My sleuthing never mentioned a cousin.
“Your turn now,” he says, his arms still crossed.
“I’m Selah.” I lift my chin, annoyed by the flood of heat in my cheeks and the pounding of my heart. “Selah Whitlock. My father is the new groundskeeper. We just moved into the guest house.”
“Ah,” he says. “Interesting.”
“Why is that interesting?”
He cocks his head and continues to stare in away that makes breathing difficult. When it becomes obvious he’s not going to answer, I fold my arms, too, and just as I’m searching for a quippy reply, I remember the shadowed figure I saw in the window yesterday. “When did you get here?”
“Yesterday afternoon. I figure Yale can wait. But the 200thcelebration of a town that owes its existence to my ancestors? That only comes, well, every two hundred years.”
“You’re here for the festivities?”
“Amongst other things.” He lets the cryptic words hang in the air with a slightly amused, slightly condescending smile. He uncrosses his arms and prowls toward me like a predator on the hunt. With my heart galloping the way it is, I feel every inch the prey.
The closer he comes, the more gorgeous he gets. High cheekbones. Well-defined jaw. A faint cleft in his chin. When he strolls past, he smells as expensive as he looks.
I turn my head to track his movements—my muscles tense, my breath shallow.
He stops at a tombstone and sets his hand on top of it.
Amos Vandenberg.
The star of the reenactment.
The town’s very own hero.
“He was an amazing man, Uncle Amos.” The words are respectful. Deferential, even. But there’s a wicked gleam in his eye, and that whisper of a grin, like he’s privy to some kind of secret that isboth awful and delightful. He resumes his prowl, winding his way in and out of the tombstones.
I fix my attention on his shoes.
Patent leather.
Much too expensive to be wearing on a walk through the woods.
“Did you follow me here?” I ask.
I expect him to deny it. Scoff at the accusation. Instead, his barely-there grin widens into a wolfish smile. The gap between us shrinks until he’s standing so close, I’m leaning back on my heels, tilting my head to look him in the eye. His are even bluer up close, not a trace of any other color in them. Rimmed with eyelashes as dark as night.
His attention dips to my lips. “Would you like it if I had?”
My body is trapped. Stuck like my breath. My heart a caged bird as he brings the tip of his pointer finger beneath my chin and dips his mouth toward mine. Like he intends to kiss me.
I lurch backward. “What are you doing?”
His eyes remain fixed on the spot where my lips once were. He stays like that for a frozen second. Then he blinks lazily and cocks his head, as though perplexed by my rejection. Sure, the guy is drop dead gorgeous. But that doesn’t give him liberty to go around kissing strangers.
“Seriously,” I say, voice rising. “What were you trying to do?”
“Have a little fun?”
I take another step back.
The audacity.
The entitlement.
