1
ELIAS
The knock on my door comes at midnight.
I already know who it is before I look through the peephole. Riley Hart stands on my porch, soaked to the bone from the storm raging across Grizzly Ridge. Her tank top clings to every curve, and those green eyes that have haunted my dreams for five years are wide with desperation.
"Elias." Her voice cracks when I open the door. "I didn't know where else to go."
I should tell her to leave. Should remind her that I'm twice her age. That I'm her father's best friend. That I was, until cancer took him last year. That every protective instinct I have is screaming at me to keep my distance from this woman who's become pure temptation wrapped in forbidden skin.
Instead, I step aside and let her in.
"What happened?" My voice comes out rougher than intended as I grab a towel from the linen closet.
She's shivering, arms wrapped around herself. "Brad kicked me out. Said he was tired of supporting a 'worthless dreamer.'"The way she says it, like she's repeating his exact words, makes my hands clench into fists.
I drape the towel around her shoulders, and when my fingers brush her neck, she sucks in a sharp breath. The same electric shock runs through me, the one I've been fighting for years.
"He put his hands on you." It's not a question. I can see the beginning of a bruise forming on her wrist.
Riley's eyes flash with something dangerous. "Once. But I handled it."
"Riley—"
"I kneed him in the balls and told him if he ever touched me again, my dad's best friend would bury him in the mountains where no one would ever find him." She meets my gaze steadily. "I might have oversold your murderous tendencies."
"Did you?" I step closer, and she tilts her chin up defiantly. "Because right now, I'm thinking about driving back to town and showing him exactly what happens to men who hurt you."
"Elias..." The way she says my name, soft and breathless, undoes something inside my chest.
"You can stay here." The words are out before I can stop them. "Until you figure things out."
Relief floods her features, but something else flickers there too. Something that makes my blood run hot and my resolve crumble.
"Thank you." She steps closer, close enough that I can smell her shampoo, see the flecks of gold in her eyes. "I know this is... complicated."
Complicated. That's one word for the way I've wanted her since she returned last year and I realized the little girl I'd watched grow up had become a woman who could bring me to my knees with a single look.
"Riley." My voice is a warning.
She reaches up, her fingers barely brushing my jaw where an old scar cuts through my beard. "I'm not a kid anymore, Elias."
No. She's not. She's twenty-three and looking at me like I'm something she wants to devour. Like she's been thinking about me the same way I've been thinking about her, late at night, when honor and promises and age gaps don't matter.
"Go to bed, Riley." I catch her wrist gently, pulling her hand away before I do something we'll both regret. "Guest room's upstairs, first door on the right."
She nods slowly, but doesn't move away. "What if I don't want to go to bed alone?"
Lightning illuminates the window, throwing shadows across her face. In the dark of my cabin, with the storm raging outside and five years of want burning between us, she looks like a siren calling me to shipwreck.
"Then you're going to anyway," I say. "Because I made a promise to your father. And because you deserve better than a broken-down mountain man who's old enough to be..."
"My what?" She steps even closer, her hand flat against my chest. "My father? You're not him. You're Elias McKenna. The man who taught me to shoot. Who carried me inside when I broke my ankle at sixteen. Who's been looking at me like you want to devour me since I came home from college."
Every word rings true. "Riley?—"
"I'll go upstairs," she says softly. "But not because you're too old or too broken. I'll go because when I come to you, and I will come to you, I want you to want me back. Not just as the girl you promised to protect, but as the woman I've become."
