I’d seen him move, I had to. Yet it happened so fast, it almost seemed like I didn’t.
But it happened and there he was, this stranger, unknowingly standing between me and my gravest mistake.
Protecting me.
I’d never had that. Not in my forty-seven years of life.
I didn’t know if it was right to like it, I just knew I did.
Okay, yes.
Absolutely, one hundred percent yes.
I didn’t know him but I knew I wanted it all from this man.
“Go somewhere. Cool off,” the stranger ordered. “You know this woman and got somethin’ to say to her, you do it a lot more calm and with a fuckuva lot more respect. Am I understood?”
I looked beyond his back (which was a difficult endeavor, the t-shirt clung to his shoulders and lats and it was a pleasant visual) to see Conrad was even more livid after the man had pushed him into the yard.
However, Conrad wasn’t stupid. He was tall and lean, fit because he worked at it. But he was no match for this man and he knew it.
“You obviously don’t know her,” he spat.
“Don’t need to know her to know you never got call to treat a woman like that,” the stranger returned. He waited the barest of moments before he continued, “You’re still standin’ there.”
Conrad scowled at him then turned that scowl to me. “This isn’t done.”
The stranger moved, leaning forward an inch, and Conrad instantly (and wisely) turned his attention back to him. It was wise because I only got the back of it, but I still knew that inch was a significantly threatening inch.
He glared at the stranger for a second before he turned and stalked to the drive where he’d parked his Yukon.
I stood and watched.
The stranger stood and watched.
Only after Conrad got in, reversed out too quickly and took off even more quickly, did the stranger turn around to face me.
I looked up into his eyes realizing that it hadn’t been a figment of my imagination just minutes before.
They were the most beautiful eyes I’d ever seen.
“You okay?” he asked.
The honest answer to that was that I wasn’t. I hadn’t been for years. Decades. Perhaps my entire life.
“Yes,” I answered.
His eyes moved over my face. The sensation was pleasant at the same time disconcerting.
Before I could get a lock on how both of these could be, he shoved a hand my way. “Mickey Donovan.”
I looked at his hand and so as not to appear rude, I didn’t study it like I wanted to. The squared off fingers, the closely clipped nails, the roughness, the strength, the sureness.
Instead, I took it, raised my eyes to his and said, “Amelia Moss…I mean, Hathaway.”
His fingers remained warm and strong around mine in a way I liked before he let me go and asked as if to confirm, “Amelia Hathaway?”
“Yes. I, well…I was Amelia Moss. I’ve recently changed it back to my maiden name. That was my ex-husband.” I tipped my head to the drive and went on hesitantly, “We have a…somewhat rocky history.”
He nodded once, doing it shortly, taking that in as understood without making a big deal of it or asking anything further, something that brought me relief and made me like this Mickey Donovan even more.
“I’m really sorry you had to step in on that,” I said.
“No problem,” he replied, shaking his head and flipping out a hand. “Woulda done it just if I saw it but,” he grinned a highly attractive, somewhat roguish grin that made my stomach flip, “I’m your neighbor.”
He twisted his torso and threw a long arm out toward the street to indicate an attractive, somewhat rambling, one-story, weathered, gray shingle-sided house with pristine white woodwork around the windows, eaves and front door.
I stared at the house he occupied, a house that was right across the street, feeling a number of emotions. Elation and terror, however, reigned supreme.
He turned back to me. “We have to look out for our neighbors.”
Although I agreed, it was then I rather tardily became embarrassed by that scene. So much so, for the first time in years, I felt heat in my cheeks.
I looked to his shoulder and murmured, “This is true. However, I’ll do my best to make certain you don’t have to do that again.”
“Amelia.”
Startled by the gentle way the rough velvet of his deep voice enveloped my name, and my extreme reaction to it, my gaze darted to his.
“I’m divorced,” he declared bluntly. “Shit happens. Sometimes it isn’t pretty. I get it. I hope I don’t have to do that again too, just because I don’t want it to happen to you again. But if it does, and you can’t handle it, I’m right across the way. That isn’t an offer I’m makin’ just to make it. I mean it. Whatever happened between you and that guy happened. Now this is your home and a home should be a safe place. Even if you weren’t at your home, he should respect you. You demand that, and he doesn’t agree, I’ll be there to make him agree or make it stop. And I mean that.”
He wasn’t lying. He meant it. I could tell by looking in his eyes. He was a nice man. He was a good neighbor. He believed women should be shown respect. He was the kind of man who would step in and do what he could to make that so if need be.
He also didn’t know me. If he did, if he knew what I’d done, he might no longer believe in that so thoroughly.
And that was when I knew he wouldn’t know me.
I’d be a nice neighbor. A good one. If he had a dog and went on vacation, I’d watch it. I’d do my best to keep my ex-husband from shouting obscenities at me in my front door, disturbing the neighborhood. I’d keep my yard nice. I’d put attractive, but not outlandish or overwhelming, holiday decorations out. I wouldn’t play loud music. I’d wave if I saw him driving by or mowing his lawn. And if he needed a cup of sugar, I would be his go-to girl.
But other than that, he would not know me.
He didn’t need me in his life.
I didn’t even like me in my life.
Alas, I couldn’t escape me.
“I don’t know what to say,” I told him. “Except to thank you again.”
He gave me another grin, which also gave me another stomach curl, then he looked beyond me into the house.
“You need help with anything?” he offered.
I did. Absolutely. I had hours of unpacking, cleaning, arranging, organizing, hanging, shoving furniture around. All of this and I was not handy in any way. I might be relatively adept with a screwdriver, but I’d had several go-arounds with a drill and not a one of them was pretty.