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CHAPTER

ONE

SAMUEL

The first time I see the black sedan, Sophie is buying pumpkins.

Not the sensible kind people carve into jack-o’-lanterns. She passes those by without a glance, walking through the rows of orange and white gourds until she finds the ugliest pumpkin in the field—a squat, lopsided thing covered in green warts.

She picks it up, cradles it against her chest, and smiles. That smile nearly kills me.

I sit behind the wheel of my truck across the road, hands wrapped around a cup of black coffee that went cold an hour ago. Fallen maple leaves gather against my tires, their colors bright enough to look painted. Red. Gold. Burnt orange. A gust of October wind scatters them across the gravel lot while the wooden sign above the farm stand creaks.

Sophie brushes a strand of dark hair out of her face. The wind tosses it right back. I know she’ll tuck it behind her ear three times before giving up. I shouldn’t know things like this.

I shouldn’t know she buys ugly pumpkins because she feels sorry for the ones no one else wants. I shouldn’t know she takes her coffee with cinnamon in the fall and peppermint as soon as Thanksgiving is over. I shouldn’t know that the orange sweater she’s wearing is her favorite because it belonged to her mother. And I sure as hell shouldn’t know she’s been sleeping with her bedroom window cracked open despite the cold because she likes hearing the rain.

But I know everything about Sophie Fairchild .

I’ve spent three years trying not to love her and the last six months failing to stay away. I tell myself I’m watching over her. Most days, that’s even true.

Today, the black sedan makes it undeniable. It’s parked three rows behind Sophie’s little blue car. Tinted windows. No front plate. A dent beside the rear passenger door. Same car I spotted outside her apartment two nights ago. Same car that sat across from the bookstore where she works yesterday afternoon. Same driver behind the wheel.

I set my coffee in the cupholder and reach for the binoculars on the passenger seat. There are two men this time. The driver wears a dark baseball cap pulled low over his forehead. The passenger is heavier, with a shaved head and a scar curving from the corner of his jaw toward his ear. I can’t see their eyes from this distance, but I don’t need to.

They aren’t here for pumpkins.

Sophie pays the woman at the farm stand. The woman slips the pumpkin into a paper bag, though half of it sticks out the top. Sophie says something that makes her laugh.

She has no idea two armed men are watching her, that I’m watching them, or that I’m watching her for that matter.

My fingers tighten around the binoculars.

This is the moment a sane man would call her father. A sane man would pass the problem to the police, drive back to his cabin, and put another fifty miles between himself and the one woman he can’t have. I haven’t been sane where Sophie is concerned since her eighteenth birthday.

Two days after that party, I left town. I didn’t say goodbye to her. I barely said goodbye to anyone. I packed my gear, loaded my truck, and drove up the mountain until the roads turned to dirt and the houses disappeared behind the pines.

Everyone assumed I wanted solitude after leaving the military. Her father understood better than most. Doug and I spent years running undercover operations together, slipping into places where one wrong look could get a man killed. We saved each other’s lives more times than either of us bothers counting. He knew I had ghosts. He didn’t question it when I told him I needed space.

But the ghosts weren’t why I left. Sophie was. I’d watched her grow up. Not closely. I was deployed for most of her childhood, and when I was home, I was usually too restless to stay in one place for long. But she was always there at Doug’s house when I visited. First a little girl racing through the hallway in glittery shoes, then a teenager rolling her eyes whenever her father tried to embarrass her.

Then she turned eighteen.

Doug invited half the county to the party. He strung lights through the trees behind his house and hired a band Sophie liked. There was a bonfire, food, dancing. I remember standing near the back porch with a beer in my hand when she walked out wearing a yellow dress.

She wasn’t a child anymore. I knew it immediately. And two days later, I realized the truth I’d spent forty-eight hours trying to deny. I loved her.

Not the affection a man feels for his best friend’s daughter. Not the protectiveness that came naturally after knowing someone for years. I loved her as a man loves a woman. The knowledge disgusted me. I was nearly twice her age. She was barely beginning her life. Doug trusted me. Sophie looked at me with open fondness, unaware of the dangerous turn my feelings had taken.

So I banished myself to the mountains. It was the only decent thing I had left to do. I stayed gone for three years. Until I saw her at a gas station six months ago.

She was twenty-one by then, standing under the fluorescent lights with a paper cup in her hand. She wore ripped jeans and a black jacket, and her hair fell in dark waves down her back. She laughed at something the cashier said.

I parked where she couldn’t see me. Watched until she drove away. Then I followed her home. That was the beginning of this. Stalking isn’t the word I use in my head, but it’s the right one. I’ve followed her to work. Watched her leave restaurants with friends. Sat outside her apartment on rainy nights and stared at the golden square of her living room window.

I don’t approach her. I don’t speak to her. I simply love her from afar and lie to myself that it’s enough.

Today, my obsession might be the only thing keeping her alive. The black sedan pulls out thirty seconds after Sophie does. I follow both vehicles. The country road winds between hills blazing with fall color. Bare branches stretch over the pavement, and leaves tumble through the air like sparks from a bonfire. Roadside stands advertise pumpkins, fresh honey, and apple butter. Every other porch has a skeleton sitting in a rocking chair or a ghost hanging from the eaves. Sophie’s blue car passes beneath an archway of trees.