he gave her a direct glance. “Look, I’m sorry if I’ve been rude.”
His mouth was set in a rigid line, his brow was furrowed. He didn’t look sorry. His chiseled features looked hard, with deep-set eyes that looked older than the rest of him. Despite that bit of insight, Olivia hardened her sympathetic heart.
She didn’t flinch from the truth. “You think I’m an airhead.” Why did that hurt? Why should she care what this man thought? She’d survived worse.
Drew heard the defensive note in her voice. “I didn’t say that.” All right, so maybe he did think she was a mental lightweight. He couldn’t deny that. But he also thought she was very young—far too young and vulnerable to be out alone, forced to rely on strangers for help.
If she belonged to him, he’d—
He stopped the thought before it went anywhere.
She wasn’t his. There had been many women in his life, but only one had touched his heart and left it permanently scarred. There was no room for another, which was exactly the way he wanted it.
Wasn’t it?
Before they got mired any deeper in this conversation, Drew decided to put an end to it. “Look, I didn’t mean to offend you.”
She lifted her dainty chin. “You didn’t.”
He tried to keep a note of impatience from creeping into his voice. “I don’t know you. I offered to fix your car. That’s it. We’re never going to see each other again, so my opinion hardly matters. Does it?”
Her heart-shaped face, with delicate brows and mouth, remained soft—even though she was visibly annoyed. “No, it doesn’t.”
At her aggrieved tone, he hid a smile.
“Then how about handing me that wrench?” He held out his hand.
“This one?” She slapped the hard metal into his outstretched palm.
The impact stung.
“Thanks,” he said dryly. Despite her diminutive size, Olivia DeAngelis packed a wallop.
“I think I’ll wait in the car.” She coolly folded her umbrella, then turned away.
In silence Drew watched her climb into the car, firmly resisting the urge to call her back, to apologize. He winced when she slammed the door.
Drew bent to his task again. Moments later, a trucker stopped and offered the use of his jumper cables. Before long, with the battery recharged, the car started on the first try. Drew dropped the hood with a satisfied “thud.” With a tip of his hat, the trucker drove away.
“Guess that does it.” Drew wiped his hands on a rag.
Olivia sat in the driver’s seat. Unsmiling, she rolled down the window. “Thank you so much for your help. I’d like to pay you something for your trouble.”
At her offer, Drew backed away. “No thanks.”
Olivia frowned, her fine brows arched. “But I would have paid a mechanic.”
Drew shook his head, absorbing the fact that she was different from so many women he’d known in his life who wanted something from him. Being broke eliminated that worry.
“It’s not necessary.” He wouldn’t accept money from her, even though he could use it. The fact that she’d probably guessed stung his pride.
But when he looked into her wide gray eyes, he didn’t see pity, just understanding. Acceptance. He was down on his luck, there was no hiding it.
After a lifetime of trying to live up to everyone’s expectations, and failing badly, Drew was free of the Pierce wealth, free of all the family trappings—which left him in the middle of nowhere—with the lonely night bearing down on him with each passing second, and the rain carrying the cold sting of autumn.
“Thank you,” she said simply.
“You’re welcome.” With an ironic smile, Drew turned away, leaving her with a half-mocking, “So long, Angel.”
Chapter Two
A ngel.
Olivia smiled ruefully.
He’d obviously forgotten her name.
She didn’t watch him walk away. She refused to let his careless dismissal hurt. No matter how intriguing, Drew Pierce was nothing more than a passing stranger—and not a very friendly one at that.
Men like him were good at one thing—walking away from a woman. She wasn’t sure how she knew that after such a brief encounter, but she did. Her smooth brow knit into a pensive frown. It occurred to her that Drew was the type of man who would make an ideal husband for her purposes—an absent one.
Despite the obvious benefits of such an arrangement, Olivia shuddered at the mere thought of marriage as a clear-cut business arrangement, even a temporary one. It was unthinkable, but then, so was losing Stone’s End.
When the wind blew a few fat drops of rain through the open car window, she rolled it up, then turned on the heat, along with the radio. Warm air took off the chill, soft music poured into the silent void, drowning out her troubled thoughts.
She didn’t want to think beyond getting to Stone’s End—while she could still call it home. Unless she could find a legal method to break her birth father’s will, it wouldn’t be home much longer. Had she found Stone’s End only to lose it?
At the age of nineteen, she’d connected with her birth family through a detective the family had hired to search for clues concerning a long-lost daughter.
Admittedly wary when first approached and afraid of building her hopes too high, Olivia had learned that her mother had been married to Ira Carlisle for a number of years. When the marriage ended, Avis left without informing Ira that a third child was on the way. As a result, Olivia had grown up not knowing she had a father, and an older brother and sister. Finding out she had a family was a lifelong dream; and typically, the reality didn’t live up to the fantasy.
When Ira died six months ago, Olivia had sincerely mourned the loss. He’d divided his beloved farm equally between his three grown children. Jared and Jessie had each received their generous portions when they married, so the terms of the will no longer governed their lives. But it created havoc with Olivia’s life.
Leave it to Ira not to leave any loose ends—particularly concerning his long-lost daughter, Olivia thought with a dispirited sigh. In his ironclad will, Ira left her a share of Stone’s End, which included the original farmhouse and a fair parcel of land.
There was only one small catch. She needed a wedding certificate in order to claim it. The terms gave her a year to find a husband and tie the knot.
She had only six months left.
Olivia shifted the car into gear. A red warning light in the dashboard caught her attention; her gas tank was nearly empty.
Fortunately the gas station attached to the diner was still open. She filled up, then stocked up on a few snacks from a vending machine. A couple of candy bars and bottled water should tide her over until she got home.
Moments later, when she turned the car key in the ignition, nothing happened. Holding her breath, she tried again. When the engine roared to life, Olivia released a deep sigh of relief.
She wouldn’t let herself think of the long lonely stretch of road ahead or the empty house waiting.
By now, the diner was flashing a Closed sign.
A couple of motorcycles roared past. Trucks pulled out, heading east, west, south, anywhere but north—her direction.
At the first crossroads, Olivia slowed when she observed a deep shadow on the edge of the road. A hitchhiker. The man’s features were shadowed, but she instantly identified the tall wiry build. She should keep driving. But Drew