Page 29 of High Country Escape

“I like the way you think,” Roxanne said.

For the next half hour, Dalton was stuck in the kitchen scraping dishes while his father and brothers loaded the dishwasher and put away leftovers. When the room was deemed spotless enough to pass his mother’s inspection, he found Roxanne in the living room, leaning over a photo album his mother was paging through.

The album did not, as he had feared, contain pictures of his younger self in embarrassing positions. Rather, it was the album of photos his parents had taken on their honeymoon to Italy, three decades previously. The shots, many faded to pastel tones, featured a young woman who might have been mistaken for a fairer Bethany with curly bangs, and a version of Aaron, with long hair falling into his eyes. Roxanne smiled and oohed over the photos.

She looked up when Dalton and his brothers and father joined the women. “Willa and I have to go,” Aaron said. “I have early shift tomorrow.”

“We need to leave, too,” Mira said. “Thank you so much for the wonderful dinner. And it was good to meet you, Roxanne.”

“It was good to meet all of you.” Roxanne stood.

“We should be going, too,” Dalton said and moved to her side.

The round of goodbyes took ten minutes, but at last they were seated in Dalton’s Jeep, headed back toward his apartment, where Roxanne had left her car. “I’m sorry about all the questions about your family,” he said. “My mom can be relentless, sometimes.”

“They were ordinary questions,” she said. “The kind people ask when they want to know someone better. It’s okay.”

“Like I told you, the whole family at once can be a lot. Thanks for being such a good sport.”

She said nothing else until they were standing outside his apartment. He wondered if he should ask her up. She turned toward him. “You have a wonderful family,” she said. “I enjoyed meeting every one of them. They were all so nice—the kind of family I fantasized about having when I was a kid. Thank you for inviting me.”

“They all liked you a lot,” he said. “So do I.” He wanted to kiss her. He wanted more than that, but he would settle for a kiss. Sometimes, he thought she wanted that, too. Earlier today, right before his mother called, he had thought she had been about to kiss him, but the call had broken the spell.

“I like you, too.” Regret colored the words, and she looked away. “I want to be your friend, but please don’t expect more from me. Not right now. It isn’t fair to either of us.”

“Hey, it’s okay.” He hated seeing her upset. “No pressure. I wouldn’t do that to you. But I do want us to be friends.”

She nodded, and when she looked at him again, she no longer looked sad. “Thank you again for a wonderful evening. I’d better go now.”

“Yeah. Be careful.”

She nodded. “I always am.”

Just like that, he was reminded of what she had endured—and the threat of danger that still hung over her. Maybe thedriver who had run her off the road wasn’t William Ledger. But what if it was? How was Dalton going to protect her from that?

On the driveback to her rental, Roxanne basked in the unfamiliar feeling of relaxation and happiness that enveloped her. Was this contentment? She felt as if she had spent the last few hours soaking in a spa, but instead of aromatherapy oils and warm water, she had been surrounded by the genuine warmth of the funny and expressive Ames family. The closest she had come to that feeling of being accepted was at the end of her first year with Marjie and Theo Young as her foster parents. The first Christmas in their home had been magical, surrounded by such joy and caring. She felt she had at last found home.

The Youngs had been like a real mom and dad to her, but they had never adopted her. She had never worked up the courage to ask them why, but had always assumed it was because something was wrong with her. She had told herself many times that this probably wasn’t true, but once that kind of thought lodged itself in your head, it wasn’t easy to shake.

And then there was Dalton, at the center of it all. He was sexy but a little nerdy, quiet and thoughtful yet sharp-witted, strong and brave, and selfless enough to give his spare time to helping strangers—who could blame her for being attracted to a man like that?

She hadn’t had a best friend for many years but she was beginning to think of him that way. Truthfully, he made her think about other things, especially when he was standing close and she became so aware of him physically. It would be so easy to give in to desire and pull him further into her complicated life. But with William Ledger on the loose, his intentions toward her unknown, it would be unfair—and even dangerous—to get too close to Dalton.

On this unsettling thought, she parked in her driveway, got out and started walking toward her house. She had mounted the steps to the tiny front porch when she realized the door was standing open. She looked around, as if expecting to spot another car. Had she left the light on? Had a visitor found the door open and decided to wait for her inside?

But she knew she hadn’t left the door open. She always locked her door, the same way she always jammed a chair beneath the knob of her bedroom door at night and double-checked that all the windows were locked as well. Those safety precautions were as ingrained in her as brushing her teeth every morning and night. And there was no visitor’s car in her driveway.

She stared at the open door for a long moment before it registered that the lock had been broken, the wood around it gouged and raw. Shaking, she raced to her car. She scanned the back seat to make sure no one had hidden there, then jumped inside, slammed the door and locked it. She turned the car around and drove to the end of her street, then, sure no one was following her, pulled over and called 911. “Someone has been in my house,” she told the operator. “I came home and the door is open and the lock has been broken.” She gave her name and address, promised to wait at the end of the street for help to arrive, then hung up the phone. She stared at it in her hand for a long moment, then dialed another number. “Hello, Dalton? Could you come out to my place? Someone broke in while I was gone.”

Chapter Eight

Dalton sped toward the tiny house, Roxanne’s words repeating like a mantra. She had sounded calm but also tense. He didn’t think she would have called him if she wasn’t afraid. A sheriff’s department SUV turned onto County Road 3 ahead of him and he tried to identify which deputy was driving. Not Aaron, who wasn’t on duty this evening. Not the sheriff himself, who drove a truck. Who was in there didn’t really matter, but trying to figure it out distracted Dalton from his fear that Roxanne was not, in fact, all right. That whoever had broken into her home was still there, determined to harm her.

They hadn’t driven far before he saw headlights from a car pulled to the side of the road. As he neared, he recognized Roxanne’s white rental. She got out of the car and stood beside it as first the SUV, then Dalton’s Jeep, parked behind her.

Deputy Shane Ellis—tall, blond, with the muscular legs of the professional baseball pitcher he had once been, stepped out of the SUV and sent Dalton a questioning look. “Roxanne called me,” Dalton said before Shane could ask why he was there. He moved past Shane to Roxanne. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine.” She hugged her arms across her chest, shoulders hunched. She didn’t look fine, but he was smart enough not to say so.