Paradise Peak (New Americana 5)

Hannah blew out a heavy breath. Looked like the aggravating half of her that was curious about Travis would get its way. “If I’m going to scale rotten planks twelve feet above the ground with someone, I at least need to know his name.” Noticing Red’s frown, she shrugged, focused on Travis, and lifted her chin. “His full name.”

Travis stood slowly, glanced at Margaret, then said, “Miller. Travis Miller.”

His tone was warm and steady, but his dark eyes avoided hers.

Hannah watched and waited, wanting more from him. She wanted to be kind, trusting, and accommodating for Red’s and Margaret’s sake. But something about Travis didn’t sit well with her, and she’d learned long ago that good looks could mask a wealth of bad intentions.

“Be at the stable tomorrow morning, seven-thirty sharp,” Hannah said. “And get some rest. I’ll accept your help, but I won’t go easy on you.”

CHAPTER 3

Miller. A fake, a fraud. One day in Paradise Peak and he’d already blown it.

Throat tightening, Travis slowed his steps as he passed Hannah’s cabin. The front door was closed, the side deck was empty, and sporadic thuds cut through a cold, low-hanging mist blanketing the pastures that sprawled along both sides of the dirt path in front of him. He glanced at his frayed watch and sighed.

Six minutes past seven, the sun barely peeked above the mountain ridge, and Hannah was already hard at work on the stable roof without him. If the expression on her face last night hadn’t made her message clear, her actions this morning did.

She was Red’s family. Hardworking and capable. She didn’t need him.

Travis shook his head and picked up his pace, taking swift strides up the dirt pa

th and around the side pasture. Ruby and Juno were out. They stood several feet from the fence in the larger field, ears perked, heads cocked, studying his every step. Ruby, the gray mare, poised one front leg as if ready to bolt at the first suspicious movement he made.

He stopped and observed her. Watched as Ruby’s wide, black eyes fixed on him, then he took in her smooth coat, his fingers flexing at his sides, wondering if the thick hair would feel as soft as it looked. He wanted to touch his palm to her hide gently and offer comfort and reassurance. The same reassurance Margaret had given him last night when she’d placed her hand on his.

Margaret’s gesture had been casual and brief. Fleeting, even. But her touch—the kindness behind it, the sheer human connection—had moistened his eyes and almost broken his composure. He had no right to it; he knew that. But in that moment, he’d believed there was a possibility she might be able to forgive him, only he couldn’t bring himself to tell her the truth.

How could he when just the touch of her hand had transformed the space around him? In that moment, the cool night air had felt warmer against his skin, the glow of the decorative lights above his head had felt soothing, and the breath he’d taken had felt invigorating and full of promise. As though he’d been given a clean slate and was freed to feel, think, and speak. As though he were entitled to live and be happy like any other man.

Travis smiled at Ruby, lifted his hand, and stepped forward slowly, wanting to share a little of what Margaret had shown him in that small touch, wanting to soothe the mare’s fears.

Something heavy struck the ground at his back, the sound magnified by the stable walls. Ruby and Juno jerked, spun, and galloped off, disappearing into the thick mist cloaking the distant field.

“Are you coming, or are you going to stand there and stare some more?”

Travis turned from the chunk of wood that had hit the ground and looked up. Hannah stood on the stable roof, legs wide, feet planted on exposed wood beams, peering down at him. Mist rose in fingerlike tendrils from the ground, reaching midway up the stable wall, and another thin, almost transparent layer swirled around her slender figure.

She motioned with one hand, pointing a hammer at the field behind him. “You act like you’ve never seen a horse before.”

“I haven’t.” Travis bit his lip at the naïveté of his tone. “Not in person, that is.”

She tilted her head, her auburn ponytail swinging over one shoulder. “Not even once? When you were a kid?”

He shook his head. Rockton Park, a small corner in western Tennessee where he’d spent what technically qualified as his childhood, had no horses. Poverty, drugs, and violence, though, had been in high supply.

“Where’d you grow up?” Hannah asked.

Prison. Travis focused on the faint beams of sunlight fighting their way through the mist behind her as the memory of being locked behind high walls evoked a surge of panic.

He might have been eighteen—the legal definition of an adult—when he’d entered prison, but on the inside, he’d been an angry, confused, and terrified kid who’d hurt people in ways in which he’d been unable to fully conceive. Every day he spent inside that gated hell had hurt worse than the one before. He’d been condemned, forgotten, and alone. And one morning a year down the road, he’d woken up on his cot with sober, horrifying awareness of what he’d done, still breathing but completely dead inside.

He was an addict, had driven drunk, slammed into oncoming traffic, and taken the life of twenty-year-old Niki Owens—a medical student, bright, responsible, and vivacious. He’d stolen Niki’s future, and scarred Niki’s mother, Margaret, and her family forever.

The boy within him was gone; a convicted felon remained, and he’d blown any chance he might’ve had of becoming someone of character or value. Someone worthy of love.

“I grew up in Rockton Park,” he said. At least about location, he could be truthful. One lie was enough; he refused to tell any more. “It’s a small place in the middle of nowhere. West Tennessee. Not much to it.”

He wondered where Hannah had grown up. Red had mentioned she’d moved to his ranch five years ago, but where had she lived as a child? In the country, maybe? With idyllic views, healthy horses who roamed at will, and a supportive family?