Chapter 1

Chapter One

Peyton

Panic spears the walls of my throat.

I run through the trailer where I live with my stepbrother, my toe catching on a piece of raised carpet and sending me sprawling. Hearing Tony’s footsteps behind me, I scramble to my feet, knocking empty beer cans in every direction. Tears make my vision blurry, but I’ve lived in this trailer all my life, long past the point I wanted to, so I know it like the back of my hand.

“Get back here, Peyton, or I swear to God.”

Leaping over the partition that stands between the dining table and the front door of the trailer, I jerk the knob and throw myself out into the night. The summertime humidity hits me like a brick wall, clogging my windpipe. But I have to run. I have to get away from Tony. What he tried to do…

Drunk or not, it was wrong.

I had no warning. Never could have expected it.

Skin crawling, a pitiful sound breaks from my lips and I force my legs to go faster. I sprint through the dark trailer park on bare feet, not daring to knock on a neighbor’s door for assistance. None of them can stand me. Ever since I started working as a kindergarten teacher at a private school on the nice side of town, their nickname for me has been Miss High and Mighty.

“Peyton!” Tony screams in my wake. “No one is going to believe you!”

All I can do is run faster, my nightshirt floating around my thighs.

When my stepmother passed away earlier this year, joining my father in the great beyond, I was just getting ready to finally, finally move out. To be on my own in a clean, empty apartment miles away from this place. But I stayed after the funeral, even lost the security deposit on my new apartment, because my stepbrother was so grief stricken, I didn’t want to leave him alone. Sure, he’s mean as a snake, but we’re family. And there was no one left to cook his meals, make sure the bills are paid. Without my financial contribution, he could have ended up homeless. So I stayed.

Remembering the way he clapped a hand over my mouth tonight and tried to pull down my panties, acid churns in my gut. I’d been fast asleep so it took me a moment to realize what was happening. Who was trying to…to…

To what?

Thank God I never found out. My instincts kicked in immediately and I swung the book in my lap, bashing Tony in the nose. Ran like the wind. And I’m still running now, the road coming into view up ahead. What am I going to do when I get there? Ideally, I’d flag down help from a driver, but everyone in town knows Tony. He’s a well-loved local DJ. Odds are, whoever pulled over would doubt me and take his side. What if they refuse to help me escape in time and Tony reaches me?

With no choice but to continue running along the road, my heart flies up into my mouth when I hear the purr of an engine approaching from behind. I throw a frantic glance back over my shoulder to see if I recognize the vehicle. In a small town like this, normally I would. But I’ve definitely never seen the vintage, black Mustang before. It rolls past me and I lock eyes with the driver…

And time seems to stand still.

In the space of a single heartbeat, I sense that everything is going to be all right. There’s no reason I should feel that way. The man with a hand draped over the wheel is a stranger. I place him in his late twenties, but his eyes speak of a profound maturity. They’re deep set, full of knowledge. They betray a heavy soul.

His hair is dark, eyebrows drawn. A groove on his forehead grows more intense the longer we stare at each other through the passenger side window. In the sleeve of his white T-shirt, his bicep jumps, a line moving in his jaw. There’s an attractiveness to him that is nothing short of sharp, dangerous.

So why do I feel like my savior just arrived?

The brakes of his Mustang grind to a dead halt and I stop running, my breath continuing to fly in and out of my lungs. Throwing the car into park, he gets out, comes around the front bumper, looking around. Searching the area with those soulful eyes. Lord, he’s tall. At least six foot three. “Someone after you, honey?”

“Yes,” I breathe, shame heating my face. “M-my stepbrother, Tony.”

Malice darkens his expression and oddly, that reaction comforts me. It makes me feel as if I have an ally for once in my twenty-two years. He sweeps me with a glance, his attention ticking to something over my shoulder a split second before I hear the footsteps approaching. “There’s the vermin now,” murmurs the stranger. “Why don’t you get in the car and I’ll handle this?”

I start to do as the man asks, desperate to escape Tony, but I stop short, my hand frozen on the metal door handle of the Mustang. Why am I so quick to trust this person I’ve never met? I don’t even know his name. “I, um…how do I know it’s safe to get into your car?”

Without taking his eyes off my stepbrother, the stranger pulls a knife out of his back pocket, flips it open and gives it to me, handle fist. “How about that, honey?”

I’m not a fighter. Never have been. I don’t own any weapons. But the second that pearl-handled knife touches my palm, I’m given back the control I’ve been lacking since I was rudely awakened tonight. And this man gave it to me so easily. Let me have the power I needed to even the ground. Gratitude wells up in my throat. “Thank you.” I open the car door and start to climb inside, but hesitate. “What is your name?”

“Granger Hoskins.” If I’d named him myself, I couldn’t have come up with a more fitting moniker. It suits this sharply handsome man with the gravel voice and clenched fists. “And yours?”

Before I can answer, my brother shouts the answer. “Peyton Pruitt,” he snarls, alcohol slurring his words. “Get back here, you bitch.”

With a whimper, I lock myself into the car and close my eyes, rocking back and forth in the seat. My eyelids fly up when I hear the first bone-crunching thud. I turn around in the seat and watch the scene play out like something from a dream. I’ve never seen anyone fight like Granger. There is cold precision in every movement. He’s predatory. His expression is almost dispassionate as he plows a fist into Tony’s jaw, picks him up off the ground by the scruff of his neck…and slams him face first into the road, leaving him unmoving. Seemingly as an afterthought, he kicks Tony’s unconscious figure down the embankment, watching him crash through the foliage without blinking an eye.

And I should be scared of him, right? Why aren’t I?

The sound of my breathing is loud inside the silent car as Granger turns his head and locks eyes with me through the rear windshield. Fog wafts behind him on the road, his slow gait carrying him back toward the car. Why don’t I have the urge to run? It’s almost like his gaze pins me in place, the promise of his protective energy making me want to stay, despite what my head is telling me.

That’s there’s more to him than meets the eye.

A lot more.

Finally, he reaches the driver’s side and opens the door. My grip closes tightly around the handle of the knife and he watches it happen, his eyes ticking between my face and the weapon. “Look. You’re smart to be scared of me. But I’d stab myself before I hurt you.” He gets into the car, slams the door and starts the ignition, pausing for a long moment. “Your stepbrother,” he asks stiffly, his dark eyes lifting to the rearview mirror. “What did he do to you?”

The engine vibrates beneath my bare legs. “Shouldn’t you have asked me that question before you beat him up?”

A half smile curves his masculine mouth. “He deserved that and more just for scaring you.” His attention swings to me and it’s laser focused in its intensity. “I just need to know if I should have to kill him, too.”

Haltingly, I shake my head, marveling over the fact that I’m still not scared. What is wrong with me? There’s just something about the way he holds himself, as if he’s poised to take a bullet in my honor. After a lifetime of being threatened and treated like a burden, it’s like wading into a hot spring. “No, you don’t have to do that. He…he tried to…” Suddenly, I’m blinking furiously trying to stop the flow of tears, my earlier panic coming back in a thick wave. “He tried. T-to touch me. But I woke up and ran. It was the f-first time he’d done anything like that.”

It was the first time for me, too. Not that it went far enough to be considered sexual. Not for me. But I’m worried. I’m worried because I used to look forward to the future, when I would enjoy physical intimacy with a man.

Now?

Now the idea terrifies me. Puts me on the verge of hyperventilating.

Granger’s eyes have grown brilliantly bright, like twin diamonds. “That won’t be happening again,” he rasps, jerkily putting the car into drive. “Put on your seatbelt, Peyton. You’re coming home with me.”

“But I don’t even know you.”

A muscle slides up and down in his throat, the first hint of vulnerability I’ve seen from him. “Would you like to?”

Something compels me to tell the truth, the absolute truth, to this man. “Yes,” I whisper, clicking my belt into place. “I would.”

Is it my imagination or does he let out a held breath before gunning the engine? Watching the trailer park disappear in the rearview mirror, I get the distinct feeling that I’ll never see this place again. Because…he won’t allow it.

Am I crazy to be comforted by that?

Am I crazy to feel like I’ve finally found…a friend?