Page 7 of Homecoming

Tasha had led her to a table in the corner where Black was sitting. Grace had to blink several times. She was very familiarwith every single dating-age man in Whisper Hollow, and Mr. Black was not on that list.

“He’s building that facility up the mountain,” Tasha had said.

The man had given her a slight smile, his dark, storm-cloud colored eyes creasing a little. “It’s nice to meet you, Ms. Lane. Tasha says you do interior design work.”

His voice was raspy and harsh, and she knew immediately that something had happened to injure it. There were no visible scars or anything that she could see, only Greek god perfection. The man had thick, dark curls with a hint of gray at the temples, with an indentation in those curls where the brim of his black cowboy hat rode. He was sitting in a booth, and his shoulders took up most of the space on the bench. She had a feeling he was tall.

It had taken her a long moment to remember what he’d asked her, and she launched into what she could do for him, even working remotely. They had set up a very basic plan, and she’d promised to get him catalogs to choose things from.

He’d slid out of the booth to shake her hand as they were saying goodbye, and she was struck dumb once again. Black towered over her, at least six-three, and as she’d taken his hand, she’d felt a snap of electricity. It was like nothing she’d ever felt before, and it left her thinking she had to have imagined it.

Months later, she still felt that little snap when they touched. She’d felt it earlier when he’d helped her into the truck.

Tasha had looked between them, nodding and smiling to herself.

She’d seen Black a few times since then, and he kept himself reserved. Maybe now that she was getting closer and doing more for the sanctuary, and he trusted her more, something would change. The man was… energizing, and he made her senses perk up like no one else ever had. Even now, just sitting beside him inthe truck, her tummy was fluttery with nerves at being so close to him. She wanted to stare at him, but that would be weird.

They jounced up the mountain, and it seemed like there would be no end to the rough ride. Then they rounded a bend, and she spotted a cabin. When they pulled up to the security building and the final gate, Grace’s eyes were wide in her face. There was a huge fence attached to the gate. The kind with small squares and three strands of barbed wire at the top.

A man in black fatigue-like clothing, obviously armed, leaned down to look at their faces, and Owen said a few words to the man. Then they drove through the gate. She glanced back at the guard as they drove through, but he didn’t acknowledge her. Curiosity ate at her as she watched the massive gate swing shut behind them.

“Are the people you counsel here held against their will?”

Owen glanced at her sharply. “Quite the opposite. This is to keep people out of their space. Most of the men up here are struggling with crippling PTSD. Crippling, as in, they don’t want to deal with the public at all if they can avoid it. We give them a space to do that, and we don’t require them to do anything they don’t want to. They are not prisoners.”

She sensed that she’d aggravated him somehow, so she didn’t say anything else the rest of the ride up. As they navigated a switchback, she caught sight of a massive timber lodge nestled into a broad canyon. It was three levels with a steep front peak and covered deck, then with several other levels at different angles. It looked a little odd at first until she realized the levels were built into the angle of the mountain. Massive iron beams were set into the rock of the mountain and she doubted an earthquake would move it. Every level had its own deck, and she could see solar panels on the southward facing roof.

“Oh, my God!” she breathed. “How on earth did you build that up here?”

Owen snorted. “We didn’t build it. We had a team come in from Vermont to do it. It’s not completely done, but we know enough now that we can finish it ourselves.”

It was a beautiful structure. Years ago, Grace had been to Aspen, and it reminded her of some of the chalets there, though on a more massive size. The logs were dark, and blended into the towering evergreens perfectly. It straddled a white water creek swollen with runoff from the mountain.

“We have a pump station behind the lodge that throttles the water and runs our power. It also feeds gravity plumbing throughout the main lodge and the rest of the compound.”

Grace shook her head in wonder. She’d been to a few rural cabins, and they were nothing like this. The sheer scope of the engineering… “It looks amazing.”

They crested a rise, and she could tell they’d finally reached the sanctuary itself. On the left was a cleared, almost flat field, covered in piles of snow. At one end, there was a massive greenhouse, and a line of equipment. Two men were walking out of the structure, and they watched the truck as they drove by.

Everywhere she looked, men were working or building something industriously. A couple of the men seemed to be disabled, but that didn’t seem to deter them. They were out working with the others, even in the cold and snow.

This place was so much more than she’d expected. The questions were stacking up in her brain, but she bit her tongue to keep them in. Eventually, they pulled into a driveway to the west of the main building. Here, there was a line of cabins, some finished, others not. They were spaced far enough apart to give each cabin some privacy, with pines towering over and around them, and they each seemed to have a stunning view of the expansive valley below.

Owen pulled up in front of the third cabin down. It was a little bigger than the others, with a beautiful A-frame front andmassive glass windows. “I know I sound like a broken record, but this is beautiful,” she whispered.

He flashed her a slight smile, but said nothing. There was a furniture truck parked in the drive, so Owen parked to the side. “Let’s go see what they’ve moved in.”

Grace trotted along behind him as he walked the wood chip path to the front of the house. Three men were just coming out of the house, and they stopped to talk to Owen.

“The main bed is ready,” one man told him, crossing his heavy arms. Even though it was only about thirty degrees out, he wore a simple red checked flannel and jeans. Grace almost shivered for him. But also because he was devastatingly handsome, with thick, dirty blond curls sticking out from under a tattered red ball cap. He had deep, navy blue eyes and a thick golden beard. And he was so muscular. The second, silent man was as well, in a completely different way. He wore a long, camouflage jacket over jeans and boots, and his dark eyes surveyed her coldly. The wind teased at his long, straight black hair. She looked for a name patch on the military jacket, but it was absent. The third man must have been the delivery driver, because he shoved the copy of a bill toward Black, then stomped away.

“What’s his issue,” Owen asked, and the flannel guy grinned a little.

“We made him unload. One end table has to go back because he dropped it on the way up the stairs and snapped a leg.”

“Unloading is literally part of his job,” Owen growled, glancing at the bill.

“Yeah, but once he heard where he was delivering, he wanted out of here pretty bad. Supposedly, this mountain is haunted?”

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