No Gentle Giant (A Small Town Romance)

A lot like Eli himself.

Guess he’s a transplant now, huh?

I’m glad.

My boy means everything.

And after everything his mama put us through, we’ve learned to rely on each other.

It’s been hell not having him with me during the months I spent here with Holt last year, getting set up, working out whether or not this was a place where I wanted to put down roots.

I had to decide if, after all the hell I’ve heard about this town, it’s a good place to raise my boy into a young man.

Heart’s Edge has one hell of a colorful history.

Everything from ghost stories to secret agents to ghost towns. Half the folks here lived through several real-life thrillers over the last decade, and the last big blowouts left millions of dollars in damage needing to be rebuilt over the lenses of tourists and a gaggle of national reporters.

Even so, I’ve got a good feeling about this place.

I couldn’t leave my kid in Fairbanks any longer, either.

Sure, he was having fun, getting spoiled as hell by his grandparents over the summer. My mom and dad haven’t spoken to me in a while.

Age-old complications from me picking the wrong side when it came to my family and my wife, even if I thought I was doing the right thing at the time.

Thankfully, with Katelyn and her “bad influence,” as Ma put it, out of the picture, it’s different now.

My folks were overjoyed for a chance to spend last summer treating Eli like a prince, while I worked my ass off putting away a tidy nest egg to settle down with and scouted this place out to see if it could really be home.

Yeah.

I think I could settle down in Heart’s Edge, and not just because there’s a certain pretty lady who’s caught my eye.

A certain pretty lady who’s probably pretty pissed at me right now, considering I still owe her a nice chunk of change for those mugs Eli obliterated.

I’d like to stay on Miss Felicity’s good side.

Not just because she’s the primary source of caffeine that keeps my crew on their feet all day, either.

Because I haven’t looked at a woman in a long damned while.

Not after that mess with Katelyn, the divorce and custody crap even before she died. It felt like a good idea to stay far, far away from anything but friendship with the fairer sex.

Then came last night.

I don’t know what the fuck happened.

There was something about Felicity.

A lot of things about her.

The way she dove to protect Eli.

How she fussed over that tiny cut I didn’t even feel, insisting on looking after me rather than staying mad that my kid just smashed up her merchandise.

Plus that quiet, sad way she talked about herself, all while trying to protect me and Eli from the dangers of her supposed reputation.

I know what I thought when I was looking at her with that pretty cinnamon-brown head of hair bowed over my knee with her eyes so lost.

Her lashes were lowered over gently angled eyes that normally give her a sly, laughing look. This time they just turned those soft violet-blue depths in her head sad and dark and reflective.

The storm in my blood hit like two colliding fronts.

I was so goddamned angry.

I didn’t want her to see it, didn’t want her to think I was angry at her, but holy fuck do I hate when people take it on themselves to hurt other people for their own amusement.

All that shit about gossip? Rumors? Those horrible things people say about her, and she’s still trying to protect other people from it like it’s her fault?

I don’t know her from Eve.

Whatever.

I just know right then, I wanted to step in. Step in and stand between her and everything poisoning her life the very same way she stood between Eli and getting hurt.

She’s always been the coffee chick before yesterday.

Sweet, nice, pretty to look at, but just kind of background noise during the times I made my grab-and-go runs.

Now, she’s pried my eyes wide open.

Now, abraca-frigging-dabra.

She’s Miss Felicity and I think I’ll never see her as anybody else.

Call it rash, but suddenly I give a good goddamn what she thinks of me.

Suddenly, I give a lot of damns about her.

And I don’t want her thinking I’m the kind of dude who dodges his debts.

I know what it’s like to run a business. Sometimes it’s fifty bucks in cashflow that makes the difference between staying open one day and having to shutter up the next.

I took the cash out of the ATM this morning. And I promised her I’d bring it by quick, but work turned into a frenzy with working a late-night shift on that wiring, taking a nap, and coming right back in this morning without even time to stop for coffee when we’re working on an inspector’s schedule.