“Whoa.” Red waved her back over. “Like I said, you ain’t getting up on that roof by yourself, and I promised Margaret I’d help her paint a room in the lodge tomorrow. So . . .” He glanced at Travis. “I’m hoping I can entice Travis into one more arrangement.”
“Red, I don’t need—”
“That’s how it’s gonna be, Hannah,” Red said, his tone hardening. “You’re not getting on that roof without help by your side, and I ain’t able to do it tomorrow. Accept the extra hand or it’s no-go on the new horse.”
Hannah held her breath for a moment, half hoping Travis would refuse and move on like the other nomad Red had brought home two weeks ago. But the other half of her hoped this stranger—a handsome man whose rough exterior had been softened by the gentle glow of Margaret’s festive lights—would accept Red’s offer, stay a while, and stir the small whirl of attraction deep inside her a bit more.
Travis eased his hands to his lap and narrowed his eyes at Red. “This meal and a night’s stay are more than payment enough for the scrap of work I did today. I owe you.”
“Enough to fix that stable roof with Hannah?” Red asked.
Travis’s dark eyes moved to Hannah as he nodded. “That and more, if you were to ask.” He looked down and leaned forward, placing his hands on the table. His fingers toyed with the napkin he’d folded by his plate. “But I need to—”
“There are no buts, hidden expectations, or tricky conditions to this deal.” Margaret reached out and covered Travis’s hand with hers. “There’s work to be had here, and if you’re down on your luck, it could be a way to get back on your feet. Red is inviting you to stay and work for as long as you’d like.”
A muscle in Travis’s forearm flexed. He raised his head and studied Margaret. “Do you want me to stay?”
Margaret smiled. “I’d like that very much.”
An odd mix of emotion moved through Travis’s expression as he stared down at Margaret’s hand covering his. “Then, yes. I’ll stay.”
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 path 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.