My pulse was racing and my mind reeling from his words. I repeated them to myself as I stared at the keys in my hand, and tried to keep my tone light when I asked, “You still have to find her? Is this mystery girl hiding from you?”
Graham winked, and the corner of his mouth pulled into a lopsided smirk. “Something like that.”
I tried to keep my heart in my chest, but it felt impossible, when it was entirely possible that I was standing just inches from my stranger.
It had been four days since I’d dared Stranger to find me. Each night I asked if he was any closer, while praying he wasn’t.
Stranger allowed me to be someone I could never be in real life. I couldn’t attempt to voice the things I wrote to him without my words getting caught in my throat. I couldn’t try to speak to men that way without needing to find someone or something to hide behind.
With Stranger I had my voice because I had my phone to hide behind. His beautiful soul endlessly pulled me out from behind the walls I’d built around myself; all the while I remained invisible to him. Every day he helped show me how to trust someone with my heart again, even though he and I both knew that, in reality, he would never hold it.
But now with Graham’s cryptic and oddly similar words, I wanted to shout that I was standing right there.
But I needed to keep Stranger at a distance. I needed to keep him fictional, or everything we had would shatter. Our deep conversations that meant everything, and even the innocent flirting and teasing . . . all of it would be gone.
Graham’s voice pulled me from my internal conflict, and I blinked quickly to clear my head as he handed me a piece of paper.
“I’m sorry, what?” I asked breathily when I realized I’d missed everything he’d just told me, and hated that my tone gave away everything I was feeling.
“There’s a security system already set up throughout the house, but the owner had it shut off when he moved. Everything to get it turned back on is on that paper.”
“Oh. Right,” I said quickly, still wanting nothing more than to get away from him, and to say things I knew I shouldn’t.
“All right. Anything else you need to know?”
Only about a thousand things, starting with what the word “stranger” means to you.
But I knew that wasn’t what he was asking.
I’d run into Graham during my date with Keith the weekend before, and he’d told me about one of his friends who needed to rent out his house.
The owner had moved across the country for a yearlong transfer with his job. I was told there was a possibility of it becoming permanent, but I wasn’t going to focus on that now.
Because that wasn’t important at the moment. Either we would find somewhere more permanent in a year, or we would stay there. What was important was that I had a two-bedroom house in Thatch with a backyard for my son and me.
We’d just finished getting moved in, with the help of Jagger and the LaRues, and tonight would be our first official night there.
“Uh, no.” I shook my head and looked around. “No, just thank you so much for helping me with this. I can’t tell you how excited I am.”
“Ah, Charlie. Don’t thank me. You know I’d do anything for you.” He leaned forward and pressed a hard kiss to the top of my head.
And it ended.
The breathlessness. The racing heart. All of it . . . ended.
Because there was nothing behind that kiss from him, and there was nothing I felt from it other than the protectiveness I always felt from Graham.
“Sorry I’m late.”
My body stilled and my next inhale was sharp and audible when the deep, rough voice sounded behind me. I turned though I told myself not to face him, and was overcome with everything I didn’t want to feel from the man in front of me.
Deacon.
I’d seen him twice since I’d asked him to leave the warehouse, and had heard from him at least once each day since.
The next morning he’d shown up for breakfast at Mama’s with Graham, as they always did on Sundays. And since I worked the front on the weekends, I worked their table. I didn’t say a word to him, and he didn’t speak to me, but those eyes of his never once stopped following me from the moment he entered the café until they left.
I’d tried like hell not to look at him, but I could still feel his stare . . .
Searching, begging, asking and telling a hundred things I refused to hear.
By the time they left, I was shaking from forcing myself not to look at him.
When I got off work on Monday, my car was in the parking lot of Mama’s with a note tucked into the windshield. I’d taken one look at the black smudges from the grease on the paper, and thrown the paper away without opening it.
Tuesday he’d walked into Mama’s with purpose, right up to where I was waiting on a table in the back. White shirt, straining against his muscular form and stained with grease, every inch of him demanded attention and screamed for me to touch.
I’d turned my back on him and forced myself to focus on taking my table’s order.
My breath had caught in my throat when one of his hands went to my hip and his lips brushed against my ear. Goose bumps covered my arms and my stomach swirled with heat as his deep voice rumbled.
“Keep pretending I don’t exist. Keep ignoring me. Keep acting invisible if it makes you feel better, Charlie Girl. In case you haven’t noticed, I fucking see you.” His fingers flexed against my hip as if to prove his point. “I’m not giving up until you talk to me.”
When I didn’t respond to him, he’d turned and left.
Each of those days, there had been a text from him asking me to call him.
I hadn’t.
I also hadn’t asked him to help me move in.
But there he was, standing in front of me, looking the same as he had the day before. Demanding attention and screaming for me to touch.
I curled my hands into fists and wrapped an arm around my waist.
At least he’d changed before he’d come, though the streaks of grease that he’d missed on his arms made it clear that he’d come from work. Not that what he had changed into hid his size or strength any more than that tight white shirt had.
“Charlie Girl,” Deacon murmured, his voice barely above a growl.
His mouth was set in a grimace and his light brown eyes were conflicted; when they flicked up at something behind me, they flashed with rage.