No One But You (Orlinda Valley)

1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Kora

“W hat the fuck?” The familiar ride down the back country road turned into bumpy, out-of-control chaos as my car, which was perfectly fine a second ago, suddenly swerved and veered all over the road.

I slid to the shoulder, jammed my foot on the brake, and slammed the gearshift into park. “Damn county roads filled with potholes the size of craters. When are they finally going to pave these terrible pieces of shit?” I slammed my hand on the steering wheel, opened the door, flung the rhetorical question into the open field, and jumped out of the car. Someone had to inspect the tires.

As I suspected. Front passenger tire. Flat. As a pancake.

I stood with my hands on my hips and kicked the now worthless tire. “Dammit. I’m gonna be late for my hair appointment.” With a strong exhale, I reached into the back seat of my SUV and grabbed my phone. I needed to let Summer know I’d be late.

My phone rang and rang, but no answer. “Dammit, Summer.” I clicked the call end button and sent a text to my best friend for life, Darlene. She would be at the salon. Her son James had spent the night with his grandma, who was also my aunt, Tonya. Tonya—I don’t use the aunt—spent her Saturdays bothering her best friends who own the salon, so Darlene was meeting her at Shear Perfection.

She could give Summer a message.

I was staring off over the pasture and watching cows munch the grass when the phone notified me of an incoming text.

I glanced at my phone. “What the hell?” It wasn’t Darlene. It was a text informing me my last message wasn’t sent. I gritted my teeth as my face heated, and it wasn’t because of the humid morning we were already dealing with this late in May. It was my skyrocketing blood pressure. Who wanted to be stuck on the side of the road in Bumfuck, Egypt, and in this heat?

I stalked around the car, held my phone high, and gave it an evil eye. Still no bars. Of course not.

“Dammit!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. There was nothing around. Nothing. Except birds, cows, and a rabbit hopping across the field.

The cows stopped munching the grass, and the rabbit even stopped hopping to stare. “What? Am I bothering your busy day?”

“Moo,” the cow responded as he chewed his cud without a care in the world, and the rabbit hopped off.

“See? I figured as much.” I trudged to the rear of my black Nissan Rogue and opened the hatch to get to the spare as a memory hit me.

Shit.

I wouldn’t see a tire unless I got lucky and my father had helped me out. I lifted the floor panel slowly and squeezed my eyes tight. As soon as the panel was all the way up, I wedged my eyes open slowly, hoping I would see a tire where the spare tire should be. I stared into the abyss of the undercarriage and no such luck. It was empty.

Last December, I went out Christmas shopping and needed more storage for all the gifts I was going to purchase. I had a feeling they wouldn’t all fit in the back seat and trunk. Yeah, I know it was a little overkill, but my cousin, Bryson, is married to Darlene, and they have the cutest little boy, James. I can never say no to him, so to make sure I had the space, I took the spare tire out of the car—who uses it anyway—and had more space to stash presents.

I glanced up at the cloudless blue sky and at the sun already shining hot and bright at nine in the morning and shook my head. I could hear my father discussing—as he never yelled—all the reasons why taking the spare tire out of the car was a bad idea. I could also hear him reminding me to put the tire back in the car “in case of an emergency, and you hit one of the many potholes on the county roads.”

“Damn, I always knew he was able to see the future.” I slammed the hatch closed and peeked at my phone again. Still no bars. This was the one dead zone between my place and downtown, and I was about ten miles away from the nearest house.

I could walk. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d walked the roads to town.

The air was getting thick with humidity, and sweat had already formed at the nape of my neck. I pulled my hair up in a high ponytail, leaned in the car, and plucked the emergency scrunchy from around the gear shift.

This was an emergency.

My stringy, straight, auburn hair would get nasty quick. I twisted the ponytail into a loose bun on top of my head, leaned against the hood of the car, and sighed.

It was so damn hot—desert hot.

If this was any indication of what kind of summer we were going to have in Tennessee this year, I’d better be prepared for anything, and in this moment, I was so not prepared. I left in a rush this morning, running late as usual, and didn’t grab a water bottle or even a second cup of coffee. Death by dehydration suddenly became a possibility, and walking the ten miles to the nearest house was out of the question. “Where am I gonna get water?” The brown cow who had his head in the grass munching next to the electrified fence stopped pulling up grass, gave me a glance, and went back to munching.

How rude. “Fine. Don’t share your water source, cow. See if I sacrifice my hunger next time I’m at a barbecue and have a choice between a burger or chicken. I promise you. I’m eating that burger.”

The cow eyed me with disdain.

God, I must have really been losing my mind to be arguing with a cow. Maybe dehydration didn’t take as long as I’d thought.

A loud, rumbly growl, along with the sound of gravel crunching, caught my attention. “Wonderful. Help from the calvary. No thanks to you, cow!” Yeah, I hollered at the cow. It was hot, he was rude, and I was thirsty.

I turned away from my nemesis and watched as a beat-up silver Ford pickup pulled up to the side of the road. To say the man who climbed out of the truck and strutted toward me was striking would be an understatement.

He wore a beige Carhartt button-up and a baseball cap on backward. His eyes, which were a unique silver-gray, held mine and caused my heart to do a strange fluttering thing, and they popped in contrast to his sun-tanned skin and, from what I could see sticking out from under his hat, jet-black hair.

My eyes traveled down his tall, muscular body. He wore work boots which had seen better days, and faded, paint-splattered jeans that were well-worn and perfectly tight, hugging his thighs. I stalled at the bulge right under his hips, and my mouth went dry.

Good Lord. Keep moving, eyes.

A loud moo pulled my attention away from the gift strutting toward me and back to my adversary in the field.

“Just go drink that water. You water hoarder,” I spat in its direction. I don’t know why, but that cow really pissed me off.

“I can’t figure out why that cow would be walking away from you. He was keeping you company, and you sure don’t seem grateful.” His voice was deep, smooth as whiskey, and sexy as hell.

I started to pull my gaze from his, and a distinctive scar, which started by his brow and dipped below his eye, caught my attention. It was the shape of a crescent moon, roughly two inches long, and stood out clearly, suggesting it had been a part of his skin for quite a while. The scar’s edges were jagged in places and added a bit of intrigue to his boy-next-door good looks. The couple days’ worth of scruff on his face, which I yearned to rub my hands over, gave a rugged allure to his chiseled jawline, and he carried himself with confidence, which increased his overall irresistibility and caused a tingling throughout my body.

What the hell, Kora?

I was taken so off guard, I needed to clear my throat to make my voice work. “Yeah, well, the cow was keeping me company, but when he wouldn’t share his water source to keep me from dying of dehydration, I threatened to skip the chicken and eat his cousin instead next time I was at a barbecue.”

“Well, I’m sure that’s what irritated him.” The corner of this stranger’s mouth ticked up, and a sexy-as-hell dimple appeared in his left cheek.

Just when I thought this man couldn’t get any hotter, I was mistaken. I smirked to hide the blush I was sure colored my cheeks and nodded. “Yeah, well, water would have been nice, but a tire would be even better.”

“I guess you hit one of those craters back there?”

“Yeah, I did. I wish this county would spend a little bit of money to fix these back roads, since most of their citizens live back here. But they’re so cheap. It’s much more important that city hall has a newly paved parking lot and cute rocking chairs on the front porch.”

“Those rocking chairs are a perfect place for the locals to hang out and play checkers. I think it’s a great addition.”

Really? I glared at him through lowered lashes. “You can’t be serious.”

There was that dimple again.

Did the heat just tick up a notch? I puffed out a breath. “Look, this has been great, but you wouldn’t by any chance have a tire in the back of that beat-up truck, would you?”

“Wow.” He took a step back. A flicker of annoyance crossed his features, and his brow furrowed. “You don’t even know me, and you’re bashing Matilda. No one bashes Matilda.”

Okay, now that was funny . It looked like poor Matilda had been bashed on multiple times. I laughed out loud. “You’re right. I shouldn’t be bashing your truck. I’m sorry.”

“Matilda.”

“Your truck is really named Matilda?”

“Got a problem with Matilda?” he asked as he stepped forward, his hand out. “I’m Kai.”

My brows rose. Nice name. I smiled and shook his hand. “Kora.” His hands were rough like he wasn’t scared of hard work, which matched his clothing choice perfectly. “I haven’t seen you around before. Are you new, visiting family?”

Kai shook his head and pursed his lips. “Nope. No family. Just got into town yesterday, so I guess that qualifies as new.”

“So, what brings you by this way?”

“Well, a woman on the side of the road looking like she’s in need of assistance.” Again, I noticed his voice: deep yet soft, and totally sexy.

This guy was amazingly hot, had a unique sense of humor, and a sexy as hell dimple . He can assist me anytime. Again, I needed to clear my throat—probably a lack of water. “Yeah, well. The woman stuck on the side of the road appreciates your help, but I meant Orlinda Valley. What brings you here? Business, pleasure?” I turned my face up to see him better. He was tall, at least six feet four. And built. God, was he built.

He wiped his hands together like he was preparing for battle. “Let’s deal with this tire. Where’s your jack and spare?”

“Yeah, about that.”

His brow ticked up.

“Yeah, well, at Christmas, I needed the space under there for presents and never put the tire or jack back in my car. It’s sitting in my aunt’s garage.”

“You don’t have a tire or jack in your car? Isn’t that Driving 101?”

It sounded so much more ridiculous when I divulged the situation to him. I hope he doesn’t think I’m the stereotypical female. All about shopping and have no common sense. That is so not me. Well, I do like to shop. My shoulders met my ears.

“Figures,” Kai muttered and shook his head before walking to the back of his truck.

Hell no. He is not going to go there. My hands flew to my hips. “Excuse me? Did you just say figures ?”

“What, you heard that?” Kai pulled a small tire from the back of his truck and carried it to the car. Then he went back to his truck and returned with a jack and a tire iron.

My gaze followed him back and forth as a heavy weight lodged in my gut. “I’m not deaf, you know. Explain yourself. What figures? Is it that I’m a female?” I eyed the tire. It didn’t look big enough for a go cart. “Are you sure that tire will fit on my car?”

He didn’t answer as he jacked up the car, loosened the bolts, took off the flat tire, and quickly replaced it with the donut he had taken from his truck. “To answer all your billions of questions—it figures that you don’t have a tire. It is such a female thing, and yes, this will fit. It came from my sister’s car. I gave her a full-size spare before she drove across the country. Oh, and you said it, sweetheart, not me.”

Did he just call me sweetheart? I sucked in a big breath and took a beat to keep from saying the first thing that came to my mind. I scrunched my face. “I said what?”

“That you’re a female, and that’s the reason you were stuck on the side of the road.” Kai stood up and brushed his hands against his pants.

Is this guy for real? “Are you always this rude to people you just meet?”

“Rude? I didn’t say anything rude. Just pointed out the obvious and answered your million-and-one questions.”

I could stand a lot of things, but I couldn’t stand being treated like a weak female. Okay, maybe I did something stupid when I didn’t listen to my father. I should have put the spare back in the car, but being needy and weak was not something I wanted people to see me as, especially not this irritating, yet hot, stranger. “You know what?” I walked over to him and stepped on the dead tire. “Keep this here. I don’t need any more of your assistance. I’ll deal with it myself.”

Kai peered at me, then down at the flat tire, then back. “I can just toss it in the back of my truck and take it to the garage I saw in town. It’s not a big deal.”

My hands flew into the air and brushed him off. “Nope. Please don’t. I’ll toss this into my car. I wouldn’t want to be seen as needy.”

“You sure?”

What a jackass . I rolled my eyes toward the sky. “Yeah. Thanks for your help.” My gaze rested on his, and I squinted in disgust. “Next time, though, keep driving.”

Kai stepped back and lifted his hands in defeat.

Good. He might be a jackass, but he listens well.

I bent down and attempted to lift the tire off the ground. Shit. Even flat, it was heavier than it appeared. I slowly drag-carried it to the back and opened the hatch. I took a big breath, bent at my knees, heaved it into the back, and then had to take a second to catch my breath.

God, that sucked .

I slammed the hatch closed and froze as I caught a glimpse of my hands. They were black. I brushed them together. Still black. Then I brushed them on my pants, and the dirt smeared. “Shit.”

“What’s wrong, princess? Little grease on your hands?”

I shot Kai a glare, one that could kill.

I waited and watched.

No luck. He still stood there, breathing. “No big deal. Nothing soap won’t get rid of,” I answered with fake confidence. I’d be damned if I’d show weakness over grease.

“Yeah, maybe, but your shirt will need a little TLC.”

I glanced down. There was a streak of black on the front. Must have been when I lifted the tire. “Shit. My favorite shirt.”

“Dish detergent will get it out. Scrub it with an old toothbrush and rinse with cold water. Should be fine.”

Dish soap. “I knew that.” I pushed past him to the driver’s side of my car, then stopped, and my shoulders drooped. Be an adult, Kora, and don’t be so bitchy. I pulled myself up as tall as my five-foot-six frame would allow and shot my hand toward him. “Thanks, Kai. I appreciate your help.”

He wrapped my hand with his, and warmth seeped into my skin. My chilly attitude melted instantly and caused me to forget where I was for a beat. I blinked repeatedly to regain my composure before I said, “I know we’ve started off rough and had a bumpy patch, but I hope everything’s been fixed.” I chuckled at my joke. It was funny.

He glared at me.

Okay then, maybe the heat that melted my attitude was all one-sided. Let’s try to break the tension between us one more time. “There’s a great place to eat in town—Jerry’s Pub, if you want to catch a bite or anything.”

“Thanks, but I’ve already been told about it and was planning on doing just that.” He turned and strolled away.

My eyes were glued to his ass in those jeans. Nice.

He reached his truck. “It was nice meeting you. Stay clear of the potholes and get the spare back in your car. Maybe I’ll see you around town.”

“I sure hope so,” I muttered to myself as I got into my car. I waved as I pulled away. The last thing I saw was his dimpled smile—maybe it was a smirk—and his fine-as-hell body as he climbed into his truck. “Orlinda Valley just added another hot-as-hell asshole to its population.”