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Wreck relaxed back against his seat and ran his hand over his jaw in irritation.
What the hell was he doing here?
Timber’s house was all lit up. A new, black Ford Ranger sat in the driveway with the temporary plates that said she’d been car shopping and settled on something she liked. He liked it. He liked her taste. It was the perfect little truck for her.
Timber’s porch light was on, and it looked so warm and inviting, but he couldn’t keep doing this.
He couldn’t bring her closer. She would be hurt. There was no doubt in his mind that she would be badly hurt.
Yet…here he was, ignoring the part of his brain that told him to keep her safe and leave her alone. Instead, he was parked just down her street, a bottle of red wine lying on the floor of his back seat. He’d never been in a wine section in his entire life, but he’d researched the best types of wine to complement lasagna. He’d felt so normal in that store, asking one of the workers there to help him choose the perfect one he thought Timber might like. Regular men did that. They brought wine to dinners that pretty women made them.
Wreck wasn’t normal though, and that fact kept revisiting his mind as he’d driven from the store to her home on the outskirts of Laramie.
His heightened sense of smell picked up the faint aroma of meat sauce, Italian seasonings, and garlic bread that was probably warming in the oven.
He was supposed to have been there fifteen minutes ago, but for the last half an hour he’d been sitting here, trying to decide what to do.
If he went in there, he would fall for her a little more. Not like the women he’d dated before that didn’t stand a chance of him even caring about their daily life. This one was different. Something about her was so warm. So homey, but that didn’t make any sense.
A person couldn’t be a home.
She knew so very little about him.
She didn’t know that he tried to leave Laramie every day to murder an entire Pride of lions that were destined to bring war to Damon’s Mountains. She didn’t know fate created a situation every single day to keep him from leaving Damon’s territory.
She didn’t know there were entire Crews camping in the Fastlander woods right now, preparing to bleed and be bled in a war that would probably kill her if she happened to be there when it happened.
She didn’t know what had happened when he was sixteen to make distancing people he cared about necessary.
She didn’t know what a monster he was.
Maybe that was what drew him to her. She looked at him like he was good, and it was addictive to seem that way in a person’s eyes. Especially after so many years of him being hyperaware of exactly what he was, and the horrors he was capable of.
He’d always wanted to be good.
Then leave.
The thought wafted across his mind, and it felt right.
If he wanted to be good…if he wasn’t all talk and no action…he should leave her to find someone who could provide her a safe life.
He really wanted to be good.
Then leave. Just leave.
He gripped the wheel hard, ignoring the pain that was ripping through his chest, and threw his truck into drive.
And then he did what a good man would do.
He left.
Chapter Six
Wreck was standing her up.
Timber had known it for the last hour, as the food she’d cooked sat growing cold on the table.
She had made herself a plate eventually, but Timber didn’t feel like doing much more than pushing the food around the plate with her fork.
