by Gemma Weir
I’m moving before I even realize I’m doing it, circling my RV and opening the driver’s door to climb back inside. I know some basic self-defense, but against a guy this big, I’m not sure any of it would help me.
Closing the door behind me, I press the button to lock it, suddenly glad that my ancient RV doesn’t have central locking and that all the other doors are already locked shut. When he appears at my window, I have to swallow past my shock as my eyes take in his appearance.
A shock of barely tamed dark brown hair covers his head, his chin coated in dark stubble almost thick enough to be called a beard. His jaw is square, his features masculine, leading to warm brown eyes that are focused on me like I’m a wild animal ready to attack.
His chest is massive, thick and broad with what I suspect is hard muscle, although I can’t see for sure through his Henley and thick padded bodywarmer. His lips are tipped at the corners in an almost smile, but the friendly expression doesn’t seem to reach his eyes.
“Hi ma’am, my name is Granger Barnett. I can see you’re a little freaked out, so here’s what you’re going to do. Take out your cell and type in 911. I’m not going to attempt to touch or open your vehicle, I’m just going to stay right here until one of my brothers gets here to recover you from the side of the road. If at any point you feel unsafe, I want you go right ahead and call the sheriff. Rockhead Point is a pretty safe town, but I can’t think of a single roadside I’d consider safe enough for one of my sisters to be stranded on, and I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I were to leave you here alone.”
Nodding, I do as he suggests and type 911 into my cell, my thumb poised over the call button. Maybe I’m being naïve, but he doesn’t seem dangerous. I’m still not going to unlock my door or get out of the RV though.
He watches me as I type into my cell, then nods approvingly. “I’m gonna give my brother Bay a call, him and my brother Penn run the shop and they should be able to get out here pretty quick.”
I nod again, and he clicks into his cell then lifts it to his ear. “Hey Bro, I’m out on Sunderland Ave and there’s a woman broken down in a…” Pausing, he glances down at the RV and wrinkles his brow. “It’s an old dodge RV.”
He stops speaking, and I’m assuming whoever is on the other end of the line is talking.
“Okay, yeah, I’m gonna stay with her till you get here. Okay. Thanks.” Ending the call, he slides his cell and his hands into his pockets in what I think he’s hoping is non-threatening body language.
“How many sisters do you have?” Shoot, why did I just ask him that? It’s none of my business and I know better than to try to engage people in unnecessary conversation.
“Two. Bonnie is married to my oldest brother, and Cora is engaged to my brother Huck and expecting my first niece or nephew.”
I nod. Looking down at the cell in my hands and hoping he goes and sits back in his car. I don’t want him to feel obliged to talk to me just because he’s playing the good Samaritan.
“Do you have a name?”
Lifting my gaze, I don’t smile, I don’t need to look eager. “Alice.”
“Well, Miss Alice, it’s nice to meet you. Do you have any siblings?”
“One older sister.” A short and sweet answer, he doesn’t want to chat, he’s just being polite after I asked him about his sisters, that’s all.
“I’m one of seven, nine now with the girls,” he laughs. “I couldn’t imagine only having one sibling. Are you and your sister close?”
“Not really,” I shake my head.
“That’s a shame, my family is very close, my brothers are my best friends and I’d be lost without them. So, are you on vacation?”
“Just passing through.”
“You don’t say much, do you?”
I allow my lips to tip up at the sides in an attempt at a smile, but don’t say anything.
“So where are you passing through to?”
“Big Mountain.”
“Oh, do you ski?”
I shake my head.
“Snowboard?”
I shake my head again.
“You’re heading to one of the most popular ski resorts in the state, but you don’t ski or snowboard?” he asks, a little bemused.
“There’s always plenty of work during ski season,” I admit reluctantly, not wanting to force him to engage with me anymore than he has to. He’s obviously feeling awkward just standing here without talking.
“What kind of work are you looking for?”
I shrug. “I don’t really mind.”
“Do you live in Montana?”
“No.”
“So where have you come from?”
I’m saved from answering when a large black tow truck appears beside us, a guy who looks similar to Granger behind the wheel, smiling widely, his arm hanging out the window. “Hiya, let me just get turned round and I’ll get that beast hooked up. Granger, can you move your car out the way?”
Granger nods, then walks to his car. When his engine starts, I expect him to drive away and a twinge of sadness that he’s leaving hits me. Only instead of pulling onto the road, he drives forward a hundred yards then stops again, getting back out of his car just in time to guide the tow truck toward the front of my RV.
Once the tow truck’s in position, Granger’s brother jumps out of the cab and Granger walks over to him, slapping him on the shoulder and pointing at me. I startle a little when they both move to toward me.
“Miss Alice, this is my brother Bay.”
“Nice to meet you, Miss Alice, I’m gonna need you to jump out so I can hook your RV up to the truck. Then we can recover you back to the shop so we can see what’s going on with this beast. You can go jump into the cab of my truck, the heaters are on and this won’t take a minute.”
Nodding, I unlock the RV, my cell still gripped tightly in my hand as I grab my purse and then open the door. Both men step back to allow me to climb out. When my feet are firmly on the floor, I look up, and up again at the brothers who are both well over six feet tall.
“Thanks,” I mumble as I bypass them both and head for the tow truck.
2
Granger
Fuck, this is her. Her. My woman. Mine. All mine. How is this possible? How can it happen just like that? One glance and I knew, unequivocally knew without any element of doubt that I’m going to make this woman mine, that I’m going to marry her, fill her with my baby and keep her forever.
I really try hard not to watch her leave but I just can’t help myself, Alice is the most curious woman I’ve ever met. She’s tall, her frame slim and almost athletic, with small breasts and narrow hips. Her hair is a shiny blonde, the color of straw on a warm summer day, and it’s long, reaching right down her back in the loose braid she’s got it twisted into.
She’s dressed plainly in simple blue jeans, a long sleeve white t-shirt and brown leather boots. She’d be completely average if you only looked at her from the neck down, because her face is almost angelic. I’m not a fucking poetic guy, but this woman is ethereal. Her features are almost elfin, a tiny nose, high cheek bones and full pouty lips, she’s quite simply the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen in my life.
There doesn’t seem to be a scrap of makeup on her face, nor anything to accentuate her bright green eyes. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anyone with naturally blonde hair and green eyes before, but on her it’s stunning.
I’ve met a lot of beautiful women, but usually they come complete with a sense of entitlement that’s completely missing from Alice. She doesn’t move like a woman who’s aware of the power of her beauty either. Her steps are long, but she’s not strutting, she’s just trying to get to where she’s going as fast as she can and right now, where she wants to be seems to be away from us.
“Woo, she is—” Bay starts
“Mine,” I snap the word out before I even realize I was thinking it.
“What?”
“Mine,” I say again under my breath. “S
he’s mine.”
“Do you know her?” Bay asks, his brow furrowed as he looks at me in confusion.
“Nope, met her ten minutes ago, right before I called you.”
“Fuck, that must have been some ten minutes. What the hell did she say to you to make you go all gaga like Beau and Huck?”
“She barely said ten words to me.” I laugh.
“Then…” he trails off.
“I have no fucking clue, but I know she’s mine. Don’t ask me how I know, I just do.”
“Do you even know her last name?”
“Nope.”
“Is she even single?”
“Not anymore, she’s mine,” I say single-mindedly.
“You can’t just—”
“I just did,” I interrupt him. “She’s alone, hardly anything in the RV and not wearing a ring, if she has a boyfriend then he’s doing a shitty job looking after her and he doesn’t deserve her. Either way, she’s mine now and I’m keeping her.”
Bay’s chuckle starts off low and quiet, building in volume until he’s straight out laughing. “Fuck, that poor girl.”
I smile to myself, Alice has an aura of sadness around her, but I’ll fix that, she’s mine now, even though it makes very little sense to me how this happened. I should have taken notice when my dad told us about meeting Mom, I should have been less skeptical when first Beau, then Huck fell for their women, because now it’s happening to me. Suddenly, it makes complete sense to feel this way about a woman I don’t know at all, even though it shouldn’t.
If I were in my right mind, I’d get in my car and drive away, but it’s like the moment I saw her, my world narrowed and now all I want is to talk to her, to learn everything there is to know about her.
Something about Alice is calling to my baser instincts, telling me that she needs to be cared for, coddled and protected. Maybe it’s because she wouldn’t look me in the eye, maybe it’s because she almost seemed to be upset with herself for asking me a question, or maybe it’s just the air of hopelessness that seems to be following her. Whatever it is, I want her, need her, need to take care of her in a way I’ve only ever heard my brothers try to explain and now makes perfect sense.
Bay slaps me on the shoulder, still chuckling as he quickly hooks Alice’s clapped out RV to the tow truck. “I take it you’re following me back to the shop?”
“Yep.”
Scoffing, he shakes his head. “We got to start putting bets on who falls next now it’s gotten you. My money’s on Teddy, he’s got hearts in his eyes watching Cora getting bigger with Huck’s baby, I think he’s got the urge to be a daddy, not just an uncle.”
“The mac truck analogy that Daddy, Beau and Huck said, makes total sense now. Don’t say anything to piss off my woman,” I warn, as I walk around the truck, climb back into my car and then pull onto the road after Bay and follow them back to garage.
My mind is spinning at a hundred miles an hour as we drive the short distance into town to my brothers’ shop. Penn and Bay love restoring classic cars, as well as maintaining the town’s mixture of new and ancient vehicles. When Bay backs Alice’s RV into the building, the shit heap of a RV doesn’t look too out of place next to Winston Jones’ farm truck and his wife’s Cadillac, which are both in for their yearly service.
When Bay kills the engine on the tow, his door opens and he frowns at me as he moves to unhook the RV so he can move the tow truck round the back of the shop and out of the way.
“What’s up?” I ask as I close the distance between us.
“She’s not much of a talker, is she? I asked her a few questions and she barely muttered two words to me.”
“Tell me you weren’t a dick to her,” I snarl.
“I wasn’t a dick, I just asked her how long she’d had the RV and where she was headed. You sure she’s the one? She’s pretty, but she’s not exactly a chatty Cathy.”
“Yes, I’m sure. Ever thought she’s just shy?”
He shrugs. “I mean there’s shy and there’s non-communicative.”
“So she doesn’t want to answer a load of questions from a stranger, that’s not that weird. We’re just used to women we meet having known us or at least known of us all our lives. Alice isn’t from here, she’s probably terrified.”
Walking away from Bay before he has a chance to respond, I circle the truck just as Alice is closing the door behind her, her purse clutched to her chest, her eyes downcast and still filled with a sadness that I wish I knew how to eradicate.
“So it’s gonna take a little while for Bay to look over your RV, did you want to come grab some lunch with me?”
She lifts her eyes to me, purses her lips, then shakes her head. “I can just wait here, you don’t need to entertain me.”
“You’ve still got to eat though, I mean it’s lunchtime, and there’s a great little diner just around the corner, I’d enjoy having some company,” I coax, frantically trying to force down the caveman urge that’s telling me to just throw her over my shoulder and take her home with me.
“Don’t you have to go to work?”
Her voice is sweet and low, but I get the feeling she’s making it sound deliberately monotone, like she doesn’t want to sound too interested.
“Nope, joys of running my own business, I can set my own hours. Come on, let’s go eat, I’m starving.” Placing my palm flat against the base of her spine, I guide her forward, not giving her a chance to deliver the rejection to my invite that I can see on the edge of her lips.
She freezes beneath my touch but I don’t move my hand. I want her to get used to me touching her, I want her to want it, to crave it, and that will only come once she gets used to me being around. There’s plenty of people on the sidewalk as I lead her toward Granny Annie’s diner, and despite us not being alone she doesn’t relax, her back taut and ramrod straight even as I push open the door to the diner and let her walk in first.
Annie waves at me from behind the counter, I come into the diner at least a couple of times a week, and Annie was my mama’s friend so she’s known me and my brothers literally our entire lives.
“Granger, take that booth over there, Tasha will be out in just a minute to bring you some coffee.”
“Thanks Annie,” I call, replacing my hand on Alice’s back as I propel her toward a small booth in the middle of the busy restaurant. I gesture for Alice to slide into one side of the booth and I sit opposite her, hating that I’m no longer able to touch her, but glad that I can look her in the face from here.
“Hey Granger,” Tasha our waitress says, pushing the loose strands of dark hair that have fallen from her tight bun behind her ears as she pulls out two menu’s from beneath her arm and hands one to Alice then one to me. Turning the coffee cups that are already set up on the table the right way up, she immediately fills mine. “Coffee?” she asks Alice.
“No, thank you, could I just get some water please?” Alice asks in her soft, quiet voice.
“Sure thing, you take a look at the menu and I’ll be right out with your drink,” Tasha says, flashing Alice a big motherly smile, touching her shoulder as she leaves.
“Not a coffee drinker?”
Shrugging, she lifts the menu in front of her, effectively blocking her from my view.
There’s something adorably childish about the action and I smile at the menu, leaning back in my seat and watching her, waiting for her to drop the cover and see me sitting here staring at her. I wish I knew her better, or at all, then I’d know how to go about making her mine in every way possible. She’s skittish, that much is obvious and I don’t want to scare her off, even if my brother is currently holding her getaway vehicle hostage.
“Here you go, sweetie,” Tasha says, reappearing at the side of the table and placing a large glass of ice water in front of Alice. “You ‘bout ready to order?”
I wait as my girl slowly emerges from behind her menu shield. “I’ll have a ham and mustard on rye please, with a side of fries.”
Tash
a nods then turns to me. “Granger?”
“Chili cheese burger, extra fries, extra onion rings please.”
“Any more drinks?”
Both Alice and I shake our heads and Tasha nods, scribbling down on her little pad before taking our menus and scurrying away, taking an order from another table on her way to the kitchen.
“So, you never finished telling me where you’re from,” I say, lifting my coffee mug and taking a sip.
“All over really.”
I wait for her to expand, but she doesn’t and her gaze drops to her hands as she picks at the napkin in front of her.
“So where were you last?”
“Vermont.”
“You drove that RV from Vermont to Montana?” I ask incredulous.
“Yes.”
Another one-word answer. It’s starting to drive me a little crazy.
“What were you doing in Vermont?
“I was working as a walking guide showing the tourists the fall leaves.”
“Is that what you’re hoping to do up in Big Mountain?”
“No, in winter I usually look for work at one of the resorts.”
I try not to look too shocked, even though I think that’s the longest sentence she’s said to me so far. “Were you in Vermont long?”
She shakes her head. “About three months.”
“And before Vermont?”
“I was in the Hampton’s for the summer, working as a waitress.”
“Is that where you’re from then?”
“No, I was just there for the summer.”
“So where’s home?”
For the first time, her gaze lifts and she looks as me quizzically like I’ve asked an odd question. “My RV.”
“No, I mean home home, where your family and friends are.”
“My mom lives in Missouri with her husband, my sister lives in West Virginia with her boyfriend and I’m not sure where my dad is, I haven’t seen him since I was a kid.”
An ache blooms in my chest for the beautiful woman in front of me. She’s telling me where her family live, but it’s clear she doesn’t consider any of those places as home. Does she not have a home? Does she just move aimlessly from place to place living out of a beat up RV with nowhere permanent to put down roots? The thought sickens me. I know not everyone lives in the town they were born in, but Rockhead Point is my home and I can’t ever imagine wanting to be anywhere else. Everything I love is here and even though I went away to college, I never felt settled until I was back here and surrounded by my family.