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Or sitting in the front seat, since he hadn’t actually driven anywhere yet.
His strong hands closed around a knob in the middle of the floorboard, close to the dash, and he moved it around. A sound of gears and mechanical shifts permeated the air, and I wondered if that was a normal sound.
Apparently, it was. Because Jeremiah didn’t look too alarmed.
I watched as he put the truck in reverse, then started to slowly back out of the spot.
“Get that belt nice and secure,” he ordered. “And guide me to your place. I remember the address, but I don’t remember the specific location. And this fuckin’ snow all over the damn place isn’t helping.”
I guided him to my house and loved every second of watching him maneuver my truck along the slick roads.
His hands were tight around the steering wheel, and every once in a while, he would rest his hand on his thigh, causing the tendons in his hands to flex with the movement.
God, he had good hands.
He also had incredible driving skills, because not once did he panic when he started to slide.
Luckily, we pulled into my driveway without so much as a tire off the road, and he shut the truck off before getting out.
“Let me help you out,” he ordered.
I found it incredibly sexy, him giving that order, so I stayed put and waited for him to arrive at my side.
Which he did, without so much as falling or slipping this time.
His hard yank had the door opening again, and then his hands were around my waist and he was setting me down gently on my feet.
I moved into him almost out of instinct, and then I was in his arms as he all but carried me up the front walk that led to my house.
My rented house that looked like it’d seen better days.
My goal in life was to own a house with acreage. And not just any house. A house that I could revamp from the ground up. A house that was built in the 1800s. A house that had history. A house that I could video each and every nail, blood drop, and tear that fell during the making. That I could post before and after pictures of and see everyone gasp. A house that I could be proud of.
A house that my father would look at and envy.
That my mother would see and wish she had done the same.
Because at one point, that had been her dream.
But it’d been something she’d given up when she met my dad and became part of his cruel dictates that forced her to either follow the rules or wish she did.
But for now… I was living in a duplex.
For now, I was biding my time.
For now… I was existing.
“What’s that look for?” he asked as he helped me up the stairs.
I inputted the code for the duplex, waiting for it to unlock, but it never did.
It made a strange whirling sound, but never opened.
“Uh-oh,” I murmured. “That’s not good.”
He tapped it with a finger, and it stopped whirling all together and went silent.
I inputted the code again, and this time, it didn’t make a single sound.
“Probably too cold for it,” he murmured. “You have keys?”
“Uh.” I hesitated, my thoughts sluggish as the cold wind decided to rip right through every layer of clothing I had on. “No.”
He squeezed me lightly and said, “What about a window?”
I looked up at the windows.
The duplex was built like a prison.
It was literally one of those places that looked like it was built partially underground, with windows the size of thimbles at the very top of the house, with bars running across most of them. As if the previous owners were afraid of the neighborhood and what lay behind the bars.
Hell, maybe they were.
But Intercourse, Texas wasn’t very scary.
It was old, tiny, and looked as if it were stuck in time.
I hadn’t heard of a single thing go wrong in the town besides some rowdiness down at the local watering hole. And even that hadn’t really happened much lately since a fire a couple of months ago that had killed the owner.
Though, now that I thought about it, that fire had killed someone in foul play…
“Those.” I pointed. “The only one that’s for sure open is the one in my back bedroom. It’s also about as small as I am wide. I’ll never fit.”
He looked at me curiously, then helped me around the back, closing his hand around my freezing hand and clasping it tightly.
I pretended it was because he wanted to hold my hand. Not because I was going to fall on my ass, and he didn’t want that.
We made it around the back of the duplex, and I frowned at all the snow over every single bit of area in the backyard. Even the bushes had a solid eight inches of snow on top of them.
