Page 1 of Take Me Slowly, Part 1 (Aurora Hollow duet #1)

LEAH

"He's a goddamn motherfucker who needs to stay up on the mountain."

"Yeah he does. We’ll make sure…"

I kept my eyes on my phone, ignoring the men who strode into Snowdrop Café, talking loudly, like they owned the place.

"What'll it be?"

I glanced up at the server who stopped beside my table.

Her wild curls were peppered with grey, warm blue eyes and a worn t-shirt with 'Carly' embroidered on the breast.

"Just a coffee, please," I said. "Nothing fancy."

Carly smiled. "That's good, because we don't do much fancy around here." She gave me a wink before bustling away to make my coffee.

"Right. Thanks." I dropped my gaze back toward my phone, not really paying attention to anything on the screen.

Instead, I absorbed my surroundings. The smell of coffee, bacon and waffles with a hint of syrup.

The muted sound of people sharing breakfast at tables around me.

A quiet huff of laughter, followed by a louder giggle.

A mother having breakfast with her child at the next table over. Sharing a moment of togetherness.

My gaze rose, traced the exposed beams that stretched the length of the ceiling. Live edged and raw, they'd probably hung there for over a hundred years. I bet they had some stories to tell.

"You think he'd get the message by now." Still talking loudly, the two men settled into stools at the bar top that ran across the front of the window, from beside the door, to the corner wall.

"Some people take a bit more…encouragement." One of them turned around, his deep hazel eyes settling on me for a moment before looking toward Carly. "Can we get a couple of coffees and full breakfasts over here?" He glanced at me again before swivelling around and returning to his conversation.

Carly placed my coffee down in front of me and rolled her eyes at his back before disappearing in the direction of the kitchen.

I forced back a smile, curled my hands around my cup and lifted it to inhale the smell. Maybe Aurora Hollow wasn't fancy, but the coffee smelled good. For a while I let it take me away from here, soothe my jangled nerves and let me remember a time before.

A childish peal of laughter dragged me back into the present. The reminder wasn't entirely unwelcome. Who could resist a laughing kid, after all? And reality wasn't too bad.

Today.

I looked over to see the kid holding a piece of bacon in her hand, grinning.

"Hey," her mother protested. "That's my bacon." But she didn't seem to mind, even when her daughter popped it into her mouth with a cheeky grin and chewed vigourously. She caught my eye and shook her head while smiling.

"I can't take my eyes off my bacon for a moment."

"It is bacon." I returned her smile. "Who can resist?"

"Not Sarah." She nodded towards her daughter. "You new in town?"

"Is it that obvious?" I winced.

"We don't get so many visitors this time of year," she said.

"Especially in the middle of the week. Mostly folks come during the summer and winter.

Right after school goes back, things get real quiet.

For a little while. I'm Fiona Jameson." She leaned over and offered her hand. "This ratbag is my daughter Sarah."

I shook her hand. "Leah."

"Are you staying long?" Fiona asked.

"I don't know," I admitted. "Right now, I'm playing things by ear."

"If you need a place to stay, the cottage beside mine is vacant," she said. "Sarah and me, we're pretty quiet."

"What are you doing, Fiona?"

I glanced up to see the hazel-eyed man looming over both of us.

"I'm being friendly, Connor Ferguson," Fiona said tartly. "Something you and Riley could do with a lesson in."

"We're friendly," Connor protested. "We just don't go offering accommodation to blow-ins."

"Bullshit," Fiona scoffed. "Your whole livelihoods depend on people visiting Aurora Hollow."

"Tourists who don't stick around," Connor said. He gave me a look that suggested I'd fit into that category if he had his way.

I decided right then to stay for longer. Just to show him Leah Kent wasn't going to be pushed around.

"What makes you think I'm not a tourist?" I asked easily.

He leaned back, regarded me before raising his finger and moving it around in a circle in the air. "You have that look about you. Like you're not here for zip lining or white water rafting."

"Him and Riley run the adventure tourism around these parts," Fiona said. "Mostly people don't die doing stuff with them."

I looked back in time to catch her smile. She was clearly trying to get a rise out of him.

"Mostly?" Connor sounded disbelieving. "No one has ever died on any of our tours."

"Yet," I said. I couldn't help getting in on the shit disturbing. That would teach him to be more welcoming.

"Right." Connor's voice was tight. "There's a first time for everything. How about a freebie, city girl?"

I let my gaze slowly slide back to him and smiled. "No thanks."

"Chicken?" he asked. He raised his stubbled chin in challenge.

"Sensible," I retorted. "I don't want to be your first fatality. Besides, think about what that would do for your reputation. Not to mention the potential lawsuit from my family." He didn't have to know that wouldn't come.

He leaned in closer, letting me smell the coffee on his breath. "Honey, that's what waivers are for." He straightened up, his smile all smug, as if somehow he'd won this round.

"It's still a no," I said. "So, Fiona, you were telling me about a cottage? I think I might stick around town for a while."

Connor grunted in annoyance before turning around and stalking back to his seat.

"Don't worry about him," Fiona said, flapping a hand in his direction.

"Those guys always get restless at this time of year.

When everything slows down, they take it personally.

Like somehow it's their fault no one is coming.

The truth is, folks are getting kids back to school.

And you know, a lull never hurt anyone."

"It's good to have a break sometimes," I agreed, not quite meeting her gaze.

"Exactly," Fiona said. "Sarah, finish up your breakfast. We have time to show Leah to the cottage before I have to get you to school."

Sarah groaned. "Do I have to go to school?"

"Yes, you do," Fiona told her firmly. "The law says so and so do I."

"The law sucks," Sarah declared. "I'd rather go fishing."

"She'd fish all day every day if she could," Fiona told me. "She's really good at it too. I hope you like fish, because we always have much more than we need."

"I love fish," I said. "Maybe you could teach me how to catch one."

"Right now?" Sarah looked hopeful.

"School," Fiona reminded her. "Then homework. Then fishing. Maybe Leah could come along with us on the weekend. We know a few places only the locals know."

I glanced in the direction of Connor and his friend Riley. Both watched me with matching expressions. Not quite hostile, but just this side of it.

"Are you allowed to take people there?" I asked pointedly.

"I don't need their permission," she said, giving them both scowls until they turned away to eat their breakfasts. "Don't let them get to you. They'll lighten up in a few weeks when the weather gets colder. Especially when the snow starts to fall."

I decided to take her advice and not let their attitudes bother me. So far, everyone else I met in Aurora Hollow was more welcoming. If a couple of guys had their heads up their asses, that was their problem.

"If I'll still be here then," I said. I meant it when I said I was playing it by ear. I might decide the next day that I wanted to go back to the city. Except I didn't. I needed this break. I needed to be somewhere else for a while.

"I hope you'll stick around," Fiona said. "This place needs shaking up and I have a feeling you're the person to do it."

"I have a feeling some people would object to me shaking up anything." I didn't look in Connor's direction; no doubt my meaning was clear enough.

"Those are the people who need shaking up most of all," Fiona said with a laugh.

"Don't get me wrong, most people in town are wonderful.

It's nice to meet someone new, is all." She swallowed down the last of her coffee and gestured at Sarah, who hopped up out of her chair before carefully pushing it back in under the table.

I dropped a couple of bills on the table to pay for my coffee and followed them out the door, barely glancing at Connor before I passed. Just enough to see him curl his lip at me. I didn't even humour him with an eye roll.

"The best thing about Aurora Hollow, apart from the views of the mountains, is the fact you can walk everywhere," Fiona said.

I realised both of those things when I arrived yesterday.

The town was compact, and the view over the Rockies was stunning.

We weren't even at the highest point of the mountain, but rather nestled into a literal hollow about half way up.

The view was still incredible. It must be even more stunning up at the peak.

"It's beautiful here." The air tasted clean and fresh.

The town itself smelled of pine and maple, with a hint of water from the falls just out of town.

If I listened closely, I could imagine hearing the rush of water pouring over rocks and gushing down the side of the mountain.

All I really heard was the whisper of the wind and the crunch of our shoes on the road.

"It really is," Fiona said. "We're lucky to live here. I grew up here. Most of my friends left for the city, but you couldn't drag me away. And it's the perfect place to raise a kid. Even a precocious seven-year-old who has skinned knees more often than not." She looked fondly at her daughter.

"Dylan says precocious means I'm a smartass," Sarah declared.

"Dylan Fielding is as precocious as you are," Fiona told her. To me she said, "She's in her class at school. Some days, they're best friends. And some days they aren't."

I held back a laugh. "I remember those days. For me it was Emerald Garcia. Sometimes we shared our crayons and sometimes we didn't." I hadn't thought about her in years. I wondered where she was now. We lost touch when we went to different high schools. That seemed like a thousand years ago now.

Fiona laughed. "For me it was Connor's older sister, Whitney. We used to do everything together. Connor and Riley would always try to tag along, but mostly they'd pull our hair and be dickheads."

"So you've known them for a long time," I said.

"Practically forever," she agreed. "I could tell you some stories about those two."

We stopped in front of a pair of small cottages, both stucco, cedar shakes and double glazed windows. She pulled a set of keys out of her handbag and unlocked the door of the cottage on the right.

"I'm friends with the owner, so I'm the one who lets in anyone who rents the place," she explained. "It's small, but it's fully furnished and close to the restaurants and cafés. And the grocery store and all that too."

"And us," Sarah said.

"That too," Fiona said. She handed me the keys. "I have to get her to school and me to work. Make yourself comfortable."

It seemed she decided I was going to rent the place. I decided she was probably right. This would do perfectly, for now.