Chapter 3
Kinsey
Sighing, I shut the door on the bedroom that I set the kids up in for now. The wind is howling around the house but luckily the electric is still on. I didn’t expect that, but Landon knew where the generator was out and got it started almost immediately.
Landon Winters. My big brother’s best friend. Those words ache like a toothache right now.
My brother’s death a month ago was like a salvation and a kick to the belly all at the same time. The loss…
My eyes close and tears sting the corners again. I can’t believe he’s gone.
I ran out of Wildwood like my ass was on fire as soon as I turned eighteen. Wanted to see the world. Wanted to find a suave, good-looking man that didn’t wear flannel and cut trees in his spare time.
Wanted to get away from Landon Winters and how he made me feel.
I always liked him. But the problems started when I hit seventeen. Crush didn’t feel like a strong enough word. My whole body felt like it was on fire every time he was near me. My skin flamed and I ached to touch him.
But he didn’t see me as anything but Karter’s little sister. Never even looked at me.
He smiled at me sometimes when I pushed myself into their business. But he would just pat me on the head and then turn back to Karter.
There was no way that I could stay there and suffer, watching him hook up with some other girl.
Although Karter told me he never got married, that doesn’t mean he didn’t date.
So when I got the nerve to leave home I never looked back. My parents passed away when I was sixteen and Karter raised me the last two years before I left. He was the best. He would do anything to protect me. He worked like a madman at our family’s Christmas tree farm and it seemed to be thriving.
My eyes dart around the room and study the peeling paint, the warped wood floors. It’s obvious that the house hasn’t been taken care of for awhile.
Guilt creeps up inside me, choking me.
Did I leave my brother alone with no one to help him after all he did for me?
Shaking my head, I step back into the huge living room. Landon has a fire going and he’s standing there, holding his hands out to the fire.
Big hands, firm, square jaw. Straw-blond hair streaked with gray peeking out from the hat he’s still wearing.
He looks up and sees me and his bright blue eyes crinkle at the corners. “It’s good to see you again, Kinsey. Been a long time.” His eyes darken and travel down my body and heat streaks out, settling in my belly. Butterflies dance in the flames and I can barely breathe.
“Landon. I didn’t know you were still around here.”
His face darkens and there’s something unexpected there. Anger and loss.
“Yeah. I was just on my way out of town.”
“Don’t let me hold you up,” I huff.
He smiles again and this time there’s an edge of triumph. “It’s been a long time since you’ve been around one of these storms, hasn’t it? The roads off the mountain are already too treacherous to make it all the way down.”
Tipping my head back, I huff out a groan.
“I’m stuck here until they get the roads cleared off. That’s probably gonna be at least a few days.”
So now I’ve got a guest to watch me try to get my feet under me. Try to figure out what’s going on with the farm.
“Let me find you a room then.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll stay in your brother’s old room. Not the master, the one he had before…”
Before my parents died and everything changed.
Nodding, I watch him walk away.
I don’t know what to think about this. But I do know that I trust Landon. More than I ever trusted my husband.
He’s always been like a big brother to me. No matter what my body and my heart say.
I’m sure it will all be fine.
My eyes drift around the room and land on a quilt on the back of the couch. I settle on the couch and pull the quilt across me, sighing, my head settling and my eyes locked on the flames in the grate.
I’m too tired to face the rooms and much too tired to face the ghosts hiding in some of them.
Closing my eyes, I let my aching body drift away. To someplace where warm blue eyes laugh at me and a bright smile lightens the pain in my heart.