Anna

“Your fingers are gonna go purple if you stay out here much longer.”

I looked over at the profile of the woman at my side. With her head tipped back, she stared up at the red brick building before us. She had to be seventy, or maybe even older. Her cream colored skin was lined with age, her hair a grayish white. But when she turned toward me, I could see a vibrant spirit in her green eyes.

“You nervous about something?” Her thin, pink lips twitched as if my state of panic had amused her.

I tried not to crack a smile at the sound of her voice. I had only been in Ireland for two hours, and I was already in love with the accent. And, in fact, everything else about the country, as well. As the taxi had taken me from the airport to my new home, the bold colors of Dublin had flashed by my window. The sun had slipped behind the city buildings and tiny sparks of excitement had ignited in my core.

But here I stood outside my new apartment, terrified, my suitcase handle clutched tightly in my hand.

“I haven’t met my roommate,” I explained. “We’ve only exchanged a few emails, and so I’m kind of nervous.” I swallowed and looked up at the five-story building.

“Ah. An American?”

“Yes.”

“How long are you living here?”

“Just three months.”

“Well, I’m Elizabeth. My friends call me Lizzy, and I live on the first floor. If you need anything while you’re here, be sure to knock on my door. Flat ten.”

I looked back over at Lizzy. Warmth, home, and comfort flooded my insides at the whiff of sugar and flour that drifted toward me as she held out her hand.

“Thank you so much. I’m Anna.” I unfastened my death-grip from the luggage handle and shook her slightly cold, somewhat bony fingers.

“Pleasure to meet ya,” she said before winking and heading up the short flight of stairs to the entrance of the building. “You coming?” She looked over her shoulder at me. “You can’t get in without a code. The apartments all have a code, as well, in case you don’t have a key on hand. At my age, I have forgotten my key on occasion.” She scratched her cheek, and her eyes glinted. “Hopefully someday I don’t forget the code, or I’ll be screwed.”

I smiled at her, trying to imagine my grandmother using the word “screwed.”

“Thankfully, my new roommate already emailed me both codes. It’s the kind of trust I’m used to in Kentucky, although I didn’t expect it in the big city.”

She waved a hand my way. “The city might be a big one, but our hearts are even bigger.” She winked at me. “Goodnight, Anna.”

Once Lizzy was out of sight, I closed my eyes. I can do this, I reminded myself. I had twelve weeks to prove to myself that I wasn’t just a country girl—I needed to find myself again. The girl I once was, or maybe always wanted to be.

But as much as I wanted to get away from Kentucky, it was also twelve weeks away from Java, my Rocky Gelding. I wondered how she was. Maybe I’d be able to find a place to ride once or twice while I was here.

My eyes flashed open as a bus honked, and my shoulders shrank forward when sirens sounded nearby. Strangers found my eyes as they passed by me on the street, having to move around where I stood.

What was I doing?

It was getting cold and growing dark, and I was standing there like a statue.

I shivered from the slight dampness in the air and rolled my suitcase to the steps and hoisted the heavy bag.

My new rental was on the third floor. I rolled my eyes at the spiraling set of stairs and searched for an elevator.

Once on my floor, I found myself in front of my new home.

The door was brown and plain—nothing terribly exciting. I had seen a few pictures from the Internet, but I wasn’t sure if I was truly prepared to go from wide open spaces to eight hundred square feet—or whatever that was in meters.

My hand hovered before the small box outside the door, near the knob. My fingers trembled with nervous anticipation as I blew out a breath and tapped the eight-digit code. I had recited the code in my head on the flight over—my first ever plane ride—probably seeming like some crazy person, chanting to herself. Of course, in this day and age, a twenty-four-year-old who had never flown before was an oddity in itself.

I sighed as I dropped my bag just inside the front door and fumbled for the light switch in the dark, wondering why a place with high-tech code locks didn’t have automatic lights or motion sensors. “There you are.” I flicked on the light and found myself in the kitchen. Well, the three square feet I stood in probably counted as the “entryway,” but the refrigerator was directly to my left, and there wasn’t much but a wall to the right.

Shutting the door, I unwrapped the blue scarf from around my neck and let it hang loose down the front of my sweater. I moved deeper into the apartment, past the breakfast bar, which seemed like the closest thing to a table.

There was a brown leather chair, a black suede couch, and a large, flat-screen TV mounted on the wall. No pictures. No lamps. No rugs.

I’d been fortunate to find someone who would allow me to bunk with her for those three months at such a low rate. The internship barely paid, although I was lucky to get anything. Most of the other internships I had applied to were unpaid.

I shook off the weird bachelor pad vibe I was getting and glanced down the hall. My new roommate had told me in her email that my room would be the first door on the right. My hand shook a little as I gripped the brass handle and pushed.

The room was small, like the rest of the apartment. There was a double bed and nightstand. And, hey, a lamp! Nice touch.

I fought back my sudden urge to wash the plain white linens on the bed. Who knew whom—or what!—they had touched before me. But the weight of my sleepiness was too much. Although it was daytime back home, after being on such a long flight, I was beat.

I went back out into the hall and found the bathroom, where I peeled off my icky airplane clothes and stepped into the shower. It felt a little awkward to take a shower in someone else’s home without them even being there, but if I was going to go outside the box, then I had to get used to doing new things.

That was the point of this trip. Well, in part, at least. I also didn’t want to be the girl who’d only scribbled her dreams in a diary and never attempted to live them. Well, sure, I would probably never achieve world peace. And playing opposite of Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing was off the table. But at least I was doing this. Coming to Dublin was pretty big, in my book.

I stepped out of the small, glass framed shower and grabbed one of the drab blue towels from the hook on the back of the door. It smelled like sandalwood and spice. Maybe Leslie had a boyfriend. I probably should have unpacked my towel before deciding to take a shower.

I quickly patted dry, trying to use as little of the towel as possible, and then tugged on my gray cotton nightshirt, which had, “Horses are Love” scrawled across the front.

The oval mirror in front of the sink was sweating from the steam, and I swiped at it. My mother’s emerald green eyes stared back at me. For a moment, I wondered if I’d made the wrong decision, leaving Kentucky. I blinked a few times and combed my fingers through my long, strawberry blonde hair—another feature of my mother’s I’d inherited.

“I can do this.”

Feeling refreshed—well, at least clean—I gathered my clothes and opened the door.

In the doorframe, I halted, narrowing my eyes at the figure hugged by shadows at the end of the hall. A scream escaped my lips, and I dropped my clothes from my arms as I backed up. I fell against the bathroom door as my momentum left my feet behind.

“Hey, you okay?”

I stumbled, upright, my mind and body prepared for the worst as my hands went tense at my sides. My heart smacked loud in my chest as I stared at the silhouette before me. The shape stepped closer and into the light, and I gulped. “You are not Leslie,” I accused, studying his blue eyes.

“No.” He paused and his lips gathered into a smile, his bright white teeth a flashing contrast against his tan skin and short, black hair. “No, I’m not.”

He took another step forward, which compelled me farther back, but I shook off my fear when I realized he was crouching down. He scooped up my clothes off the shag carpet, and my cheeks flamed red hot. I snatched my plain Jane white cotton bra and panties from him and tucked them away inside my jeans and shirt before pulling everything close in my arms, pressing the bundle to my chest. I didn’t normally wear granny panties, but I hadn’t expected to impress anyone after the long flight.

Now, of course, I was braless in a nightshirt that went only to my mid thighs.

“Who are you?” I clutched my clothes like a shield and swallowed again.

“I was planning on asking you the same question.” He folded his arms and studied me, amusement flickering in the smirk of his cheek.

The threat of danger seemed minimal, but I couldn’t let my guard down altogether. After all, there was a stranger standing before me who clearly wasn’t my roommate. Just because he had reinvented the meaning of good looking didn’t mean he was no longer an enemy. And sometimes the best looking men were the most dangerous.

Was I in the wrong apartment? No. I had the code, and it had worked. This man must be a friend of Leslie’s. Or maybe the boyfriend whose smell was on the towel. She probably sent him to make sure I got in okay since she was out of town this weekend. Of course that was the case. I tried to breathe a little easier.

“I’m Leslie’s new roommate. Are you friends with her?” I stepped out of the bathroom and around him, then quickly flipped on the hall light. I tossed my dirty clothes on the floor of my new bedroom and spun around, finding him only a few inches from me.

The first thing I noticed was his smell. It wasn’t like anything I’d ever smelled back in Kentucky—jasmine or sage, I wasn’t sure. It was crisp, clean, and smelled expensive.

“Aye. Leslie and I are mates. You just took me by surprise.”

I rolled my tongue over my teeth as I tried to gain control of the weird, fluttering sensation in my chest that had begun to travel up, making my throat warm and red.

“Did I tell Leslie the wrong date? I was sure I emailed that I was arriving today.” I shook my head.

His hands were at his sides now, but his head was angled, the muscles in his jaw tight as his eyes dipped down to my chest. “Are you cold?” He perked a brow.

My nipples grew painfully hard as goose bumps scattered across my skin and my cheeks flushed. “No.” I pushed my long, wet hair to my back, crossing my arms over my damp nightshirt.

He slowly dragged his gaze to my eyes, and I couldn’t escape the hint of a smile pulling at the edges of his mouth.

“I knew you were coming,” he said, smoothing a hand down his tanned throat. “But I didn’t know you were a woman.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” I looked around the living room, wanting to sit down as my chills wrapped up and around my almost naked legs. But sitting in front of a stranger seemed too casual.

The man scratched the back of his head, and my eyes were drawn to the metal watch on his wrist.

“Leslie’s got one hell of a sense of humor.” He walked past me and over to the fridge. As he opened the door and bent forward, my eyes found his backside, which was freaking perfection. I had never been one to do backflips over a guy’s ass, but holy mother of all things sacred!

He turned toward me with the Guinness beers in hand and then popped the tops before returning to me. “Here.” He handed me a bottle, and I had to remove one of my arms that protected my annoyingly perky nipples.

The sexy stranger cleared his throat and took a sip.

Oh my God. I was ready to smack the beautiful right off his perfect face if he didn’t explain himself immediately. Still, here I was, standing in front of some guy I didn’t know, in another country, and at night—and somehow my skin wasn’t crawling with fear.

That had to go in the books as a success for me. Right?

“He played the old name game with you, huh?” His eyes gleamed as he brought the bottle to his lips.

“What? Leslie’s a guy?” I shrieked, and the stranger nodded. “But we swapped messages, and she—I mean he—never mentioned . . . I thought the name Leslie was female. Back home—”

I waved my hand in the air rather than finish the thought. It didn’t even matter what he would say. There was no way I’d live with a guy, especially one who had kept his gender hidden from me.

“Leslie’s just a bit of a trickster. After all, I was expecting a guy when he asked me to bunk here tonight.”

“Yeah, sure. Hilarious.” I slumped down on the couch but saw how high up my nightshirt had risen. I grabbed a pillow and placed it over my lap. When I worked up the nerve, I looked at him, and his eyes met mine. They were a dark band of blue wrapped around soft denim—captivating.

I shook my head. “So why are you here? Besides some sick joke?”

“You know, to make sure you’re not some gobshite.”

“Gobshite?”

“An idiot. A crazy person.”

“Of course,” I muttered. “And when will Leslie be back?”

The stranger before me—whose name I still didn’t know—sat in the reclining chair opposite me. His eyes darkened a little as he took another sip of his drink. “I don’t know. He might be gone for a few weeks now.”

This is insane. And how would I find another place to live? It had been a miracle when I’d discovered Leslie’s ad. No one else was offering anything remotely close to it at the price.

“I feel like an arse.”

I laughed. Arse? “Well, you aren’t the ass. Your friend is.”

He rubbed a hand over his clenched jaw. “He’s a good guy,” he finally said. “But since he’ll be, um, out of town for a bit, you should just stay.” He shrugged. “You guys can work it out when he’s back.”

As much as I wanted to say yes, I wasn’t sure if I could. The guy had lied to me. Well, he didn’t technically lie, but he’d omitted something rather important. How could I trust him?

“I’m Adam.” He stood and stepped toward me, still clutching the Guinness in one hand. He extended his other arm.

I eyed the veins on the top of his hand and raised my palm to meet his. “Anna.”

His hand was warm against mine. I resisted the urge to swoop my arms back to cover my chest. Instead, I released my grip and tipped back the beer he’d given me. The Guinness poured smooth down my throat, warming my chest. I was never much of a drinker, so I was shocked at how good it tasted. The Irish know how to brew beer.

Adam remained standing before me, so close I could smell him again. It should be a sin to smell so good. The rim of his bottle neared his mouth, but he didn’t drink. His eyes remained on me, cautious.

Cautious of me? I was from a town so small they kept a rolling count sign, and the number had been stuck for five years. Of course, maybe I’d never go back and that number would drop back by one.

“You’re a good friend to come here on a Saturday night to make sure I’m not a psycho. I mean,” I popped my shoulders up, “what if I was?”

He cracked a smile, and I sat back down.

“I think I could handle you,” he rasped in a rich, and practically chocolate-flavored voice.

Why was I comparing this man to food? Clearly, he would taste much better. But the man did reek of danger, and not the serial killer kind. The “I can have any woman I want,” player kind.

Chills raked my spine, and I snapped my eyes shut as memories from my past attacked.

“You okay, love?”

My eyes fluttered open to the warm caress of his voice, but it also wrangled me back into the reality of my shit situation. Adam stepped back, breaking the strange tension between us, and sat down in the reclining chair. He pulled one long leg over his jeaned knee and held onto his ankle as he observed me.

“Are you sure it’s okay if I stay here until Leslie comes back?”

He drank his beer, gripping the bottle tight enough that I noticed his knuckles growing lighter. “Of course. He invited you, didn’t he?” His voice was heavier than before. Like lead. I had to wonder what caused the change. The way he’d smiled at me when we’d first met had been so different.

“Okay. Well—about you . . .”

He perked a brow and lowered the bottle to rest on his lap, the bemused look spreading fast across his face again. “What about me, love?”

I couldn’t help but smile. “About your staying here tonight, I mean.”

“Aye. You prefer me to leave, I take it?”

Say yes, Anna. Say yes!

“It’s fine. If that’s what Leslie prefers.” Stupid. Stupid. Stupid!

A smile met his eyes. “You sure?”

“As long as you’re not certifiable or anything like that.”

His chest moved in time with his lips as he laughed. “I’ve been called much worse.” He stood up.

Was he joking? He was joking, right? Panic gripped me as I rose to my feet.

“All right. Well, I should let you get some rest, then. You must be bushed.”

“Bushed?”

“Tired.”

I needed an Irish-American dictionary. I wasn’t particularly fond of sounding like a broken record, repeating everything people said to me with a dumb look on my face.

His brows pulled together as he focused on my eyes, and a strange unfurling of desire swept through me. “Well, sweet dreams, Anna.”

I nodded at him, not sure what else to say or do. I started for the hall with the bottle still clutched in my hand.

“And, Anna?”

I glanced at the tall, dark, mysterious man over my shoulder. “Yeah?”

“Welcome to the Emerald Isle.”

I smiled and went into the bedroom, closing the door behind me. After setting down the beer bottle, I fisted my hands at my sides, trying to rein in my compulsion to lock the door and shove something up against the knob.

I turned back to the door, listening to the sounds beyond it. I was pretty sure I heard a door shut. There was a soft glow of light beneath my door, and then I heard the sound of running water. Adam was showering.

A sexy but possibly dangerous guy was naked in the bathroom, not even six feet from my room.

Holy hell.

I tied my wet hair into a bun and peeled back the covers of the bed. But before getting in, I rushed back to the door and turned the lock.

In my experience, it was better to be safe than sorry.