Eyes gritty from lack of sleep, Nola turned the rental car into her dusty driveway and wondered what Rick would think of her little waterside bungalow on a barrier island outside of Charleston, South Carolina. The headlights sweeping the yard showed nothing disturbed. Her alarm system wasn’t blaring. Her nearest neighbor, ex-cop Malcolm Cuvier, had kept the lawn in order and watched out for intruders.
All seemed right in her home at least.
Moonbeams reached across the reedy water to illuminate her yellow clapboard house. One story, two bedrooms, with a long living-kitchen area that overlooked a porch along the bay. Not much space, but then how many square feet did a woman need who never planned to marry or have children?
Car idling, she stretched in the leather seat, only to find Rick…
Asleep?
Some watchdog.
Of course he was still recovering and this had to have been a long day for him, even for a fellow who appeared as vital as he did. They both knew he was around for show more than any actual protection he could provide. That had to grate on him. She remembered well her own frustration with how long it took to get back up to speed with simple tasks like cooking a meal without needing a nap—which then meant reheating the darn meal if the whole thing wasn’t ruined by the time she woke up.
Rubbing the back of her neck, she threaded her fingers through her hair and shook it loose, relaxing in her seat and staring at her home through “Rick eyes.” What had once seemed a lovely hide-away now appeared dangerously isolated. A few lonely crickets chirped, even this late in November, hearty stock hanging around until Thanksgiving week, but nothing else, no one else, her nearest neighbor a mile away through thick trees filled with Spanish moss.
She would be spending the holiday with a man she barely knew, even given the day spent in the car making small talk. Now she knew what fast food he liked—a Big Mac. And what kind of music he enjoyed—retro rock. Still, in her house out here in the middle of nowhere with no family, no love, she felt…vulnerable.
Nola didn’t like that feeling much. The cancer nightmare had been rife with helplessness and while she’d tried her best to hold strong, nobody could make it through something like that without moments—hell, to be honest, much longer than moments—of gut-wrenching tears and fears.
This stalker thing brought those feelings back to the fore at a time when she should have been able to put the whole experience behind her. The bastard trying to scare her may not have harmed her, but he had stolen the beautiful sanctuary of her home.
She’d bought the waterside cottage as a gift to herself once she’d begun to trust remission and wasn’t trucking it to the doctor every three minutes for some treatment or another. Solitude became a treasured rarity during that first year, her body out there for every doctor, nurse, aide and student to poke, prod and study.
Hurt.
The pain, the total loss of privacy, the tubes, everything had been beyond imagining. Nothing could have prepared her, and heaven knows she’d read and researched every last detail.
Whoa. Back up. Dump that in the past. She didn’t want to go there ever again, especially now. Wasn’t seeing Rick again about moving ahead? She could help him even if she couldn’t help herself.
“So,” Rick’s deep voice growled from beside her, “are we gonna sleep in the car or head inside?”
Nola would have jerked clean out of her skin if it weren’t for years of military training. She turned the key off and pulled it from the ignition. “I thought you were already asleep.”
“Nope. Just watching you through my eyelashes.” He straightened with a stretch and yawn, his bulging arms and body filling the confines of the vehicle, a bulk better suited to a larger SUV. “People give away more when they think people aren’t looking.”
“What did you expect to find out about me from staring?” She hated the whole lab item under a microscope feel. “Sheesh, Rick, you could just ask.”
“Right.”
She didn’t like this at all. What had she given away about herself to this apparently too perceptive man?
He opened the door and hauled himself out by holding on to the door frame, the moon casting shadows down the hard angles of his face. She couldn’t help but notice more hollows than before.
Sympathy tweaked, chasing away her own insecurities. “Can I help y—?”
“No.” Balancing with seeming ease, he opened the back door and pulled out his crutches, his shoulders blocking the moon and any further chance of reading his expression.
She opened her door and swung her legs out onto the dusty driveway. “Just because someone offers help, you don’t have to be rude.”
“Sorry.” He made his way around the hood. “You’re gonna have to overlook my grumpiness sometimes. Habit born from frustration.”
“Oh, I’m sorr—”
“Don’t apologize.” He held up a hand. “That makes the frustration worse. I appreciate that you’re a nice sympathetic babe.”
“Babe?” She snorted. “Are you trying to get me to kick that crutch out from under your arm?”
He grinned and pointed toward her with said crutch, balancing on the other. “Now that’s more like it.”