Page 37 of Holding On To Good

Still, she had to give it a shot. Take control of her destiny, make a mature, responsible decision and right her wrong. And if she did so without anyone—especially Urban or her friends—being any the wiser, even better.

She got out of the car, turned on her phone’s flashlight and headed down the road, walking briskly because woods, wild animals and things that went bump in the night surrounded her on both sides. Five minutes later, she reached the curve, her light illuminating the mailbox at the end of the gravel driveway.

Success!

One that deserved a pat on the back. Literally. So she did.

And as she was congratulating herself on a job well done, the sky opened up.

She froze, her arm still bent back, hand still patting. Lifted her face to the heavens—and almost drowned.

“Hilarious. No, really. You got me good. Way to prove you’re in charge.”

It wasn’t a light, refreshing summer rain, either. Nope. It was a freaking downpour, the kind that sprang up suddenly, emptying the skies, ringing the humidity from the air and soaking anyone and everything below.

She tucked her phone into her front pocket to keep it dry and jogged down the driveway.

“Please let Reed be home,” she chanted under her breath, a murmured prayer she never, not once in her life, imagined she’d ever say. “Please, please, please let him be home.”

Reed’s beat-up truck was parked next to an ancient gray hatchback. Even better? Through the windows of the trailer, she caught the soft, unmistakable flickering of a TV.

She hurried up the steps to a tiny covered porch but stopped before knocking on the door as her reality hit her. She was standing on Reed Walsh’s porch, soaked to the skin, about to beg him to come out in the rain and push her car out of a ditch.

Life sure was weird sometimes.

Inhaling deeply, she knocked on the door.

Then she knocked some more. Hey, she was wet, was quickly becoming chilled and her opportunity for still getting home on time was tick, tick, ticking away. She kept right on knock—

“Answer the goddamn door!” a man yelled from inside.

Verity jumped back, fist still upraised. Okay, so maybe this wasn’t the best idea she’d ever had. Lesson learned.

But before she could turn and run like mad back to her car, the porch light came on and the door opened and there he was. Reed Walsh. Her unbeknownst-to-him, soon-to-be hero.

And oh, my, my, what a hero he was.

Tall and lean, he wore a pair of faded jeans that were worn at the seams and unbuttoned at the waist. A fact she couldn’t ignore, mainly because she couldn’t tear her eyes away from that spot. Well, honestly, if he hadn’t wanted her to stare, he should have buttoned them.

And put on a shirt.

She’d known Reed forever, it seemed, had grown up with him in the same town, had gone to school with him since kindergarten, but she’d never seen him shirtless.

It was a shame, really, what she’d been missing all these years.

The muscles of his chest were well-defined, his abs ridged. She’d seen two of his tattoos before, of course—the rose on his right forearm, the tribal tat that covered his left arm from shoulder to wrist. But the scorpion low on his stomach, just above his right hip bone, and the word Strength scrolled above his heart were new. At least to her.

“You lost, princess?” he asked in his gruff voice.

She winced. Princess.

Well, that was what she got for showing up on his doorstep unannounced.

And, you know, ogling him.

But, really, there was no need to use that tone.

“Something wrong with your hearing?” he asked.

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