Page 5 of Homecoming

Black fell into step beside her as they headed toward the flower shop, conscious to shorten his strides to match hers. Grace wasn’t very tall, barely to his shoulders, and curvy as all hell. She wore sexy little brown suede boots today, and he didn’t want her to slip. It wasn’t as snowy on the sidewalks as it was up on the mountain, but he could see a few slick spots.

“How is your driveway holding up with all this snow?” she asked him, smiling at him in that way she had. When Black talked to her, he felt like she was interested in everything he had to say.

“Pretty good, so far,” he said. “A few washouts, but we expected that.”

The twenty square mile parcel of land that was the Foxhole backed up to the Pisgah national forest. When they’d first arrived on the property, there was the faint line of a logging road zigzagging up the primary mountain. They’d had to hire a construction crew with heavy equipment to come in and dig a driveway out of the terrain. It had taken weeks of dozer and backhoe work, clearing land, removing trees, and building drainage ditches. It had taken truck after truck of hauled stone to build the base of the drive. It still wasn’t perfect, but it was passable now for most vehicles. They’d been able to get multiple lumber trucks up the mountain with building materials, so he was hoping the furniture truck would be okay as well.

One of Grace’s brothers, a short, older one, ran the driveway construction crew. Beck had been easy to deal with, and he understood building in that kind of environment. Black had learned a lot from him and had even bought one of his backhoes for work around the mountain. Beck had also put him in touch with a guy with a sawmill for sale so that they could start milling their own lumber from what they were clearing. The excess went into their lumber pile, and the scraps went into the firewood stacks.

“We may have to haul more stone in the spring, but for now, it’s holding up. Your brother did a great job.”

Grace beamed at the praise. “Even if he wasn’t my brother, I would have suggested Beck’s company. He has a fantastic reputation.”

Grace passed by her storefront door. Bloom had caught his eye when he’d first arrived in Whisper Hollow and had done his initial walkthrough. Every major holiday, she changed the front window display to reflect the holiday. Her store sold flowers daily, but she also did interior design work, and her vignettes represented both aspects of what she was able to do. Sometimes he drove by just to look at what she’d created, because it was always something unique. This month was Christmas, of course, and she had a beautiful little display of rabbits celebrating the holiday in their way, with tiny homemade gifts. It was quaint and not normally something he appreciated, but it reflected her whimsical personality perfectly.

Grace went around the corner, into the alley, and let them in through the side door, then called out a greeting for her worker in the front. Once that was done, she led him through to the back. “You can’t see everything because of the plastic, but I was able to get most of what we ordered. I know you’re a stickler, but a few things were out of stock and had to be replaced.”

Grace turned and headed toward a small landing leading to stairs. He thought she’d mentioned that she lived in the apartment above the shop. Black followed along, thinking she had something else to show him, but he jerked to a stop. Grace was bent over, her nicely rounded ass in the air as she leaned down to change her boots. Immediately, he felt a rush of heat into his groin, and he had to force his hands to stay at his sides.

When she turned around, she grinned at him. She obviously knew he’d been looking. Black tipped his hat down, hoping it shielded his burning face. It had been a long time since he’d expressed interest in a woman, and the feeling was so alien. They couldn’t do anything, of course, with the attraction that was there. She wasn’t the type to settle for a quick romp, and he would never offer it.

“I’m ready to go,” she said. “Let’s get this stuff loaded up.”

Black cocked his head at her. “What do you mean, you’re ready to go?”

“Well, this is my design, so I’m going to implement it.” She popped her eyebrows and planted her hands on her shapely hips.

Crossing his arms over his chest, he frowned. “That wasn’t the plan. The men in the compound are very private, and I’m not sure if it’s a good idea for you to come up the mountain.”

She gave him a look. “I’m not going to be running around on the mountain, screaming. I’m going to be in one cabin laying out my design. No one even needs to know that I’m there. The furniture man is up there. ”

Black scowled, thinking. Normally, there was a process to be admitted up onto the mountain, and either he or Fontana gave final approval. If they weren’t on the list at the security barn, they did not get through. Period. Plus, the fewer people that saw the security measures they had in place, the better. Some people would think it was overkill, but with the staffing that he had available to him, he considered it a bare minimum.

At the bottom of the mountain, there were tall, wrought-iron gates hung on stone pillars. The guest needed to request entrance by pushing the button on the call box or keying in a six-digit code. The guard in the security barn up the mountain would then let them up or not. The scanners and cameras set into the grate they drove over would also tell the guard if there was anything foreign on the vehicle, such as a tracker or even an explosive device. Once they made it through that gate, they needed to travel a little over four miles up the drive before they hit the second security gate and the security barn. It was a small cabin at the side of the driveway, manned twenty-four seven, with another, more secure gate, attached to the fence that surrounded the central core of the compound. An eight-man team had been working for months only on the eight-footsecurity fence that encircled the area. They ran miles of that fence, through valleys and washes, up steep canyon walls, across creeks. North Carolina, and this area in particular, was heavily forested with towering evergreen and oak, but there was a layer of rock beneath the forest floor that took a tremendous effort to get through. One of the guys had an affinity for the land, but even he hadn’t been able to find a way through the tough crust. They’d had to resort to using jack-hammers in places to get the fence poles deep enough to support the fence. It was a grueling job, but they’d had to rush to get it done before the ground froze.

The property was beginning to look like a military compound, but he refused to apologize for it if it kept everyone safe.

Did Grace need to go up the mountain? Not necessarily.

“Are you going to decorate the cabin, Mr. Black?” Grace asked, as if she sensed his hesitation, brows raised. “You said the woman has a baby. Are you just going to leave all this stuff in her living room and hope she figures it out?”

Black clenched his jaw. He’d told Fontana that it was only a matter of time before people started talking about the compound. They’d spun it as a sanctuary for recovering veterans, which wasn’t far from the truth. Hence the name, the Foxhole. And they had everyone that set foot on the mountain sign an NDA, with a hefty penalty attached. Grace had already signed the NDA, just because it was becoming part of their practice when they contracted for anything with the townspeople.

Did he want to set out all the doodads and set up the beds and do the linens? Definitely not. He was already behind in his schedule, as it was. “Fine. But I’m going to remind you of the NDA that you signed. You are not to talk about any part of the sanctuary, either its layout or residents.”

She scrunched up her cute face. “Who exactly am I going to tell?”

Black lifted a brow at her, but Grace shook her head, crossing her arms. “I don’t chatter like the busybodies you see around town. I’ve signed many NDAs to deal with my clients in New York, Mr. Black. Yours is not any different. I won’t talk about anything I see.”

He sighed. This was probably going to happen at some point, anyway. There were a lot more cabins that would need to be stocked and decorated. At the very least, stocked. “Fine. Let’s stop killing daylight, then. And you can call me Owen.”

He clenched his jaw, a little shocked that he’d offered her his first name. Why the fuck had he done that? He’d been Black to everyone he knew for years. It was what he’d been called in the Special Forces. Some of the men he’d worked with for the past couple of years probably didn’t even know his first name.

Grace smiled at him, her teeth gleaming like he’d given her jewels. “Owen. I like that. And you can call me Grace.”

Warmth flowed through his gut at that, and he felt a little ridiculous, so he turned away without saying anything.

They loaded the truck, which he’d parked in the alley for exactly this purpose, quickly. Most of the items were easily carried, but a few they had to carry together. His legs ached, but he didn’t slow down.

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