Page 36 of When You Saved Me

I snorted. “I might be small, but I can still take you in this condition. So, sit your ass down and rest.”

A wide smile spread across his face, making my heart stutter a beat. It was the first time I’d seen him smile so brazenly. It was the most amazing thing I’d ever seen, and I found myself wanting to make him smile like that more.

“Yes, ma’am,” he responded before he shot me a wink and slid onto the stool.

Turning back around to the pan of ground beef, I grinned to myself. I liked this version of Deacon.

Light.

Fun.

Devilishly handsome.

Too suave for his own good.

I liked it and I probably shouldn’t knowing that I was already in way over my head with him. When he was around, I was putty on the floor. There was just something about the man that made me melt.

After what he’d told me earlier, I couldn’t help but fall even harder. Right now, we were stuck in this house togetheras more snow continued to pile high outside. But I knew there would come a time when the snow melted and the reality of what he’d divulged to me would hit.

I just hoped he would still feel the same by then. That this thing between us was worth exploring.

“So, do you have a job you’re missing out on right now?”

“You want to talk to me about work?” His voice was raspy from the cold. I could barely hide what the sound of it did to me as my cheeks stained red with heat.

“Mmhmm,” I responded, staring into the pan of meat afraid that if I turned to look at him, my cheeks would give me away.I want to know everything about you, I wanted to say but kept my lips clamped shut.

“I, uh, decided to retire early.”

I whirled around, shocked. “Retire early? Aren’t you in your thirties?”

He shrugged nonchalantly. “I got lucky in the stock market. Really lucky, actually.”

“Lucky in the stock market,” I deadpanned.

“Yup.” He nodded slowly. “While I was in the military, I put most of my earnings in savings and when I started working for the Charlotte Fire Department, I met a guy who was fucking brilliant in the stock market. He taught me some tips and after a while I started doing my own research. Got lucky with some biotech companies and was able to buy a good chunk of land out here when I decided to make the move.”

I was in awe of him. At first glance, Deacon was a rugged mountain man who was obviously good with hishands, but I never would have guessed he would be the kind of man who made enough money in financial pursuits to retire in his thirties.

I quickly realized that was a terrible bias I held against men who looked like him and I made a mental note to eradicate that prejudice from my mind.

“How much land do you have out here?”

He leaned his large forearms onto the counter. “Fifty-two acres that run along the east side of the river.”

I felt my eyebrows raise. “Fifty-two? Wow. That’s a lot of land.”

“I like my privacy.”

“Casper and I have kind of ruined it for you.” I laughed, but Deacon’s eyes turned dark.

“You haven’t ruined anything, Charlie.”

His gaze bore into mine. Enraptured, I couldn’t look away. The world seemed to still as he was the only thing I could focus on, just like the first day we met. Everything else drifted away while all the words emptied from my mind. We stayed like that—locked on one another like two magnets that couldn’t be pulled apart.

Then the smell of smoke tingled my nose, and the connection was lost as I shifted back to the stove top.

“Oh no!” I gasped as I took in the charred meat. “Damnit!” Moving quickly to prevent the rest of the meat from burning, I reached over the pan and turned the burner off, but when I pulled my hand back, I bumped into the handle of the pan, jostling it over the stovetop.

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