Page 29 of Hearts at War

“I wasn’t trespassing,” she insisted.

“No?” I tamped down my curiosity about how and why she riled me up so well. Crossing my arms and parroting her posture, I regarded her carefully. “Because from where I’m standing, and how it looks from the notifications on my security app—”

Her brow creased. “What— A security app?” She turned, scanning the perimeter of the windows as though she had to find a hidden camera. “You need a security app out here? Why?”

“Maybe to catch random strange women from breaking in?”

She shot me a droll smirk. “I wasn’t breaking in. She wanted to.” Lifting her arm, she pointed toward the east.

Fuck. It seemed like my first hunch was right.

I had no clue why Heather was here, but I bet Nevaeh had been, too.

“What are you talking about?”

She licked her lips and scowled. “I was at home, not even fifteen minutes ago, and this teenager knocked on my door.”

Dammit.

“What’d she look like?” I asked, despite feeling like I knew what she’d say.

“Pink and purple hair. Piercings...” She gestured a circle at her own face. “Everywhere. Black clothes.” She frowned. “Looked really cold and thin.”

Watch out. Don’t let her woe-is-me shit get to you, too.

“I had no clue who she was, but she insisted that she’d lost her key to this cabin. She claimed that she lived here and she wanted my help to get in.”

That sounded like Nevaeh all right. Since she’d come back to stay with me on and off, I removed the spare key outside under the mat. I simply couldn’t trust her in my space without my supervision, regardless if she was a child or adult.

“She made up this bogus line about the keys all being the same to the cabins. That I could use my key to get her in here.”

I scoffed. “And you believed that bullshit?”

Her glare narrowed on me. “No. But I was curious. When Eric brought me here the first night, my key did fit into the lock at another cabin. It wouldn’t open it, but it doesn’t seem so farfetched that the keys are similar.”

I shook my head. “Never mind that. You mean to tell me you’re so gullible and naïve to just believe this kid? To take her word for it that she lives here?”

“No. I’m not that fucking gullible or naïve. I wanted to see her to safety and evaluate what was going on.”

That told me quite a lot about what kind of a person Heather was. The desire to help someone out was a foundation to human nature. How people demonstrated that willingness to be altruistic never failed to marvel me. Heather, it seemed, was kindhearted enough to give a shit about a stranger in need.

“I didn’t know this was your place,” she insisted.

I believed her.

“Trust me—”

I warded her off from speaking with my hand in the air. “No. Don’t expect me to trust a woman ever again.”

She smirked. “Then believe me,” she amended, “I want nothing to do with you.”

Leaning down, getting in her face, I came more to her eye level. “Good. Keep it that way. I’m sick of women getting in my damn space.”

She huffed, almost smiling. “Yeah, count me out of your harems. I wouldn’t be interested in a jerk like you.”

“Glad to hear it,” I gritted out, peeved that she’d try to suggest I wasn’t good enough for a woman like her. That runaround was something I experienced daily with Veronica, and I’d be damned if I ever tried to win another high-maintenance woman’s approval ever again. “Because I’m not in the mood for your drama.”

“My drama?” She pointed at her chest. “This is all your shit to deal with. You’re the one with some punk goth girl desperate to break in to your place.”