Someone To Stay (Skylark #5)

Chapter 1

PIPER

I came to this cabin in the Colorado wilderness outside Vail because I needed an escape from life.

The kind that only a secluded, way-too-big-for-one-person mountain retreat can provide.

My brother-in-law Ian bought the thirty-acre property when he moved to Skylark after retiring from the NFL.

I guess being quarterback royalty includes a six-thousand-square-foot log-and-stone “getaway” for when you want a break from small-town Colorado life.

I’m not complaining.

I also came alone because I didn’t want any witnesses to my spectacular life implosion.

While my plan involved wallowing in the—well, I wouldn’t call it misery, more like the terrifying uncertainty of my current situation—I did not come to be murdered in the middle of the night by a high-country killer.

Yet, here we are.

I’m not ready to die. Not even at my lowest did I feel that desperate.

Not when I saw my ex-fiancé Bradley at the hospital yesterday, smugly cozying up to his new bride.

The one he’d started dating approximately five seconds after I called off our wedding last summer.

The wedding I walked away from in the middle of the rehearsal dinner because I finally realized he’s a condescending douche canoe who treated me like an accessory rather than a person.

I didn’t get the memo that he’d returned to our shared hometown of Skylark, Colorado. And I sure as shit didn’t know that he and the new Mrs. Bradley Carlson, a nurse like me, would be working at our small-ish community hospital where I couldn’t avoid them if I tried.

I can’t blame my entire meltdown on Bradley.

That would be giving him too much power over me, and I vowed never again to let a man take my power that way.

But it’s been a rough month—longer if I’m being honest. Seeing them together in the break room, a diamond the size of a small planet on her left hand, was the last straw.

I quit on the spot, packed a bag, and fled to Ian and Sadie’s cabin before the Skylark rumor mill could start churning.

So I’m alone as I creep down the darkened staircase, my bare feet silent on the hardwood steps and my would-be killer rattling the front doorknob, wielding a tennis shoe in one hand and my e-reader in the other.

One to use as a weapon, the other as a potential shield. Because—once more for the bitches in the back—I don’t want to die tonight.

Although I’d really hate to lose my new Kindle, the fancy one with the warm light setting.

I highly doubt whether it could stop either a bullet or a knife swipe, but it seemed like a better option than a feather pillow from the guest bedroom where I’m sleeping.

To be fair, the pillows are those fancy European ones that probably cost more than my monthly student loan payment, so who knows what they could do in a pinch.

If I make it through this night, I swear on all that is holy, I’ll go back to leaving my phone on the nightstand when I sleep.

I’ve been reading too much about blue light and beta waves, or whatever the hell it is that a phone emits, and while I’m not going to don a tinfoil hat any time soon, I figured keeping the phone in the kitchen would be a smart choice.

Being able to call 911 would have been preferable at the moment, but it is what it is.

My Jeep is parked in the attached garage, so if I can get to it before the intruder gets inside, maybe I’ll have a chance at escaping. The keys are on the hook by the mudroom, because I’m organized like that.

I hear the soft snick of the door opening, and a deep voice mutters something about fucking light switches.

So much for getting out before he gets in. Back to Plan A, whatever the heck that was.

“Don’t move,” I shout, pitching my voice low like I’m the threat. Which is ridiculous because I’m currently scared out of my mind and pants-less.

“The fuck?”

The killer doesn’t sound particularly cowed or predatory. More like...annoyed?

There’s a sliver of light coming in the front window—the June moon is nowhere near full—and all I can see is the hulking outline of one giant of a man.

Adrenaline spikes, and I think about how much I have to live for. Topping the list is the fact that I’m right now growing a tiny human inside me. A baby who deserves better than to have their mom taken out by a home invader.

“Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker!” I shout as I hurl the tennis shoe in the man’s direction. Apparently, when faced with death, I channel Die Hard.

I played soccer and volleyball in high school—I wasn’t exactly All-State material, but I made varsity in both sports all four years and have decent aim. The shoe connects with a satisfying thwack, followed by a string of curses that would make a sailor blush.

This is my chance. I bound down the rest of the stairs and turn the corner toward the back of the house just as the lights flip on. The sudden brightness is blinding, and I blink rapidly, trying to adjust.

“What the fuck, Piper?”

Nearly to the kitchen, I stop mid-stride and whirl around, which knocks me off balance. I windmill my arms to keep from face-planting. That would be bad given the potential for general humiliation plus the pesky detail of me not wearing pants.

And suddenly I’m facing the last man—potential murderer, notwithstanding—I want to see right now.

Relief washes over me, my body not quite on the same page as my brain, and my knees give out as Felix Barlowe, my brother-in-law’s huge, handsome, star NFL wide receiver brother stalks toward me.

All six-foot-four inches of him. With his stupid perfect jawline and his stupid dark hair that looks like he just rolled out of bed.

The same hair I ran my fingers through that night in Denver when we…

Nope. Not going there. That was tequila and temporary insanity and a mistake we agreed to forget.

“Are you trying to give me a fucking heart attack?” I demand through raspy breaths. My heart is doing this weird galloping thing that I’m attributing entirely to adrenaline. It has nothing to do with how his gray T-shirt stretches across his chest. The same chest I…

Stop it, Piper. This is not the time.

“You nearly took my damn eye out.”

His annoyingly piercing–and entirely unharmed–eyes do a slow perusal of my current state, and I swear the temperature in the room jumps ten degrees.

Just like it did in that bar in Denver when my friend’s bachelorette party collided with his celebration for signing with the Denver Grizzlies franchise.

When we’d had too many shots and ended up pressed against each other on the dance floor.

And then in the elevator.

And then in his hotel room

And then…

Focus, Piper.

“I thought you were here to kill me.”

“Only in my dreams,” he mumbles. And there’s that smirk, the one that makes smart women do stupid things. The one that made me do stupid things when hours of trading insults somehow turned into foreplay. “Why did you throw a shoe at me?”

“Um, I thought you were a whack job coming to kill me. Maybe you should knock next time? Or, I don’t know, text? Call? Send a carrier pigeon? Literally anything other than breaking and entering?”

“Ian gave me a key.” He rubs his forehead where my shoe made contact. “Nice arm, by the way.”

“High school volleyball. Not that you’d remember anything about me that doesn’t involve shit talk.”

The look he levels at me shoots sparks up my spine.

“I remember plenty that doesn’t involve talking,” His voice drops a fraction, and, oh God, he’s thinking about it too.

The first weekend of April. Denver. The hotel room.

The way we agreed the next morning that it was a terrible lapse in judgment.

That we hated each other, and it would never happen again.

And that no one, especially not Ian and Sadie, would ever know.

“Forget whatever you’re remembering.” I resist the urge to place a protective hand on my stomach, which is stupid because I’m not showing yet. And I have no idea what the hell I’m going to do about my baby’s father being a man who can’t stand me, and who told me to my face he doesn’t want kids.

“Put some fucking clothes on,” he says through gritted teeth, as if I’m the one being unreasonable.

I glance down at my faded T-shirt with “Night Shift Nurse: We Can’t Fix Stupid, But We Can Sedate It” printed across the front. It hits at mid-thigh, well below the danger zone, and I’m wearing my comfiest cotton bikini briefs, not even a thong.

I cross my arms, which—oops—makes the shirt ride up higher. “It’s not like you haven’t seen it before,” I tell him, and then immediately want to die because that’s not going to help either of us forget that night.

His eyes go wide, and I suck in a breath that has nothing to do with the adrenaline comedown and everything to do with the way he’s looking at me. Like he’s remembering exactly what’s under this shirt.

“I’m referencing legs in general, you asshat. You’ve seen plenty of female body parts.” On plenty of women who aren’t his brother’s sister-in-law, or carrying his secret baby. Women he actually likes.

“I’m not here to murder you, Hart,” he says, his cadence painfully slow.

“And I’m trying to be respectful.” He pauses, his jaw working like he’s physically forcing himself to keep his eyes on my face.

His gaze drops for just a second before snapping back up.

“Put on a bra, while you’re at it,” he commands.

Like he has a right to demand anything where I’m concerned.

I clutch the Kindle closer to my chest. The device might not protect me from bullets, but it’s definitely shielding me from Felix’s opinion of my braless state. “How about I go back to bed and you turn around and go back to whatever whore hole you crawled out of?”

The murderer accusation clearly bothered him, but the man-whore comment makes his lips twitch. Interesting. Either way, I’ve gotten under his skin, which pleases me to no end. He’s been under mine since April. Literally and figuratively.

“I’m not going anywhere.” He glances over his shoulder as if he’s just remembered something, and then takes a step away from me. “I’ve got someone in the car, and—”

“Fuck off, Felix.” Why should I care if he brought a woman up here?

It’s not like we’re...anything. We had one stupid, tequila-fueled, admittedly mind-blowing night that meant nothing.

Even if the result means everything to me.

I need to tell him, obviously. But that’s a conversation I’m not prepared to have at the moment.

What I am prepared to do is kill my sister for not warning me he was coming.

She knows I came here to escape drama, not to have it delivered to my door in the form of a six-foot-four football player with commitment issues and the ability to make me forget my own name with just a kiss.

Not that we’re kissing ever again. That was a one-time thing.

Felix Barlowe is a gorgeous, athletic, surprisingly tender mistake who’s brought another woman to the cabin where I’m trying to figure out my life.

I sigh and give him my best glare because the truth is he has as much right to be here as I do. His brother did marry my sister, after all. We’re family. Sort of. In the most technical, non-blood-related, we-accidentally-made-a-baby-together way.

“At least do me the courtesy of keeping her quiet.” I aim for casual indifference and land somewhere around bitter resignation.

Because I’m not at all looking forward to hearing him with another woman while my hormones are doing whatever the hell they’re doing—which feels a lot like wanting to fangirl all over him.

“Wear earplugs,” he says, that smirk widening into a full-blown grin as he disappears out the front door. But not before I catch him muttering something that sounds suspiciously like “who needs sedation” and shaking his head.

I stand there for a full minute, Kindle still clutched to my chest, dignity hanging out on the floor with my shoe. The secret of my pregnancy sits like a stone in my stomach as I wonder how my peaceful mountain escape just turned into...whatever this is.

The universe has a twisted sense of humor. And right now, the joke’s on me.