He stepped nearer, sending her a few stumbles backward. Dang. It wouldn’t do to run away like a fluttery chicken. She’d faced her share of bullies during her life in Kane’s Crossing, and she wasn’t about to lose her courage now—especially since she’d worked so hard to win it back over the years.
She’d learned to overcompensate in the control department. Learned that, every time she asserted herself, the past grew more distant and less threatening.
Lacey sauntered forward, wearing her most ornery glare. The ready-to-rumble demeanor, as her stepbrother Rick liked to call it.
Yeah, definitely in control.
“Well?” she asked, making it clear she expected a straight answer.
Something quick and explosive shot across his gaze. Something bluer than the shade of his eyes, warmer than the sputtering fire. She almost wished she could interpret the visual pause as interest, as a “Damn, I’m not sorry I got caught in this cabin. I’m saying, ‘Damn, you are a mighty hot little number.’”
Excellent, Lacey, she thought. No wonder most of the town thinks you still need to be institutionalized.
She blinked, erasing those negative thoughts. Think positive, think sunshine, think…
Control.
The stranger cleared his throat, startling her. “I didn’t mean any trouble, ma’am.”
Ma’am? Didn’t he know she was too young for a “Ma’am”? Jeez. Twenty-seven years old and she was already eliciting matronly respect.
“Don’t ma’am me,” she said, narrowing her eyes and clutching her makeshift weapon.
He lifted a brow, barely sparing a glance at her war-like stance, his mouth slanting to an angle that belied his exasperation. “How about addressing you as ‘missy,’ then?”
“You’re pretty cocky for a guy who’s about to get thrown in jail for trespassing. Sheriff Reno doesn’t take kindly to that sort of crime.”
He shrugged, tossing his hat onto the table as if he owned the place. “Cocky never did me any harm.”
Oh, what a voice. If she wasn’t so suspicious of him right now, that calloused tone might’ve already talked her into a million things—all of them bad, too.
“Whether or not you meant trouble by commandeering my property, you need to scoot out of here.” She peered around, again noting the canned goods piled on a counter near the stove, a spurt of woolen shirts peeking out of an extra-large leather duffel bag on the floor next to the bed. “Seems as if you’ve already gotten cozy.”
As he ambled closer to the fire, he spread his hands toward the heat. His hesitation in answering gave Lacey the welcome opportunity for a second lingering once-over.
Simply put, he was gorgeous. As still and breath-stealing as a cold night settling over dusk-burnished badlands, with blue eyes, chisled cheekbones and a full mouth. Sharp-edged, rough-and-tumbled. Lacey’s heart hopped away from her.
Hold on to it, girl.
“So…” she said. “You’re not going to tell me how many moons you’ve camped out here?” She paused for him to answer.
Silence, of course.
He slipped off his jacket, revealing a homespun beige shirt that emphasized broad shoulders and a wide, muscled back, crisscrossed by a pair of sturdy suspenders. As he draped the clothing over a chair, Lacey drew in a breath, her pulse beating faster at the sight of his long legs encased by rugged tan pants that covered most of his boots.
How had a man like this ended up in her own backyard?
Lacey gathered all her common sense. In spite of her flighty reputation, she very capably ran the family feed business; she was even embarking upon a risky project that would soon raise more money for the town’s Reno Center—a home for foster children. She was a woman who could preside over an efficient meeting, a woman who was strong enough to show Kane’s Crossing that she was no longer the waif who’d spent time in that “clinic for disturbed girls,” as her mother had called it.
She and the iron pointy fire thing definitely had the upper hand here.
“Listen, I need answers. Know what I mean? After all, here I was, taking a nice late-afternoon walk through the woods on my property when I saw a light burning in the window of this supposedly empty cabin. A historic cabin, built back in the days when Kane’s Crossing was first settled. No one has stayed here for years, not since those teenagers sneaked in and—”
He’d glanced over his shoulder to acknowledge her words, then, after a moment or two returned his attention to the fire. He acted as if the mute flames were far more interesting than her town lore.
“Mister?” It was making her mad to realize she wasn’t compelling him in any way. Since returning to Kane’s Crossing, she always had the situation in hand—with business, with her family, with her reputation and image.
He didn’t stir from the flames. “Yeah?”
Heck, at least he wasn’t comatose yet. “Imagine my surprise when I saw that someone had taken up residence in a hovel that’s about to fall down around our ears.”
“Then I suppose if I were a couple decades younger I’d be Goldilocks.”
Touché.
“This must be a real laugh riot for you,” she said. “How amusing to turn your back on a woman with a dangerous weapon.”
His hands dropped to his sides, and he finally turned around. The fire cast a sheen around his blond hair, tickling its length with softness and shadow. “It’s an andiron, and I’m sorry.”
The words were few, but obviously sincere. She could tell he was being truthful by the way he’d shrugged his shoulders slightly, enough to be brusquely awkward.
“If you’re so apologetic, then leave.”
He pulled his mouth into a straight line and trained his gaze on the floor. A stubborn comeback.
She sighed. “If you need a place to stay, there’s the Edgewater Motel out by the highway. Its roof is much less likely to come tumbling down while you sleep. Besides, this is no palace. The only point of interest is the view.” She gestured to the frost-clouded window. “Hail the Spencer estate in all its glory.”
She thought she saw him flinch, but couldn’t be sure. Nonetheless, he recovered quickly, his voice going back to the same deep-freeze burn she’d heard when he’d entered the cabin.
“Maybe we can make a deal, miss. Maybe I can repair this heap of an abode so it’s livable again.”
He was all business. It was a language Lacey preferred, one she spoke well.
“Really?” she asked, interest piqued, yet adding enough doubt to her tone to let him know that she wouldn’t be a complete pushover. She’d intended to fix this place for years, but had nudged the task to the bottom of her priority pile, just like other matters.
Matters like relationships, love, loneliness.
He watched her with that cocky grin, as if he knew he’d get his way. “I only have one condition.”
“You have a condition?” She laughed. If she hadn’t still been ready to attack him at a moment’s notice, she would’ve relished the irony of his words.
“Yeah. My condition is this: If I fix this place, you leave me alone. No questions asked.”
Her heart fell to her stomach. Of course he didn’t want anything to do with her. No surprise there, especially for a gal who’d probably end up an old maid anyway.
Lacey tried to appear as if his words hadn’t hit that gaping chink in the armor of her self-esteem.
Connor Langley regretted