He didn’t return to Marietta. McKenna said he avoided his hometown at all costs. And yet he stood tall and solid just behind her, his thick sheepskin accenting his broad shoulders and the width of his muscular chest.
Rory stood silently as he watched Sadie struggle with the key. Her hand was trembling, and he wasn’t sure if she was nervous or simply cold. She’d been waiting for over forty minutes. She had to be frozen through. He’d tried calling to say that he’d be late, due to an accident outside of Billings that had shut all traffic down, but his call to Marietta Properties had gone straight to voicemail.
“Have you worked for Marietta Properties long?” he asked, as she tried a different key.
“Just since the end of September,” she answered, shooting him a swift glance over her shoulder. Even in a thick puffy coat with a gray knit cap on her head, she looked heart-stoppingly pretty. “And I’m not sure why the lock is sticking. It opened right up before. Not sure what I’m doing wrong.”
“I’m happy to try,” he said easily, aware as she went back to the first key.
She was becoming increasingly flustered, but there was no hurry. He was happy just to look at her. When she’d walked out of his hospital room in Fresno, he knew he’d see her again, his gut told him he’d see her, but it’d never crossed his mind that he’d find her in Marietta.
As far as he knew, there were no angels in Marietta. All the angels around here had already gone to heaven.
“It’s my job to do this,” she muttered, trying the first key again. “How difficult can it be to unlock a door?”
“You said you did it before.”
She threw him a swift glance, frustration and a nameless emotion darkening her eyes. “Exactly!” And then with a shake of her head, she turned to face him, her long ponytail sliding across her shoulder in a bright gleam of copper. “Okay. I’ll give you a shot before we both freeze to death.”
She handed him the small key ring, her fingers brushing his and he felt a crackle of energy, flashing back to the hospital and how she’d lightly touched his bicep, the only place not bandaged. Even broken and sore, he’d relished her warmth and softness. The touch had meant to comfort, but instead it stirred something in him that he couldn’t define and didn’t know how to answer.
He wasn’t a man that settled down, and yet she made him yearn for a life he hadn’t lived or known.
It was a shame he wasn’t younger and less scarred.
It was a shame he’d lost his trust and innocence as a sixteen-year-old.
Eyes narrowed, he slid the key into the lock and turned. The door opened easily.
Sadie groaned behind him. “You made that look so easy.”
He felt his lips quirk and he glanced back at her, taking in the high cheekbones, the angle of her jaw, the fullness of her mouth. She was so beautiful. One in a million, this angel girl.
“After you,” he said, pushing the door open.
She stepped into the house, turning on lights as she crossed the threshold. “It’s not very big,” she said, “but it’s got everything. You’ll be comfortable.”
It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her that he knew, that the house was his and he’d placed it with Marietta Properties to manage for him, but somehow he knew it’d just end up flustering her. Far better to let her do her job and then sometime, another time, he could tell her when she wasn’t all pins and needles.
“Not sure if you remember, but this is one of the original buildings from frontier Marietta,” she said, closing the door behind him and heading across the open floor plan to the kitchen. “A couple years ago someone bought it and converted it into a rental house. It’s really popular and almost always booked.”
Rory followed her to the island, glad to see that the small snug house, reminiscent of the early homesteader cabins still dotting Montana, looked just as good as the last time he’d been here, which was just about three years ago. This stable conversion was probably his favorite renovation he’d ever done.
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