AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Talk to her. This is important to both of us.”
“No.” She stared unblinkingly at him. Huge brown eyes full of confusion and indecision. “This is important to you. I need to get home.”
“But…”
“But I don’t trust you, and that’s more important than showing a few fishermen the right watering holes.”
He needed to let her go before he gave in to the stupid side of himself that wanted to drag her closer. The part of him that wanted to see if she fit him perfectly everywhere.
That would be a mistake.
TWO
Kendall twistedout of his grip. The heat of him was like a grease burn. Even when she peeled her skin away from his, the burn still tore deep into the tissues. “I need to contact my mother.”
He nodded to the phone at the end of the table.
“Alone.”
His hazel eyes gave away nothing. “Something you don’t want me to hear, Miss Proctor?”
She lifted her chin. “I have to go tell my mother that your father is a bastard. Again. Do you really want to stand here and listen to that?”
He stood. “You don’t know my father.”
The razor slice was quick and deep. Painless on the first layer, but the wound bled. She was so tired of bleeding for Lawrence Justice. She thought she’d been well past it, and now with one letter, she was at his mercy again. “No, I didn’t, and I never will.”
When he’d leaned in and tried to charm her, there had been pain and life in his ever-changing eyes. Now they were blank. “Let me show you to the study. You can have privacy there.”
She hooked her purse over her shoulder and followed him out. Wide shoulders tight with muscles shifted under his dress shirt, tapering down to a dip in his back. She halted her perusal. The man now owned half her entire life’s work. How the hell was ogling him going to help matters?
Instead she opened herself to the anger that rode just under the surface. Anger would make things happen. She’d used it before, and she could use it again. The urge to reach out in front of her and touch him, to feel those muscles bunch and flow under her hand was a simple chemical reaction. Living in her small coastal town had been isolating in the best of times, but ever since she’d had to use every last ounce of energy to keep the Heron running, she hadn’t had time to remember she was lonely.
Until now.
Until an admittedly attractive man was put in front of her.
Thinking about Shane Justice naked was normal and natural. Stupid, but normal. And her life had held little normalcy for the last eighteen months.
He opened a door for her, but instead of stepping back, he stood in the doorway looking down at her. Intimidation seemed to be his default reaction to everything. She would not be cowed by him. She turned, then brushed against his chest with her own. When he sucked in a breath, she simply raised a brow at him. Her heart pinged around in her chest like a firefly in a jar, but she held her ground.
She was close enough to catch the scent of cedar chips. She frowned. Why would a suited-up guy smell like fresh wood?
“Don’t be too long. We’ve got a lot of reading to do.”
She slid into the room and sank into an overstuffed leather chair. This room was personal. Her gaze drifted to the desk and the ledger that was still open on the leather blotter. Her father’s desk. The lingering hint of butterscotch made her eyes sting. She remembered her father always having butterscotch in his pocket. She juggled her phone out of her bag and swiped it to life. There were three text messages from her mother and another two from her best friend, Bells.
There was far too much to say in a text. She dialed Bells first. She needed her laughter and her sanity.
“Belinda Grayson.”
“Bells?”
“Oh, Ken, I’ve been so worried. You always text me back so quickly.”
Kendall fussed with her purse strap. Usually a text from her best friend was the highlight of her day. Talking to men who grunted about game and fish was definitely not the kind of conversations she longed for. “It’s been a little crazy.”
“Well? How’d it go?”
