Chapter Two
Elara
I sit in the dirt, struggling to get my breathing under control.
The moving guys just dumped all our stuff outside the cabin, said that was all we paid for, and I should’ve read the fine print.
I wanted to argue, but I know how men can hold a grudge: how they can take something seemingly harmless and turn it into a vendetta that tears lives to pieces.
We’re here for a new start. Gunnison Peaks, two hours away from our old home, is enough distance between us and the bad thing so that I can clear my head and start anew, so that Mira can get back some of her old light back.
I grit my teeth and steady my breathing. We’ve been staying with my aunt in California, but she’s got a house full of kids and mayhem, and without saying it, I know we were overstaying our welcome.
Plus, I missed Colorado, the smell of pines, the mountain views. Home. If I can ever rebuild it, or some shadow of what it was.
I’m on edge because I had to go back to the city, briefly, to complete the sale of my childhood home.
Leaving the lawyer’s office, a cold shiver ran down my spine, as if there were someone watching, waiting, biding their time to ruin this new life of ours, but the worst had already happened to us, at least it feels like that.
Mira walks over to me. I look up, and for a heart-aching second, I see the girl she was behind her dulled eyes, her nervous mouth. She raises her finger and points to the road.
I leap to my feet, heart pounding.
The man standing there is over six feet tall, wearing a plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up, his forearms sinewy with muscle. His hair swept back and up from his forehead, brown flecked with hints of silver. A light beard covering his strong jaw.
In a different life, maybe, I might think, Whoa, he’s hot.
I quickly step in front of Mira. “Hello, can I help you?”
He stops, narrowing his dark eyes. “I was thinking I could help you. Since we’re neighbors.” He gestures at my furniture, my boxes of photo albums, the remnants of our life.
“We’re neighbors?”
“Yes, ma’am. I live up the road. This place has been vacant for some time.”
He says it like he’s annoyed at me for moving in, like I should feel guilty about it or something. But it’s odd. He’s not outwardly hostile. He’s trying to be friendly, a smile on his lips, but I sense a darkness in him. Or maybe that’s just good ol’ paranoia sticking to me.
Hell, is paranoia a bad thing?
“We’re fine,” I say, reaching behind me to put a hand on Mira.
He looks doubtfully at our stuff littering the driveway. “Are you sure…”
“Is this the part where I tell you my name?”
He smiles, and somehow, that almost pulls a smile from me. I fight my lips back into submission. I don’t want to give this man any ideas.
“Not if you don’t want to,” he says. “I’d just feel like a real jackass if I let you haul all this stuff inside by yourself. The moving company should’ve handled this.”
“Yeah, well, they didn’t,” I say, tone prickly. I raise an eyebrow. “Anything else?”
“Not if you don’t want there to be,” he replies, his voice gruff. “Except—my name’s Rhett. Like I said, I live up the road. If you need anything at all, you let me know.”
“Sure, Rhett, will do.”
He turns, and I suck in a breath, watching as he strides away, his shirt pulled taut between the peaks of his muscular shoulders.
“Tell him to wait, Sissy.”
It takes me a moment to compute what’s just happened. Sissy is what Mira has always called me instead of sister. It started when she was three, and now, at nine, the habit has stuck… at least, it did until that night. Since then, she’s been almost completely mute, rarely speaking unless she has to.
I turn and look down at her. She stares up at me with her golden eyes, toeing the ground stubbornly. “We need help.”
“We can handle it,” I tell her. “I can handle it.”
“Let Rhett help us,” she says, making her voice firmer. “We can’t carry all this stuff in by ourselves. And he’s a good person.”
I’m too stunned to respond for a second, first by the fact she’s just spoken more words than she has all week, then by her outraged assertion. He’s a good person…
“How could you possibly know that, huh?”
She shrugs and looks at the ground.
I kneel. Behind me, I hear Rhett’s car door open and close.
“Hey.” I touch Mira’s chin, bringing her gaze to mine. “You know you can talk to me, right? Why do you trust that guy?”
“I… I just do.” She huffs. “There are good and bad people, Sissy.”
She stares at me knowingly, forcing me to remember how I’ve been behaving this past year. Trust has been low on my list of priorities, buried deep, something I don’t let myself feel.
“Find the light, Sissy,” she murmurs softly.
That’s a gut punch. My motto used to be: “Find the light.” That was when I was in love with photography, before the idea of picking up a camera made me sick. There hasn’t been much light lately.
I hear his engine start, the chance almost slipping away.
“Okay, Mira, if you’re sure.”
Her lips curve into a smile. It’s a beautiful, unbelievable miracle. Something I feared I might never see again.
I turn and jog up the road. Rhett sees me coming, kills his engine, and leans out the window. Up close, he’s even more handsome. His eyes are dark, yes, but with a glint in them. Playfulness? Nope. Interest, curiosity? Closer.
“Uh, Rhett. I was going to say… if the offer’s still—well…”
“I’d love to help,” he says, reaching for his car door.
“I’m Elle,” I tell him. “And that’s Mira, my sister.”
Mira is standing at the top of the driveway, her arms wrapped over her middle, but also with a nervous smile on her lips.
Rhett climbs from the pickup and approaches her, kneeling in the dirt. “Hello, little lady,” he says. “Mira is a lovely name.”
Mira giggles. “Thank you. It was my grandma’s name. It’s pretty, right?”
“Very pretty.”
I caution the instinct in my heart, the warmth that threatens to melt the ice I’ve allowed to encase it. The ice is there for a reason: to protect me from charming men with silver threads in their hair and confidence in their stride.
“Whoa, he’s strong,” Mira says, sitting on the porch and kicking her legs as Rhett hauls the TV over his shoulder.
Mira’s not wrong. Rhett has handled most of the moving himself, carrying our stuff as though it’s weightless. His powerful body outlined by his tight shirt and worn jeans, in brief, tempting moments, I imagine his buttons popping, giving me a view of what I know is a magnificent chest.
But that’s a deep-down thought. That’s a fantasy from another life, not mine. I don’t let a single moment of this wayward feeling show on my face, in my posture, or anything.
Rhett carries the TV inside, then walks onto the porch, dusting his hands off on his jeans. It’s been two hours, and everything is inside except a couple of boxes.
“Thank you, Rhett,” I murmur.
He turns to me, dark eyes flitting up and down my body. Am I imagining that, or do I just want it to be true?
“Don’t mention it,” he says, reaching into his pocket. “I hope you don’t mind. I borrowed some paper.”
I roll my eyes. “We’d better call the cops.”
He chuckles, and I smile tightly. It feels too good to make him laugh. “It’s my number,” he says. “Just in case you need anything else.”
I reach up and close my hand around the paper. His rough hand brushes mine, and a spark runs up my arm. It’s electric and dangerous. I snatch my hand away.
Mira leaps up, skips over, and takes the paper from him. “Thank you, neighbor,” she says, her voice like sunlight through clouds on a murky day.
“I’ll take the rest of this inside,” Rhett says, keen eyes scanning me again, up and down, from my toes to the top of my head as if he likes what he sees.
“I’ll keep this very, very safe,” Mira says, folding the paper carefully.
When Rhett smiles down at her, she brightens, beaming up at him.
That ice around my heart creaks and groans as I watch my little sister open up for the first time in months.
I rush down the porch steps. “I’ll get the last few boxes, Rhett. You’ve done enough.”
“It’s no troub—”
“I said I’ll do it,” I cut him off.
As I lean down to pick up the box, a terrifying idea grips me. I don’t know this man, and I’ve just turned my back on him and Mira. I look over my shoulder, still bent at the hip.
Rhett isn’t looking at Mira. He’s looking at me, staring, as if memorizing every detail, his fists clenched at his sides, his chest rising and falling as if he’s struggling to contain some emotion I’m not sure I want to identify. When he sees me looking, he quickly glances away.
But it’s too late. I saw.
My cheeks flush, making me appear like a naive know-nothing whose life a man hadn’t obliterated a year ago. I’m here for a new start with my sister, not to do… whatever this is.
I carry the box up the porch, nodding at Mira. “Go inside and get washed up for lunch.”
“Can Rhett stay for lunch?” Mira asks sweetly.
“No,” I say with too much force in my voice, instantly regretting it.
She sighs and sticks her thumb in her mouth. I don’t have it in me to tell her she’s too old for thumb sucking. I turn to Rhett. He shifts, as if debating taking the box from me, but the look in my eye must be enough to make him stop.
“Thanks for the help.”
He nods. “Thanks for letting me help.”
I snort out a laugh.
“Something funny about that?” he says.
It’s the thing sinful men say to seem like a good guy.
“No,” I say.
His lips curl into a smirk, and his eyes glint. “Then I guess you’ve got some kind of spontaneous laughing condition?”
I turn away so he won’t see my smile. “Have a good day, Rhett.”
He tips an imaginary hat. “You too, Elle.”
I carry the box inside and drop it heavily onto the table. Mira is sitting on the arm of the couch with her arms folded, glaring at me.
I rub my forehead, feeling bone tired. I told him to go, so it’s not like I can be annoyed he left, and I can't resent him for it… what? Fighting for the right to have lunch with a stranger?
“That was rude, Sissy.”
I look at my baby sister. Even if she’s mad, I will not ignore her. All this talking is pure magic.
“What was?”
“He did all that helping and we didn’t even give him any food. I could’ve made him a sandwich. I’m good at making sandwiches.”
“I know you are.”
“Very, very rude,” she pouts.
“I’ll make us something to eat.”
“Not hungry,” she snaps, walking toward the hallway.
“Mira, wait—”
She ignores me and walks on. A moment later, her door slams.
I sigh. She’s a confused kid who doesn’t fully understand why our lives blew up last year.
She doesn’t get it: a smile, a lunch, it can lead to obsession and chaos, and so much more pain. The wounds we already carry might never fully heal.
>One-click: My Possessive Protector<