Chapter 9
THATCHER
She’s late.
And that shouldn’t matter.
She’s an adult. She took one of the trucks.
She’s capable.
I tell myself all of that while I pace the office like a caged animal, finding excuses not to leave.
One more thing to check.
One more lock to turn.
One more glance out the window.
The weather’s turned mean in the last twenty minutes.
Freezing rain slicks the yard, tapping against metal like a warning.
The temperature’s dropping fast, and the wind coming down off the ridge has teeth.
Fuck.
I’ve got my keys in my hand, jacket half on, already planning the route I’ll take to find her when I hear it—tires crunching over salt.
Relief slams into me so hard my knees almost go weak.
She’s back.
She pulls up by the lunchroom, hops out of the driver’s seat like she hasn’t just shaved ten years off my life, like I haven’t been imagining her truck slid into a ditch, her stuck on the side of the road in this weather.
She doesn’t see me.
Doesn’t hear me.
She’s humming.
Actually fucking humming.
Some eighties rock song—familiar enough to tug a grin out of me under normal circumstances.
But I’m too keyed up for that.
Wound too damn tight.
I hang back, watching as she rounds the truck, pops the hatch on the covered bed, reaches in, then I make myself known.
“Get lost?”
She screams.
Actually screams.
It’s louder than is appropriate for being startled. There’s real fear there, and it makes me furious.
Not at her. For her
She drops a bag—apples, by the look of it—straight onto the wet ground.
“Oh my God!” she gasps. “Sorry! You scared me!”
I step closer, eyes on her face, wanting her to see me.
To know it’s me.
To understand I won’t hurt her. Not ever.
“You need to pay better attention, Baby Girl.”
The words slip out before I think better of them.
I don’t apologize.
I point at the door.
“Inside. Now. I’ll unload. You put things away.”
She hesitates just long enough to irritate the hell out of me.
I place my hand at her lower back and nudge her forward.
Not rough.
Just firm.
The second my palm makes contact, my body lights up like I touched a live wire.
My cock pulses, growing hard beneath my jeans.
Fuck.
She’s warm. Soft. Solid in a way that makes my grip flex before I can stop it.
My thumb presses in instinctively, like I need to make sure she’s real, that she’s here and safe and not somewhere out on the road where I can’t get to her.
She blinks slowly, startled.
I should pull my hand back immediately.
I don’t.
Instead, I drop my hand lower, digging my fingers into her jeans just above her ass.
It feels good. Right. Like I belong touching her.
And I want that. Christ, I want the right to touch this woman. I need it.
Five more weeks, I tell myself.
Only now, I think maybe that’s an impossible ask.
Her hair’s getting soaked, darkening as freezing rain slicks it down.
She’s wearing that thin jacket again—the one I already told her wasn’t enough—and something ugly coils in my gut.
Is she stubborn?
Or just broke?
Or worse, used to being told she doesn’t deserve better.
Like with that Diet Coke shit.
I don’t like any of the possibilities.
“Inside, Willow,” I say again, voice lower, gentler.
Then I add, the order clear, “Now.”
She doesn’t argue.
She moves.
And the way she listens—how she trusts me enough to follow without question—does something final and dangerous inside my chest.
Something clicks.
This isn’t just attraction.
This is instinct.
Possession.
And I don’t know yet how the hell I’m going to live with that.
But I know one thing for certain—nothing happens to her.
Not while she’s here.
Not on my watch.