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suspicious. “I’m Quinn. Quinn Higsby from the emails? I mean, from A Novel Experience. We email a little. About books. Obviously.” She cleared her throat. “Anyway, um, thanks so much for rescuing my father. You’re a real hero.”
    “Where’s Sawyer?” he snapped, ignoring her offer of a handshake. His voice was rough likesomeone had enthusiastically sandpapered the edges.
    “The sheriff?” She blinked, lowering her palm and wiping the sudden sweat on her denim-encased thigh. “Your brother? I—I—why, I told him I’d come instead. You did find my father, right?”
    He folded his arms. “You shouldn’t have left him alone, he isn’t a well man.”
    “I know that.” Nerves had frayed away her manners. If he wantedto parry, she’d bring an axe to the sword fight. “This wasn’t intentional.”
    He didn’t move.
    “So may I come in?”
    “Inside?” He pronounced the word as if it were a tricky piece of foreign language.
    She rubbed her hands over her arms. “I’m sort of freezing out here. Blizzard and all.”
    “Right. Yeah. Sure.” He half-shook his head and raked a big hand through shaggy disordered hair.She couldn’t discern much from his features, only harsh lines; a tough, angular, and scruffy jaw; one seriously craggy brow; and an unrelenting gaze. Somehow those severe eyes of his were oddly brilliant, catching light, but from where? The interior was dark except for the small fire burning in the hearth. It looked cheery enough despite the chill he projected, a cold that could rival the windlashing the back of her neck. She stepped forward and he flinched as if she were a repellant magnetic force.
    She hesitated. Maybe Sawyer was right.
    What if coming here had been a mistake?

 
    Chapter Four
    W ILDER FLATTENED HIS back against the wall as the stranger barged past in a cloud of cherry mint lip balm and flowery shampoo. Hold up. This was the woman who’d been sending all those overly friendly emails from the bookshop? Not even the cottage’s gloomy interior could dim her loveliness. He should never have let her in. But the way she shivered hadn’t left him withany choice.
    Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.
    He turned and gestured mockingly at the cramped combined kitchen and dining room. “ ’Fraid I can’t offer you much in the way of a tour.” The wildfire’s smoke had damaged his voice box, made his words sound like a growl no matter his mood. When he pointed to the open door leading into the spare bedroom, there was no way to hide the scars onhis hand. “Your father’s in there.”
    She gasped and he resisted balling his fingers into a fist. Despite his ruined body, his ears remained in fine working order. This rush of frustration wasn’t fair. It wasn’t her fault that she reminded him of all the beautiful things in the world, a beauty denied to him.
    “You’ve been hurt?” she whispered, eyes wide.
    He gritted his teeth as warinessbrimmed in his veins, ready to breach, flood his body, sweep away any semblance of calm. Better to ignore the question. “Your father has been resting for about a half hour.” He set his cane against the small circular kitchen table and sank into a chair, picking up his knife and the chess piece he’d been carving before her arrival. When Sawyer first suggested the hobby, Wilder considered it anothertedious way to pass away the time, but he’d grown addicted to the simple action, the slow creativity involved in paring back wood to reveal shape and structure. “Is he always that combative?”
    “Oh no.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “What happened? Did he try to hit you?”
    “Only about a dozen or so times.”
    Quinn’s father might be out of it, but he was big and strong, confused atbeing led into an unfamiliar house by a man he didn’t recognize. Wilder couldn’t say he blamed him. Nor did he resent the right-hook to his gut even though his abs still stung.
    “It’s called Alzheimer’s aggression.”
    He strained