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Emma and I part with a hug. Then, she leaves for the other side of campus. I push open the heavy doors of the school library and make my way over to the computers. The stalls are filled with other kids working busily and I bite my lip as I lower my wide hips into a chair.
Swallowing hard, I turn on the monitor and log in. I wonder what I’m going to find. After all, Dane is so mysterious. He barely even wanted to tell me his name.
What is he trying to hide?
Despite my curiosity, I have a hard time figuring out where to begin. After all, I don’t know very much about Dane. Only that he’s a strange, sexy man who lives in the middle of nowhere. What should I google? Handsome man in the woods? Gorgeous hermit?
Suddenly, Travis’s face pops back into my head and I think about what Dane said. Dane had called him a stupid frat boy, and then made some comment about his own name. What was it?
Oh, yeah. Lowe.
He said that his name is Dane Lowe.
My fingers fly over the keyboard as I type in Dane’s name and hit enter. The screen takes an agonizingly long time to load and by the time the results are up, I’m leaning forward in my chair and sweating. My hand trembles as I reach for the mouse and click on the first result.
What I see shocks me. Sure enough, there’s a photo of Dane. He looks so different though – his face is clean-shaven and his hair is short. He’s even wearing a designer suit.
But the look in his blue eyes is the same naked fear and betrayal that I saw myself. He looks haunted. He looks like a man who has just seen his own ghost.
And when I see the headline, the blood in my veins turns to ice.
“DANE LOWE – FRAUD?”
As I read the short article, I learned that Dane was a billionaire who mysteriously left the public eye. But why? Why would he do something like that? What possibly could have happened to make him hate the public so much?
And now, I feel like I have more questions than answers about the mysterious Dane Lowe.
6
Dane
It’s been days and I can’t stop thinking about her. Everything attracts me and confuses me the same time. Between her soft brown eyes and the way her curls glinted in the sunshine, Emma is one beautiful girl.
When I left the public eye, I never thought that I’d have to deal with these kinds of feelings again. I thought those days were long behind me. But now, Emma’s presence has disrupted my life.
So much for peace and solitude.
Tonight, I can’t seem to relax. I cleaned the whole cabin, and then I went out and shot a deer. Normally, cleaning game clears my mind as well. But not right now. All I can think about is the way Emma’s soft curvy body pressed against mine. She made me feel wanted.
She made me feel human.
When I left the public eye, I knew that I would never return. I vowed to change my ways and live the life of a hermit. I knew that I would miss women, but until I saw Emma for the first time, I never realized just how much.
With a sigh, I get to my feet and wash my hands. The venison has been sliced into steaks, wrapped in wax paper, and stored in the deep freezer. There’s a long winter coming up and I know that I’m going to be cold.
If only Emma was here to keep me warm.
That’s when I hear the sound. A small, soft rustling from just beyond the front door. Drying my hands on my jeans, I pace silently across the floor and put my hand on the knob. The sound is still there and I wonder if it’s a raccoon. But when I open the door, I see Emma standing there. At the sight of me, her face lights up. My heart sinks. There’s no way this can be good.
There’s no way that she can be lost again.
So what is she doing here?
As much as I want her around, I know that it’s a bad idea. A girl like Emma has her own place. And that place is not with me, want her though I do.
“What do you want?” I ask gruffly.
“I lost my scarf,” Emma says. She wipes her hands on her thighs and as always, my eyes are drawn to her lush curves. “And I have your clothes, she adds in a small voice. “Don’t you want them back?”
“Bullshit. You never even had a scarf.”
Even in the dim light of my porch, I can see that she’s blushing. She steps closer and I realize that she is shivering, too.
“Still couldn’t bring the proper jacket?” I raise one eyebrow into a smirk. There’s something so charming and naïve about this girl – it’s strangely attractive.
