“Doubtful. Spill.”
“If you’ll tell me how you ended up in Tomahawk, I’ll share my awesome plan with you.”
I arch an eyebrow at him, and he shakes his head, careful to keep his long beard away from the skillet.
“You know how I ended up here.”
“I know you got your family’s cabin, but not why you came to live here. You’re a mystery, Benson Nolans. Like, what do you do for a living? How did your family afford to just give this to you? And why come to stay in the middle of nowhere?”
He shrugs. “Needed the change, and I can’t tell you what I do, because this is Tomahawk.”
I give him a bland look. “You can’t tell me what you do because this is Tomahawk,” I repeat.
He nods, but I feel him smirking, even though that beard disguises it.
I roll my eyes.
“Not sure what that means.”
“Tomahawk expects certain things from its men. Best if I keep my secrets a secret.”
“What about your family? Why can’t any of us ever meet them?”
“Because this is Tomahawk,” he says again.
“Then you don’t get to learn my plan of revenge,” I say with a smile.
“Why?” he drawls, leaning closer to me to push my hair over my shoulder.
I do not shiver. Nope. Not at all.
Okay, maybe a tiny shiver. He’s a damn good-smelling man. I’m a sex-deprived woman. Shit happens.
“Because this is Tomahawk,” I tell him with a smirk of my own.
He rolls his eyes and resumes making breakfast.
As soon as we’re done, we make our own plates and head to his table, sitting across from each other. We eat in relative silence, and I stare at anything but the body he’s showing off. Why is he wearing a tank? He never wears a tight shirt. And it’s driving me out of my mind.
“Do you ever date?” I ask curiously.
“Occasionally,” he says, looking down at his phone.
“Define occasionally.”
Wouldn’t I have heard about someone dating Benson? Wouldn’t he have told me? He spends most of his free time with me, so obviously I should know if he’s dating. I know all the single women.
Why are my nails pressing into my palms just thinking of another woman touching him?
Again, I have issues.
“I dated someone for a while, came to live here, then dated a little here and there when I went home to visit.” He shrugs.
“But no one from here?”
His eyes come up to meet mine as his eyebrows raise. “Why the inquisition into my dating life?”
“Just realizing I’ve never seen you with a woman.”
He grins. “Never had one out here besides you. At least not one that wasn’t related to me.”
He looks back down at his phone. He never studies his phone like that, so what’s going on? Why do I feel obsessed right now? Why is he being so suspicious? Or am I the suspicious one?
“So you leave Tomahawk to go back to…wherever…and date when you’re not here?”
He shrugs noncommittally, still staring at his phone.
“Girls here not good enough for you?” I ask, unsure why I’m stabbing my eggs a little harder than necessary.
“Heard they don’t like the beard,” he says, even though he sounds a little annoyed by that.
“Then cut the beard.”
“I’m not swimming across that godforsaken lake.” He shudders, not lifting his eyes to meet mine.
His phone goes off, and he stands. “Gotta get this. I’ll see you later if you really do need my protection,” he tells me without a backward glance.
Apparently I’ve been dismissed. Usually happens when I ask too many personal questions. Benson is a private guy, after all. He never gives more answers than he wants to. He’s lived here for years, and that’s all the information we have on him.
I’m his closest friend and still have no clue about who he was before he came to Tomahawk.
I finish eating and then take the time to wash up the plates. Benson never returns, so I let myself out and drive my boat back toward my place…but I notice my new neighbor down the lake on his dock.
It’s not surprising to see he’s well-built. It is surprising to see him shirtless as he hammers away on his dock. Deciding I can’t execute my plan until nightfall, I drive toward his dock.
I wonder if Delaney has seen him yet.
Making a mental note to drive out and get Delaney sometime soon, I pull up to his dock. He looks up, smiling when he sees it’s me, and wipes sweat off his brow.
He really is pretty.
Yet my girly parts are still dormant.
Funny, they seemed to be riled up this morning. I assumed they were ready to come out of hibernation.
But, despite the gorgeous male specimen in front of me, I’m still not having the appropriate reaction.
Figures.
“Hidey, neighbor,” he says with a mock southern drawl.
I quirk an eyebrow at him, and he flashes me that perfect smile. “Sorry,” he says, chuckling. “Always wanted to say that.”
He comes to help me tie off my boat, and I haul myself onto his dock, wondering if our backwoods accents sound southern to him or something.
“I take it you didn’t have neighbors at your last place?” I ask, prying.
“Had tons of them. I lived in LA. But you don’t really talk to your neighbors in LA, at least not the part where I lived. Then I moved to a more upscale home on the outskirts, and had no close neighbors there.”
He shrugs one shoulder as he moves back to his spot to kneel down and start prying an old board loose. My eyebrows go up in surprise.
“Why wouldn’t you tell us where you came from yesterday, yet have no problem with it today?”
“The company yesterday was intimidating. I mean, they’ve been growing beards for years because they’re too ‘manly’ to back down from a challenge. Didn’t figure they’d take too kindly to the new city guy, and didn’t want to paint a target on my back. Can you keep a secret?” he asks, that grin still blinding.
“No problem. So why the move?”
“Got tired of city life,” he says with another shrug, then goes back to hammering a new board. “Decided to come somewhere more remote. My realtor sent me this place as a possibility, and I fell in love with the cabin. I’ve always loved working with wood, so this gives me a chance to actually do it in nature.”
Yes, I could totally make half a dozen dirty jokes about him ‘loving working with wood’ and ‘actually doing it in nature,’ but I suppress my inner teenage boy and focus on the important part.
In five minutes, I know more about him than Benson. Well, about his past. I still find Liam suspicious. Just as I do all newbies.
“Just wake up?” he muses, looking me over.
I grimace, remembering I still haven’t seen a mirror or touched a brush. “Rough night,” I vaguely answer.
He grins again, then resumes hammering away.
I open my mouth to say something else, when the loud motor of a boat roars closer, and I turn, seeing Benson driving this way on his boat.
“Your boyfriend still pissed that your aunt tried setting us up with him right there?” Liam asks as I cut my eyes away from the approaching Benson.
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
He continues smiling down at that nail he must find amusing.