stomach clutched.

God.

Did he remember?

It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter.

I shook my head to jar myself out of the trance he had me under.

Defenses locked, I said, “I think it’s probably time you went home.”

He edged back, just a fraction, enough to memorize every line of my face. Then he went back to the hand-truck, grabbed it by the handle, and began to wheel it toward the door.

Unfortunately, that meant he had to come back my way. He got to within a foot of me, and he paused there, at my side, his voice so low as he muttered, “I’m sorry you lost her.”

Without saying anything else, he walked out, while I remained nailed to the wall, unable to breathe or speak or move.

I startled when a shriek of joy suddenly carried through the house. One compliments of my daughter, her feet pounding down the hall. “Thank you, Mr. Cody, for getting all my very favorite things and putting all the boxes and my desk in my room! And we even got a couch. You are the very best neighbor I ever met, and I’m very glad I got a house next to yours.”

Somehow, I managed to stagger to the doorway. It was just in time to see my daughter throw her arms in the air.

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