LENNON
There was nota single thing in this one-room log cabinnotconstructed of knotty pine. The wide-planked walls. The ceiling that came down a few inches closer than I would have liked. The floor beneath the colorful braided rug. Even the furniture was the same golden pine. I had seen pictures of the cabin on their website I had pulled up through the link on the postcard, but seeing it and being inside it were two very different things. It gave me the feeling of being in a tree hollow. Like a claustrophobic squirrel.
Jeremiah cleared his throat, and I gave him my sweetest,I’m-a-low-maintenance-girlsmile. A lie. I wasn’t low-maintenance. I wasn’t easygoing. I had clawed my way out of a world very few girls evermanaged to leave and then spent the next decade working my ass off to stay out. I was excruciatingly aware of every cent it cost to maintain this lifestyle that I had never quite allowed myself to become accustomed to.
“It’s cute,” I said brightly.
He arched a golden-brown eyebrow—the exact shade as the pine that surrounded us. It wasn’t weird that I noticed. With that same color coming at me from all angles, it would have been weird if Ihadn’tnoticed. But judging from the way that eyebrow nearly disappeared into his matching hairline,cutewasn’t the look he was going for. It was a ranch, after all, and he was an honest-to-goodness cowboy. Men were so delicate about these things.
“Cozy,” I amended. “It’s very cozy in here.”
His lips twitched beneath his mustache as if I had amused him. A man of few words, this cowboy. I didn’t hate it. The mustache, that is. The jury was still out on how I felt about his way of saying a whole lot without using his words. But I didn’t hate the mustache, and thatwasweird, because normally I was not a fan of facial hair at all. But it suited him. He looked like Westley fromThe Princess Bride, before the farm boy went all Dread Pirate Roberts. Golden hair and blue-gray eyes like a stormy sea, but a decade older and a mustache that didn’t make me wish for a razor.
He hooked his thumbs into the front pockets of hisjeans.Why are you staring at me?his raised eyebrows seemed to ask.
Because I feel like it, my smirk silently answered.
The polite thing to do would be to break eye contact, say something about the weather, and turn away. But I didn’t do that. I kept right on staring at him because he was staring back at me, and suddenly it felt like the most important competition of my life, and dammit, I wanted to win. Everything about my life felt out of my control right now, but this? This I could control.
He dipped his chin, studying me. I was a tall girl, but he still had a good two inches on me. Were his cheeks a little pinker now? He was going to crack first, I could feel it. Any second now, the awkwardness would make him say something?—
Unless he doesn’t know this is a staring contest. Maybe he simply thought he had a very rude, very odd guest on his hands and was trying to be professional about it.
Oh, god.
I never blushed—shameless, my mom called me, and she didn’t mean it as a compliment—but my skin prickled like it almost remembered how. I cleared my throat. “So.”
Jeremiah grinned, the smile lighting up his face like Christmas morning. Oh, goddammit. He’d known. Only winning could make a person glow like that. With an annoyed huff, I crossed my arms under my chest and turned away.
He chuckled softly. “Now, don’t be like that. We already have one sore loser around here, and I don’t think the ranch is big enough for the both of you.”
“Is it Holly?” I’d gotten a vibe from her. She hadn’t liked me on sight, and that made me inclined to believe she had other faults as well. I ignored the part about the other sore loser in this scenario being me. He wasn’t wrong, but I saw no reason to admit that.
“It doesn’t matter who it is. We don’t need two of them.”
I snorted. “Yeah. It’s Holly.”
He ignored me. “Do you want to settle in now, or do the tour of the ranch? If you need a minute, I can come back later.”
“Now is fine. I just need to use the bathroom first.”
“I’ll wait for you on the porch.”
I made use of the small bathroom, which was not wood-paneled, but instead tiled floor to ceiling in green and white porcelain squares. The sink vanity was too small to hold more than a bar of soap and a toothbrush, but at least there was a bathtub. I was a hot-soak-after-a-long-day girl through and through.
I paused on the way out and took another look around. Itwascozy, actually. No TV, but there was a mini-fridge and a coffeemaker. Jeremiah had set my luggage next to the (pine) dresser that definitely wouldn’t hold everything I brought.
The décor was simple but thoughtful. A gorgeousblack-and-white photograph of Yellowstone National Park hung over the small (pine) desk. The cushion on the (pine) chair was a dark green that matched the flannel curtains hanging in the window. Across the room, the quilt on the (pine) bed was the same dark green. The color added to the wholeyou live in a tree nowaesthetic.
My home for the next two months. New York, it was not. For a moment, I felt completely lost. Discombobulated. Everything had happened so fast. Once Hector decided I should disappear, he went all in. He hadn’t wanted to tip the feds off to my destination, so he’d flown me all the way to Seattle. One of Benny’s associates had met me at the airport there with a car he claimed was registered to his ninety-year-old grandmother who wouldn’t miss it, and I’d backtracked to Mercy River Ranch.
Four days. How could my entire life change so much in four days?
I took a breath and squared my shoulders. I could do this.
Starting over was my specialty.
“There are nine guest cabins,all of them spread out here on the east side of the property. They’re close together, but the trees provide privacy.”
