Chapter 4

After another grueling day at work, Brittany and I were cooling off in the lake after cleaning a mansion that had been occupied by teenagers for the week. They’d left their host’s house in a terrible state and both of us had been eager to get into the water once we were done.

As we floated and tried to cleanse our souls from the sights and smells we’d had to endure earlier, voices filtered down from the road above. I shielded my eyes against the sun as I glanced up. Then I cursed under my breath.

“Shit,” I muttered. “I told you we should have pulled over all the way.”

“Way ahead of you, girl,” Brittany replied. She and I took off, swimming hurriedly to the shore. We waded out of the shallow water and she cupped her hand around her mouth to call out to whoever was up there. “We’ll be up in a minute! So sorry about this!”

Hightailing it up the slope to the road, we tried to cover the twenty-foot rise in elevation from the shore to where we’d parked as fast as we could. Almost slipping a few times with our wet feet on the rocks, we made it without serious incident, but I was out of breath and probably red faced by the time we reached the road.

As luck would have it, that was when I first locked eyes with the most handsome man I’d ever seen. I stopped in my tracks, breathing hard and struggling to coax air into my lungs. He just stood there, perfectly put together in a pair of navy slacks, a crisp white button-down, and leather loafers on his feet.

Our gazes clashed and his regal brow furrowed, but I didn’t care that he was scowling at me. I was too busy trying to wrap my head around the fact that there was a guy who looked like him only a few feet away from me. They sure don’t build ‘em like that in this town.

With short brown hair touched with a warm gold, perfectly trimmed facial hair, and intensely green eyes, he looked like a celebrity. He was tall too, freakishly so, and built, but not absolutely jacked.

As my gaze swept across his features, that scowl chilled me to the bone despite the summer heat. It had sharpened while I’d been staring at him like a stalker, and right then, it felt like he might slice me in half with a single look.

Clearly, the man had perfected the art of silent intimidation. With a slight lift of his chin, his eyes moved from mine to Brittany’s and back again.

“Your car is in my path,” he informed me, his voice crisp and clear, but also authoritative in a way I definitely wasn’t used to. It was the kind of voice that could command armies and rally enemies into a united force at a simple instruction.

Brittany wasn’t used to being spoken to like that either. She squeaked in response and rushed to the driver’s door of her car.

Meanwhile, I tried to play it off. We had been in the wrong, but the transgression hardly warranted this kind of treatment.

“Nobody ever uses this road. Sorry about that. We were being thoughtless,” I said, taking an even closer look at him. “Are you going to be staying at Styles Manor?”

A sleek, black SUV stood beside Captain Intimidation, the engine still running and the outline of a man visible behind the steering wheel. I couldn’t see him clearly since the windows were tinted, but I had a suspicion he was a hired driver.

There weren’t that many houses out on this road—which was why we’d thought it was safe to just stop—and a guy like him wouldn’t be staying at any old holiday rental. The math hadn’t been that hard to do, but the slight cant of his head told me he was surprised.

He still nodded though, only slightly, but it had definitely been a nod. No acknowledgment at all of my apology, however. Okay then.

His standoffish body language suddenly made me acutely aware of the fact that I was half naked in a bikini in front of him. My boobs were very much on display in the plunging top, and the bottoms that tied on the hips didn’t cover much either.

It was meant for tanning, not running up to the road to move a car and talk to a grumpy stranger. Inappropriate clothing aside, however, this man was going to be staying in a home I’d been enthralled by my entire life.

He might’ve been born to melt panties and conquer enemies with nothing more than a look, but I had been born to charm unsuspecting tourists into possibly letting me have a peek inside that house. With that thought in mind, I smiled at him.

“It’s the nicest house in June Lake.” Not that I knew from personal experience, of course. I’d scrolled through the handful of pictures on the internet a few times, though. The Styles’ grandson hadn’t put nearly as much effort into the property listing that I would’ve, which was disappointing considering it meant that I still didn’t really know what to expect from the inside.

Brittany’s engine sputtered a few times and I winced, trying desperately to engage him while she tried to start the old car. “I’m sure you’re going to have a wonderful time there. How long are you staying?”

He remained silent, eyeing me suspiciously, but I kept smiling. Right. So he doesn’t talk much. That’s okay.

“There’s a country market in town every morning from eight a.m. until one p.m. all summer long,” I said lightly. “It’s the best place to buy fresh goods. Talya’s Butchery is also pretty good. You can call her in the morning to put in your order for the day.”

The engine finally roared to life behind me and relief trickled down my spine. As soon as Brittany started creeping onto the shoulder, Captain Intimidation offered me a dismissive nod. “Thanks.”

Climbing back into his fancy SUV, he left without another word, and Brittany and I shared a look as they raced away.

She scoffed, her head shaking as she brought her gaze back to mine. “What an ass.”

“Seriously,” I said. “And those shoulders? Yowza.”

“Well, I meant he was an asshole, but now that you mention it, he was pretty easy on the eyes.”

“Right.” I shook my head. “Too bad he’s a jerk.”

He was perhaps the rudest person I’d ever not met and yet, there was definitely something intriguing about the man. No one I knew could stare at another person that intently. It made me curious about him, how he had gotten to be that way and if he was like that all the way through or if there was more to him. I sighed as Brittany and I headed to her car. “What do you think a guy like that is doing in a place like June Lake?”

She shrugged. “Writing a murder mystery novel?”

I laughed, but she shared a few more ideas as we climbed in. “Planning a murder? Running from the law? Witness protection?”

“Stop it.” I shook my head, but I couldn’t stop myself from twisting in my seat to glance at the SUV again before it disappeared around the bend.

Honestly, I had no idea what a guy like him was doing in a place like this, but I couldn’t deny that he’d commanded my attention. It was unlikely that I’d see him again, though. The tourists who stayed at Styles Manor tended to have people who did things like grocery shopping for them, preferring to spend their days on or next to the lake.

I couldn’t blame them. I wouldn’t have moved from there either, but I was weirdly disappointed about encountering a person like Captain Intimidation without the opportunity to scratch a bit at the surface. Find out what might be hiding beneath.

Sighing as Brittany turned the car around and started driving back toward town, I tried my best to focus on the afternoon ahead. I was already borderline obsessed with the house he would be staying in for the summer. The last thing I needed was to project that obsession onto the house’s temporary resident.

Ultimately, it was just a house and he was just a guy. Neither had any real bearing on my life. It was a nice fantasy, though, imagining what life in that place could be like and even nicer to imagine spending it there with a guy who looked like him—minus the spiky personality.

What could I say? I was a romantic to the core and the history of that house played into my idle fantasy, knowing that such an epic love story had been lived out there once before. That was all it would ever be, though. An idle fantasy that played out in my head on the short drive back to my town.

To my real life. In which neither houses like Styles Manor nor men like Captain Intimidation would ever play any real role.

Sad as it was, there wouldn’t be an epic love story in my future. Unless my love for Tidy Touch counted, in which case, I was already living it—and that was perfectly fine by me.

My empty bed didn’t bother me—most nights.