I blinked into the darkness, holding my breath, unsure how to proceed. I’d spotted Mr. Repo a few times over the past year. We lived in the same township, after all. Of course, I’d been looking for him, but that was beside the point.
Then what is the point?
The point is as follows: I’d left him asleep in that bed last Christmas just before dawn, sneaking out of the bar thanks to my son and making it all the way home before bursting into tears. And then, when I saw him next, walking down Main Street toward Walnut, his eyes had skipped right over me, like I didn’t exist. And then, the next time I saw him, coming out the of the Piggly Wiggly two months later, he’d had a woman waiting for him on the back of his bike.
In summary, my point is . . . I don’t think I have a point.
“Open the door, gorgeous,” he said. “It’s cold out here.”
Swallowing nerves and apprehension, I called back, “You’re barking up the wrong tree, Mr. Repo. Kindly remove yourself from my porch.”
I bit my bottom lip, straining my ears, and waited. Only silence greeted me.
I checked the peephole again and, sure enough, he’d stepped off the porch. The silhouette of him lingered at the edge of it. I could tell by how he was standing that he was, in truth, very cold. My heart pinged at the sight.
I watched him sigh, his breath a cloud of faint white illuminated by the full moon. It was still snowing—a lot—and his black leather jacket was dotted with snowflakes.
“Diane, my bike is under a tree off the main road near your drive.” He lifted his voice, explaining, and I watched him rub his forehead with gloved fingers; the big biker sounded mighty tired. “I spun out on the black ice and crashed. I’m not injured, but my cell don’t work. The bike won’t start. It’s too far to walk back to town or to the club. The only other houses on this stretch are the sheriff and the Winstons, and I ain’t knocking on either of those doors past midnight. I’d get shot. Or worse.”
I pressed my palm to my heart, willing it to slow and stepped back from the peephole, my other hand automatically lifting to the deadbolt. But I didn’t turn it. A war waged within me.
On the one hand, he was a dangerous man. Second in command of the Iron Wraiths. I knew he had a gun on him, likely more than one. He did bad things and ordered others to also do bad things. And he was unrepentant. The man lived hard and fast.
But I also knew he made love soft and slow. And then he made love hard and fast. And then he took requests afterward for one or the other.
“Now, gorgeous, I’m asking you to please let me in. Because it’s colder than a witch’s tit out here and I might be literally freezing to death.”
Shoot.
He was right and that decided things. I couldn’t leave him outside to freeze to death.
Gripping the blanket tight to my throat with one hand, I unlocked the deadbolt, took a deep breath, and opened the door.
Chapter Six
*Diane*
“When I was your age, television was called books.”
William Goldman, The Princess Bride
He stood at the edge of the porch, his hands on his hips, his chin tilted up to look at me, and he was so damn handsome I had to press a palm against my galloping heart.
“Come on in, then. I can’t have you freeze to death on my porch,” I said tightly, wanting to be clear that I was only allowing him to enter my house under dire circumstances. But then, not liking how rude that sounded, I added, “Have you had supper?”
I didn’t see his smile. I felt it. I felt it in the air, how it shifted, how the snow hurried to the earth and fell both quickly and quietly. For some reason, how the snow journeyed to the ground struck me as poignant, or important. But before I could think too much about it, Repo was climbing my porch stairs.
His motorcycle boots made barely a sound and soon he was almost to the door. I backed up two steps, holding the door open and letting him pass.
Now, I was not a tall woman. I was a short woman. At five feet even, I’d grown accustomed to wearing four inch heals over the course of my life. My ex was five foot eight, fine-boned, and worked his whole life in an office—and that had suited me just fine. I’d liked that he never overwhelmed me physically.
The last time I’d seen Repo I’d been wearing the aforementioned four-inch heels. And I’d been tipsy on rage. Presently, I didn’t have any shoes on. So, a six-foot male with a big frame, broad shoulders, and undoubtedly accustomed to manual labor felt like a goliath.
Regardless, I refused to be intimidated. I was Diane Donner. I was one of the most successful and influential persons of property and business in East Tennessee—aside from Dolly and Daisy Payton and the Leffersbees.
Repo paused just beyond the front door, glancing around the darkness like he could see just fine by the moonlight filtering in through the windows. I closed the door, not letting myself think about who I’d just allowed into my house and what we’d done the last time we were alone.
No.
I would not think about that. I would not think about how he’d made me watch him, how he’d touched me, how his large, tanned, rough hands had looked on my body. I would not think about how he’d savored my skin and palmed my breasts and knelt down and—
“No,” he said, startling me.
I glanced at Repo over my shoulder, feeling flushed. “No?”
“No.” We were standing very close, so I both saw and felt his eyes move over my face as he spoke. “No, I haven’t had supper,” came his quiet reply.
“Oh,” I said on a short exhale, realizing quite suddenly that in addition to my racehorse of a heart, I was now out of breath. “Let’s get you, uh, fed.” I marched past him, calling over my shoulder, “Take your shoes off, if you please. And there’s brandy in the living room. Help yourself.”
In the kitchen, I switched my brain to autopilot and lit a few candles so I could see. I then made the man a turkey sandwich with leftovers from Christmas. Jennifer had brought three kinds of pie, so I cut him a slice of each—pumpkin cinnamon, rum pecan, and coconut custard—and grabbed a napkin and fork from the drawer. Arranging everything on a tray, and adding a few candles for good measure, I carried it to the living room.
I stopped short, my mouth growing inexplicably dry at the sight of his broad back. Warming himself by the fire, the big man didn’t turn as I entered, but I saw he’d taken off his shoes as requested. He’d also removed his jacket and gloves, leaving him in dark jeans, dark socks, and a charcoal grey thermal that highlighted how wide his shoulders were and how his midsection tapered to narrow hips.
He was so . . . so . . . manly. Manly in a way I’d rarely been exposed to over the course of my steady, straightforward life.
My ex hadn’t been manly. Sure, he’d been in good shape. He’d exercised and taken good care of his body. I thought he’d been enlightened. I thought he’d been sensitive, an advocate for equal opportunity and women’s rights, proud of me for being the breadwinner and happy to spend the money. But he hadn’t. He’d used the guise of feminism to hide his weakness, selfishness, and impotency.
My father was a drunk and a dissolute disappointment. He’d been a philanderer, soft and spoiled, having stepped out on my mother countless times. I didn’t consider him manly either. Quite the opposite. He was weak and bitter.