6. Nolan
NOLAN
She’d been watching me.
I’d caught her staring at me through the window about three minutes into weed eating. She must have been sitting at Alister’s desk, writing. Her eyes were locked on me like she couldn’t decide whether to yell at me for the noise or keep staring.
She’d chosen to keep staring.
For the record, I’d waited until evening to do the yard. Not because of her, but because it was cooler out. That was the reason. That was the only reason. Apparently, she’d still been writing, and now I was the jerk making too much noise again.
Not that she seemed to mind the view.
And yeah, maybe I’d been shirtless, and maybe I’d flexed a little harder on a few of those passes when I knew she was looking. My bear had rumbled smugly inside me, the bastard.
I was annoyed at him.
Annoyed at myself, too.
This woman had been here days, and I was already flexing for her like an idiot. She didn’t even like me. Every conversation we’d had so far had ended with one of us walking away mad.
Even so, she’d been watching me weed eat, and my bear wasn’t about to let me forget it.
After I put the weed eater away and took a quick shower to wash the grass and sweat off, I grabbed a couple of beers from the fridge and headed out to the back porch.
Watching the sunset from out there was the one part of my daily routine I never skipped, no matter what kind of day it had been.
The view from the back of the duplex faced straight over the water, and most evenings the sky put on a show that made everything else—bad clients, sore muscles, annoying neighbors—feel small.
Rose was out there.
She was in the porch chair on her side, knees pulled up to her chest with a glass of wine in hand. She didn’t look up when I came out, but her posture shifted. I noticed her shoulders tense and her chin dipped slightly.
I dropped into my chair and stretched my legs out in front of me before taking a swig from my beer.
“Evening,” I said.
She glanced over at me, then back at the water. “You’re sitting out here?”
“I sit out here every night.”
“Great.”
“Yep,” I said, taking another swig of my beer.
What was with all the attitude?
“You weed-eated at seven o’clock.”
There it was—the reason.
“I did.”
“While I was working.”
“Didn’t realize you were still at it. Figured you’d be done by then.”
“Well, I wasn’t.”
“Got that.” I took another swig. “For the record, I waited. Could’ve done it at five when I got home.”
She made a sound that was half scoff, half laugh, like she wanted to be mad but couldn’t quite commit to it. “You want credit for that?”
Damn, that was a good one. I almost grinned.
“A thank you would be nice,” I said instead.
“You’re not getting one.”
“Didn’t think so.”
The silence that followed wasn’t comfortable, but it wasn’t hostile either. It ranked somewhere in between.
My bear was locked in on her, though. The same way he’d been every time she was nearby.
It was a low, constant awareness that I couldn’t shake no matter how hard I tried.
He tracked the way she lifted the wineglass to her lips, the way the breeze moved her hair around her face, the way her thumb rubbed back and forth across the arm of the chair.
I should have gone inside to watch a game or done anything other than sit five feet from a woman who made my bear act like he’d lost his damn mind.
“Your fictional characters not talking to you today?” I asked instead.
I’d meant it as a dig. A light jab, the kind of thing I’d throw at anyone I was bickering with. She didn’t catch it that way. Her shoulders dropped, and she let out a long sigh of a breath.
“No,” she said, her gaze remaining on the ocean. “They’re not.”
That wasn’t the answer I’d expected. I’d expected her to fire back and call me a name or tell me to mind my business. Maybe toss me a sharp look or a frown. Instead, she sounded tired and frustrated beyond belief.
“It’s this book,” she said, her tone low.
“Well, the hero, I know what I want to write him like, and how I want him to feel on the page, but every time I sit down to write him, he comes out wrong. His vibe feels off. He’s flat.
” She glanced at me, and then shook her head before turning her gaze back to the waves. “Forget it. You don’t care about this.”
“I didn’t say that.”
She glanced at me again. This time there was a guarded expression on her face, like she was trying to figure out if I was messing with her.
I wasn’t.
To be honest, that surprised me as much as it seemed to surprise her.
Before either of us could say anything else, her phone buzzed on the arm of her chair.
She flinched, and her whole body went tight.
I watched her as she picked up her phone and stared at the screen.
All the color seemed to drain from her face.
She swallowed hard and then set her phone back down on the armrest. Her hand shook as she brought her wineglass to her mouth and took another sip.
My bear noticed all of this, too.
“Everything okay?” I asked on pure instinct.
Her gaze swung to me like she’d forgotten I was there still.
“Yeah, fine.” She downed the rest of her wine and shifted to gaze out at the water again.
I frowned, still staring at her. She wasn’t fine. She was lying. People didn’t jump at their phone like it was a grenade unless they were scared of something—or someone.
Neither of us moved to head inside.
Instead, we sat there as the sky went from gold to pink to a deep purple that bled into the water.
Neither of us spoke. I drank my other beers.
She poured herself more wine. My bear wouldn’t let me look away from her for more than a few seconds at a time, and at some point during the silence, my eyes landed on the freckle beside her lip.
It was small—barely there. The kind of thing you’d only notice if you were looking too close, which apparently I was. It sat just above the corner of her mouth, and when she took a sip of wine, it was accentuated in a way that made me stare longer than I should have.
I looked away before she caught me.
“I’m going to head in,” she said, standing. Her voice had softened. It wasn’t warm, but the edge was gone. “Goodnight.”
“Night.”
She slipped inside, and I stayed where I was, beer in hand, watching the last of the light fade from the sky over the ocean. My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I pulled it out.
Alister.
How’s the neighbor situation?
I typed back without thinking.
You mean the stranger you moved into my house without asking? Great. Love it.
She’s not in YOUR house. She’s in mine.
We share a wall, Alister.
Is she at least pretty?
I stared at the screen. Was she pretty? She was snippy, heavily guarded, complained about every noise I made, and looked at me like I was her least favorite person on the planet.
She also had blue eyes, delicate features, and a presence that made my bear impossible to control. I couldn’t stop thinking about her.
She’s okay.
Okay as in decent to look at, or okay as in pretty and you just don’t want to admit it?
Shut up.
Ha. Called it. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.
That leaves a small list.
Exactly. ;)
I shoved my phone back in my pocket and finished my last beer of the night.
My bear grumbled. He wasn’t agitated with me. He was restless. I knew why, but I wasn’t ready to name it yet.
I knew, though.
It had become obvious while talking with the guys earlier, and then it solidified when I realized how much my bear had latched on to Rose and wouldn’t let go. It was like everything was bending toward her. Gravity had shifted her way.
My bear had already made up his mind.
I hadn’t, though.
She was a temporary tenant. She’d be gone soon. Also, she didn’t even like me. I didn’t need my bear picking a mate who was going to pack up her laptop and drive back to wherever she came from the second her rental agreement was up and forget all about me.
My bear didn’t care about any of that, though.
He cared about the freckle by her lip and the way she’d looked at the ocean tonight like she was searching for something to keep her head above the water.
I frowned and went inside.
It wasn’t going to be her. It couldn’t be.
Even so, my bear already knew it was, and I wasn’t the one who got to decide such things.
He was.