Page 8 of Earning Her Trust

she wasn’t going to get a better offer, so she nodded. “I’ll be there. Where do I find you?”

“Main entrance. First cabin you come to on the left.”

Before she could say anything else, he was gone.

One blink and he’d melted into the shadow of the building, his long strides already carrying him to his truck at the far edge of the lot. He was all long lean muscle and those jeans…

God help her, there should’ve been a law against a guy like him owning denim that fit that well. For a man who claimed he didn’t want to be seen, he sure made it hard to look away.

Damn him.

three

Naomi was still cursinghim under her breath when she pulled into her rental’s gravel drive. The sky was lavender, the mountains black against the fading light. She cut the engine, but her whole body kept humming, tension sparking in her bones and refusing to die down.

Pathetic. She’d faced down murder suspects with less adrenaline. It wasn’t even the meeting; it was him, the way he’d stood there calm as a glacier, like she couldn’t touch him if she tried. Like he was already two steps ahead.

She slumped in the driver's seat, face buried in her hands. Maybe she’d picked the wrong line of work. Or maybe she was just tired. When was the last time she’d slept more than four straight hours? Maybe back in Missoula, before her last case went sideways and she stopped trusting anyone, especially herself.

She grabbed her case file from the passenger seat and strode up the steps to the cabin.

Inside, the place felt even more temporary than usual. Boxes stacked by the wall. No photos. No art. Nothing that said she lived here.

She kicked off her boots, shrugged out of her jacket, and dropped it over a kitchen chair.

The silence wrapped around her, thick as a blanket.

Usually, she welcomed it. Tonight, it felt harder to bear.

She flipped on the lamp, dumped her keys on the counter, and peeled off the sweat-sticky shirt she’d worn under her jacket. Balled it up and tossed it in the laundry bin. She caught her reflection in the window glass—a tired woman in a sports bra, hair falling out of its braid. She looked like hell. Is this how Ghost saw her?

She pressed her palms flat to the counter and closed her eyes.

Why did it matter so much what Ghost thought of her?

She’d spent years squashing down every impulse that tried to drag her off mission. Even with partners she trusted, she never let her guard drop, never let anyone close enough to see past the armor.

And yet?—

That damn moment when his eyes had caught on her mouth and held there.

She shivered, every nerve ending prickling.

No. She was not doing this. She was not going to get sidetracked by a man who freaked when his name was mentioned in public.

She yanked the fridge open, grabbed a bottle of water, and drank half in three gulps. The cold hit her stomach like a punch.

She was… what? Attracted to him? She could admit that, in the privacy of her own head. He was infuriating, arrogant, and as emotionally available as a brick wall. He was also competent as hell, unflappable under pressure, and able to read a room in point-two seconds flat.

And he’d kept his promise. Showed up. Put himself in the line of fire, just because she’d asked.

No one did that. Not for her.

She set the water down, hard enough that the bottle almost tipped, and tried to focus on something else.

Work.

She should work.