Pretty Wild (Pine Village #5)

Chapter 1

1

MARCUS

“ W ait.”

I pause before slowly turning around to face the gorgeous woman I found stranded on the side of the road. All I want to do is go home, shower, relax, and fill my stomach with whatever leftovers I find in the fridge, but here I am, dealing with a damsel in distress, who’s clearly not from these parts.

She releases a deep feminine sigh that screams high-maintenance, the sound doing something strange to my insides. Standing up straight, she lifts her chin and says, “I need your help.”

Placing my hands on my hips, I take in the woman. She’s wearing one of those little summer dresses in a pale pink color and a pair of sky-high heels no woman should ever wear in Pine Village. How in the hell she’s able to walk in them is beyond me. This terrain isn’t exactly mountainous, but it’s not exactly flat, even ground either. Not to mention one little rock would send her tumbling to the ground in those things. Stilettos, I think they’re called. Don’t ask me how I know that. It’s not because I know anyone who wears them or have heard it mentioned on television.

I exhale, all thoughts of a hot shower and leftovers being put on hold for the time being.

Such is life though, especially when you’re the only tow truck driver and residential snowplow driver in the area. Add that to the hellacious hours I keep as one of Pine Village’s only auto mechanics, and let’s just say, sleep is a commodity I rarely indulge in.

I glance around, the sunlight practically nonexistent now. “This is a terrible place to stop,” I find myself saying out loud.

“Well, next time, I’ll ask my flat tire to hold it together a few more minutes so it’s more convenient for you,” she sasses, narrowing her dark eyes at me in contempt.

Ignoring her jab, I walk around to the passenger side of my old truck and move what’s on the seat. I place my lunch box and dirty T-shirt from earlier in the day in the bed of the truck and turn to face the woman. “Get in, Princess.”

Her eyes widen. “What? I’m not getting into that truck with you,” she spits out, her eyes a little panicky as she grips her cell phone tighter.

“Well, if you don’t, you’ll be stuck on the side of the road until someone else comes along. Could be five minutes, could be five hours.” That’s a total lie, considering this road is very well traveled. In fact, I’m surprised we haven’t seen another vehicle already, especially on the Friday night kicking off Memorial Day weekend.

She narrows her eyes, as if gauging my sincerity. “Are you sure that truck will even make it anywhere? It looks older than dirt.”

I glance at my ’86 Square Body Chevy truck. This baby is solid, despite being almost forty years old. I’d rather take my chances on this old truck than any of the new ones on today’s market. Those things are run on computers and expensive as hell to fix. This old beauty is well-maintained and still has a lot of life left in her. “We’ll be fine. Pearl is more dependable than most models on the roads these days.” I look over at her expensive-ass SUV to prove my point.

She huffs and walks over to her disabled vehicle. I watch as she opens the hatch and starts to pull three large suitcases from within. She struggles under their weight, and when the third one plops onto the dirt, she turns and demands, “Are you just going to stand there like a mannerless jerk, or are you going to help me?”

A slow smile spreads across my lips. “I didn’t hear the magic words.”

She mutters something under her breath that sounds like hick asshole before leveling me with a gaze. The intensity of it almost knocks me on my ass. “Will you please help me with these bags?” I can tell it’s taking every ounce of control she possesses not to curse me out right now.

I push off my truck and head in her direction. “See? That wasn’t so hard now, was it?”

Her eyes narrow as she flips her long hair over her shoulder. I grab two of the bags, one in each hand, and slowly make my way to the bed of my truck. They’re heavy, and I’m a little surprised she was able to load them in the back of her SUV herself. Of course, she probably had someone help her. This woman doesn’t exactly scream independent. She probably has a whole slew of employees to handle her every need.

When I glance back, she’s just standing there, watching. “You gonna grab that one?” I ask, tossing the first two into the bed of my truck.

She gasps when they land with a thud. “You better not have broken anything in those, or you’ll pay for the damages.”

Ignoring her comment, I watch as she struggles to drag her third suitcase toward me. Normally, I’m not the type of guy to stand around and watch a woman—or anyone for that matter—battle to carry or move something, but this woman grates on my nerves. So, I’ll let her fight it for a few moments before stepping in and helping.

When one of the wheels catches on a pebble and she almost drops the suitcase, I finally head back her way. I grab the handle, our hands touching as I do. A bolt of lightning shoots through my veins. That’s the only way to describe it. It’s like a static electricity shock when you touch something metal in the middle of winter, or you accidentally touch a faulty wiring system in the car you’re working on. It’s not enough to kill you, but you definitely know it’s there.

Her eyes widen as she looks up at me, clearly having felt the jolt too. I take the suitcase and place it with the other two before walking around to the passenger door. She carefully makes her way toward me, moving surprisingly well in her shoes, all things considered. She reaches my side and looks up into the cab of my truck. It’s dirty, but not filthy by any means. There tends to be a thin layer of dust that covers my truck almost as soon as I clean it. Between the dirt road I live on and the gravel lot for my business, nothing ever stays clean for very long.

She tries to hoist herself up into my truck, which isn’t very easy, considering this old thing is lifted. When she doesn’t quite make it, I grab her waist and help. Her arms flail and a yelp erupts from her throat as I not-so-gracefully set her down on the passenger seat. Her dress is hiked up, which she quickly corrects and adjusts, and turns her attention my way. “Thank you,” she grits out.

“You’re welcome, Princess.”

Closing her door with a thud, I make my way back to her vehicle. The moment I open the driver’s door I’m assaulted by her floral scent. It clings to everything, hanging in the air, and embeds in my nostrils. I grab the keys off the console and the pink sparkly little purse sitting on the passenger seat. Once I close the door, I click the lock button and return to my truck.

Just as I go to open the driver’s door, a car comes flying around the curve, almost clipping my door. “Oh my God,” she bellows, her eyes wide with fright. “They almost hit you!”

With gritted teeth, I climb inside the truck and throw it into drive. “That’s why I didn’t want you hanging out here in the dark,” I mutter, pulling onto the road, passing her disabled SUV, and turning off my hazards. “Where are you staying?”

She pulls out her phone and taps on the screen. The light fills the cab, but I keep my eyes focused on the road. “I need service so I can pull up the directions again,” she says, tapping away with a little more insistence.

“Do you know the address? I was born and raised here. I know this place like the back of my hand.”

She taps again before answering, “Thirteen sixty Lakeview Road.”

I stifle the curse, but not the sigh.

“Do you know it?” she asks, hopeful.

“Yeah, I know it,” I mutter, heading in the direction of Lakeview Road and the address she gave.

Is this really happening? It’s just my luck the high-maintenance woman I met on the side of the road is renting my cabin for the next month. I mentally pull up the email I received from the management company, informing me of the last-minute rental agreement. I didn’t look at the name, because it didn’t matter. All I needed to know is someone was going to be my neighbor for the next month.

“So…what’s your name?” she asks, breaking through the silence filling the truck cab.

“Marcus.”

When the silence surrounds us once more, she says, “Mine’s Ryan.”

“Ryan?” I ask, my eyebrows drawing upward as I take a quick glance her way.

“Yes, Ryan,” she replies in a clipped tone.

“Sorry,” I insist, lifting both hands in surrender for a flash. “Didn’t mean to insult you. It’s just a…unique name for a girl.”

“Exactly,” she states proudly.

I turn off Lowe Road onto Lakeview. We bounce along the dirt path, the potholes a permanent part of the drive. There are not many houses down this road, and since it’s technically just outside the city limits, the road commissioner hasn’t made it much of a priority to do upgrades to the roadway, especially since I usually plow it myself when I do my driveway and the cabin next door.

She glances around at our surroundings, taking in the darkened road and the abundance of trees. “Are you sure this is where we’re supposed to be going?” she asks, squinting into the darkness. “You’re not taking me somewhere to murder me, right? I mean, I’m pretty sure this is how they start most cheesy teen horror movies,” she adds with an uncomfortable chuckle.

I can’t help but grin. “No, Princess, I’m not driving you to my lair to murder you. Your cabin is actually right up the way.”

“It is?” she asks, looking back out the window.

“Yep. There’re only two other places on this road. It’s pretty secluded and not one of the main tourist areas for the lake. This is all private land around here.” We pass one of the only other driveways on the road. “That’s the driveway for the owner of your cabin, and if you travel about another half mile up this road, you’ll find the other. Just past their house is the main road that’ll take you to the Bluff Preserves National Park’s camping areas.”

“Huh,” she says before I turn off the roadway and drive up the private lane. She pulls out her phone and tries typing again. “I still don’t have service.”

“The cabin has Wi-Fi, but the service is spotty at best. There’s an old rotary phone attached to the phone line in the kitchen.” I stop in front of the cabin and turn to look at Ryan.

“A what?” she asks, her eyes wide.

I almost laugh as I throw my truck into park. “A rotary phone and a wired phone line. It was all the rage in the eighties and nineties.”

She makes a choking noise. “I wasn’t even born yet.”

Now it’s my turn for my eyes to widen. “You weren’t?”

“Well, I was in the nineties, but not until the very end. I’m twenty-six.”

I close my eyes and groan. She’s younger than I expected, a whole eleven years behind my thirty-seven. Not that it matters or anything. It’s not like we’re dating.

“Anyway, let’s get your luggage unloaded, and then I’ll run to the shop and retrieve my tow truck to get your SUV.”

She meets me around at the back of my truck. “It’s a rental,” she says, watching as I remove all three pieces from my truck bed.

“All right. I’ll take it back to my shop and get it fixed first thing in the morning.”

“Not tonight?” she asks, seeming a little uncomfortable.

“I’m not changing a tire on the side of the road there. You saw that car almost hit my truck. It’s not safe,” I tell her, pulling two of her suitcases toward the cabin’s front door.

“I know that,” she insists, grabbing the third case and following me up the sidewalk. “I just prefer to have a mode of transportation while I’m out here.”

“I’ll get it back to you as soon as I can,” I tell her, stepping over to the side when I reach the porch so she can enter the security code.

She pulls out her phone again and uses it as reference before entering in the code. When it beeps red, she tries it a second time. Again, it flashes red, a signal the code didn’t work. After it happens a third time, I step forward and press the sequence of six numbers into the keypad. The moment it turns green, I turn the knob and push open the door.

When she makes no move to enter, I glance her way, finding her standing ramrod straight, her mysterious, dark eyes gazing back at me. “How did you know that?”

I slip inside the cabin, setting the two pieces of luggage off to the side before giving her an answer. “I’m the owner of this cabin.”

Her mouth gapes open and she makes no move to enter the cabin.

“You coming in? You’re letting all the cool air out,” I state, referring to the air-conditioning as I flip on the living room switch and bathe us both in light.

“You own this place?”

“Yep,” I confirm, glancing around. “This place used to belong to my grandpa.”

She looks around before slowly taking a tentative step across the threshold. When she closes the door, she asks, “So…that means you live in the place next door?”

“Sure do.” After a beat, I ask, “Anything else you wanna know?”

Ryan seems to snap out of whatever trance she’s in. She clears her throat and replies, “No, I don’t think so.”

I nod, moving to the front door. “I’ll deliver your SUV in the morning.”

“Okay,” she replies, still appearing a little stunned by the revelation.

“Oh, before I forget, you were pressing the three twice when entering the code. It’s one, one, three, four , nine, two.”

Her eyes narrow a little. “The email I received had one, one, three, three, nine, two.”

“Well, I’ll let the management firm know,” I tell her, opening the front door and stepping outside. The warm fresh air is welcome as I inhale greedy breaths and close my eyes. “Fuck,” I mutter, grateful not to be suffocated by her rich perfume any longer.

The floorboard on the porch behind me creaks. “Thank you for dropping me off.”

“You’re welcome,” I state, practically jumping off the steps to put a little more distance between us. “I’ll, uh, see you in the morning.”

“All right,” she says, glancing around. Just as I take a few steps toward my truck, she adds, “Excuse me, Marcus?”

I glance back, my hazel eyes connecting with her chocolate-brown ones. “Yeah?”

A stick breaks somewhere in the night, causing her to jump a little. “Umm, are there really black bears around here?”

The corner of my mouth curls up. “Definitely. Don’t leave trash outside.”

Her eyes widen almost comically as realization sets in.

Spinning around, I holler, “Have a great night, Ryan.”

Just as I shut my truck door, I see her spin around and practically run back to the cabin. In those ridiculous heels. I let out a chuckle, which feels good after the long day I’ve had.

Backing into the yard, I turn around and drive down the lane, letting out a deep sigh. It’s well after nine and, apparently, my day is not finished. I need to head back to the shop and grab the flatbed tow truck and then retrieve Ryan’s SUV. It won’t take long to fix her tire in the morning, assuming it just needs a plug. If she somehow tore or punctured the sidewall, then she’s looking at a whole new tire.

I pull back into the parking lot for my shop and park beside the tow truck. Just as I’m climbing out, I catch sight of something pink and sparkly. Reaching for the item that slipped beneath the bench seat, I pull out Ryan’s purse and sigh loudly.

Great. Now I have to go back.

Though, it’s not like it’s out of my way. She is going to be staying next door.

I run my hand over my face and groan.

Something tells me this isn’t going to be as easy as it should. Ryan is clearly not accustomed to staying in a cabin in the middle of the woods. With no cell phone coverage.

A smile spreads across my lips.

Looks like the princess is in for a rude awakening.

Come to think about it, this might be more enjoyable than expected.

No, no.

The last thing I need is to have some woman distracting me. I’m a very busy man, with an incredibly demanding job. We’re entering the busy summer season. I won’t have time to sleep, let alone have time for a woman.

Especially one as high-maintenance as Ryan.

Ain’t happening, Marcus, and the sooner you realize that the better off you’ll be.

Women are trouble with a capital T.

And Ryan screams trouble.

Best thing I can do is steer clear of her.

Who cares if she’s practically living next door to me for the next thirty days?

Not me.

I probably won’t ever see that woman again. She’ll stay at the cabin and leave at the end of her rental agreement with a summer tan, returning to her high-rise condo in some big city with high-speed internet.

Yeah, I’m sure this’ll be the last time I see Ryan.

She’ll be gone in no time.