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“I don’t even own an axe,” I tell him, still laughing.
“Are you into weird sex stuff?”
“Define weird.” This one stiffens the back of my neck, my laughter dwindling down to a scoff. “Where’s this coming from?” When he doesn’t answer me, I shake my head. “Look—”
“It’s just occurred to me that we don’t really know each other.” Damien gives me a shrug while avoiding the questioning glare I have pinned to his face. “This is where I live. I want to make sure I’m not making a mistake by bringing you here, is all.”
“Bullshit.” I might not have seen my brother in a while but I remember what a terrible liar he is. “You want to try that again?”
“Okay...” Damien shoots me a quick, guarded look. “Mr. Barrett has a daughter.” His frown reappears. “Two of them actually, Kait and Abs—Abigail.”
Now I’m frowning too because I suddenly understand what he’s asking me and why and I don’t like it. “And?”
“And Mr. Barrett put Kait in charge of cleaning up after you and making your weekly supply runs but if you’re an axe murdering sex weirdo, I’d just as soon know now because—”
“Fuck you.” I growl at him, narrowing my gaze on his profile. “I’ve never hurt a woman and I never will—not ever.”
“Sorry.” My heated response loosens the tension in his jaw. “I had to ask, man.”
“Fuck off.” I turn away from him to aim my gaze out the window. “Seriously, fuck off—and for the record, I don’t need someone cleaning up after me. The last thing I want is some dizzy little farm girl hanging around, figuring out who I am and blabbing online that I’m hiding out in her father’s hunting cabin.”
“Ranch.”
“What?” I bark back, feeling my temper start to cool when I see the corners of his mouth twitch like he’s fighting to keep from laughing at me.
“Technically, Kait isn’t a farm girl.” The grin he’s been fighting to hold back breaks loose. “She’s a ranch girl and as far as the internet goes, you’re safe. There aren’t too many places in the valley that can even catch a signal.” Pulling off the main road, Damien pilots the truck down a private drive, passing under a large, arching sign that reads:
BARR TT
In the distance, there’s a large two-story house made of log and stone surrounded by several outbuildings and sprawling green grass. Instead of heading in their direction, Damien takes another right, this one taking us up an incline and into a series of narrow switchbacks, the house and outbuildings instantly swallowed by a thick screen of trees. “She’s going to college—Kait.” He doesn’t look at me when he says it, keeping his eyes on the razor thin road ahead of us. On my side is the mountain where climbing. On his, a sheer drop-off of about a hundred feet and climbing. “The university of Montana—online.”
“You just said there’s no Wi-Fi signal out here,” I remind him while the truck rumbles over a cattle guard.
“No.” Executing another right-hand turn, Damien shakes his head. “I said there aren’t too many places to catch one—this is one of them.”
I give him a puzzled look, trying to figure out what ranch girl’s education plan has to do with me. Before I can ask, the road opens on a large swath of land dug in between mountains. Out Damien’s window, I can see a smallish lake, so clear and blue it reflects the sky and mountains above it, faint wisps of steam rising from its surface.
“Hot lake,” Damien tells me when he catches me looking out the window. “Water stays about eighty degrees, year-round. From what Mr. Barrett says, it’s one of the reasons Elias Barrett settled the valley—Northpoint is the original homestead. Mr. Barrett rebuilt it a few years back.”
Ahead a smaller version of the large, sprawling house we just left behind comes into view. There’s someone sitting on the front porch steps. When they spot us coming up the road, they stand.
A girl—maybe a woman—with long brown hair that shines a burnish sort of gold in the sunlight and the kind of body that makes me sit up a little straighter in my seat. Compact and curvy in a pair of worn jeans and T-shirt that does little to hide her full breasts and firm, round ass.
Definitely a woman.
My age—maybe a little younger but not by much.
I suddenly understand why my brother is nervous about my being alone with her.
Sensing my sudden interest, Damien slows the truck to a crawl. “I did you a favor, right?” He asks while he brings the truck to a stop in front of the porch steps the woman is standing on. “When you needed somewhere to lay low, I delivered.”
I cut his boss a check for four-hundred grand for my stay here but he’s right—if not for Damien giving me the hook-up, I’d probably still be in LA hiding under my bed. “Yeah...” I say it cautiously while I watch the woman standing less than ten feet away, watch me. “So?”
Goddamn, she’s beautiful.
Not the kind of beautiful I’m used to.
Not perfect and plastic like my mother.