Chapter 2
LYDIA
The first thing I notice about Brand Rollins is how big he is. His shoulders fill up the doorway and I have to tip my head back to meet his steel gray gaze. Just like everyone described. Except that they didn't tell me he was so intense.
"Not a joiner," said Merle at the post office. "He's not rude, exactly, but doesn't make conversation either."
Ruby, when I stopped in at her namesake diner this morning, who warned, "He's a tough one.
Hard as the mountain, that he is. One of these days I'll coax more than a grunt out of him with the right kind of dessert.
It hasn't happened yet, but I'm not done yet.
We'll see which one of us is more stubborn. Him or me."
And of course, there'd been Kate, working at her family's store when I picked up my favorite gourmet chocolate bars from her and tasted one of her experimental holiday flavors. "I don't trust anyone who doesn't like chocolate. It just seems wrong."
None of that had been enough to deter me. I had a job to do, and my father's note was clear. Brand Rollins was the only chance his legacy would live on. So here I was, standing on the porch of a mountain man I'd never met, and all I can think looking at him is, "He's gorgeous."
Gorgeous in a rugged sense. His hair is short, there's the shadow of stubble on his clenched jaw, and I can see a hint of fine lines at the corner of his eyes as he glares at me.
The sleeves of his bright blue flannel shirt are rolled up to expose strong forearms and it's unbuttoned over a dark tee that leaves little about his muscular chest to the imagination.
He leans against the door frame, folding his arms across the chest I was just appreciating and waits.
Silence. Like it's a weapon he's using against me.
Because it is. I hate silence. How he's figured that out in less than thirty seconds I'd be interested to find out. But that's not the reason I'm here.
"My dad, Corbin Kincaid. You knew him?" I make it a question, hoping it'll be enough of an invite that he'll at least open his mouth and answer me. It's a yes or no kind of thing. The simplest way to get someone talking.
For a moment, I think I've already failed. He glowers, I hold my breath, and finally he looks away first.
Victory.
"Yeah. I knew Corbin. Good man." The words are gravelly and low, and my stomach flips at the gruff sound. Not unpleasant, at all.
"He was." This is sure ground for me. I idolized my father, and anyone who says nice things about the man who helped raise me can't be all bad. "I think I saw you. At the funeral. You were in the back?"
It had been a fleeting glimpse, just as we were following the casket out of the small chapel.
He'd been a big shadow, an ocean of space around him in the empty pew, and then I'd been hurried on to the next necessary steps of grieving.
The ones my family told me would help. Except they hadn't helped me.
Not really. Because the one person in my life who loved me just the way I was had died and he wasn't coming back.
And I was about to lose the last thing I had of him. The thing that had meant so much to him.
But damned if I was going to let that happen.