Pebbles skittered down the steep path far ahead of her. A twig snapped.
Her heart lurched. She drew in a sharp breath, her eyes riveted on the trail that wound through some boulders and disappeared into the trees.
Bears.
Mountain lions.
Even wolves were possible here, in the foothills of the Rockies. She eyed the distance to the cabin. Too far. Running might make her look like scared, easy prey. Like a big, tasty rabbit.
She eased her backpack onto one shoulder and pulled the suitcase alongside her hip to widen her profile, raised her arms to look more intimidating, and then as a forewarning, began belting out the only song she could think of.
Another twig snapped.
A tall form sauntered into view, backlit by early evening sun. She couldn’t make out his features, yet she instantly knew who he was. Trouble. The song died on her lips as she blinked and swallowed hard.
If only it had been a bear.
* * *
“‘Jingle bells’?” Devlin drawled.
Bright flags of color turned the young woman’s face as pink as the roses his late mother had planted along the front of the main ranch house, turning her into a riot of color with that fluorescent-yellow T-shirt and the cloud of curly dark auburn hair that had partly escaped her ponytail. Several silver bracelets gleamed on her right wrist.
His first thought was that he’d like to get to know her a whole lot better.
His second was that a woman like this one wouldn’t want to be seen with someone like him. Six months ago, maybe. But not anymore.
He searched her face, his gut telling him that he knew her. From high school? College? Maybe an old neighbor? After so many years in the military, he’d lost touch with everyone around here.
Yet a lovely woman like this one would be impossible to forget, with that delicate ivory complexion, playful scattering of small freckles across her nose, and big blue eyes the size of pansies that were now looking up at him with recognition and utter horror.
A cascade of memories tinged with guilt slammed through his thoughts.
He hadn’t seen her since he was sixteen and she’d been his spindly, persistent shadow. An eleven-year-old chatterbox who had been the bane of his existence. “Chloe?”
“I—I thought you were in the Marines,” she stammered, her blush deepening. “Betty said...”
Apparently her memories of him weren’t that happy, either. “I’ve been back just a of couple days. They weren’t expecting me.”
She swallowed hard, her gaze sliding past him. “I...um...I’m renting a cabin here. For a few months.”
He stared at her, at a loss for words.
While the family was piling into his brother Jess’s SUV to leave for California yesterday morning, Betty had mentioned that someone was coming to stay in the cabin nearest the house.
He could now guess why she’d conveniently neglected to say who it was, or for how long. Betty had always seemed to know Devlin better than he knew himself, and surely she’d seen how Chloe had pestered him all those years ago.
But he still couldn’t imagine why the renter had to be this Pollyanna, who could cheerfully talk nonstop for hours without taking a breath. What on earth would she do with herself on this lonely, isolated ranch? Bother him, no doubt.
Pine Bend, Montana, population 1,200, was a good fifteen miles away, and the town beyond was another twenty miles, with even fewer residents.
“Months?” he repeated, hoping he’d heard her wrong—which was always a possibility, given his battle-damaged hearing.
She nodded as she shifted the weight of her backpack and grabbed the handle of her suitcase. “Well, then...I guess I’d better get settled.”
His vision of blessed, healing solitude evaporated. Sure, there were others living here at the ranch, but none of them were intrusive, and even his brother’s six-year-old twins seemed to sense that he needed to be left alone.
The Chloe he remembered had no such sense of personal boundaries.
He sighed, giving in to the inevitable. Dad had bought up several neighboring ranches at foreclosure auctions before he passed away. Maybe Devlin could use one of those houses if any were vacant.
Still, the strict code of manners instilled in him since childhood nudged at him. “Do you need help with that luggage?”
She shook her head and veered off the trail, onto the path toward the cabin, clearly laboring against the weight of that ridiculously large suitcase and the steep incline.
She was still stubborn, too.
He silently strode over to her and took the handle, carried the bag up to the cabin and opened the door wide.
He surveyed the interior, which was in far better condition than the other two cabins up the hill that had been empty for years. Betty had clearly done her best to make this one welcoming.
The windows were open to let in the crisp mountain air, a Mason jar on the table held a bouquet of wildflowers and through the open bedroom door, he could see a stack of fresh towels waiting on a bright patchwork quilt. The hardwood floors gleamed.
Chloe came inside behind him and dropped her backpack by the door with a soft gasp of wonder. “It’s almost the same as when I was a girl.”
She stood close enough that he heard almost every word clearly before she walked into the center of the main room and turned slowly, taking in the stone fireplace, the pine paneling, the sofa draped with a quilt and the dark pine rocking chair in the corner. Beyond an L-shaped counter with a breakfast bar and three bar stools, the rustic pine cabinets and updated kitchen appliances gleamed.
“This was always the foreman’s cabin, but I hear the last one left last November. Looks like Jess has done quite a bit of work in here.” He backed toward the open door and spun on his heel to leave.
At the touch of Chloe’s hand on his sleeve, he froze.
“Thank you,” she said. “This will be perfect.”
He nodded and made his escape without turning his right side toward her, avoiding the inevitable for a little while longer.
Initially, he’d been self-conscious, and had become adept at concealing his scars with collared, long-sleeved shirts and by the way he angled his face away during a conversation.
Now it was just a reflex.
For the most part, he’d learned to mask his more invisible and aggravating losses. The significant loss of his hearing, even with hearing aids. Loss of perfect vision in his right eye.
But even though he no longer cared what people thought of his appearance, he did dread the automatic gush of sympathy and empty platitudes from strangers who could surely care less.
But it was all relative.
Seeing Chloe again brought back his dark, helpless sense of being damaged, though his war injuries didn’t hold a candle to the crushing burden of what had happened on this ranch when he was just a kid.
Why did she have to show up while he was trying to start his life over?
Until last spring he’d been a Marine, an invincible warrior in control of his life. Now he was a disfigured man with disabilities, with nightmares that could hit without warning.
He’d spent the past six months recovering from multiple surgeries, knowing the military would never take him back for active duty. But last month, that sense of hopelessness had changed,