Chapter Three
Nate
My friends called it dogged determination. My business competitors said I was obsessed with winning. Either way, I was used to getting what I wanted. What I wasn’t used to was wanting something or someone so clearly wrong for me.
According to my lawyer, this property was the majority of Silas’s estate, and if I didn’t accept it, it would be auctioned off, the proceeds going to local charities.
I didn’t need the money and probably should have let that happen without bothering to return.
My dad, who was usually all about profit, had even suggested that I should.
Coming from him, that wasn’t generosity.
It was a tell. What was it he didn’t want me to see here?
Add Aunt Claire’s relentless plea for me to come one last time, and the whole situation felt off.
And now Jo. A woman so outside my norm, I wouldn’t know how to describe her to my friends. She looked perfectly at home with a wrench in her hand and grease on her cheek. No designer perfume. No curated elegance. She smelled like hard work, fresh air, and a hint of gasoline.
I leaned in, caught the scent of something sweeter, and it hit harder than any store-bought scent. One taste of those lips and I’d forget every good decision I’d ever made.
Her gaze lifted, dark and searching, and for a second I didn’t just want her body. I wanted the mystery. The fight. Whatever she brought with her. I was all in. She was awkward and fierce at once, a contradiction that begged to be unraveled and protected.
“When you leave here,” I asked before I could stop myself, “do you have anywhere to go?”
She chewed her bottom lip, breath fogging in the cold. “I’ll figure it out. I always do.”
That wasn’t an answer, and it made me want to know more.
“You said Silas knew your father?”
“Yes.”
“Where’s he now?”
She hesitated, the pause long enough to make me curious. “He’s tied up with a complicated project.”
“What kind of work does he do?”
“That’s difficult to say. He tends to go from job to job. He’s brilliant but restless.”
I imagined her moving from place to place, never certain of where she belonged, and a memory came back to me. I’d felt the same when my parents were divorcing and they sent me here, to this farm.
Is that why Silas thought I’d want it? The thought drew a sad smile. All that proves is how little he knew me. “How did you end up here?” I asked.
She looked down, as if weighing the truth of that. “Like I said, Silas was a friend of my father’s. He said I could stay as long as I needed to.”
There was something in her tone that struck me. I hadn’t considered how Silas’s death might have affected her. Because it didn’t affect me? Or did it? Returning here had me tangled up in ways I didn’t like to admit.
She stepped back, clearly regretting how much she’d shared. “Do you need anything else?”
“I can have the vehicle towed and fixed,” I offered, thinking of the kid at the gas station.
She shook her head. “I’m almost done. If you’d arrived fifteen minutes later, I would have been gone.” She tugged her jacket tighter. “I was going to head to town.”
“I could drive you in.”
Her gaze darted past me and froze. “In your . . . is that an Aston Martin Zagato?”
My chest puffed. “It is.”
She abandoned me instantly, circling the car like it was a celebrity. Fair. I’d done the same.
Her hand traced the mirror with reverence, scarf loose around her neck. “I didn’t think these were out yet.”
“Early release. Client gift.”
Her voice dipped husky. “V-12. Three-point-five seconds to sixty. Carbon-fiber weave. Zagato lines like sculpture.”
For once, she wasn’t guarded. She was gushing . . . just not about me. Strangely, that made me like her more.
She circled again until her frown landed on a new scratch in the paint.
“Mountain roads,” I said.
She touched it tenderly, like the car had bled. “I can fix this. Cleaner, wax, sealant. Better than new.”
“Thanks,” I said, amused. “But my service crew will handle it.”
Her shoulders dropped. “Of course.”
That flash of disappointment hit me where I didn’t expect it. I was tempted to toss her the keys, but I didn’t do impulsive. “I’ll put your Beretta in the office,” I said lightly. “Keep it safe for you.”
One brow lifted. “How considerate.”
“Is sarcasm your natural default?”
Her smile was tentative, but it lit the room like the first string of Christmas lights on a snowy night. “Only all of the time.”
Intriguing. “Have dinner with me tonight,” I said before common sense could stop me.
Her gaze flicked up, desire flashing before she shuttered it, breath pluming as she adjusted her gloves. “Thanks, but—”
“We’ll order in.”
“That wouldn’t be a good idea,” she said quickly, arms crossing over her jacket.
Her look met mine, and my pulse kicked up. “Six o’clock. Main house.”
She hesitated. “I said no.”
“Did you?” I relaxed my stance. “It’s just dinner. A meal between two people stuck in the middle of nowhere on a cold, icy night. Just sharing food, nothing more. Unless you ask nicely.”
Her blush sent me. “You wish you were my type,” she said, chin high.
I laughed. She wasn’t wrong. I flashed her my best grin, then reached into the car for my overnight bag. “Come back at six. Bring that confidence.”
She walked away, shaking her head. Would she come back? I had no idea, and that had me grinning stupidly.
Once inside the house, I tapped the snow off my boots and looked around the main hall. Everything was as I remembered it, but the place felt smaller. Fading daylight filtered through wide-paned windows, glancing off the wood floors and bringing out honeyed streaks beneath years of polish.
To the left, a door opened into Silas’s office. The space still smelled faintly of books and pipe tobacco. Glass covered shelves lined the walls, packed with memorabilia.
Across the hall, the sitting room had been converted into a library.
The furniture was old, heavy, built to last. The fireplace bore the scars of decades of winters, its stone hearth soot-dark and solid.
Books crowded the walls. Dog-eared, mismatched, some probably borrowed and never returned.
A plaid throw was draped over the arm of a leather chair worn smooth at the edges.
It was the kind of room meant for storms and long silences.
The floor plan came back to me like a muscle memory.
The kitchen would be through the archway ahead, wide and bright in the daytime, the kind of space Silas swore made coffee taste better.
Upstairs, the bedroom that had been mine for a summer would be at the end of the hall, right-hand side.
I used to sneak to the window at the end of that hallway at night and watch the field fade into fog.
From there, I could see the barn sitting empty.
I stood at the bottom of the stairs a moment longer, hand resting on the banister. The wood was smooth from years of use, solid beneath my palm. The whole house was like that. Quiet, steady, unapologetic. It didn’t try to impress anyone. It just was. Like Silas.
I put down my bag and called Andre, a man I knew who could find out anything about anyone. He picked up instantly only because he and I had done a lot of business over the years, and I’d not only paid him well, but I’d also kept our affiliation to myself.
“Run a background on Jo Arlington,” I said. “Also Frank Muller. I want everything you can find on them. ASAP.”
“Got it.”
This was routine. In my world, there were no unanswered questions. Everything about everyone was out there somewhere. No mystery left in the world. Disappointing, really.
I wasn’t unhappy with my life. I had friends, more money than I could spend in ten lifetimes, and eventually I might even find a woman who didn’t bore me after the first few dates. My gut told me Jo was hiding something, and part of me had considered not calling Andre and letting that play out.
Sadly, I was too practical for that.
And she’d met me with a gun.
That shouldn’t have been the turn-on it was.