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  “No worries.”

  “So, what’s up, Ginny?”

  “Just calling to say hello to my favorite sister-in-law.”

  “You never call like this. Text, maybe. Come on, what gives?” I fill her in on my new house guests, and she laughs. “So, your house is more full of children than mine at the moment? That’s pretty funny.”

  “Is it?”

  “I don’t know. It’s you — I mean, you’ve never had baby fever and now you have a house full of kids for the next five weeks.”

  “They’re all grown. The youngest are eight-year-old twins.”

  “That’s not grown — but I do know what you mean. No little ones crying in the middle of the night. No diaper changes. So, what are their parents like? Would they fit in here?”

  I swallow. Hard. “It’s just a dad. Their mom died a year ago.”

  “Oh gosh, those poor things.”

  “I know,” I say softly, tucking the phone to my ear and reaching for a cutting board, needing to get the vegetables chopped.

  “Wait, so why did you call exactly?”

  I stiffen. “To say hi.”

  There is a pause on the line. “What aren’t you saying?”

  I open a cupboard, looking for a bag of rice. “Just… Well, the Dad.” I find the rice, pick it up. “His name is Tanner. And he—”

  She cuts me off, “Oh shoot, Abel just threw an entire bowl of applesauce on the floor. I gotta go, sweetie. I’ll call later.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Gracie, love you,” I tell her, knowing she has her hands plenty full. All my friends on this mountain do if I’m being honest. The only other single person around is Jonah, and he’s been off in Alaska for months with no word on when he is returning. Not like I would confide in him, anyway. He is a wild, reckless soul -- and I’m much too fragile for a man like him. He wouldn’t know what to do with me, God knows we tried a few times to see if there was a spark. There was none. Zilch.

  Nothing like how I feel when I am around Tanner. It’s not a spark -- his kiss was a flame. And I fan myself with my hand, trying to collect my thoughts. I press the phone to my chest. What was I going to say to Grace exactly? That there is a vulnerable man in my home who has six kids and while they just arrived, I already made out with him on the hill? That would sound insane. Psychotic. Desperate.

  Wouldn’t it?

  I push my phone in my back pocket, grateful Laila never picked up and glad Abel distracted Grace. I don’t need to tell the mountain my drama. Especially when, really, there is no drama. All there is here is a single woman doing her job, taking care of a houseful of strangers at Christmas.

  Nothing odd about that.

  Chapter Five

  Tanner

  Trying to wrangle the kids at the dinner table takes a bit of effort. Everyone is plugged into a device, plopped on their beds. The drive was long, everyone is tired, and no one feels settled.

  Except for me.

  I swear the moment I drove onto this property, my heart stirred in a whole new way. A way that meant something. A way I needed. Craved. Desired.

  Virginia.

  She carries out platters of roasted chicken and rice with vegetables to the dining room table. It smells like rosemary and lemon and I smile, feeling like I can breathe for the first time in a good long while. I’ve been tense for ages, trying to keep my family together.

  “Dig in,” she tells us, and the kids pick up their forks, eating dutifully.

  “This is so good,” Levi says, reaching for a roll.

  “Glad you like it,” she says, wiping her hands on her apron. “I’ll just let you guys enjoy yourselves.” She turns to leave, but Clover calls her back.

  “Stay and eat with us,” she says.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t want to impose.”

  “It’s your house. It would be weird if you ate all alone in the kitchen,” Lily says.

  I shrug. “You can’t argue with that logic.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “We’re sure.”

  She grabs a plate from the kitchen and joins us at the table, but no one seems interested in friendly conversation. The kids are just scarfing down their food.

  By the time they finish, it seems like Virginia is just picking up her fork.

  The kids excuse themselves, one by one, claiming they need to shower, finish a book, play Minecraft — I just nod, grateful everyone is in good spirits.

  Clover and Willa give me hugs and kiss my cheek, and I squeeze Levi’s shoulder as he leaves the room. Cash shoves Levi, who picks him up and throws him over his shoulder, sending him into a raucous fit of laughter. Lily is begging Faith to French braid her hair, and I hear my oldest daughter agree, their sweet and easy voices filtering out of the dining room and up the hall to the upstairs where they’ve claimed bedrooms.

  In a matter of minutes, it’s just Virginia and me in the dining room. Quiet and peaceful.

  “I think I killed the vibe when I joined you,” she says with a smile.

  “Nah, they’re just kids. Have their own ideas about how a night in a new house should go.”

  “You aren’t very strict with them?” she asks.

  I shrug. “It’s been a shitty year. Shitty few years. I probably spoil them a little and say yes more often than I should, but I just want them to be happy. I don’t want to do anything that might make them sad.”

  “You’re a good dad.”

  I run a hand over my beard, hating that we are on opposite ends of the table. I pick up my plate and scoot down to the chair opposite her. “You’re a good cook.”

  “We all have our talents, right?” She smirks. “It’s funny though, I never imagined I’d be a cook.”

  “What did you imagine?” I reach for the bottle of merlot on the table and fill our glasses.

  She twists her lips. “I don’t know. My life hasn’t been exactly typical. When you’re busy surviving, you don’t have time to dream.”

  The words are raw and real. I take a deeper look at this beauty before me. “That’s really fucking sad, Virginia.”

  She shrugs, waving her hand. “It’s ancient history. Somehow, I ended up here, with a big old farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. Life is strange, more than anything else.”

  “Strange indeed. I ended up as a single dad with six kids. Never expected that. I was going to be a famous singer.”

  “What happened to that dream?”

  “Savvy got pregnant, Faith was born. We were just kids ourselves, eighteen. But we were in love, young love — but it was true. And I needed to make money. Needed to pay bills. So, I started selling my songs instead of singing them.”

  Virginia listens, swirling the red wine in her glass. “Dreams change.”

  “Yeah,” I say gruffly. “They do. But you gotta have one before you can change it. So, what you got, Virginia? There’s gotta be something you’ve dreamed about.”

  “I suppose the dreams I have nowadays are simple ones. To be happy. To be safe. To be known.”

  Her words are so damn sincere it makes my heart crack a little. She’s so beautiful; long limbs and long hair and bright eyes and a perfect silhouette — but she is more than her beauty, she’s an old soul. The kind of girl men write songs about, go to battle for. The kind of woman people change their lives over.

  “I think your dream is a noble one,” I tell her. “And harder to achieve than most people think.”

  She licks her lips. “I know you’ve lost a lot. But you seem happy. All these kids. They love you, that’s obvious. And you’re safe. I mean, not to be too personal but you’re clearly financially secure — you rented this house on a whim.”

  “Yeah, I stopped working after Savvy died. She homeschooled the kids, so I took that over, didn’t want to send them off to school all day—it would be one change too many.”

  “So, you’re happy and safe. But are you known?” she asks.

  I exhale, the words catching me off guard. Am I known?

  “Damn,
you don’t stay on the surface, do you?”

  She runs her index finger over her lip, thinking. “With most people, I think I do. But you don’t seem like most people, Tanner. And on the bench, earlier.” She pauses, her eyes meeting mine. Oh, I remember. The kiss. Her lips. God, she felt so right when she was against me. “I thought to myself, this is a man who is lonely.”

  I swallow. “I didn’t kiss you because I was desperate.”

  Her eyebrows crease. “I know that. But you are lonely, Tanner. I get it. Because I’m lonely too.”

  “It’s a big world, so many damn people, yet sometimes it feels like not a single one of them truly understands you.”

  “Exactly,” she says softly, leaning in. “But when you kissed me, Tanner, I felt like you did. You did understand me. And it felt so good.”

  “This isn’t going to be easy,” I tell her, my voice ragged, the truth of Virginia already etching itself to my heart.

  “What isn’t?”

  “You and me.”

  “So, it’s happening?” she asks, her voice hinged on hope.

  “I think it already started, don’t you?”

  She nods. “I do.”

  I push away from the table. It’s time I do the very thing I want, the thing my body craves. “I’m going to make sure my kids are set up for the night. Turn off the hall lights. You clean up dinner, okay?” I run my hand over her arm, want surging between us.

  “Then what?” she asks, biting down on her lip. The energy between us is so charged. Electric.

  “Then you are going to wait for me, Virginia. Because tonight I am coming for you.”

  Chapter Six

  Virginia

  As I rinse dishes and set them to dry, my heart pounds.

  I want this — to give myself this night with Tanner — but I haven’t given my body to a man since Ricky.

  My nerves may be building, but I refuse to give in. As I turn off the water and dry my hands on a kitchen towel, I hear Tanner’s footsteps, his voice, his children’s laughter. I turn off the lights in the kitchen, lock the back door, and walk to the foyer, locking that door too, closing curtains, turning down the house for the night.

  Walking to my bedroom, I slip off my jeans, my sweater, and look down at my mediocre white bra and panties. In the back of my drawer, I find black lace and slip it on over my curves and reach for a bathrobe that reaches my toes. Thick terrycloth, leaving everything to the imagination. It’s the only one I have — no satin negligees have been purchased. I ran from the Badlands and came here, to this sleepy mountain. There has been no reason to purchase sexy lingerie. Even if people here had shipped Jonah and me, there was never a spark between us. I haven’t had a single connection with another man since, well, forever.

  I run a comb through my hair, knowing that isn’t entirely true. There was a connection with Ricky. But it was twisted and wrong. And I don’t like to think too hard about why I was drawn to him. Why I gave my body to him, time and time again. I wanted to feel beautiful and wanted in his arms, but I never found that with him. He never treasured me, not for a second.

  There is a knock on the door, and I turn on the bedside lamp before I move to open it. I switch off the overhead lights, not ready for full wattage with a man I hardly know.

  But I do know him.

  I do.

  I know he sees me. He mirrors my sadness and maybe somewhere between the beaten, dry clay of our individual losses we can carve out something whole.

  “Tanner,” I say softly, letting him in. Dark eyes and a thick beard and broad shoulders and a rising need within him that I can feel. It pulses from his strength and it matches the need growing inside of me.

  Fervent. Hungry.

  Starved.

  The door closes. He locks it.

  And I want to pause this moment, to slow it down, to make it last forever.

  The moment a real man comes to my room and cups my face with his hand and kisses me. Really kisses me.

  It’s so tender, so sweet. So real and pure that it takes my breath away. Causes tears to pool in my eyes. My breath catches, a gasp escapes. Tanner kisses me, and he doesn’t let go. And I sink into him. His arms and his warmth and his touch. My body craves what it has never known. Him.

  His eyes lock on mine as our mouths part, our tongues collide, and there is a rush. We don’t know where this will end, but we both know where it is going.

  The tie on my robe falls and Tanner eases it past my shoulders, to the floor. I lick my lips, breathing hard already. My eyes close as his eyes roam over me. I don’t trust myself to watch him as he takes me in. I feel on the brink of weeping. Why I want to cry right now, here, with him, is beyond me. But tears splash down my cheeks and I feel like a mess. A wreck and a ruin and like I’m going to mess this all up.

  But Tanner holds my face, his thumbs wipe my tears away and I’m in nothing but black lace and bare skin and I feel so vulnerable, so damn seen, and Tanner doesn’t look away.

  “What happened?” he asks. The timbre of his words is so rich and deep. He understands pain. He has loved and lost, and I have just lost and lost and maybe he can understand that too.

  “The only other man I’ve ever been with… he hurt me. For a long, long time.”

  “Can he still hurt you?”

  I shake my head, bracing myself to open my eyes. “I’m free of him, but my heart? It’s bruised and broken in ways I don’t like. I got rid of Ricky, but my skin has only ever known a lover who used his strength to hurt, to destroy. I want a lover who…” I pause, my words shaky. “I hardly know you, Tanner. My mind wants to play tricks on me, telling me I’m desperate, that opening up to the first man who showed an interest is a sign that I’m a mess. But I don’t think that’s true. I feel like… like…”

  “Like you trust me? Like you know I’m not just passing through.”

  I nod. “It feels like you are going to stay.”

  “I’m sorry Ricky hurt you,” he whispers. “I wish I could wipe it all away, but it doesn’t work like that. Scars heal, they fade, but they stay with us for a reason. Forgetting doesn’t honor our story, Virginia.”

  “Forgetting seems less painful.”

  “But isn’t the pain, the times we’ve bled, also the times we learned just how damn strong we are?”

  I take in a sharp breath. “I don’t feel very strong most days.”

  Tanner runs his hands over my arms, drawing me to him. “Then it’s time you found your strength, sweetheart.”

  His hands hold me in a way I’ve never been held before.

  Happy. Safe. Known.

  Tonight, for the first time in forever, I am all of those things.

  Chapter Seven

  Tanner

  Her eyes are so big and beautiful and all I want in the world right now is to make sure she knows, without a shadow of a doubt, that she is not the sum of that man Ricky’s actions. Not a reflection of his choices. She is a strong woman, all on her own; she just doesn’t see her grit, her strength.

  But damn, she is here, holding on to life, not letting it beat her down. And that is fucking powerful.

  Her hands run under my shirt, and she licks her lips. “You sure?” I ask her. “You want this? With me?”

  “So badly.”

  She is a grown woman and she knows what she wants, and I will do everything in my power for her to know that tonight, she is seen.

  I tug off my shirt, slide out of my jeans. I want her skin against my skin, her heart pressed against my chest. Tonight, I want to feel everything she feels.

  My fingers tease the waistband of her panties, pulling her closer. “You are so beautiful,” I tell her. She lowers her chin, blushing from my words and I love the reaction. It’s so tender, so sweet. So new.

  “You work out a lot, huh?” she asks, running her fingers over my abs.

  I brush her hair behind her shoulders. “It helps me deal with my shit, get out of my head.”

  “It’s a good look,” she says,
a smile on her lips. “I’m just busy trying to count all of these muscles.”

  Now it’s my turn to blush. I pull her hands away and lift her from the floor, carrying her to the bed. Her laugh isn’t loud, it’s soft and seasoned. She doesn’t make a show about anything. She is simple in a way I haven’t seen in a long time. She may feel lost in her life, but she knows who she is. And so maybe knowing exactly where you are headed isn’t as important as knowing who you are wherever you go.

  “I’m scared we will get the kids’ attention,” she says.

  I shake my head. “They are all plugged in right now. Headphones and screens and so many devices it makes my skin crawl. Tomorrow there will be some boundaries in place — but tonight, I’m using their distraction to my advantage.”

  Virginia smiles. “I like your plan.”

  “I like your body.”

  “Oh yeah?” she asks as I unhook her bra. Now she is without it, my cock rages with want. Her tits are perfect, round, and big and just — fuck, she’s gorgeous. “Why are you smiling?” she asks with a teasing smile on her lips.

  “Because I’m in bed with you, Virginia.”

  She nods. “That’s why I’m smiling too. You are the best surprise.”

  “You haven’t even seen all my surprises, yet, sweetheart,” I say, laughing, taking her hand and placing it on my cock. She runs her hand over my length, quickly deciding my boxers need to go. I couldn’t agree any fucking more.

  We move with intent, her panties off, me leaning over her, pinning her in place. God, she is beautiful. And so unassuming, not trying hard. Not being anything but one hundred percent real.

  Her hands run up and down my shaft, and I groan with pleasure. It’s been so long.

  So, so long.

  I close my eyes, kiss her forehead, feel a wave rush over me.

  “What is it?” she asks, sensing my change.

  I rest my elbow on the side of her body, cupping her breast with my other hand. Her nipples hard, her skin so soft.

  It’s been so long.