The look of guilt on Shay’s face, like he’d caught her doing something she shouldn’t have been, only seemed to confirm Josh’s suspicion. Wanting to believe she wasn’t playing him, he began loading their purchases into the bed of his truck. Shay stepped to his side to help.

“Thank you for driving me here,” she said.

He set the bag of compost on top of the growing stack, then looked at her, evaluating her expression. She seemed sincere. Was she a good actress, or was he making assumptions that were false? Hoping it was the latter, he let the corners of his mouth lift into a small smile. “Like I told you, I’m expecting an awesome garden out of this.”

Fear flashed in her eyes, but seconds later it was gone, replaced by determination. “I won’t disappoint you, Josh. I promise.”

The earnestness in her voice caught him off-guard, but it was the fear he’d seen in her eyes that stayed in his mind. What had that been all about? Intrigued by the hidden depths that Shay displayed without warning from time to time, Josh began to return to his original belief that she didn’t know who he was. Still, he needed to be sure.

“What were you doing on your phone?” he asked, his eyes steady on her, on the alert for any indication that she wasn’t being honest.

* * *

Shay wasn’t about to tell him about Will and his threats. She liked that Josh had no idea how pathetic her life had become, and she didn’t want him to find out. That knowledge would color his view of her, and she wanted to remake herself into the confident, self-assured, independent woman she knew she had the potential to be, that she had been once before. Yeah, she wasn’t independent just then, but she would get her feet back under her soon. She knew it.

Back in high school she’d been a decent student, and after graduation she’d even finished one semester of classes at Fresno City College. Still living with her mother at the time, she’d had a desire to get out on her own and had dropped out of school to work full-time so that she could afford her own place.

Soon after that she’d met Will. He’d been charming and solicitous and sweet. And he’d been so in love with her that he couldn’t stay away from her, had texted her constantly, had to always know exactly where she was. At least she’d thought it was love. Turned out it was just his controlling personality that had eventually morphed into his true nature—one of complete control and abuse.

By then Shay had gotten so caught up in his cycles of fury followed by professions of love that she’d found it hard to leave. That, plus his unambiguous threats of what he would do to her if she left him.

Now, knowing how angry he was at her, that he was determined to find her, a shiver of fear raced up her spine, but she tried to focus on Josh’s question, scrambling to come up with a plausible answer.

Then she realized she didn’t have to lie about what she’d been doing on her phone. “I was checking my text messages.”

* * *

Her emerald-green eyes stay focused on him, and Josh believed her. Then again, the real question was, who was she texting? Someone who would publish lies about him? Or worse, someone who would tell the whole world about his private life?

He tossed the final bag of compost into the bed of the truck, then turned to face Shay. “Who were you texting?”

Her eyebrows puckered. From his probing question, or from her desire not to tell the truth, he couldn’t tell.

“Just a…a friend,” she said, her eyes flicking away from his face before meeting his gaze.

Why was she lying?

Tempted to grab her purse and yank the phone out so he could look for himself, he held back. Make no mistake, he would find out what she was hiding. But he would do it in his own way, and in his own time.

Shoving down his concerns, he pushed the flat-bed cart back into the store and got the other one, then worked with Shay to load the rest of their purchases.

Deciding to do a little test, he looked over all of the goods in his truck before turning to Shay. “Looks like we won’t have to come back here again.”

Her face seemed to relax, like this was good news. “Nope. I think we have everything we need.”

Had that been the response he’d been expecting? If she was secretly spying on him for some news outlet, then she’d be eager to return to where she could get cell service. Maybe she really was just texting a friend.

Still, he had the feeling she was hiding something. And he had every intention of finding out what it was.

* * *

The farther they got from town and the nursery, the more relaxed Shay became. She knew it didn’t make any sense, but somehow the idea that at Josh’s cabin she was out of touch with the world made her feel safe, like it was impossible for Will to get to her.

She remembered Josh questioning her about what she had been doing on her phone, and then asking her who she’d been texting. Why had he asked? Was he the controlling type? Just like Will? The notion made her insides churn. Maybe it was time to move on. To where, she had no idea, but being on her own without someone trying to control her was better than being somewhere relatively safe but with someone trying to manage her every move.

“How big is this garden going to be?” Josh asked as they drove, yanking her out of her reverie.

“I don’t know. How big do you want it to be?”

He laughed. “You’re the gardening expert. I’ll leave it up to you.”

His words totally contradicted the idea that he was trying to control her. But why had he acted funny about her phone? She couldn’t think of a reasonable explanation.

Then it hit her. Maybe he was an assassin, using the financial consultant job as a cover, and he was worried that she was somehow compromising his location.

As completely ridiculous as that was, it gave her an excuse to put aside her worries for the moment and instead savor the feeling of safety she felt when she was with him.

And, she promised herself, if it turned out he really was just a controlling jerk, she would leave.

When they reached his cabin, Shay was more than ready to begin working on the garden.

“What’re you making us for lunch?” Josh asked as he turned off the engine.

Holding back a groan, Shay turned to him with a smile. “How does chicken salad sound?”

Josh nodded. “Sounds good, actually. I can grill chicken for it.”

She wouldn’t have to make lunch completely on her own. Nice. And putting a salad together would be easy.

Fifteen minutes later, after they’d unloaded all of the nursery items—some in the garage to be used later, and some on the back patio to be used right away—Shay went into the kitchen to start putting the salads together while Josh threw the chicken onto the grill.

As they ate lunch—a meal that had turned out great, much to Shay’s joy—they talked about the next steps in creating the garden.

“First,” Shay said, “we need to till up the dirt and get rid of the weeds, and then we can mix in the compost.” She ate another bite of salad. “That way the soil will be rich with nutrients before we plant the vegetable seedlings.”

Suddenly realizing that she’d forgotten something very important, she frowned, then hesitated, almost afraid to admit to Josh that she’d screwed up, worried that he’d be angry with her.

“Do you, uh, do you happen to have something in that garage of yours that we can use to till up the ground? Like a…” She grimaced. “A rototiller?”

* * *

Josh’s eyebrows puckered. “No.” Had she forgotten that on purpose? As an excuse to go back to the nursery, to get cell service? Had she forgotten to report something to her contact?

Frowning, Josh contemplated Shay’s real motive for showing up at his house. In all honesty, she hadn’t done anything to lead him to believe that she was lying about who she was or why she was there, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t working up to doing something.

He didn’t like it, but he knew his best option was to take a look at her phone to see what she had really been doing, who she had been talking to.

Focusing on the conversation, he knew it would be easy to take a peek at her phone while she was working in the yard. Which meant he needed to get her the tools she needed.

“I know a couple of the neighbors. I’m sure I can borrow a rototiller from one of them.” Expecting to see disappointment on her face—surely she wanted a reason to go back to the nursery—when instead he saw relief, he was surprised.

Then he heard himself say, “I can help you till the ground.”

What? Why was he offering to help? This gardening thing was her baby. Then again, it would be a good old-fashioned workout. Working up a sweat with hard work. That appealed to him.

“Really?” Shay asked, her green eyes bright. “That would be…” She smiled as she shook her head. “That would be awesome.” She ate the last of her salad, then looked at his plate, which was already empty. “I say we get started right away. Can you check with your neighbor?”

Her smile was radiant, like looking into the sun.

Now Josh almost didn’t want to check her phone. What if it turned out she was a plant? The thought infuriated him, but he really hoped that wasn’t the case. But one way or the other, he would have to find out.

“Okay,” he said. “Just give me some time to drive over there.” He didn’t have phone numbers for any of his neighbors, but it wouldn’t take too long to drive over.

“Great. I’ll clean up while you’re gone.”

Watching her standing at the sink, a sense of home swept over him, but he pushed it aside. He didn’t want to think of her like that. Not with how busy his life was. Instead he went out the door and to his truck.

Half an hour later he was back, a rototiller in the bed of his truck. He wheeled it around to the backyard, then went into the kitchen.

“You found one,” Shay said when he walked in. She was sitting at the table writing something on a pad of paper.

“What are you doing?”

“Drawing up plans for how to lay out the garden.”

Impressed that she was planning this so meticulously, once again he hoped he was wrong about her true motives. Not knowing was killing him. He had to know the truth. Right now. “Why don’t you go outside and figure out exactly where we’re going to put this garden and I’ll be out there in a few minutes?”

Shay tilted her head as she looked up at him. “You’re not backing out on helping me, are you?”

He forced a laugh. “No. Just give me a few minutes.”

“All right.” She stood, the piece of paper in her hand, and went outside.

Josh watched her go, then he jogged up the stairs and into her room where her purse sat on her bed.

With his hand hovering over the small bag, he hesitated. Did he want to invade her privacy? No, but when he pictured her lying to him about her true motive, playing him, all guilt at digging into her purse and looking at her phone disappeared.

It only took a moment to turn on her phone and unlock the screen. Surprised, yet glad, that she didn’t have any kind of security on her phone, he tapped on the message icon. She didn’t appear to have very many text threads. Just a few, actually.

Dashing across the hall and into his own room, which overlooked the backyard, he made sure she was still outside, then he focused back on the phone.

The most recent texts were from someone named Will.

Who was he? A boyfriend?

Josh read the messages, scrolling backwards. Then he reread them, starting with the date Shay had broken into his house up until this morning.

Josh frowned. Definitely a boyfriend. Jealousy slashed through him, taking him by surprise.

Josh’s eyes narrowed. What was this guy’s problem?

Was this guy for real? Was he actually looking for her? Why? And what would he do if he found her?

Concern for Shay growing, Josh turned the phone off and placed it back in her purse before walking down the stairs, his mind racing.

It was clear she wasn’t a plant trying to delve into his private life, and now her story made so much more sense—why she had quit her job and left with nothing, why she had nowhere to go, why she was so eager to stay with him. She was hiding from this guy—from Will. Was he just a bully, or was he a real threat?

Glad now that he’d gone looking for her after kicking her out the morning after she’d arrived, Josh stood at the kitchen window and watched as Shay shoveled dirt.

The thought of someone coming after her, threatening her…

Adrenaline pumped through his veins as he imagined having to physically protect her. Then he frowned. He’d barely met her, didn’t know anything about her. So why was he feeling like he needed to be her savior? What had gotten in to him?

With a shake of his head, he strode to the kitchen door and walked out back.