It was fine.
Fine.
There had to be a host or something inside. At least, that was what I was telling myself as I took a deep breath, parking as close to the front walk as possible, and cutting off the engine.
Mentally, I took a second to scan my belongings and the contents of the car, trying to decide if there was anything to use to defend myself on the walk up to the front door. From what, I wasn't sure. Bears, coyotes, crazy mountain people, all toothless gums and stringy hair.
But there was nothing.
"You're being ridiculous," I decided, looking at the lamppost near the edge of the walk. It didn't light the whole thing, but it wasn't a long walkway either. I was just being a baby.
So on that thought, I grabbed my carry-on bag and my rental key, and threw open the car, trying to walk deliberately toward the front door, but breaking into a dead run when there was some sort of rustling in a nearby bush.
I grasped the doorknob with a sort of horror-movie-style desperation, heart lodged so far up my throat I felt like I was choking on it before the knob turned in my hand, and I could throw myself inside.
Into complete and utter darkness.
Chest heaving, my hand groped at the wall to my side, finding a switch, flicking it on, making a hideous antler chandelier brighten above my head.
It was right about then, too, that a new, horrifying thought flashed across my mind.
The door was unlocked.
I could walk right in.
So could anyone else.
You know... like the toothless mountain people I had imagined earlier.
Taking a deep breath, I crept along the front wall, glancing into the room to the left—a spacious dining room with a massive table meant to seat twenty, and sideboards that spanned the entire far wall. There was a doorway that I imagined led to the kitchen.
Steeling my nerves, trying to remind myself how absurd I was being, I moved around the dining room, reaching in to flick on the kitchen light, feeling my chest loosen a bit to find it empty.
It was another oversize space with its light cabinets that matched the log walls, its stainless steel countertops and appliances, and the island that made all other islands feel inferior.
I moved into the kitchen, opening and closing drawers until I found the one I was looking for. The knife drawer. I grabbed the biggest one, hand tightening on the handle.
Overreacting? Yes.
But as the house groaned around me, I decided it was always better to be ridiculous than ambushed and murdered.
And because I had seen more than a few horror movies in my day, I decided not to be the idiot girl who went down into the basement—inexplicably in her underwear—to investigate strange noises.
Nope.
I held onto my phone.
And I sat and waited for someone to rescue me from my neurosis.
The minutes turned into hours, marked by a cuckoo clock somewhere in the house, a sound that would normally have made me smile, but given that I was alone and creeped out, I went ahead and decided it was freaky.
Then I heard it.
Crunching.
Like shoes on the gravel driveway. Followed by silence as, I imagined, those same feet made their way up the front path. Right up to the door I'd stupidly left unlocked behind me.
Taking a deep breath, I stayed exactly where I was, knife raised, waiting as the sound of clunky feet moved through the foyer, then the dining room, following the path of light I'd stupidly left.
Big, male feet.
When I worked at an almost exclusively female company.
I was seconds from darting through the blackened part of the rest of the house, hoping I could make my way outside and into the relative safety of my rental car when the footsteps came into the kitchen.
And there he was.
Our sole male employee.
Rush Rivers.
The best looking man the entire world had to offer, if you asked me, anyway.
Tall and fit in a way that said he definitely hit the gym on occasion, with dark hair and these velvety smooth dark eyes that were framed with impressive lashes, he was in jeans and a black thermal, hair disheveled from travel.
His gaze fell on me, going almost immediately to the knife in my hand, making me drop it as though it was suddenly burning me.
"Little creeped out, huh, Katie?" he asked, giving me that boyish smile that made all the women in the office fawn over him.
Katie.
He was the only person in the whole world who called me Katie.
My hand went to my heart, and I couldn't be sure if it was from the fear or the excitement that filled my body when I was around him. Which was rare. And it had been a while since I'd seen him. Working the night shift, he and I rarely had cause to run across each other.
"I, ah, it's very, you know, empty," I mumbled, words tripping over one another. "And there could have been like... bears or cannibalistic mountain people."
"Cannibalistic mountain people, huh?" he asked, eyes dancing.
"I well, no, I guess not. Since, clearly, they would be toothless."
"Clearly," he agreed, lips tipping up.
"So maybe just... murder-happy. I watch too much true crime," I rushed to add even though I typically didn't, save for the occasional new documentary on Netflix that was too hyped up to ignore.
"It's a little creepy out here," he agreed, shrugging. "Especially if you are alone. I thought there would be a host or something. Someone to show us to our rooms and shit."
"Yeah, um, no. I don't think so anyway."
"Looks like we are the early birds then. Want to give ourselves a tour?" he suggested. "We can pick out the best rooms then," he added, giving me a conspiratorial smirk. "Do you want to grab your knife?" he asked, nodding down to it on the floor, all but forgotten since he turned my mind to mush by, you know, existing. "In case of toothless predators hopping out of closets or something," he added, smiling.
"I, ah, no. It's... I'll just hide behind you," I admitted, making a little laugh rumble out of him, way too sexy a sound in such a creepy place.
"It would be an honor to be a human shield for you, baby," he said. It was a throwaway endearment. From what I could tell, he called everyone by them. Honey. Sweetheart. Babe. It meant nothing.
To him.
My body, though, it had a mind of its own. It damn near melted.
"You alright?" he asked, brows furrowing when, I imagined, I stood there, gap-mouthed, wide-eyed.
"I, ah, yeah. It's just been a long day," I told him, it being partly true.
"Yeah. That ride in was a bitch. Especially without the directions. It was a guessing game most of the way," he said, shrugging. "Come on. Let's check this place out. Then I will brave the threat of bears and cannibals to fetch your bags," he told me, holding an arm out, waiting for me to fall into step beside him.
I'd had more than my fair share of fantasies about Rush Rivers.
Not one of them included him touring a creepy woodland cottage with me.
I had no mental script prepared.
This was going to be a complete and utter disaster.
TWO
Rush
I liked the outdoors.
Some of my favorite parts about being on the run with my siblings, hiding out after jobs, were all the places Kingston had managed to snag for us, usually in the middle of nowhere in rustic cabins while we recharged, planned our next moves.