Page 17 of Shielded Hearts

“Do you have something against white?”

He shook his head and muttered something about city girls. Then he held out a hand to her.

She stared down at it. Broad palm, long fingers with small, hard bumps of callus in all the spots you’d expect of a working man’s hand.

She glanced up at him.

“Your bag, princess.”

Her mouth popped open in outrage at what he just called her.

Instead of handing him the bag, she decided to show him that she was no princess.

With a flick of her curls, she gave him a direct look. “I’ll carry my own luggage.”

There it was again—that twitch of his hard lips.

“Suit yourself.” He stepped aside, allowing her to pass by him to reach the truck. She heard the cabin door shut…and something that sounded like a low, soft whistle that carried on the breeze.

Why was she imagining that Colt was staring at her as she walked away with that same deep, hazy expression that slid into his dark gray eyes when he looked at her curve-skimming pants?

Chapter Four

Colt was accustomed to country life. Back roads and potholes were the norm. But the noise of gravel crunching under the truck tires was the first bad sign.

“Didn’t you say this was a paved driveway?”

Aspen glanced down at her phone, reading the description of the second cabin they were visiting. “It does say paved driveway.”

“Paved with gravel, looks like.”

The bone-rattling ascent to the property had her bouncing in the seat. They hit a jarring rut that rocketed her forward. She grabbed on to the console to steady herself.

“The driveway could use a little work before I’d book any guests.”

He had a bad feeling about this cabin. After the last, he realized that owners who listed these places as vacation stays didn’t give a damn about anything but money in their pockets.

By the time they reached the small cabin carved into the side of the mountain, the sun was dipping low, emphasizing the jagged peaks in the distance.

He rolled to a stop in front of the structure that looked more like a cold, gray box in Siberia.

“Wow.”

She snapped her head to look at him. “People make the exteriors of their homes look a little rundown so they pay less taxes on them. The inside is probably very nice.”

He shook his head. Nothing about this place looked warm, inviting or remotely comfortable. Unless all of Aspen’s clientsloved the Cold War aesthetic, they weren’t choosing this as a destination.

He rolled his shoulders, stiff from driving, and studied the front. A second look revealed that the cabin had once been painted red, but now it was peeling, exposing gray, weathered wood beneath.

The wind struck in a hard gust on the north-facing cabin, a shutter swinging back and forth like a broken wing.

“Rustic charm? Check.”

“Are you always so negative? Give it a chance, Colt.” She climbed out of the truck. Those white boots only a city girl would wear in the mountains were sure to be caked in brown muck by the time she reached the front door.

He hurried to intercept her. “Let me go in first.”

“Oh okay, big man.”

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