CHAPTER 2
Austin Stone blinked as he raised his head from the kid that was all kinds of entertaining. When he opened his eyes, his entire world stopped spinning. The tiny hairs on the back of his neck stood up, and the only sound he could hear was the thud, thud, thud of his heartbeat. Everything around him faded away, and his existence shrunk to a laser-point focus on the stunning blue-eyed, brunette beauty standing in front of him, holding a toddler on her hip.
In every person’s life there were defining moments. Moments that happened in the blink of an eye. Moments where, in one split second, everything changed.
In Austin’s life, he’d experienced four such moments.
The first time had been when he was called in to the principal’s office at the end of his senior year in high school and told his mom had been killed by a drunk driver.
The second was when he’d signed his name at the recruiter’s office and become property of the United States Marine Corps.
The third was the first time his finger had pulled the trigger and that action ended a life.
And the fourth was right now.
He stood, mesmerized. The sun reflected off the glossy waves of her chestnut hair, which was haphazardly pulled up on top of her head with stray strands framing her heart-shaped face. Her eyes were deep-ocean blue. Her full, cherry-red lips reminded him of the sweet fruit and made his mouth water.
“Hi.” Austin finally managed to address the most breathtakingly beautiful, and frazzled, woman he’d ever laid eyes on.
“Hi,” she repeated back to him, looking just as affected as Austin felt.
“Mom, he has the same tattoo as Dad.” The little boy’s voice rose in excitement.
“I see that.” The woman nodded and glanced down at his arm.
Austin immediately missed the connection of her stare.
“I told him I’m going to have a new stair mom.”
“Stepmom,” she said quietly. She closed her eyes and shook her head slightly as she reached toward the cute kid who’d just been telling Austin his life story. Then she cleared her throat before breathlessly stammering, “I’m sorry…that um…he that…we…that…to bother you. Come on, bud.”
“But, Mom, I want—” The kid moved his hand away so she couldn’t hold it.
“Trevor Paul.” Her voice came out as strong as a drill sergeant.
The kid’s shoulders sagged as he begrudgingly lifted his hand and placed it in hers.
The adorable, cherubic girl with a head full of blonde curls who’d been shyly peeking up at Austin with her head laid against the woman’s shoulder began kicking her feet. “I want to walk.”
“Sorry, again.” Barely sparing Austin a quick glance before setting the toddler down, she herded the adorable kids toward the glass door of the convenience store.
As he watched the trio head into the mart, he remembered that when the SUV had pulled in beside his truck, he’d noticed the tire pressure on the back wheels was low. Dangerously low.
“Your back tires are low,” Austin called out, in arguably the most unsuave move of his life.
The woman stopped, swiveled back around, tilted her head to the side and stared at him with confusion clouding her baby blues. “What?”
Austin pointed to the offending rubber at the rear of the vehicle. “The pressure on your back tires. It’s low.”
Wow. Real smooth, Casanova.
She let go of the boy’s hand and brought her hand up to her forehead to block the sun and the corners of her eyes crinkled as she squinted, looking at the back of her SUV. When she dropped her arm, her perfect red lips turned up in an all-too-brief grin that hit Austin square in the chest, knocking the wind out of him.
“Oh, okay. Thanks.”
Completely unaware of the TKO punch her smile packed, she turned back, grabbed Trevor’s hand and disappeared with her kids behind the double glass doors.
Austin stood motionless, trying to regain his bearings. He stared at the spot she’d just vacated for what felt like just a moment but could’ve easily been several full minutes. During his years in the service, he’d gone into shock several times, so he recognized the symptoms. He was definitely in shock. Lust shock. As his senses began slowly returning to him and he was able to inhale and exhale, he rolled his shoulders back and tried to shake off the effect of the encounter.
He needed to get out of there.
Pressing his thumb to the fob he held in his left hand, he unlocked his truck. Now that he was back in Whisper Lake, he knew that locking his truck wasn’t really a necessity, but old habits die hard. Growing up in New York City, it had been ingrained in him to always lock his doors. Also to keep his head down and mind his own business. He was struggling with that deeply embedded philosophy as he settled into the driver’s seat and placed his hands on the wheel.
Just drive away.
That’s what he knew he should do. The only problem was every impulse in his body was telling him to fill up the tires with air. Which was ridiculous. He didn’t know this woman or her children.
Well, that wasn’t totally true. He knew she had an ex who had most likely served in the Air Force. And that the man was either bat-shit crazy or a fucking idiot. Those were the only two logical explanations of how any man could not only walk away from two of the cutest kids on the planet, but also that woman.
Austin was having a hard time just driving away from the three of them.
Sitting in his truck, he tried to reason with himself. He’d told her about the issues with the back tires. She was aware, and he was sure she would take care of it. Austin had always trusted his instincts and his ability to read people and situations. Those instincts had saved lives—his included—more times than he could count. The woman he just met was intelligent and more than capable of taking care of the tires. That was what he knew logically. Emotionally was an entirely different story.
“Shit,” he mumbled under his breath in frustration as he grabbed his tire pressure gauge from behind the seat, got out of the truck, and walked to the air pump.
He dropped fifty cents into the machine and snatched the hose up. As he attached the nozzle to the valve on the side of the tire, he knew his behavior was insane. He had no right to be messing with this woman’s vehicle. Still, he couldn’t leave knowing if she drove out of this parking lot there was a very good chance the tire would blow out and she and her children could be in danger.
Austin had never been an impulsive person. All of his life, he’d made measured decisions based on logic, not emotion. This was a glaring exception.
He rounded the back to fill up the tire on the passenger side of the SUV. Questions were filling his mind faster than the air was filling the tire.
Why was he doing this?
Was it illegal?
What in the hell was he thinking?
He’d been in the city limits of Whisper Lake for less than ten minutes, and he was already behaving in ways that were seriously out of character for him. Growing up, he’d spent every summer visiting his grandparents here, but he hadn’t been back in over a decade. During that time, he’d lost both his grandparents. First, his grandpa, who’d had a heart attack, and then his grandma, who’d suffered from complications with pneumonia just three months after her husband’s death.
He’d been serving at the time, unable to return to the States when his grandparents had passed. A year ago, he’d been medically discharged after receiving a Purple Heart. He’d returned home to find that his fiancée was six months pregnant with his best friend’s baby. After that, he’d headed down to Texas to spend some time with the only family he had left—his uncle, aunt, and nine cousins.
The plan had been for him to stay in Wishing Well for a few weeks, but he’d ended up staying for months. Part of it was just because he’d missed his family and wanted to get his head on straight. But the true reason was he’d been putting off coming up here and dealing with his grandparents’ estate. Austin knew that when he arrived, he would be faced with the reality that they were truly gone. And that was too much to handle.
With both the tires filled, Austin returned the hose to the pump. He’d almost made it back to his truck when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the glass door open. Turning his head, he watched as the woman stepped into the sunlight, her son and daughter in tow.
Damn.
Only minutes had passed since he’d seen her, but her beauty struck him again like a bolt of lightning. She was really beautiful. It was the kind of beauty people wrote songs and poems about. That men waged war over. It was a timeless beauty he was sure had left a trail of broken hearts in its wake. His entire body ached just looking at her.
Get in the truck, the same inner voice that had told him to drive away piped up again. And again, Austin ignored it.
She was walking straight toward him with purposeful strides. Or maybe that was just his imagination. Maybe he was having a Fast Times at Ridgemont High fantasy moment; like the one Judge Reinhold had when he saw Phoebe Cates getting out of the pool.
“Did you put air in my back tires?” she asked pointedly, standing firm in front of him, her tone and face unreadable.
Okay, so probably not a fantasy.
“Yes,” he answered, bracing himself to get his ass handed to him. Not that he would blame her, his behavior had been creepy at best, illegal at worst.
Instead of getting angry, or even upset, she just narrowed her eyes. “Why?”
Shit.
Not knowing what else to say, he answered honestly, “I couldn’t drive away knowing they needed to be filled.”
He watched her carefully, studying her expression as she considered his answer. When he saw tears filling her bottom lids, he didn’t know what had caused it—but he was pretty sure he was going to be explaining his story to the police.
“Mommy, I’m hungry.” The little girl with the blonde ringlets pulled on her mom’s arm.
“Okay, we’re going, baby girl.” The woman wiped the moisture away and sniffed before her eyes met Austin’s. “Thank you,” she said with a soul-deep sincerity that shattered his heart.
All Austin could do was nod.
The following seconds flew by in a blur and, the next thing he knew, the three were packed into the silver SUV and headed out of the parking lot.
Damn. He didn’t even know her name, but after the way she’d just responded to his good deed, he did know she didn’t have anyone taking care of her. For some reason, every cell in his body was raising its hand and screaming for him to volunteer for the job.