Under One Roof (Stone Family #1)

1. Andi

Chapter 1

Andi

F our days, eight Red Bulls, and sixty-seven loops of my “I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar” playlist later, I have to call it.

I’ve let down Aretha, Alanis, Beyoncé, and my girl Kelly Clarkson in one fell swoop. Not to mention Helen Reddy. I’m not worthy to sing their songs, let alone roar.

I haven’t showered since Albuquerque. My sleep hasn’t been much better—a few hours at a time at rest stops off the interstate. I started getting punch-drunk somewhere in Indiana, and my car began smoking about five miles behind…wherever I am now.

Not Texas, that’s for sure.

Ten years after I left my family’s cattle ranch and everyone I knew in the dust, I couldn’t go crawling back with my tail between my legs. So instead of making the turn off I-10, I white-knuckled the steering wheel and kept right on driving. Like if I went far enough, fast enough, I could outrun my shame and embarrassment.

Pulling off onto the shoulder of the road, I let my head fall back against the rest and close my eyes, accepting my current fate.

I inhale a few times, then grab my cell phone, the date and time on the screen.

April 12th, 1:37.

Write it on the death certificate. The day Andrea Halton’s dreams well and truly died.

I put on my metaphorical big-girl panties and hop out of my Jeep, slamming the door to march around to the front of my hunk of junk. And because the universe hates me, not only is my car literally smoking, but it’s raining.

Perfect.

Perfect!

I pop the hood like I have any idea what I’m doing and stare at the sizzling engine with wires and twisty things and boxes that look like they might be important. My big-girl panties quickly sag.

Turning in a circle, the pavement slick under my boots, I search for a sign to let me know where I am. I’ve been so bleary-eyed and haven’t been paying much attention. Sorta just headed east.

As far as I could go.

Which is here, apparently.

I wipe my palms on my shorts and open the internet browser on my cell phone but stall out. What do I do next?

I have no idea.

All my life knowledge has evaporated.

Maybe it happened when I crossed the Mississippi. Everything I ever knew fell out of my head. Plunked right down into the river below.

Biting the inside of my cheek, I refuse to give in to the tears.

But it’s really hard not to. So, I bite harder and sniff a few times, blinking away the evidence.

“Think. Think,” I command myself. “Find a mechanic. Pull up the map. You can do this.”

I start typing, but before I can finish, a big truck parks in front of me.

This will be my real time of death, 1:42.

Though it’s the middle of the day, I tense up, ready to…fight. I guess. Or run. I’ve got little legs, but I can run pretty fast if need be. They didn’t call me “The Flash” on my fourth-grade basketball team for nothing.

I attempt to keep my breathing steady as I stand as tall as my five feet two inches will allow and watch as a figure steps out of the truck.

It’s a man.

I can tell from the sneakers that hit the pavement first, and then my gaze travels up the black sweatpants to the thick torso, and up farther, over the sturdy-looking shoulders to the face.

The face.

Sweet baby Jesus.

I actually whimper.

Because he looks like he should be wearing spandex and a cape, all swinging arms and muscles with a square jaw that could cut glass. With every step he takes, I take one back until I’m up against my Jeep, unable to do anything but watch this superhero approach me.

It’s not until he’s a few feet from me that I see his brow is furrowed under the bill of the hat he wears on his head, and he’s got an actual dimple in his chin.

Slo-mo walking to me and everything, it’s as if he stepped off a movie screen.

Or maybe that’s all in my head.

Probably.

Because I don’t even realize he’s talking to me until he points to his ear. “Can you hear me?”

“Hm? Yeah.” I straighten up. “Yes, I can hear you.”

His gaze sweeps over me from head to toe. “I asked if you need help.”

“Oh. Um. Y-yes. My car… It’s smoking…”

Another full inspection with his dark eyes, and I shudder, my You Can Do This adrenaline taking a nose dive all at once.

“Are you all right? Do you need medical assistance?” the superhero asks, stepping so close, the tips of his sneakers touch the tips of my boots, and it’s only now that I realize I must look ridiculous. My hair’s plastered to my head from the rain, my Allman Brothers T-shirt is white, so it’s become see-through, and I’m not wearing a bra.

I fold my arms over my chest in an attempt to warm up and cover myself. “I’m okay. A little lost and broke down.”

Literally and figuratively.

His attention drifts past me. “Where are you headed?”

I swallow, my throat thick with humiliation. As if my life can’t get any worse, the hottest man I’ve stumbled across in a long time is here to watch not only my car but my life break down in real time. I’m not sure what to say, so I shrug, biting my molars to keep my chin from wobbling.

The corners of his mouth tighten into a frown, and his eyes crinkle like he’s angry. I’m not sure what about, but maybe rescuing a drowned rat wasn’t on his to-do list today.

“I’m sorry, I?—”

“Here.” He unzips his hoodie and hands it over to me. “Put this on.”

“I don’t want to take your sweatshirt. It’s?—”

“You’re freezing. Put it on.” When I don’t immediately take it from him, he drapes it over my shoulders, leaving me without a choice, so I slide my arms inside. While it’s a little wet from the rain and three times my size, it’s warm from his body heat. I wrap it tight around me and tug the soft cotton up to my nose under the guise of being cold, but really, I want to smell it. Breathe in his scent of earth and smoke.

“Go sit in my truck,” he instructs. “You need to get warm.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea.” I don’t know him or where I am. I’m basically living the beginning of a Dateline episode.

As if reading my mind, he jerks his chin in the direction of his dark blue Ford. “My keys are in the cupholder.”

Meaning, I could steal the thing if I wanted to.

“Are you sure?”

He curls his long fingers around my shoulder, tugging me away from my Jeep, and gently pushes me past him. “Go. I’ll take care of this.”

With one last wary look at him, I scurry to his truck, where I have to literally jump up into the passenger seat. As he promised, the keys are there, and I pump up the heat then turn to watch my rescuer work.

He’s bent over, doing something with my vehicle’s engine, his gray shirt now completely soaked through as the rain has picked up in the short time I’ve been enjoying the heated seats in his comfy truck. I feel bad. I shouldn’t be letting him try to fix my Jeep or whatever it is he’s doing, but before I can gather my courage to go out there again, he shuts the hood. Taking his cell phone out of his pocket, he leans against the Jeep, facing in my direction. I think his gaze is focused on me. I can’t be sure with the rain and the whole truck between us, but I swear I can feel his eyes on me.

His conversation is quick, and he slides his phone into his pocket before jogging over to the driver’s side. Then he slams the door, sealing us both inside with the heat blasting and rain pelting the windshield, and he’s not only my rescuer. He’s my prince.

Because now I know what Cinderella must have felt when she saw Prince Charming for the first time.

Like all the air was sucked out of her lungs and the noise everywhere went silent except her heartbeat in her ears.

Too bad for me, the clock has already struck midnight and my carriage has transformed back into a pumpkin.

My prince removes his fire and rescue cap and rakes his hand over his hair, the dark strands barely long enough to curl over his knuckles, with silver strands at his temples and some gray in the scruff that I can finally see around his jaw. I estimate he’s in his late thirties or early forties, tanned and well-built, like a man who spends a lot of time working his body. I get caught staring at the tattoos covering his left arm. They’re mesmerizing. The way the dark blue ink wraps and curves around his forearm, leading to the thick, fancy-looking watch on his wrist.

It’s all so…masculine. Like, kill a mammoth and build a fire with only a stick and rock type masculine.

Maybe I’ve been around too many men who take more pride in their flat brims and spotless bright-white Jordans than in doing anything of value, but this guy exudes a type of get-shit-done attitude I haven’t experienced in a long time.

He clears his throat, forcing my brain to ignore the loincloth-in-a-cave fantasies and start functioning in reality again.

I blink down to his hat on the seat between us and notice the emblem on it matches the one on his sweatshirt that I’m wearing, right above what I guess is his name. I assume he must be a firefighter and drag my fingertip over the stitching, quietly reading it to myself. “Captain Stone.”

He answers with a deep, “Yeah.”

I meet his eyes, heavy lidded and so dark brown they’re almost black, with thick lashes that I’d kill for. So pretty. A stark contrast to the rest of him, stone-faced and carved from marble.

Even Michelangelo would be jealous of this work of art.

I gesture from him to the name on the sweatshirt. “You’re Captain Stone?”

He nods.

“As in, fire captain?”

He nods again, and I exhale.

“Like Captain America.”

He arches one thick brow at me, and I nibble on the inside of my lip, thinking I somehow offended him again.

“I didn’t mean it as a bad thing,” I rush out, yanking the sleeves of the sweatshirt down to cover my fists. “It’s— You’re rescuing me, and you have that kind of look about you and?—”

“That’s what my brother calls me,” he says, interrupting my nervous rambling.

“Oh?” I give in to a small laugh. “See? Must be true, then. Captain America.”

He pushes his air vents so they’re all aimed in my direction. “Are you warm enough?”

I stick my covered-up hands between my knees. “Yeah. I’m okay.”

“Don’t lie.” He shifts, stretching one of his long arms between the seats to retrieve a bag from the back seat, and pulls out a blanket, which he swiftly opens and drapes over me. “You’re shivering.”

I burrow into the warmth and push wet locks of hair behind my ears as he sifts through the bag again, this time retrieving a water from his emergency kit. I gratefully accept the bottle since I’ve been running almost exclusively on caffeine and beef jerky.

“Thank you for this,” I say and slug back half of it before putting the lid back on, avoiding his gaze. “And thank you for stopping.” Maybe if I stay still long enough, he’ll forget about me, and I can continue on my merry way.

But he won’t allow it. He takes hold of his sweatshirt on me with his bear-paw hands and zips it all the way up. Then he gives a playful tug on the strings with a quietly growled, “There.”

The backs of his knuckles slide across my jaw, nudging my focus up to his steady gaze, lulling me into a sense of security. It’s hypnotizing, how I can’t look away from him. How it seems like he can see into my mind as his eyes drift back and forth between mine. “Appeared like you needed some assistance.”

A lifetime passes before he finally removes his hands from me, and I can breathe again. Though the oxygen hasn’t reached all the way to my brain yet. “I do. I mean, I did.”

He ignores my Freudian slip. “Your engine’s overheated because of a coolant leak. I called for a tow to take it to a mechanic shop. He’ll be able to fix it for you.”

After a decade in Los Angeles, I’m not used to a stranger being so helpful, and I reflexively reach for my bag, which, of course, I don’t have at the moment. “I’ll pay you.”

“You don’t have to do that. It was nothing.”

“But…” I lift the blanket and water bottle, showing him how he helped me. I have to repay him somehow.

“But nothing,” he snaps with a finality that rings through the small space we’re both sharing, and I close my mouth, sitting up straight. The response is automatic, like my body knows it’s a requirement to be at attention in his presence.

Next to me, Captain America breathes audibly, and out of the corner of my eye, I see him rub his forehead. “Sorry. I don’t expect to be repaid.” He sighs again, and when I turn to him, he lolls his head back against his seat, rolling to face me. “It’s been a long day. I apologize for being short with you. Especially since you’ve obviously had a bad day too.”

I nod, and I hate how my voice sounds so broken. “Bad week, more like.”

Months, really.

He studies me with a shrewd gaze, and I know he can read me better than I can read him. Already, he’s got one up on me, so I don’t even try to lie when he asks, “What happened?”

I wipe at the wetness in the corner of my eye. “Small-town girl tries to make it big but fails and is afraid to go home and face her past, so she keeps driving until she breaks down in the middle of nowhere.” I try for a smile. It fades quickly. “You know, the usual.”

“The usual,” he repeats dryly, though his face is soft. He extends his hand like he might touch me but changes course to point at the windshield. “You’re not in the middle of nowhere. You’re in West Chester, Pennsylvania. Not far from Philly.”

I peer around as if the city is right outside the window. “Oh yeah?”

“About forty miles east.” He gestures in that direction. “If you get back on the interstate, you’ll hit New York City in two hours.”

Not a bad spot to break down in, I suppose.

“After my car gets fixed, maybe I’ll head that way,” I say, more to myself than him, and he nods once, raising his arm to check the time on his watch that I guess must be a diving or military watch with more numbers and buttons than a person needs.

“The tow should be here in twenty minutes or so. I can drive you to the shop then.”

I open my mouth to argue that he doesn’t have to, but the words die on my tongue when he arches his brow again. He’s apparently not used to being challenged, and I will not be the one to test him.

“I really appreciate you,” I tell Captain Stone, and he waves as if it’s no big deal. But it is. It’s a very big deal.

And whether or not he meant to, he just made me fall in love with him.