Chapter One
Melody Ashford stomped into the workshop. It was several degrees cooler inside than out and felt wonderful on her sweat-soaked skin. She’d stalked several miles from Main Street in her small South Carolina town outside Columbia to her boyfriend’s property. Vinny Banks. She wanted to kill him she was so pissed. She would if she could, too, if she weren’t so damned in love with him.
She hadn’t even bothered to grab her car keys when she heard the news he was back in town. The picture off her office wall, oh yes she’d snatched that up, but not the damn keys. That fact, realized as soon as she’d run out of the family hardware store in hurt-filled anger, hadn’t helped her mood any. Rather than go back to face the man who’d brought her the news of Vinny’s return, as well as the customers she’d left staring after her, she just kept walking. She had a very capable couple of employees who would take up the slack in her absence, and while what she’d done was hotheaded and not very responsible, it didn’t concern her as much as confronting Vinny did.
She gave her eyes a second to adjust to the dim interior then found her mark. She drew her arm back and hurled the picture frame across the room. Unfortunately, her target had lightning-quick reflexes and ducked before it could hit him. The wood splintered, the glass shattered and the picture slid away as it struck the wall. “Shit,” she spat.
“Hello, Mel,” he said by way of greeting. His deep, rough voice melted into her. God, she’d missed him.
God, she was pissed at him.
“Oh don’t you hello Mel me, you…you…” She couldn’t find the word she was looking for. This always happened. She’d get so mad that she was unable to say exactly what she was feeling, what she was thinking. It was why she took to throwing things sometimes. It at least got the point across.
But with Vin? Dear heavens, with Vin, it happened all the damn time and she sounded like an idiot. No doubt, looked like one, too. She didn’t want to be tongue-tied and yelling at him. She wanted to be tongue-tied and wrapped aroundhim. This didn’t help her mood any either.
“How’d you know I’d be here?”
Mel drew her bottom lip between her teeth and worried the edge. How much should she say? How mad would he be? “D-Dane Thompkins told me.” Her voice sounded small to her ears and she cringed.
Vin chuckled and shook his head. “Ah yes, good ol ’ Dane. Good gossips and pot stirrers are always so hard to find. So nice to know I can count on him to excel at it. You two been dating long?”
She stood straight, to her full five foot five inches and braced herself for the argument that was coming. His conversational tone was just a cover for how he really felt and that was fine by her. If he stayed on the other side of the room, she could handle an argument. She sighed almost immediately and deflated a bit in the process. He wouldn’t stay on the other side of the room though. He’d come closer, and closer, until he had her cornered and then all bets would be off and she’d be down that rabbit hole. “That’s none of your business,” she stated with a finality she knew wouldn’t fly with him.
“No?” Vin queried. “Okay.” He turned slowly, and pinned her in place with a hard, heated stare. “Then why are you here?”
And there it was. The challenge. “Why didn’t you’d tell me you were coming home?” The question burst from her without consent. She knew she couldn’t tip her hand so easily, though in all honestly, they both understood why she was standing in his workshop.
“Why would it matter?” His casual stance and calm exterior belied his true feelings on the subject. She was going to be in a heap of trouble if she didn’t stop beating around the proverbial bush.
Instead, she growled in frustration and stomped her foot, for good measure. “Stop doing that. Stop answering everything I say with a question.”
“You’re
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