me to go,” he said with a yawn. “I’m dead on my feet.”
I was feeling much the same and unsuccessfully stifled my own yawn.
“You’re serious about letting me run through your property?”
“Sure,” he returned casually. “I was wrong to have made such a fuss earlier.” He stood, and without complaint Elvis joined him.
I walked with him to the porch steps, covering my mouth as I yawned again. “It was good to talk to you, Nick.”
“Yeah, you, too.”
“Thanks…you know, for letting me use the orchard and everything else.”
He waved off my appreciation and disappeared into the night.
Standing on the top of the porch steps, I wrapped my arm around the white column. I watched Nick depart with Elvis leading the way. They reached the end of the driveway and both stopped, turned, and looked back.
I felt a bit foolish standing there, and to cover my discomfort I gave a short wave. Nick didn’t return the gesture.
He was an enigma. At every meeting he seemed to be in a different mood. His anger during our first encounter had infuriated me. Later, the night I’d collected Rover from the tavern, he’d been protective, willing to take on the very devil himself on my behalf. And tonight…tonight I saw a different side of him. He seemed vulnerable, open, and decent.
Every meeting revealed a different layer of the man I was only beginning to get to know. Despite our awkward start, I liked Nick Schwartz, and that was reason enough for me to be concerned.
Nick didn’t know what it was about Emily or how she’d found her way into his head. The woman was like a virus he couldn’t shake. Despite his best efforts to push all thoughts of her aside, he’d been unsuccessful. He’d hoped banning her from his property would be the end of this fascination he had for her. He’d been wrong. If anything, it was worse than it was before. Not seeing her tormented him more than watching her run through his property ever had.
He found he missed seeing her the way a thirsty man missed a cold drink on a hundred-degree afternoon. Every morning he woke about the same time she once ran through the orchard. Every friggin’ morning. If that wasn’t bad enough, he went to the window as if he expected her to be there, as if she’d blatantly disregard his threat and trespass on his land. That wasn’t likely, seeing that he’d done nothing short of threatening prosecution if she set foot on his property again.
Just when he thought he had a chance of getting her out of his head, what happened? She showed up at A Horse with No Name on the Fourth of July, when the place was crowded with bikers and other lowlifes. He’d gone there every night for a week, never having the courage to step inside, shaking at the thought of being out in public for fear of a panic attack. And then Emily had shown up and parked two cars down from him. He knew right away this wasn’t a place she should be, and he followed her inside. The minute he saw the biker approach her, he knew she was in trouble and instinct took over.
Nick had no clue what he was thinking when he squared off with Lucifer, the VP of the Washington-based motorcycle club; he didn’t even want to guess. It’d been a crazy thing to do. He was lucky to walk away with his liver intact.
Then, to top it off, Emily had found him wandering around the inn like some stalker. He’d made a complete ass of himself. The shock of seeing her rush out the kitchen door and confront him in the middle of the night had left him speechless.
At first he hadn’t known what to think, and he assumed she was the inn’s proprietor. He should have realized she wasn’t from the sign that clearly stated Jo Marie Rose’s name. It was a relief to find out Emily was a guest. A boarder, she’d explained. He didn’t know B&Bs took boarders, and naturally it would be Emily, the one woman he would do anything to avoid. This was just the way his luck ran.
Elvis certainly had taken a liking to her. Some guard dog the German shepherd had turned out to be. Normally, he wasn’t a dog who took kindly to strangers. What made his acceptance of Emily more compelling was the fact that the dog had been well trained to guard and protect. No