by HELEN HARDT
“You don’t have to apologize,” I said.
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Oh.” I wasn’t sure why I thought he was going there. No man had ever apologized for kissing me. Why would Matteo Rossi?
“I don’t think it’s any secret that I’m very attracted to you,” he said. “Are you attracted to me?”
Yes. No. Yes. No.
Yes, I’m attracted to you. But no, I don’t want to be.
I didn’t say any of this. Instead, I stood there like an idiot.
“What are you hiding, Riley?”
My mouth dropped open. Where had that come from? “I’m not hiding anything.”
“Bullshit.”
“Who do you think you are?”
“I think I’m a guy who would like to get to know you better. I think I’m a guy who is attracted to you. I’m talking majorly attracted, Riley. Surely you know what a beautiful woman you are.”
Hell, yeah, I knew. I’d been beautiful my whole life. Most people probably thought I was lucky. Personally? I considered it a curse.
Riley Wolfe, supermodel. Riley Wolfe brings back the days of Cindy Crawford and Naomi Campbell. Yeah, that had been a headline. A headline I’d been forced to live up to.
Apparently I was good at modeling. Modeling took more than just a pretty face and a hot body. Yeah, I worked hard, but I was also a natural, according to all the experts.
I didn’t say any of this to Matt. To Matt, I was Riley Mansfield, business ed teacher. And he was Matt Rossi, small-town guy who owned a few cabins and…was the most beautiful man—both inside and out—I’d ever met in my life.
“Sure,” I said. “I’ve been called beautiful a few times.”
“A few times?” He shook his head.
“Yeah? Well, you’re the hottest thing walking around here as far as I’ve seen.”
He smiled. “So you are attracted to me.”
“I’m breathing, aren’t I?”
That got a laugh out of him. “I suppose I could say the same thing. I’d bet no man on earth could resist you.”
If he only knew how right he was…
There was no good answer to that, so I stayed silent.
“May I come in?”
“That’s not a good idea.” Even though I wanted it more than anything in the world.
“Why not?”
“I’m just not ready.”
“Your kiss said differently.”
He wasn’t wrong. I had definitely kissed him back, and I’d enjoyed every second of it. But I had a harsh history as far as sex was concerned, and he deserved better. He deserved a whole woman. I was so far from that. I wasn’t sure I could ever be wholly healed. But my father was dead now, and I was going to try. No more drugs. No more burns. Even if it killed me.
“I loved the kiss,” I said truthfully.
“I’d love to give you another, then.”
“Matt…”
“I have no idea what you’re running from, but whoever hurt you? I’d like to fucking pummel him into the ground.”
I shook my head and let out a light chuckle. “He’s dead.”
“Good. Saves me the trouble.”
“You’re a really nice guy, Matt. And I’m a fucking mess.”
“You look pretty good from where I’m standing.”
“If you could see inside my head, you’d rethink that statement.”
“Hell, honey, we all have shit inside our heads. God knows I do.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’m okay. I’m happy here. I don’t let the past control me.”
Did he truly have a past? A past as horrific as mine? He couldn’t possibly. “Then you’re stronger than I am.”
“Strength isn’t really the issue. Perseverance is. It’s the journey.”
I sighed. “What if I’m tired of my journey? What if I’m just too fucking tired to persevere?”
“I think that’s why you’re here,” he said. “You’re running. You’re hiding. And that’s okay. It’s okay for a week. It’s even okay for two weeks, three weeks, a whole year. But eventually you won’t be able to run any longer.”
“I can run for a long time, Matt. I’m in great shape.”
“I can see that, but you know as well as I do that I was speaking metaphorically.”
I couldn’t help a smile. “Yeah, I know.”
“What are you running from, Riley?”
“A ghost,” I said. “The phantom that I fear will haunt me forever.”
“I understand, maybe even better than you think I do. Funny thing about ghosts, though. They can be exorcised.”
8
Matteo
“Can they?” she asked, her voice adorably childlike. “Can they truly?”
“They can. You’ll still have the memories. Believe me, no one knows that better than I do. But you can come to think of them as another lifetime, one that was part of your journey but has no bearing on it now.”
She let out a soft scoff. “I wish I believed that.”
“You don’t have to believe it. Not yet, anyway. Things take time, but the beauty of that is, you’re young and you have all the time in the world.”
She backed up then, settling against the wooden door. Then she met my gaze. “You seem so…together. So much more together than I could ever hope to be.”
“Together is an illusion. No one is fully together, not even Dr. Phil himself. You can bet on that.”
“That’s old news. I’ve lived my life by faking it until I make it. I don’t want to do that anymore. I can’t.”
“Fake it till you make it is bad advice,” I said. “If no one knows you’re struggling, no one will help you, and that can lead to horrible things.”
I knew that better than most, for reasons I tried not to think about.
Shit. That was a boner killer.
Maybe tonight wasn’t the night.
I brushed my lips over Riley’s in a soft kiss. “Good night, honey.”
She lifted her eyebrows. “You’re leaving?”
“Yeah. You said you’re not ready for anything more, and I respect that. I can’t say I’m not disappointed, but I do understand. I’m here, at least for the next week while you’re here. If you need some help chasing away the demons, I’m pretty good at that.”
“I’m not ready, Matt. But I also don’t want to be alone tonight.”
“You came here to a tiny town where you don’t know anyone. You came here to be alone, Riley.”
She smiled shyly. “I did, but then I met you.”
This time I lifted my eyebrows.
“I’m not anywhere near ready for anything, but I can’t deny how attracted I am to you. And honestly, it’s not just because you’re gorgeous to look at. I think you’re one of the good guys, Matt, and for a while, I was wondering if good guys still existed.”
I kept my smile from splitting my face. This was serious, and I wanted to give her the respect she deserved. “Honey, good guys still exist. In fact, there are a shitload more of us than there are bad guys.”
She sighed. “Not in my world.”
“Then I think you need to find a different world.”
“Like this one?”
“Not necessarily. You don’t have to pack up and move. You just need to—”
She moved forward quickly and kissed my cheek, rendering me speechless.
“What if I want to? What if I want to pack up and move? What if I never want to go back there again?”
“Are you married?”
“Of course not! I would’ve told you if I were.”
“Any kids?”
“Again, I would’ve told you.”
“Then why can’t you pack up and move?”
“I have a…”
“Job?”
“Yeah. A job.”
“Quit. Without anyone depending on you and your paycheck except yourself, you can do whatever you want. Pack up, move, and find a new job.”
; She dropped her gaze to her feet. Yeah, definitely hiding something.
I tipped her chin upward, forcing her to look into my eyes. “Look, Riley. I get it. I do. There are times when I don’t want to be alone either. And there’s nothing more I’d love than to come inside and make love to you until the sun comes up, but that won’t solve either of our problems.”
Well, it would solve one of mine—the hard-on that had returned as soon as she kissed me.
She wrinkled her forehead. “You have problems?”
Had she not just heard me say I understood? I couldn’t help it. I guffawed. “Honey, everyone has problems.”
“I know. That made me sound really self-centered and privileged, didn’t it?”
“Yeah. It did.”
“I’m sorry. That was rude.”
“It was.”
I didn’t mind, though. She’d just given me a big clue into what she was hiding from. Something really bad had happened to Riley Mansfield. Something really, really bad. And I’d also bet she wasn’t a teacher from Pittsburgh. She’d used the word privileged to describe herself, and a teacher, who was most likely underpaid and notoriously not privileged, wouldn’t have used such a word.
Who the hell was she? And what the hell had happened to her?
Walk away, Matt.
Good advice. Advice I’d taken from myself before. The last thing I needed was drama. I enjoyed my life and kept it as drama-free as possible.
Riley Mansfield? She would lead to drama. Big time.
Walk away. Do it. Walk the fuck away.
But my feet didn’t move.
“I’m sorry,” she said again.
“I accept your apology. Good night.” I kissed her cheek lightly.
She nodded. “Will I see you tomorrow?”
“If you want to.”
She smiled. My God, she was gorgeous.
“I definitely want to. Goodnight.”
Lucas, one of my best buddies and the late-night bartender at the Stein Saloon across the street from Trudy’s, set a beer in front of me. “Who is she?”
I took a long draught of the beer. “Who’s who?”
“The looker everyone’s talking about. The girl you took to Trudy’s tonight for dinner.”
“She rented my cabin for a week. Her name’s Riley. Riley Mansfield.”
“And you took her to dinner? Since when do you take your renters to dinner?”
I laughed. “Since they started looking like her.”
“Funny. When you get a good-looking renter, you don’t usually take her out to dinner. You usually eat in and then take her to bed.”
I couldn’t fault his observation. Frankly, I probably could be making love to Riley Mansfield at the moment. She’d made it pretty clear she didn’t want to be alone, and I knew exactly how to handle a needy woman, including one with a past. Hell, I’d done it before.
But Riley was different. I wasn’t sure Riley was even Riley. Or rather, I wasn’t sure she was Chloe. Perhaps Riley was her real name, and she’d given it to me by mistake.
“Maybe she turned me down.”
That got a good guffaw out of Lucas. “That’s great. Means there’s hope for the rest of us.”
“There’s a story there,” I said. “I just couldn’t do it, Luke.”
“There’s another first.”
I polished off my beer. “I’m out of here. See you tomorrow.”
“Bright and early!”
I nodded and left the bar. Lucas and I had agreed to repair the fence over at Molly Carson’s house. Molly was an elderly widow, and everyone in town helped take care of her.
Good hard labor was good for the head. I was looking forward to this project.
I had left my truck at my cabin after I said goodnight to Riley and walked into town for my nightcap. Now I walked home, enjoying the starry night, the half-mile to my cabin. In the distance, light shone from the windows in Riley’s cabin. Temptation coiled through me. I could walk over there. I could knock on the door just to see how she was. Under the pretense that I was concerned.
Except it wouldn’t be a pretense. I was concerned.
No. Don’t do it, Matt. Give her the space she needs.
Damned good advice.
I started walking anyway.
9
Riley
I thrashed in bed.
Images. Haunting voices. They all invaded my mind. I could deal with them. I had dealt with them for decades.
But since my father’s death, the numbness had somehow dissipated. All those years, I’d forced my body to stop feeling, but now…?
Somehow, with his death, my body had awakened. Everything I had tamped down, everything I had forced to the very innermost crevices of my soul…
Now it was here.
He was inside me. Doing things inside my body. Things no father should do to a child. Things no man should do to a woman without explicit permission.
Those things…
Those abhorrent and horrific things.
His death shouldn’t have made it worse. Indeed, I had rejoiced when I heard. Of course, that was before I’d been implicated.
I didn’t kill him. I didn’t kill the bastard, but if I was going to get blamed for it anyway?
I wished I’d been the one to pull the fucking trigger.
I wished it with everything inside me.
Why? Why could I still feel him inside me?
Why did—
I jerked at the sound of a knock on the door.
It was after midnight. Who would be knocking at my door after midnight? This was a small town, but small towns could have derelicts too.
I hadn’t turned out the light, though. I always slept with a light on. I had since I was six years old.
Who knew I was here? No one but Matt.
It was Matt. It had to be.
I raced to the door clad in a tank top and pajama pants. Equally excited and frightened about opening the door.
I opened it anyway. Funny, I never opened the door not knowing who was on the other side in Manhattan or anywhere else. But I knew it was Matt, and I was right.
He stood under the porch light, looking just as delectable as he had when he bid me goodnight two hours earlier.
“Hey,” he said.
“What are you doing here?”
“I saw the light in the bedroom on. Just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
I swallowed. “I’m fine.”
Except that I wasn’t.
“Good. I’m glad.” He smiled. “I’ll be on my way, then.”
Let him go. Just let him go. Don’t drag him into your black world.
“Wait.”
He lifted his eyebrows.
“Don’t go. Come in. Please.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m asking you to come in, Matt. I’m not asking you to take me to bed.”
“In that case, I’ll be going.” He smiled again.
“Seriously? You’re really a big piece of—”
“Calm down. I’m kidding. My God, you big-city girls don’t know how to take a joke.”
“I can take a joke just fine. But jokes are usually funny.”
He clasped his hands to his heart. “I’m not funny?”
“Just get your butt in here.” I held the door open.
He entered, and I closed the door and clicked the deadbolt lock.
“I don’t have anything to offer you accept water.”
“Not true. There should be flavored seltzer in the fridge.”
“Oh? Honestly, I haven’t looked.”
He walked to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and helped himself to a can. “You want one?”
“No thanks. I’m actually drinking water out of the tap. I never do that at home, but this is delicious. It’s so fresh and cold.”
“Sourced straight from the Rockies. Doesn’t get much fresher than that.”
“Then why do you drink that crap out of the can?”
&nbs
p; “Because I like the crap out of the can. I like my water sparkling. Always have.”
I shook my head. “You’re something. That’s for sure.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” He took a drink of the seltzer.
Now what? Part of me wanted to throw caution to the wind and kiss him again, see what happened.
But I had so many demons. Was it fair to him to drag him into it? If only I could escape the demons, just for this week while I was here at his cabin.
If only…
How well I knew those two words. If only…
But my life was what it was. No “if only” could change it now.
“I don’t have anything to offer you to eat. Unless you laid in supplies I don’t know about.”
“You have some snacks and some produce in the fridge, but I’m not hungry, thanks.” He took another drink.
“Tell me,” I said. “What should I do tomorrow? Tell me what to do in a small town.”
“Honey, there’s not a lot to do in a small town. Which is, I have a feeling, why you came here in the first place.”
He wasn’t wrong. “You’re right, but sitting around alone in a cabin all by myself with my thoughts doesn’t sound too great right now.”
“Sounds pretty good to me,” he said.
“Yeah, well, you don’t have my thoughts.”
“True. I only have my own.” He set the seltzer down on the counter and looked me straight in my eyes. “Penny for yours.”
If he only knew. “You’ll need to pay way more than a penny for mine.”
“Oh?”
“I only mean that… It’s a mess in there. In my head, I mean.”
“I doubt that.”
“You’d be wrong.” I picked up his can of seltzer and took a drink, wincing. “Ugh. How can you drink this crap?”
“It’s a developed taste. Not everyone likes the bubbles.”
“I don’t mind the bubbles. I sure love a good champagne. Real champagne, I mean, from the Champagne region in France.”
“You’re not really a teacher, are you?”
My cheeks warmed. “Of course I am. Why would you doubt me?”
“I’d say most teachers don’t drink a lot of champagne. Real champagne, that is, from the Champagne region in France.”
“Why wouldn’t they?”