Chapter One
She’d been getting paler by the hour. As her departure time drew closer, he was worried she might pass out.
Rory pushed his chair a few inches to the right. Just enough to study her from his vantage point at the front counter without looking like that was what he was doing.
Daralyn stood before the mirror in the back of the store, where they sold outerwear and work shoes. Someone else would think she was fussing over her appearance, but he knew she rarely looked at herself.
He noticed everything about her. Every emotion transmitted through body language—a change in the angle of her chin, the light of her eyes. The rate of her pulse, the tiny beat of it in that pocket at the base of her throat, and how her breath made the slight curves of her breasts rise and fall.
Last Christmas, he’d kissed her under the mistletoe, in front of his well-meaning family who’d engineered the event. He remembered every detail of that, too. One of her nervous, chapped hands had fallen onto his biceps, her fingers tightening. He’d wanted to pull her into his lap, right there in front of everyone. Not because he wanted to disrespect her, but because he ached to do what a man with two functioning legs could do. Hold his girl flush against him, cradle her in his arms as he kissed her. Feel the give of her body as she trusted his strength enough, wanted it enough, to melt into him.
Not long before that Christmas, when he had thoughts like that about her, he’d put them away, appalled at himself. Since she was fifteen, she’d mostly lived with his family. But then Marcus had pointed out the obvious, and it had stuck to his brain cells like gum.
Marcus was his brother’s…husband. Yeah, Rory was small-town enough that saying it, even in his head, still felt weird. But Thomas was happy, and Marcus was a decent guy. When he wasn’t being a prick. So Rory was cool with his brother being gay, though he still reserved his right to block any images in his head of guys getting it on with each other.
A couple days after that Christmas, Rory had been in the driveway in front of the house, watching his mom and Daralyn say goodbye to Rory’s sister, Les, who was headed back to medical school. Marcus was standing beside him.
“You know she’s not your sister, right?” he said.
“I’m pretty sure she is,” Rory responded. “There are pictures of me holding her as a baby.”
“You know how easy it is to head slap a guy in a wheelchair?” When Marcus swept a palm toward him to demonstrate, Rory lifted a quick fist to block, and then cocked it to strike.
“About as easy as it is for one to punch you in the nuts.”
Marcus dropped his hand with a chuckle, but then he sobered. “You know I meant Daralyn. She’s twenty. You can treat her as a woman, Rory. A woman you want, with a man’s hunger.”
Marcus didn’t know everything going through Rory’s head when he was around her. At least he thought he didn’t. Because then Marcus demonstrated the uncanny insight Thomas had complained about, more than once.
“When you think about her, I’m betting a couple things happen in your head and your cock.”
At Rory’s narrow look, Marcus shrugged and adopted a Southern drawl. “The two are connected like biscuits and gravy, boy.”
“Asshole,” Rory muttered.
A slight smile played on Marcus’s mouth, but his intent green eyes remained fixed on Rory. “You want to protect her like it’s the only thing in life that matters. And you want to make her yours in ways that you’re worried are wrong. They’re not, and when you want to know why, you’ll come find me to talk it out. Don’t be proud. Desire can cover a fuck-ton of ground, but wanting to fly won’t keep you from crashing if you don’t learn how a plane works. Even if you’re willing to risk yourself, you can’t risk your passenger. She’s everything, right?”
Coming back to the present, Rory pensively tapped his push rim. He knew about being out of control, not having enough knowledge about what was ahead, and how crazy that could make a guy. But whatever this was, it was still a jumble between his head, his gut, and yes, his sexual desire for her. Even as, at other times, it was like a straight line between two points.
Biscuits and gravy. Shit.
He pushed out from behind the counter. “Daralyn.”
She turned, gave him an absent, jittery smile, and immediately came his way. Her glossy hair, the rich brown of a house wren’s back, was in a ponytail, the bundle of natural curls bobbing against her exposed neck as she moved. Depending on the light, her hazel eyes had touches of blue or amber scattered through the golden-green irises.
The blue shirt she wore had a scoop neckline and lace band at the bottom that hugged her narrow hips in jeans. A feminine ensemble that enhanced her body without being intentionally sexy.
She wasn’t girl-next-door. She was fragile angel, bewildered by the world in which she’d been dropped, like a puppy tied in a sack with a stone weight.
He knew that kind of anger on her behalf wasn’t useful, but her life had been a total shitstorm up until she was fifteen. When her father died, God rot him, and her uncle took off shortly thereafter, their closely knit rural North Carolina community had realized, to its shame, what had been happening in that rundown house for years. But until Daralyn came to live with them, even Rory’s mother, Elaine, who’d been first to notice the situation, hadn’t realized the worst of it.
Some predators knew how to shape their victims to add to their camouflage. Her father and uncle had fucking excelled at that.
Her father must have been the brains, though, since the uncle had been caught a year later in Roanoke Rapids, assaulting a young girl within a block of her school. Rory kept hoping the son of a bitch would be killed in prison before his seven-year sentence was up.
“Do you need something before I go?” Daralyn asked. She had a breathy voice. When she had to raise her volume, her gaze would dart back and forth like a startled deer. “I can… I mean, I don’t have to go. I’m sure the first day is orientation, really, and…”
“You’re going.”
Her attention flitted to his face and then over his shoulder, somewhere else. She’d meet and hold Thomas’s gaze, or his sister’s. His mother’s. But not Marcus’s. And not Rory’s. Not without a different level of effort.
He couldn’t say why that was significant, but a primal part of him responded to it, tightening his heart in his chest. He also realized he’d said the words not just as encouragement, but as a command.
You want to make her yours in ways that you think might be wrong. They’re not, and when you want to know why, you’ll come find me to talk it out...
He was losing his mind to some weirdness Marcus had planted there. He tried easing his tone, no matter that it felt like he was backing away from something important, something she actually needed. He gestured to her. “C’ mere. I have something for you.”
He liked seeing the curiosity in her eyes. With how quiet she was, some people thought she wasn’t smart. But since she’d started working here, she’d learned everything about running his family’s hardware and general store. She knew where every item was and could give helpful guidance to customers, whether it was about how much grain to feed a horse, or what kind of tool was needed for a home or farm repair.