She washed her face, then paused as she patted her skin dry. She blinked at herself in the mirror, slowly lowering the towel to the lip of the sink.
When was the last time she’d seen her own face without makeup for more than the few moments it took to start applying her foundation to conceal her flaws? When was the last time she’d dared to step out of her own bedroom without making sure shehad her face onthe way David liked it—a habit she’d continued even after she’d moved out?
She couldn’t remember. It had become second nature to her. Like her accent, it was a way to make absolutely certain she never backslid and found herself in Two Oaks again. She’d worked so hard to make herself worthy of being David’s wife—or at least to look and sound and behave like the sort of woman who might not deserve him but wouldn’t reflect badly on him, either.
And yet he had always been the first to remind her she was nothing but trash.
She reached up and took the clip out of her hair, letting it tumble down around her shoulders. It was starting to show its natural wave, which normally she would have already ruthlessly tamed with her flat iron, because she lived in horror of parading around looking messy. Especially where David could see her. But today she ran her damp fingers through her hair instead, fully aware that doing so would encourage it to curl more.
If she was all the way out here on the far edge of the world, she might as well see what it was like to be whomever she felt like being instead of who David had made her.
Even if that meant no makeup and less-than-perfect hair.
As revolutions went, it was tiny and silly, but it was hers.
Mariah left the wrap she’d bought in Seattle on the cozy sleigh bed that dominated one wall and dug out the half-zip fleece and down vest she’d also bought. If her surly, icy guide was going to continue racing up and down hills in this charming little village, she figured she ought to be better prepared for the weather.
She dressed quickly, then forced herself to leave the room without checking the mirror, which was anotherthing she never, ever did. Because she’d learned quickly that it was better to conduct her own inspection than to fail David’s.
The consequences of displeasing her ex had always been much, much worse than taking a few minutes to make sure she looked the part.
Mariah felt giddy and reckless as she closed the door behind her, her heart pounding so hard in her chest that she had to stop near the windows in the hall. She stared out at the water in the harbor, the boats moored down at the docks, and the implacable mountains, which loomed in a way that soothed her somehow. She ordered herself to settle down. And as her heart slowed to normal speed, her gaze moved from the raw, brooding water to the village. The seemingly haphazard collection of bright buildings with hand-lettered signs. The wooden boardwalks in place of streets. Grizzly Harbor was as hardy as it was picturesque, and the combination made her... deeply glad.
She was smiling when something in her peripheral vision caught at her. She turned to look down at the street directly below. There was a post office sign on a yellow building across the way. And what looked like some kind of antique store slightly lower down the hill, flanked by houses in competing shades of green. And she had the sense of movement between the store and one of the houses, as if someone had stepped back into the shadows.
As if someone had been staring up at her.
But this was Alaska, not Atlanta, Mariah reminded herself as her stomach dropped with a sickening lurch— no one was watching her here. No one knew where she was and her phone was off, so no one could track her.Still, she couldn’t help the shudder that speared its way down her back in an icy, uncomfortable prickle. And she moved back from the window, then toward the stairs, more quickly than she might have otherwise.
By the time she made it down to the inn’s lobby, she’d convinced herself she was being paranoid. That she’d spent the whole week looking over her shoulder and didn’t yet realize that she could stop.If you jump at every shadow even here, so far away from Georgia,she told herself,David wins.
Then she forgot about David, because Griffin Cisneros was standing with his back to the far wall of the inn’s comfortably eclectic sitting area, on one side of the huge stone fireplace. He mirrored the stuffed, rearing grizzly bear on the other side of the stone too closely for her peace of mind.
“Should I be concerned thatyouthink I’m prey?” she asked him, laughing. Maybe a bit too nervously.
But he didn’t laugh. If anything, those dark eyes sharpened, and she felt something tighten in her.
She told herself it was a healthy dose of fear. Because it should have been.
His full lips formed a straight line. “If I was hunting you, princess, you wouldn’t see me.”
That thing she wanted to believe was fear and only fear, nothing hotter or more dangerous, tightened all the more.
And Mariah decided to concentrate on the part that wouldn’t keep her up at night. “Princess?”
“If the glass slipper fits.”
“Oh, sugar. I’ve already done the Cinderella thing. Been to the ball. Fit my foot into that cute little shoe and made it work. Lived happily ever after for ten wholeyears, but the happy part never lasts. Before you know it, Prince Charming is sleeping with the maids, poisoning your food, and threatening you in parking lots all over Georgia.” Mariah was aware that the sharp smile she aimed at him had far too much Two Oaks in it. Too much McKenna challenge and not enough Lanier reserve. But she chose not to be horrified by her own transformation. “I can’t imagine why they leave that out of the fairy tale.”
“Fairy tales are for small children and spoiled women.”
“I’m not at all surprised you don’t believe in them. I used to, of course. But I think after my last emergency room visit, the urge to dive headfirst into a happily-ever-after might finally have been beaten out of me.”
Griffin continued to stand with his back to the wall, and his intense stillness clawed at her. Mariah had never seen a man stand like that. As if he could disappear into the wall if he wanted to.
His intense watchfulness pricked at her. It made her say whatever came to mind without worrying she needed to bite her tongue. It made her reckless and giddy all over again.
It made her more like a McKenna and less like a Lanier by the second, but she didn’t do anything to stop it.