Page 32

I sat on the edge of the couch. Outside the front window, he paced the gravel driveway, his phone pressed to his ear, his free hand raking through his hair in a gesture of frustration I was starting to recognize. He walked the length of the truck and back again, checking the horizon every few seconds as if he expected an invading army to crest the tree line.

Since the incident on the porch yesterday morning—the kiss that had shattered my brain and apparently his resolve—Ben had retreated so far into his shell I was surprised he hadn’t grown a carapace. He was polite, efficient, and distant. He spoke to me in clipped sentences that conveyed necessary information and nothing else.

Coffee is ready. Don’t go outside. I’ll be back in an hour.

It was the way you spoke to a houseguest you were politely trying to evict, or perhaps a patient you were trying to keep calm before the ambulance arrived.

I hated it.

I hated being reduced to a mistake he was trying to scrub from his record. I stared at my hands, the same ones that had tangled in his hair. I had clung to him as if he were the only solid thing in a spinning world. There was no mistake about that kiss. It was the first honest thing to happen in my life in years.

The front door opened, and Ben stepped inside. He brought a gust of hot, heavy air with him, along with the scent of impending rain.

"The storm is tracking west," he announced, his voice flat as his eyes bounced everywhere but me. "It’s officially Tropical Storm Isaac now. It’s not a hurricane, so there’s no evacuation order. But it’s going to bring gale-force winds and a lot of water by tonight."

"Okay." I pushed to my feet. "What does that mean?"

"It means I need to lock down the yard." He walked past me to the kitchen to grab a bottle of water. "I have to stow the patio furniture and get the storm shutters ready just in case. You stay inside. If the power goes out, there are flashlights in the drawer next to the sink."

It was an order. It was the Protector speaking—the man who saw me as a liability to be managed, a fragile thing that needed to be kept behind glass.

I snapped. Maybe it was the lingering adrenaline from the day before, or maybe I was just tired of being told where to stand and when to breathe. "No."

Ben stopped with the water bottle halfway to his mouth. He turned slowly, his eyebrows raised. "No?"

"I’m not staying inside." I crossed my arms over the shirt I was wearing. "I’m going to help you."

"Sutton, you have a sprained ankle. And you’re..." He trailed off, gesturing vaguely at my person. "You’re a guest."

"I’m a squatter," I corrected. "And my ankle is doing better. You taped it yourself. I can walk on it. I am not going to sit in here and watch you do manual labor while I paint my nails. I want to help."

"It’s dirty work." His jaw set in a stubborn line. "It’s hot and muggy as hell. You don’t have shoes."

"I have sneakers." I pointed to the muddy pair by the door—the ones I had been wearing when I crashed. "And I don’t care if it’s dirty. I need to do something, Ben. If I sit on this couch for one more hour thinking about... everything, I’m going to scream."

For a second, Ben’s mask slipped. Conflict flashed in his eyes, the war between the instinct to wrap me in bubble wrap and the begrudging respect for my stubbornness. He sighed, a long exhale that deflated his shoulders slightly. "Fine. But you wear gloves. And if the ankle starts hurting, you stop. Immediately."

"Deal."

I grabbed my sneakers and shoved my feet into them, ignoring the pinch of the laces. I followed him out the door into the oppressive heat of the afternoon, a strange sense of triumph surging within me.

The work was grueling, unglamorous, and exactly what I needed. The humidity was so high it felt like swimming through warm soup. Within five minutes, my shirt was stuck to my back and sweat was dripping down my temples. We fell into a rhythm that didn’t require talking. Ben would point to a pile of debris, and I would haul it to the designated brush pile near the treeline. He climbed the ladder to clear the gutters of dead leaves and palm fronds, tossing them to the ground where I gathered them up. It was simple, linear work. Input equaled output. If you pulled a weed, it was gone. If you moved a chair, it stayed moved.

It was the opposite of the music industry, where you could pour your soul into an album for a year only to have a suit at the label shelve it because the algorithm changed. Here, effort had a tangible result. I dragged a heavy Adirondack chair across the grass, my muscles burning in a satisfying way. Ben was on the roof now, checking the flashing. I paused to wipe the sweat from my eyes. He moved with a confident, easy grace, his boots finding purchase on the roof, his tool belt hanging low on his hips. He was capable. He was a man who knew how the world worked and how to fix it when it broke.

I caught him glancing down at me. He froze for a second, his hand on the roof, his eyes tracing the line of my body in his baggy clothes. The heat in his gaze was different from the heat of the sun—it was sharper, more dangerous. Then he blinked, the mask slamming back into place as he turned back to his work.

"Clear the side yard," he called down, his voice noticeably rough. "There are some big palm fronds that came down in the wind last night. Drag them to the pile. Uh, please."

"On it, boss," I called back, infusing my voice with a salute I didn’t actually perform.

I walked around to the side of the cottage where the dense vegetation pressed close to the structure. The ground here was softer, damper, shaded by the canopy of the banyan tree. A massive frond, easily ten feet long and brown with decay, had fallen across the path.

I grabbed the thick, woody stem of the frond. It was heavier than it looked, waterlogged and awkward. I dug my heels into the grass and heaved. The dried leaves scratched against my arms, and the smell of rot and earth filled my nose.

"You’re doing great, Sutton," I muttered to myself through gritted teeth. "Look at you. Nature woman. Survivor." I gave a mighty tug and leaned my weight back to dislodge the frond from a tangle of roots.

It came free suddenly.