Page 9 of The Man in the Cottage

By the time we're done, the living room looks like a place where someone actually lives. My books are on the shelves next to my grandmother's. My throw blanket is draped over the back of the couch. The photo of my parents from their wedding day is on the mantel, next to the ceramic cat and the snow globe from Niagara Falls.

"Better," Travis says, surveying the room.

"Much better." I'm standing next to him, close enough to smell sawdust and something clean, like soap. "Thank you. Again."

"You keep saying that."

"Because you keep doing things worth thanking you for."

He looks down at me, and for a second there’s a little spark of heat. Then he steps back, breaking whatever it was, and shoves his hands in his pockets.

"I should go," he says. "Let you get back to work."

"Right. The book. Which I'm definitely going to make progress on now."

The corner of his mouth twitches. It's not quite a smile, but it's close, and I feel a small thrill of victory at having caused it.

"Good luck," he says.

"Thanks."

He heads for the back door, and I watch him go—the broad shoulders, the easy way he moves, the way his hair curls at the back of his neck. I watch until he's out the door and crossing the yard toward the cottage, and then I make myself look away.

This is not what I came here for. I came here to write a book and figure out my life, not to develop a crush on the mysterious tenant my grandmother forgot to mention. I don't have time for this. I don't have the emotional bandwidth. I have a thriller to finish and a career to rebuild and absolutely no business noticing the way Travis Howe looks in a gray t-shirt.

I sit down at my laptop and open my document.

The cursor blinks at me.

I think about the wife who sees things but doesn't want to look too closely. I think about what it means to hide in plain sight.

I start typing.

Chapter Four

Travis

I can't stop thinking about her.

It's been a week since I fixed the sink, and I've found at least four other reasons to go over to the main house. The porch light was flickering. The back door was sticking. There was a branch hanging too close to the roof that could've been a problem if we got ice. All legitimate things, all things that needed doing, and if I happened to see Kelly while I was doing them, that was just a coincidence.

I'm full of shit and I know it.

She's different from what I expected. Mrs. Dawson talked about her granddaughter like she was fragile—overworked, overwhelmed, running herself into the ground for a job she didn't even like. I pictured someone brittle, someone who'd show up here and fall apart. But that's not Kelly. She's sharper than that, funnier, with this quiet steadiness underneath everything. She's figuring things out. You can see it happening in real time, the way she's settling into the house, making it hers.

Yesterday I saw her on the porch with her laptop, typing fast, completely lost in whatever she was working on. She didn't even notice me walking to my truck. Her face had this look on it—focused, intense, like the rest of the world didn't exist. I stood there longer than I should have, just watching.

That's when I knew I was in trouble.

I'm at the rink now, running drills I could do in my sleep, trying to wear myself out enough that my brain will stop circling back to her. It's not working. I skate until my legs burn and my lungs ache, and all I can think about is the way she laughed when I told her the porch light just needed a new bulb. Like she was embarrassed, but also like she didn't mind being embarrassed in front of me.

"You're pushing too hard."

I look up. Frank, the rink owner, is leaning against the boards with his arms crossed, watching me with that look old hockey guys get when they think you're being an idiot.

"I'm fine," I say.

"You're going to blow out your knee skating like that. What's chasing you?"