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“There’s a woman on my site. I heard that you touched her.”
His demeanour changes entirely and now he’s grinning like a wolf.
“So she’syours,”he says likegotcha. “Makes sense. Fine little thing.”
I roll my bottom lip into my mouth and bite down hard. My eyes stray to the fingers that he’s got curled around his doorframe and I imagine breaking every single one of them. “You’re trespassing. Get the hell off my site.”
His eyes are glowing with entertainment. “Which bit don’t you want me trespassing on exactly? The site or…?” He moves his gaze so that he’s looking down into the valley. I shift my body so that I block his view of Harper.
“Let me put this into words that you’ll understand. You set foot on my site again you’ll be leaving with a souvenir. You put your hands on thewomanon my site again you won’t be leaving, period.”
“Is that a threat?” he asks, grinning.
“Yes.”
A little colour drains from his face but he keeps going because he’s an idiot.
“You’re a real tough guy, aren’t you?” He laughs and gestures down the hill. “Whaddya gonna do, throw me in the cement mixer?”
“Don’t give me ideas.”
He blinks rapid-fire and then shakes his head. “She’s not worth it, man.”
“I’ve got your plate number, a motive, and about ten-thousand shovels. Hit the pedal, asshole.”
He looks up at me from the inside of the van, the roof casting part of his face in shadow. He’s contemplating whether or not I’ll actually rough him up. The set of my jaw states my intentions loud and clear.Touch her again and I’ll break your neck.
Verbally, I opt for a more diplomatic approach. “It’s protocol. You can’t ride in here.”
I think that I’ve finally gotten through to him with the pacification speech but when I see him lean farther back in his seat so that his eyes can dip back to the valley I choose to check all the boxes.
“And yeah, she is mine. She’s, uh, she’s my girlfriend.”
Not once in my adult life have I considered a woman that I’m seeing to be my ‘girlfriend’. Once you get past a certain age it’s just a case of dating, and then deciding whether or not she’s about to become your wife. But I needed to use a label that would send this guy running and I couldn’t exactly call her my fiancée when there’s no ring on her finger.
Hell yeah I noticed.
The word ‘girlfriend’ bulldozes whatever plan he was cocking up right out of his head and he returns his gaze to mine, nodding once, pissed off but understanding, and I step backwards as he reaches to shut his door.
Good riddance.
I watch him punch the engine to life, pull a rickety three-point turn, and then the van is groaning to the entrance of the road diverging from the Pine Hills Nature Trail, the low metal gate already wide open from where he clearly lifted it without my knowing. I follow the tire tracks once he’s out of sight and pull the gate across, clicking in the hatch as my eyes watch the now-empty road. I look down at the gate under my palms, re-checking the mechanism in the thick bolt attached to the chain.So that’s how he got in here.
Time to get a couple new locks.
I pull out my notepad and pen and jot down a couple of thoughts, including that asshole’s licence plate number and a one-item shopping list that just readsbolts.Plus I’ll have to give Harper a key of her own for the new lock, so I’ll have to get a couple spares cut.
When I turn to head back down towards the workshop my eyes land straight on Harper, whose boots have already brought her halfway up the grassy incline. Are those pink laces? I don’t have the opportunity to stare at them for too long though because she’s suddenly giving me a big perfect smile for the first time since she got here, her eyes sparkling with gratitude and her cheeks two rosy apples.
Holy shit.
Do not think of her cheeks. Of any kind.
“You really scared him, huh?” she asks, her grin making little dimples appear. “You are a very handy handyman.”
A gruff sound rumbles in my chest as she gets closer, and we meet somewhere in the middle, on the precipice of her bungalow’s front garden. She’s looking up at me all cutesy, and my eyes are fucking dying to get another look at her bare left hand.
I change topics entirely.
