e frame filling up the small space. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, sand falling off his cowboy boots.
Maisie took in the dirt covering his worn blue jeans and black T-shirt, realizing he most definitely did have a fall.
When he went to stand, she grabbed him by the arm with her uninjured hand, desperately aware of the muscles stretching and flexing beneath her fingers. “Don’t be stupid.” She pressed her hand to his chest and he willingly let her push him back on the bed. When the warmth of his eyes returned to hers, time stopped. She became instantly lost, trapped by the intensity she saw on his face. He slowly wrapped his fingers around her wrist, and maybe because it was the anniversary of Laurel’s death, or something else altogether, but she remembered the last time his fingers wrapped around her wrist.
“Maisie. Go home.”
Maisie stood in the dark bedroom in the empty house. She had no idea how bad Hayes’s depression had gotten, when she’d been so deep in her own. Then Beckett called and begged her to help. Now, here, with Hayes, she couldn’t believe her eyes, and yet, she understood, having been so lost herself.
The beautiful, expensive property that Hayes bought when he moved back to River Rock had been gorgeous when she’d come for the spreading of Laurel’s ashes on the weeping willow hanging over the creek. Now, without him mowing the lawn or tending to the property, everything was overgrown. The three-bedroom house had no furniture. Hayes slept on a camping mat on the floor, the curtains on the windows were drawn. The darkness of the place was near stifling.
She’d been right where he was. Until her sisters’ love brought her back to life.
Determined to get Hayes there too, she moved to the curtains and whisked them open, letting the sunlight spill inside. She turned back, finding Hayes lying curled on his side, looking thin, his hair long, his beard far past scruffy. “You’re getting up,” she told him. “We’re going outside.”
When he didn’t move, she dropped to her knees next to him. He rolled onto his back and she placed her hand on his chest. “Laurel would be devastated if she saw you like this. You’re going to get up and face each day, with me here, until we both have some kind of life worth living.”
Tears welled in his eyes. His fingers wrapped around her wrist tight. “I’ve got nothing left.”
“That’s not true,” she said, hearing the raw emotion in her voice. “You’ve got me.” She grabbed the blanket and yanked it off, paying no attention to the fact that he was naked. She tossed him the jeans that rested in a heap on the floor next to him. “Get dressed. I’m making you breakfast.”
Maisie blinked away the memory of the day Hayes had become her friend, instead of just Laurel’s husband. They’d come through dark times together, and they had history together. So much history. Some good. Some bad. Some unimaginably painful. But this new thing that had sprung out of nowhere over the last few months made her cheeks hot, and she averted his gaze. What was once friendly between them had become taut with tension that seemed to get tighter every day. This man staring at her wasn’t broken anymore. Hunger lived in his eyes. “You need to stay here,” she told him. “Let them look you over.”
“I’m fine,” he said, his voice lower than before.
Not wanting to, but knowing she had to, she slowly took her hand off his chest, watching her fingers drag against the hard muscles, feeling like touching him wasn’t all that friendly anymore. “I’ve been here all day,” she pointed out. “You can endure getting looked over.”
He held her stare. “Fine, I’ll get looked over. But there”—he glared at the nurse—“is no way in hell I’m staying the night.”
The nurse turned away, but even Maisie saw her roll her eyes as she left the room.
Beckett laughed.
Maisie nudged Hayes’s shoulder. “Be nice. You’re really annoying her.”
Hayes snorted, lying his head back against the pillow, staring up at the ceiling, that muscle in his jaw twitching again. “Believe me, the feeling is mutual.”
Hayes counted the tiles on the ceiling to calm the erection he sported from Maisie’s touch. Maisie smelled like sunshine and wildflowers, and he hadn’t realized how much he liked that smell until one day a couple of months ago. The day that changed everything. His eyes shut as that pleasing scent wrapped around him, bringing him back to the day he realized Maisie was breathtakingly beautiful.
“Right there,” Maisie said, standing in Hayes’s living room, watching as he moved the couch against the wall across from the big window. “Yup, that’s perfect.” She smiled and approached. “Dare I say, you actually have a gorgeous living room?”
He laughed. “Yes, I think you can.” For the last six months, she’d been helping him shop for furniture. He’d put it off for over a year, but slowly, she helped make his house a home. When he’d moved from Denver, he sold his house with everything in it, except for one box holding all his memories with Laurel. He couldn’t go back in the house, not after Laurel’s murder.
Maisie plopped down on his new dark gray couch, and the movement caused her cleavage to bounce. His cock, he thought long dead, twitched. “Come on,” she said. “We must celebrate with a movie.”
His mind went to thoughts of celebrating on his couch…but doing something else entirely. He shoved the thought from his mind and grabbed beers from the fridge before he returned to her, finding her settled back against the pillows. He was certain she wasn’t thinking sexy thoughts, but she looked like a French model laid out, ready for him to paint. And he wanted to paint her.
He cleared his throat. “What are we going to watch?” He handed her the beer and then took a seat next to her.
She snuggled a little closer to him, obviously an innocent move, but it didn’t feel innocent anymore. He looked around the house. A house that Maisie had helped him put together. She’d been there for him during the darkest times in his life. Until he could actually breathe again, fully. Until he could walk outside and not want to hide. And as she moved closer, he caught her scent, a mix of sunshine and wildflowers. He stared down at her smooth, bare legs, and Hayes knew one thing for certain.
Maisie was no longer just his friend. He wanted more, and he didn’t know how to reconcile that with his love for Laurel.
“Today is weird.”
Hayes blinked out of his memory, frustrated his erection had only hardened. He turned toward Amelia’s voice. His gaze then fell to Beckett, who couldn’t take his eyes off Maisie’s sister. Beckett and Amelia dated during Amelia’s senior year of high school, and Hayes knew for certain the reason Beckett didn’t date seriously was because he still loved Amelia. But Amelia had a fiancé now, Luka. Her high school romance with Beckett long behind her. “I agree,” Hayes said, glad for the interruption, if only for his hard-on to finally soften. “Today is weird.”
Amelia strode farther into the room. “What happened?” she asked, sidling up the bed.