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“You won’t be lonely?”

I smiled. Could Sam get any sweeter? Jamie, meanwhile, rested his forearm over the top of the steering wheel, eyes on the road. Ignoring me completely.

“I’ll miss them,” I admitted. “Especially my nieces. One of them wants to be a carpenter.” I couldn’t help smiling. I’d been Mae’s age when I decided that’s what I wanted to be, too. My dad had been a carpenter, but he passed when I was seven. It wasn’t until later, though, that I’d overheard Mom telling someone that the company she worked for—a construction outfit like Reilly Contracting—was always looking for skilled men.

“Why not girls?” I’d asked.

“I don’t know, sweetie.” She’d smiled. “Maybe you’ll need to change that.”

When I finished my apprenticeship, Mom had been beside herself. “Your dad would be so proud.”

Now Mom and I were holding our breath to see if Mae would carry on the legacy. Even though I hadn’t kept it up. One day, I’d love to have a shop again, even if it was just to let Mae play in it.

“Did she get into that club?” Jamie asked. “The one you talked about in the videos.”

I blinked, staring at him. Before I lost access to my shop in the divorce, I used to post videos online of me in my workshop for Mae. There was a club at her school for advanced woodworking she had her eye on. I’d set up the channel to help demonstrate some of the projects she could work on in shop class to help her get in.

Outside, snow-covered fields whizzed by as fast as my newly quickened pulse. How had Jamie seen those?

“They were in the HR files,” he said, reading my mind.

I’d forgotten about the online scan our HR firm did for new hires. They’d gotten more intense since Gary was fired. But I’d never known Jamie to look beyond the report the company provided, which highlighted potential red flags.

Jamie glanced at me and shifted in his seat uncomfortably, looking like he was sorry he’d said anything.

“I can’t believe you watched those,” I said. It was a rough time in my life. I’d been so stressed with the divorce that I wasn’t taking care of my physical appearance. I’d opened one recently and was shocked at how gaunt I’d looked, not to mention the dark circles under my eyes. But I’d been smiling. Making those videos—and seeing the comments from my nieces and their friends—had been the one thing that brought me joy before I moved to Quince Valley and took the job at Reilly.

Jamie looked at me. “I audit some of the files sometimes.”

Bullshit.

Once again, a tingling went over me. Only this time, Jamie hadn’t touched me.

But up ahead, in my periphery, I saw the car in front of us had suddenly slowed. “Jamie!” I exclaimed. I wasn’t too alarmed—we were far enough back to stop, but he wasn’t watching the road.

Jamie snapped his eyes forward and he slammed on the brakes.

But at the same time, his hand shot out toward me, spreading across my torso.

I sucked in a breath as he pressed his giant hand against me. Now he was touching me. A lot of me. He was so big, his fingers splayed between my breasts; his thumb grazing the button of my jeans.

Heat swirled in my belly. I don’t think I’d have noticed if he slammed into the car in front of us.

“Black ice?” Sam said from the back. I’d almost forgotten he was there.

Jamie had, too, clearly, because he yanked his hand back, gripping the steering wheel tight. His eyes locked briefly on mine, and that heat didn’t go anywhere.

He’d protected me.

He’d touched me.

I forced myself to look out the window at the snow-covered trees. To think of ice and cold and corporate conferences. Anything but Jamie Reilly and the feeling of his hand on my body.

CHAPTER6

Jamie

Somehow, six hours next to Sarah Cooper passed more quickly than I could have imagined possible. Mostly it was due to the kid jabbering away in the back. His stories were surprisingly entertaining, and he sure knew how to be an unawkward third wheel; I’d give him that.

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