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CHAPTER ONE
KEIRA
“Keira!”
I jump and the coffee cups rattle against the counter. It’s late and I’m exhausted after preparing and serving a full meal for everyone at Garrison Ranch. It took me the usual two hours after dinner to clean the kitchen and load all the dishes into the dishwasher. I was about to head upstairs to bed when I heard truck tires come up the drive.
My husband, Clint, told me to go back into the kitchen. Unsurprised, I obeyed, but I lingered just behind the doorway. Listening to the unfamiliar voice of our late night visitor.
It’s deep and smooth with a thick undercurrent of gravel. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up although I’m not sure why. I lift my arm and goosebumps are popping up across my skin.
I lean my head against the wall and close my eyes. Their footsteps fade out as they head upstairs to Clint’s office on the second floor. It doesn’t bother me anymore that my husband shuts me out of everything, including who comes and goes in my own home. I know exactly what I’m good for in his mind and it’s not being his equal.
Clint’s footfalls ring out again and I make a mad dash for the island countertop. It’s empty so I pretend I’m taking forks andknives from the drawer. His boots pause in the doorway and I look up, brushing back my hair.
My husband is a tall man with dusky blonde hair and steel gray eyes. He’s handsome, but I stopped feeling anything when I looked at him a long time ago. Maybe less than a year after our wedding.
“Make up some coffee for our guest,” he says.
I nod and slide the silverware back into the drawer. “Decaf?”
He glances up at the clock over the stove. It was his grandmother’s and then his mother’s. I fucking hate it. I wish I could open the back door and pitch it so hard I never have to look at it again. It’s yellowed and the wooden frame has cracked from hanging above the stove. But the reason I hate it so much has more to do with how badly his late mother treated me after the wedding.
Before the wedding, she’d been nothing but sweet. But as soon as the ring was firmly on my finger, she stopped speaking to me except to hurl insults. It was a relief when she died.
I used to wonder what I did to make his family hate me. But after a while, I came to accept that nothing made sense anymore. Clint had once loved me too. Now he’s disgusted every time I open my mouth.
“Of course,” he says.
“How many cups?”
He shrugs. “Make up a tray. And put something to eat on there as well.”
He leaves before I can ask him what. I wipe my hands on my apron and unwrap the leftover biscuits. Even Clint doesn’t have a bad word to say about my biscuits. They’re fluffy, layered perfectly so they can be split open hot and soaked with butter and raspberry jam. I pop them in the oven for a few minutes as I make coffee.
Then I load everything up and slip my house shoes off to carry them upstairs in my socks. I don’t want to risk falling and spilling everything.
Clint would lose his shit.
I’m wearing a modest, long-sleeved dress that goes to my knees. At least I don’t have to worry about Clint calling me a slut. He likes to do that when I wear anything that shows an inch of skin.
Outside the oak door, I balance the tray in one hand and knock once with the other.
There’s a short silence. Then:
“Come in.”
I enter, allowing myself one glance over the room. I see a pair of steel-toe boots by the chair in the corner. Clint sits at his desk between the two windows on the far wall. There’s a short pile of folders before him, one of them open. I can tell it’s paperwork for cattle.
“Set it down on the desk,” Clint says, without looking up.
Uncomfortable, I cross the room and put the tray down. My eyes flick to the side, locking on the stranger’s boots. They’re bigger than normal and the leather is worn. Whoever he is, he’s a broad man, I can tell from his feet.
Gathering my courage, I let my eyes run higher.
My heart stops.
He has a pair of pale blue eyes beneath dark, lowered brows. His face is broad and masculine, his jawline defined and covered in a short beard. His nose is heavy with a bump on the bridge, like maybe he broke it once. There’s a firmness to his expression and face, but no emotion.
