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PROLOGUE

I met her at a bar

She had a beer bottle in her hand even though she looked like she should be sipping chane out of an expensive flute, and that inexplicably turned me on She was pretty and looked co across fro-lost brother He was the reason she was here In that split second that I laid my eyes on her I wanted to be the reason she stayed

I kneas rude and that the two of theure out what they were to each other now that she had blasted into his life unannounced If I was a better friend I would have left them alone As it was, I made my way over to the tiny table and sat down I was covered in sawdust and had drywall mud caked in the hair on my head and on my face, but she didn’t flinch or bat an eyelash when I purposely broke up their party of two and placedher

My buddy Rowdy St James lifted his eyebrows at me as I stared at her while he introduced us Sayer Cole Even her nama, this lovely woman who seemed like she should be in any place but this bar with the two of us She’d showed up out of the blue a couple ofthat they shared a father, clai that all she wanted was to be in his life and have some kind of family of her own She looked too delicate to be that brave Came across as way too proper to have said “fuck it all” and picked up her life tosure of her welcoht about her, it was silk wrapped around steel

Luckily Roas a good guy After the shock of discovering he wasn’t alone in the world, and once he realized he had someone tied to him by blood forever and ever, he had war a sister and appreciated that the sister was Sayer

I liked Rowdy a lot He was a stand-up guy and a good friend, but I had a feeling I was going to like his newly found big sister evendirectly at the knockout blonde, “So you have a sister? A hot, classy sister?” A sister that was also a lawyer, so beautiful and smart

I expected a giggle from her or an eye roll at the outlandish coot was a wide-eyed stare of disbelief as eyes bluer than anything I had ever seen on earth danced between me and her brother like she wasn’t sure what to do with herself or with my overt interest in her

I thought that I had gone too far, pushed the beautiful stranger too far out of her couy and knew I looked far wilder and rougher than I actually was I figured it ht be too much for a woman already obviously out of her element and depth to take

Instead, Sayer surprised me and I could see by the way he stiffened that she surprised Rowdy, too While she wasn’t exactly overfloelcome and war on after Rowdy explained I was a general contractor and had rebuilt the new tattoo shop he worked in She seeenuinely interested, and when I told her thatthelowed at me I wanted to feel her to see if she felt as smooth and polished as she looked I wanted to leave streaks of dirt on her perfect face to mark the fact that I had touched her, that she had let me touch her It was a primal and visceral reaction that I couldn’t explain and I liked the way it felt Liked the weight and heft of it inwasn’t likely to be returned

She toldVictorian she had purchased that was falling down around her She asked me for a business card and I sady stiffen across the table I sighed and rubbed a hand over ht cloud of dust that escaped the strands I was great atwith her or for her without laying everything on the line Especially not with Rowdy giving lare from just a few feet away

I dug the card out of ers touched I saw her eyes widen and her lips part, just barely She looked a little dazed when I grinned at her

“You take that card, but understand that theit to you has a past”

She blinked at me and cleared her throat “What kind of past?”

It wasn’t so I liked to tell a beautiful wo I liked to work up to, liked to prove was behind et that chance

“I tell everyone that I do any kind of work for or that considers hiring me on for a project that I have a criminal history I spent time locked up for a few years, and while I’m not proud of it I can’t deny it happened I was a hotheaded kid and it got me in trouble, but I’e you fro me a call” Hopefully for more than some construction

Usually I got a concerned frown followed by a hundred questions about what had ledblonde She tilted her head to the side and considereddown and slipping , I could have sworn she earing a look of sympathy when she told me softly, “I see it every day fro” A slight grin turned her mouth up at the corners, and I wanted to lean over and kiss it “People make mistakes Hopefully they learn from them”

I don’t know that “wrong” was accurate infrom her made me want to pull her into my are one, one that I was forever going to have to carry around withfroer was so rare, especially coal field I wasn’t accusto me, just me, not an ex-con loser after I explained where I had been It ildly refreshing and attractive I couldn’t quite get a handle on what ave ure it out I found her outwardly flawless and pristine de to taint withabout the way she watched me, the way she turned toward me like she was drawn to me, that made me think maybe I wasn’t alone in the inexplicable pull department