Jeannie Watt - Her Mountain Sanctuary

“I would appreciate that very much.” She gave him an unsmiling nod and prepared to duck into the cab of her truck.

“Thank you.”

She straightened, looking at him over the top of the door. “Excuse me?”

“I owe you a thank-you.”

“Yes. You do.” She saw no reason to deny it. She got into the driver’s seat when he moved toward her, pulled the door shut and locked it, hoping he would think it was an automatic feature of her vehicle—which it was not. He was her boss’s brother, after all.

As he got closer, she rolled down the window a couple of inches, doing her best not to look like some kind of weirdo barricading herself in a car—although she’d do the exact same thing if she had a do-over. Fear and survival instinct trumped hurt feelings or seeming paranoid.

He tilted his head so he could see her face through the window, his frown more perplexed than threatening.

“Why are you afraid of me?”

Her heart stopped as she stared into his cool blue eyes. Knowing she looked frightened bothered her.

Faith moistened her lips, noted how his gaze followed the movement. This guy noticed details. He read people. He’d read her.

“I need to go.” She owed him no explanations, and she didn’t want to say anything that would come back to haunt her later. Such as, You remind me strongly of my assailant.

She didn’t talk about her attack. Didn’t want it to define her, didn’t want it to control her life any more than it already did. So she would drive away and deal with Debra tomorrow.

“I know you do.”

There was something in his voice that made her hand pause on the gearshift.

“How?” The old Faith, the confident, bulletproof Faith, popped her head up.

He shrugged his broad shoulders, making the fabric ripple. “I served long enough to know scared people when I see them. Hell, I was one of them sometimes.”

She swallowed dryly, her hand still on the gearshift. “I see.”

“What scares you, Faith?”

She blinked at him. Giving up secrets meant giving up power. Or at least it felt that way. Her cheeks went cold, then warm. She was astonished to find that she was tempted to blurt out the truth. To a stranger. “How do you feel today?” she asked him instead.

The sudden change of topic seemed to surprise him. It surprised her, but it also put her back in control of a situation she’d been in danger of losing control of.

“Sore as hell. But alive. Thank you for rolling me onto my back last night.”

She gave a small snort. “Least I could do.”

Something changed then. Momentarily lightened. Emphasis on momentarily. Faith was no longer a woman who allowed herself to be lulled into a sense of false security by a charming remark or smile.

“I’ll call my sister.”

“I’d appreciate it.”

He shifted his weight. “I don’t know what it is about me that sets you off, but I promise you I’m not an ax murderer or whatever my sister led you to believe.”

Relief washed over her as Drew provided a logical motivation for her fear. An excuse. She grabbed it with both hands. “She didn’t say anything to make me think you were...that.” But her inflection made it clear Debra had said things about his “issues”—which she had.

“Maybe not an ax murderer, but she paints me in a way that makes people wonder if I’m one step away from going postal.”

And what was she supposed to say to that?

She’d called Jolie from work that afternoon to ask about Drew. Jolie said he was a stand-up guy.

Was.

Jolie hadn’t talked to him since he’d returned home, since life and the military had changed him.

Faith took hold of the gearshift again.

They were neighbors. She worked with his sister. She was going to see Drew Miller again, and she didn’t want this situation hanging over her head. She put the truck in Reverse but kept her foot on the brake as she forced herself to do the hard thing. “The way I act around you has nothing to do with your sister.”

His gaze narrowed, but other than that he didn’t move a muscle. He waited for her to continue, which made her wonder if he was afraid of spooking her. “Almost two years ago, I was attacked by a man in a parking lot at a rodeo. A...big man.”

An expression of dawning understanding transformed his features. Softened them to a degree.

“And I’m a big guy.”

“You are.”

He gave a very slow nod, his gaze dropping as he once again folded his arms. When he brought his gaze back up, she was surprised at how open it was. “I’m sorry to hear that happened to you.”

Faith gave a jerky nod, but didn’t answer.

“It explains a few things.”

“I didn’t want you to blame your sister for putting ideas in my head.”

“You know that we’re going to run into each other from time to time. I might...” he casually shrugged his heavy shoulders “...drive off the mountain or something.”

She didn’t crack a smile at the unexpected joke, even though a small part of her wanted to. “I hope that time will make things better,” she said stiffly.

“One can hope.”

She started to ease her foot off the brake, needing very much to get out of there. To escape not only the situation, but the odd feeling that she’d just found someone who understood.

“I’m sorry I make you nervous, Faith.”

“Yeah.” Her voice was little more than a throaty whisper, because she hadn’t expected empathy and didn’t know how to deal with it. “Me, too.”

With that, she stepped on the gas, swung the truck in a wide arc, then started back down the rutted road to the Lightning Creek Ranch and safety.

CHAPTER FOUR

DREW FOLLOWED THROUGH on his promise to Faith and drove to Eagle Valley Community College where he would confess to his sister that he’d rolled his rig off the mountain, thus freeing Faith from her dark secret. He wouldn’t have told Deb at all if Faith hadn’t been involved.

Deb left him cooling his heels in her outer office with her long-suffering associate, Penny, as she finished a phone call and made another. Finally, she welcomed him into her personal space, which was decorated in the same minimalist, yet expensive-looking style as her house. Lots of leather and glass. Single orchids. That kind of stuff. Drew was more of an overstuffed-chair, coffee-table-you-could-put-your-feet-on guy, so he’d never felt comfortable in his sister’s sphere.

“How are you feeling?”

Drew managed to keep a straight face, despite her solicitous tone. “I’m sore.”

“Have you intensified your workouts?”

“No. I rolled the Jeep night before last and got banged up.”

The gold pen Deb had been holding fell out of her hand and rolled across the desk. “Were you drinking?”

Drew scowled at her. “What the hell kind of question is that?”

“A reasonable one,” she defended. “People with your affliction tend to self-medicate.”

“Deb...stop with the affliction talk, okay? And I’m not self-medicating.” He was afraid to. He was afraid of disappearing down a rathole if he started depending on substances to help him through the long days and longer nights. He hoped like hell that he wouldn’t be driven back to the nightmare drugs that had made him feel like the walking dead. “I swerved to miss a deer and over-corrected. It was rainy and slick.”

She studied him for a long moment, as if trying to make him squirm like one of her employees. He wondered if Deb could make Faith squirm. She had backbone, but she was new on the job, and probably on probation. She was also the reason he was there, having yet another uncomfortable meeting with his sister. “Are you all right?” she finally asked.

“Yeah. Faith Hartman heard the wreck and came to my assistance.”