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A nna’s stomach cartwheeled at the prospect of realizing two very different things about herself that she’d previously not thought possible. The first was a newly discovered ability to wolf down three apples in a row, being sure to gnaw the juicy flesh from each core like a picked-over chicken wing. The second, and this one was a bit more disturbing, was grappling with the fact that key components of her dreams had somehow manifested into her very real and very untidy kitchen.

Scratch that. A formerly untidy kitchen, as the mountain of dishes that had been overflowing in her sink for an indiscriminate amount of time had miraculously disappeared.

Iron slid out of the small space holding two mugs whose handles were gripped together in one hand, along with a plate of various breakfast offerings in the other. He set the food and one mug down on the end table next to her armchair and took the remaining mug with him across the living room where he plopped down on the couch.

Coffee. The man had brought her coffee. And not the putrid decaf garbage she’d had to endure lately but, judging by the smoky chocolate notes singing their siren’s song at her elbow, real honest-to-god coffee . Next to the mug and her battlefield of mutilated apple cores was a plate serving as an altar to her instant oatmeal topped with, hot damn, more apples and two slices of cinnamon toast.

“Didn’t know how you took your coffee,” he remarked, taking a careful sip of his own.

“I don’t, usually. It’s more of a special treat these days. Thank you.”

The warm mug was in her hands and feeding its heat into her stiff fingers in searing waves. Anna brought it to her lips and used the curtain of steam fogging her glasses to piece together what she could about the man on her couch.

The light from the windows certainly took no time doting on the shocks of auburn that ran, woven and blended, through his russet hair, now pulled back tight into a bun at the back of his head. It would take no work at all to imagine those locks running wild and free around the bulges of his shoulders, capping off at his collarbones. The sharp blade of his nose twitched slightly before disappearing behind the mug, drawing Anna’s attention to features previously obscured by the mists of her mind.

Anna charted a course across Iron’s broad forehead before her eyes were pulled southward to slope around a jaw nestled beneath his thick beard. She knew that slope, knew the stony grimness it often took on. It perfectly matched the image of the mouth in her mind, one that had danced on the backs of her eyelids night after night as she’d tried to envision what those lips might look like forming words meant only for her.

That dangerous slope continued, carving out the strong shoulders and craggy cliffs of a frame that made her worn leather couch bow down in submission and crafted a true statue of a mountain man that, were it in a museum, would keep docents batting away women for decades.

Days without her nightly visitor could never erase the months she’d spent with him, but she wasn’t willing to take that verifiably insane leap just yet.

Pregnancy brain. Just chalk this whole thing up to pregnancy brain, like the time you went looking for rubber bands in the refrigerator.

Anna swallowed another sip of unapologetically black coffee, relishing the burn for the distraction it offered.

Iron made a soft noise of approval. “You take it black. Wasn’t sure.”

“I take it any way I can get it.” When Iron halted his mug’s trajectory to his mouth, she quickly added, “Coffee, I mean.”

His smile relieved just enough of her embarrassment to keep the burners currently firing up her heated cheeks to a low simmer.

Not wanting to risk an opportunity to put her foot into an otherwise vacant mouth, Anna got on right quick with the rambling. “Since we’re stuck here for a bit, maybe we can backtrack on information usually shared between two strangers. We can start with full names, occupations, hobbies, you know, all the stuff that I probably should have asked you before I let you sleep in my house.”

She’d hoped the shot at levity would calm her nerves since it never seemed to occur to them to decompress on their own, but the lack of even a soft chuckle from Iron kept her adrenaline right on spiking.

“You don’t need to do that, you know.”

“Do what?”

“Crack jokes when you otherwise wouldn’t.”

“Excuse me? I happen to adore humor. It always makes the best out of any situation, even the gloomy ones.”

“Not when it costs you so much to say it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“It’s in the eyes,” he noted. “Yours seem to strain at the corners when you’re trying to make light of something, like you’re forcing yourself to hold eye contact. Elevated cortisol levels, which can be brought on by stress, can add to eye strain. You don’t need to do that with me. I’m not here for comedy.”

Anna felt her jaw practically unhinge from her skull. “And what the hell are you here for, exactly? That has got to be the rudest thing anyone has ever said to me in my own?—”

“You. Because you reached out to me.”

The statement was delivered with the finality of the mountains around them, of rock standing still while time shuttled forth in inconsequential increments.

No one had ever summed up need in so few words, and it almost— almost —was enough to quell the apprehension stiffening her limbs ever since she’d parked her butt in that chair and fanned the flames of her memories, if dreams could even be called such.

Iron must have seen some glimmer of unease streak across her face because his features hardened, and he scooted forward on the couch cushion. “I’m sorry. Let me start over.” He gentled his tone with a practiced precision that made her wonder how easily he could shift intonation when he otherwise wouldn’t.

Grab your slingshot and pack that little nugget away for later.

“To answer your questions, I go by Iron. No surname. I’ve worked every gig under the sun but lately have taken on foreman duties at a construction job. I have a penchant for metallurgy, a moderately severe coffee addiction, and currently live with my brothers who I’m convinced keep me around because I’m the only one who knows the Wi-Fi password.”

Her sharp giggle couldn’t be helped, and he smiled at that, even as she tried to quickly put her unamused expression back in place.

“I also hate long walks on the beach, prefer winter to summer, have a deep love for Korean food, know my way around several forms of martial arts and other hand-to-hand combat, and, in a former life, dabbled as a Dungeon Master when my brothers were going through their Dungeons and Dragons phase.”

“Wow.”

His lips creased at the corner. “Wow?”

“Except for the coffee addiction and perhaps the construction job, I can’t say I would have guessed much, if any, of that.”

“Didn’t know we were playing a guessing game.”

Anna shook her head. “We weren’t. I just didn’t expect to hear such a colorful menagerie of accomplishments coming from . . .” She let the sentence die off as soon as she realized the picture it painted.

Far too late, however, Iron snagged those words and seemed to steer her ship toward the iceberg of regret faster than she could avoid it. “Coming from . . . who? Someone who looks like they bench-press semitrucks in their spare time, buys his clothes from the Army Navy surplus store, and hasn’t let the sun hit his jawline since global warming became an actual thing and not just a cause to support with hashtags and protest signs?”

“That, sir, was completely and totally uncalled for,” she snapped, then gentled her tone, the corner of her mouth ticking up a hair. “Last I checked, you needed at least three visible tattoos to even be eligible for the service member discount at most Army Navy stores. Otherwise, what’s the point of shopping there? No one wants to pay full freight for tactical gear and paintball guns.”

Iron’s laughter was like a cathedral bell’s peal, reverberating through her homely cabin with a magnetism that had her heart fluttering in time to its zeal.

“Well, you’ve figured me out, then,” he said, leaning back and spreading his arms wide. “The clothes, the character. Whatever else you want to know, I’m all yours.”

Though he said those words in jest, they filled Anna with anything but humor. Instead, shards of ice flooded her veins as her earlier worries rose to the surface, breaking free of the lighthearted barrier that had begun to form over them.

Images of that final dream pricked her eyes, shuttling to the forefront one very stark, very clear image of almost those exact words being spoken to her.

With a cold calm she in no way felt, Anna removed her glasses and made a show of rubbing at her eyes with her other hand. The glasses swung loosely from her fingers in a manner that no one who’d paid as much for her prescription and frames as she had would ever risk, but risk it she did.

She had to know, had to make sure.

The frames fell from her grasp and clattered to the floor, half on and half off the area rug near her feet. Still too far away.

“Whoops.” When she reached down to grab them, with one hand still holding her mug, she bent awkwardly in her chair to hide the flick of her wrist that sent the glasses skittering across the floor to rest closer to Iron.

Not too close. Just close enough.

“I’ve got ‘em.”

Iron went down on a single knee, reached for the glasses, and held them in one hand to his chest before he rose to take his seat on the couch again. Anna’s breath caught. With his head bowed, back arched, shoulders dipped beneath his ears, and her clear frames clutched in a fist hovering over his heart, she saw it all as plainly as she’d dreamed it in her mind.

As plainly as the last time she’d seen him on one knee before her.

Anna shot to her feet. “Who the fuck are you and how the hell did you get in my head?”