Zeke Montgomery knew Morgan West was going to be trouble the minute he laid eyes on her.
She stood at the foot of the steps to her own front door—the front door he’d been waiting outside of for the past couple of hours, not that he’d been counting or anything—with her arms folded, looking sternly at him like he was a little kid who’d just drawn on her walls with a crayon.
She was very small and wore a not particularly flattering uniform of dark brown pants and khaki shirt, with a dark brown parka that nearly swallowed her thrown over the top. And her strawberry-blond hair, the color of which reminded him of apricots, was in a very severe ponytail down her back.
She wore no makeup, her face freckled and wholesome, with those bright blue eyes, the ones he remembered from Cal’s funeral that had been red from weeping then but were much brighter now. They were also very, very direct.
And she was still the prettiest thing he’d seen for months, if not years.
All of which spelled trouble with a capital T.
She said crossly, “Where on earth have you been, Zeke Montgomery? Don’t you know everyone’s been looking for you?”
He had to admit, he was surprised. He didn’t think she’d remembered him from Cal’s funeral, but she obviously had. Which was good.
It was going to make this whole situation a hell of a lot easier.
“I could ask you the same thing,” he said, choosing to ignore the question for the moment. He’d tell her why he was here eventually, but in his own time. He didn’t like to rush important things.
Anyway, he hadn’t minded the two hours he’d spent sitting on her front porch waiting for her to come home. He could have gone searching for her, but he hadn’t wanted anyone else to know he was here—at least not yet.
He was a man used to waiting, though, and he’d liked the peaceful quiet as the afternoon had lengthened into a long summer twilight. The house was surrounded by spruce and a few firs, and he’d spent a good bit of time observing a couple of squirrels arguing in the branches, their loud complaining broken only by the rush of the river nearby.
Still, he’d hoped she’d have come back earlier from wherever it was she’d been because he had a feeling she wasn’t going to like what he was here to say and generally people handled unpleasant things better in the middle of the day rather than at the tail end of it.
Couldn’t be helped, though, and he wasn’t going to go away and come back later to have this discussion.
Already he’d waited too long.
Morgan frowned, apparently unbothered by the unexpected appearance of a man she’d only met once and in very trying circumstances.
“What do you mean you could ask me the same thing?” she said. “I’ve been at work. What do you think I’ve been doing?”
Not a woman who was easily ruffled, obviously.
But then Cal had mentioned to him on more than one occasion that she was competent, professional, and tough. Not to mention that she was also a Village Safety Protection Officer, the rural equivalent of an Alaskan State Trooper, so she wasn’t likely to be a pushover.
All of which could prove problematic considering the reason he was here.
Zeke eyed her. “You remembered my name,” he said.
“Kind of hard to forget when some big, bearded mountain man approaches you out of the blue at your brother’s funeral and tells you to call him if you need anything.” Morgan’s bright blue gaze did not even so much as flicker. “And then forgets to leave you his number.”
She’d leaned the bike she’d ridden down the driveway against the porch, and the late-afternoon sunlight crept across the green lawn that surrounded the Wests’ sturdy, two-story house. It was mostly in good repair, but he hadn’t only been watching squirrels. He’d also used part of the waiting time to have a look around the place, and there were a number of things that needed doing.
Take care of Morgan, the letter he’d received after the reading of Cal’s will had said. Once I’m gone, she’ll have no one.
It wasn’t exactly what Zeke had wanted to hear, but since he felt partly responsible for Cal’s death, he owed the guy big-time.
Stupid of him to forget giving her his number at the funeral, but he hadn’t been thinking straight. He wasn’t the best at dealing with people on a good day, let alone a bad one.
“So I did,” he said. “Well, you don’t need it now. I’m right here.”
“Uh-huh.” Morgan’s stare narrowed. “So, are you going to tell me why you’re on my front porch? When your two friends, who’ve been looking for you for weeks, are back in the Happy Moose?”
Zeke had arrived in Deep River, the quirky little Alaskan town he and his two best friends had inherited after Caleb’s death, a couple of nights earlier. He’d made a camp for himself in a clearing in the bush just out of town—he’d preferred a bedroll to staying in a hotel since he always slept better on the ground. And yeah, he should have announced himself to Silas and Damon, the ex-army buddies that Morgan was talking about, but he wasn’t a man who charged into a situation without doing a bit of reconnaissance first.
Which was what he’d been doing. Reconnaissance. Of Deep River itself. Again, he was a man who took his time and didn’t like to rush into things. Especially given that oil reserves had been discovered underneath the town and he knew for a fact that those oil reserves were of interest to…certain people.
People connected with him.
Luckily, though, he’d handled that issue, so now the only things he had left to do were finish up his mission for Cal and then go see his friends.
He’d figured that finishing up his mission for Cal and taking care of Cal’s little sister was more pressing than seeing his friends, so here he was.
Zeke dismissed the question of said friends for the moment. “I’ll see them later. In the meantime, I’m here to make sure you’re looked after.”
Surprise rippled over Morgan’s pretty face. “Make sure I’m looked after?” she echoed. “Why would I need looking after?”
He shrugged. “Your brother asked me to.”
Morgan’s arms dropped. “Oh. How wonderful.” She didn’t sound as if she thought it was wonderful. She sounded extremely irritated.
“I appreciate it,” Morgan was saying, “but as you can see, I’m pretty good right now and I’ve been pretty good for a number of years, both with and without Caleb.”
Her response did not surprise Zeke. Cal had mentioned in his letter that his relationship with Morgan was a fraught one and that she wouldn’t appreciate someone muscling in on her territory, especially if she knew that Cal had ordered Zeke to.
Of course, Zeke could have just not told her that part of it, but he wasn’t a liar and he didn’t play games. He was straight up, and that’s the way he preferred everyone else to be too.
He eyed her. She did look pretty good, he had to admit, and in more ways than one. And it was also clear that she was annoyed about her brother. Then again, it had been his experience that people said one thing while meaning something else, so he could never take anything at face value.
“You are, huh?” he said.
“Yes.” She eyed him right back. “So you can consider your job done.”
At Cal’s funeral and afterward, at the crappy bar they’d gone to, she hadn’t seemed that great. She’d seemed small and vulnerable and folded in on herself with grief, which was why he’d offered to help her out.
To be fair, though, that had been a couple of months ago. Now it seemed as if the worst of that grief was over, and he couldn’t imagine a woman more competent and able to handle herself.
She was a West, like Cal, and the Wests had owned Deep River for over a century, so no wonder she didn’t need him. This was her town through and through.
Then again, the Wests didn’t own Deep River now, and Cal’s letter had been clear. And even though he was a man who preferred being alone in the great outdoors to being around people in cities, when the proverbial shit hit the fan, he’d be there.
Cal had been a good friend, and since Zeke could count the number of good friends he had on one hand, he wasn’t going to let him down.
“Place looks like it could use some work,” he said, ignoring her assurance. “Roof needs some shingles. Got a few cracks in the boards here.” He nodded his head toward the wall of the house. “Some of the trees need a prune too. I’ll start with those.”
“That’s very kind of you, but—”
“I’ve got a camp nearby. I won’t need to stay here. Though if you feel safer if I do, I’m happy to.” He’d seen signs of bears around the Wests’ property, which he was sure Morgan probably knew about, but still. They weren’t grizzlies, but black bears could be dangerous if you weren’t careful.
You always had to be on your guard in the bush. Complacency led to an early death if you underestimated Mother Nature.
Zeke hadn’t been a Boy Scout for a very long time, but if there was one thing he was, it was prepared. Always.
Turning, he scanned the trees that clustered around the house and then the bush beyond. “Should have brought my rifle. You never know what could be hanging around.”
Morgan muttered something under her breath and came abruptly up the stairs, planting herself in front of him and tipping her head back to look up at him.
Damn, she really was a pretty little thing. Wholesome as a pint of milk. Clear pink skin, freckles, a soft rosebud of a mouth, and a button nose. Not a cop’s hard-bitten face. A long strand of that apricot-colored hair had come loose from her ponytail and now draped itself over her shoulder. It almost glowed.
Not that he should be noticing her skin, or her hair, or her prettiness right now. She was Cal’s little sister for Christ’s sake. And a cop.
“Zeke,” she said very firmly. “As much as I appreciate the thought of you helping out, I’m quite happy with the state of my house, no matter what Cal told you.” She crossed her arms over the curve of her—rather lovely now that he looked—breasts, giving a very good impression of a woman who would not be moved come hell or high water. “Have you let Si and Damon know you’re here? They’ve been worried about you.”
He hadn’t told anyone that he was here, mainly because he’d wanted to scout out the lay of the land, so to speak, before he got into any difficult conversations with his friends. But Damon and Si knew that about him. They also knew he preferred the wilderness and often took off for weeks at a time on various expeditions, so would they really be worried about him?
Perhaps they were. He found it difficult reading emotions in people and sometimes he got it wrong—at least, he had in the past. He thought he was better at it these days, but maybe not. Then again, he was getting Morgan West’s irritation loud and clear.
“I’ll let ’em know,” he said, hoping that would close the subject. “Roof’s going to be a problem come winter, though.”
More irritation flickered across Morgan’s pretty face like the wind ruffling the surface of a milky pond. “Did you somehow miss the fact that I said you’re not doing anything to my house?”
She was right in front of him, making it very difficult to move past her without pushing her out of the way, and he didn’t want to do that since he was not a man who felt the need to prove himself physically.
He looked down at her. There were little sparks, like fireflies, in her blue eyes.
His sister, Izzy, had once said, crossly, he could out-stubborn a mule and that was no joke. He’d once insisted on sleeping in a tent instead of his bedroom for entire month back when he’d been a kid, which had annoyed the crap out of his mother.
But that was one of the beauties of living in the bush; he never had to concern himself with other people’s feelings.
“Why not?” he asked bluntly. “If it needs fixing?”
She frowned. “Well, for a start I don’t know you from Adam.”
“I’m not Adam. I’m Zeke. And besides, you already met me at the funeral.”
“Sure, but that wasn’t exactly the perfect moment for chatting.”
“You don’t need to know me in order for me to fix your house.”
Her pretty eyes widened a little. “Seriously?”
Zeke didn’t like having to explain himself constantly since it was a pain in the ass. He preferred his actions to speak for themselves. Then again, perhaps he was going to have to actually do some explanation here. Cal’s letter had been very clear after all: Be a brother to her now I’m gone.
He hadn’t been a great brother to the one sibling he did have, so he wasn’t sure why Cal had chosen him for the task. Still, he seemed to recall that being a brother involved a lot of pissing siblings off, in which case he was obviously doing something right.
“I know it’s your house,” he said. “But I’m only going to fix it, not knock it down.”
Morgan looked him up and down, unimpressed. “I still don’t know you. What if you’re a serial killer?”
Seemed an odd question to him. Wasn’t it obvious he wasn’t a serial killer? “I’m not.”
“Of course since you’ve said you’re not one, you’re definitely not one.” A crease appeared between her red-gold brows. “Though, if you are, you’ll be kicking yourself because I can arrest you, you know. I am the law in Deep River.”
Tough little thing, wasn’t she?
Zeke looked down at her. “You might be the law, but there’s only one of you and sorry, but you’re not very big.”
He’d only stated the truth, but she still looked affronted. “I’ve done a lot of physical training, and I can and have put cuffs on people bigger than you. And if the worst comes to the worst, I have backup from the detachment in Ketchikan.” She gave him a very stern stare. “So don’t cross me.”
Okay, so he was blunt, but it seemed as if Morgan was one of those people who didn’t appreciate his bluntness. Which wasn’t good since if he was going to do what Cal had asked of him and take care of her, he needed her to not view him as a serial killer at the very least.
Still, he was glad she’d let him know where her line was, because he hated game players. He also rather liked her tartness, like an almost-ripe peach.
He stuck his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “People bigger than me, huh? What did you do? Bite them on the ankles?” He wasn’t sure what else she could do.
She didn’t appear charmed by this response. “You’re assuming I’m not carrying a weapon.”
“I’m not assuming you’re not carrying one. I’m assuming that you don’t use it on people who aren’t actually threatening you.”
Her cheeks went pink and for some reason she looked very cross. “As it happens your very presence threatens me. Which means you have two choices. You can leave now and I won’t arrest you for trespassing. Or you can stay and I’ll shoot you with my Taser.” Her little chin came up, confrontational as hell. “Well? What’s it to be?”
* * *
Zeke Montgomery was turning out to be the most stubborn-ass man Morgan had ever met, and as she lived in Deep River, a town noted for being full of stubborn-ass men, that was saying something.
He towered over her, solid and immovable as a rock wall, all black hair, unshaven black stubble, and the fathomless black eyes that she remembered from the bar back in Juneau, the night of Cal’s funeral.
He had his hands in his pockets and he looked just as wild and uncivilized as he had a couple of months back. Perhaps even more so. He wore a worn-looking, long-sleeved black Henley, a pair of dark jeans with holes in the knees, a battered parka, and hiking boots, and he had the unkempt, rumpled air of a man who’d spent considerable time camping out in the bush.
She had no idea what he was doing on her porch, and to be honest, his appearance was a bit of a shock. But given how her brother’s pal Silas had arrived in Deep River, and then his other pal Damon a couple of weeks after that, it had only been a matter of time before Zeke turned up.
Since he’d basically told her that night he’d failed to give her his number in the bar that anything she needed she only had to call, it made a weird kind of sense that when he had turned up, it was to stand on her porch like a large, rumpled black bear.
Her reaction to him, though, did not make sense.
The night in Juneau, when she’d first met him, she’d only been aware of a vague kind of…unsteadiness in his presence. But that she’d put down to grief.
Yet even though grief had lost its sharp edge now, she still felt unsteady and had no idea what to make that—or of how she’d blushed under his steady, dark stare.
She never blushed. She was a village public safety officer (VPSO), and she was the law in Deep River, and not only that, she was a West—the family that had once literally owned the town—and no one tended to tangle with her.
Which was just the way she liked it.
Men, though. They were far too much trouble.
Exhibit A standing on her porch, for example. Who’d inexplicably made her blush like a teenage girl and who also wasn’t taking no for an answer. He also didn’t appear to be leaving.
What had her stupid big brother been thinking? Why had Cal thought she needed looking after?
Ridiculous, not to mention ironic coming from the man who’d ceased being her protective big brother the moment he’d left Deep River for Juneau. Certainly, him getting all worried about her from beyond the grave was a little late in the piece.
Especially when she was a grown woman of twenty-six, who’d been taking care of herself for years already, not the thirteen-year-old girl she’d been when he’d taken off.
Zeke still hadn’t said anything, midnight eyes giving her a thousand-yard stare. Another woman might have been intimidated by his massive height and his heavily muscled torso, not to mention the whole beard thing he had going on, but Morgan had never been that woman.
Plus, although Cal had left Deep River years ago, he’d kept in intermittent contact and had told her a little about his friends. Zeke, he’d said, was very stubborn, a man of few words, and didn’t much like people. However, he was also protective, generous, and very honest. A good guy to have in a tight spot.
All well and good if you were in a tight spot, but she wasn’t. She was home and what she wanted was to go inside, make herself some dinner, and relax after a busy day, not make a tour of all the things wrong with the house purely to entertain Cal’s annoying, taciturn, and erstwhile missing friend.
The missing friend who didn’t seem to be all that bothered that his other friends, Silas Quinn and Damon Fitzgerald, had been getting worried about him, though they tried to pretend they weren’t.
Morgan let out a breath while Zeke simply stood there. Silently. Like a granite statue of a man. Making curiosity tug lightly inside her about why he’d decided to turn up now, a couple of months after Cal’s death, and what he’d been doing in the interim since Cal had left Deep River to him, Silas, and Damon.
The other two now lived here, Silas with his fiancée, Hope, who owned the Happy Moose bar, and Damon with his soon-to-be wife, Astrid, Deep River’s mayor.
Morgan had been going to ask them if they wanted her to open a missing person’s investigation, but it hadn’t quite gotten to that point.
No need now, since he’d arrived here all by himself. A camp, he’d mentioned, which indicated he’d been living in the bush for…how long? And why? Why hadn’t he let them know he was here? And why hadn’t he gotten in contact with her earlier if Cal had supposedly told him to look after her?
Zeke’s eyes glittered in the late-afternoon light, and she thought he might say something about her threatening to shoot him with her Taser, at least.
But he didn’t. He simply turned around without a word and walked down the porch, disappearing around the corner of the house.
For a second, Morgan could only gape after him.
Perhaps it was a dream he’d been there. Perhaps the single beer she’d had at the Moose just before she’d headed home had been one too many. Then again, could you really say one beer was one too many? And more importantly, what in God’s name was he doing?
The porch wrapped around the house and she went after him, peering around the corner. This side faced the river, and on summer days, if you sat on the chairs outside the living room windows, you could see the green water rushing by, glinting off rocks and sparkling in the sun. Her favorite view in the whole wide world.
It was that time of year now, the Deep River filling the afternoon with a liquid sound, the same soundtrack that had punctuated all the important moments in her life.
Along with the noise of the river came the spicy scent of the bush that surrounded the house, mixed with warm, dry earth and the green dampness of the river itself. The scent of home. It was a familiarity she never got tired of and never would.
Zeke had gone down the steps and out onto the lawn that lay between the house and the river and was now looking back up at the house. The sunlight threw his shadow against the stand of spruce and fir at his back, making him seem almost as tall as they were, a giant…
No, not a giant. A bear. A big black bear wandering into her home and sniffing around like he wanted to make it his den.
Pesky things, bears. There’d been one hanging around the house lately, but her approach to the plentiful wildlife in Deep River was that if you left it alone, it would leave you alone.
Sadly, she didn’t think that applied to stubborn-ass men.
She walked along the porch, then went down the stairs that led onto the lawn and came up beside him.
“What part of ‘I’m going to arrest you for trespassing’ or ‘shoot you with my Taser’ didn’t you understand?” she said.
Zeke ignored her. “See there?” He pointed to the roof. “Definitely going to need some new shingles. Guttering, too, needs work.” His pointing finger lowered. “And the second-story windows. Some of the frames are going to give you trouble come winter.” Then he pointed at the pipes that ran down the side of the house. “And I’m thinking that the downpipes over there might need replacing too.”
Morgan glared at him, annoyed at his continuing inability to listen. “You want me to get the zip ties?”
“You can try.” Zeke didn’t look at her. “Cal asked me to take care of you. And that means fixing up the house.”
Ah. That explained things.
“Well, why didn’t you just say?” she muttered, her irritation lessening somewhat, since she was very familiar with the male tendency to want to fix things to show they cared. That had been Cal’s default too. Still, she didn’t want this particular male hammering at her guttering right now.
“It’s fine, Zeke,” she said. “You don’t have to—”
“I should take a look under the house, make sure the plumbing is okay. How’s your wood supply?”
Morgan frowned. Persistent, wasn’t he? “Are you listening to me?”
“About as much as you’re listening to me.”
She gritted her teeth. He still wasn’t looking at her, his dark eyes narrowed as he kept on scanning the house like an engineer looking for structural faults.
Really, she wasn’t sure why him offering to fix her house bugged her so. Because all the things he’d mentioned were things that she’d been going to fix herself, but hadn’t gotten around to it due to the fallout from Cal’s death.
Oil reserves had been discovered lying beneath the town, oil that now belonged not only to Cal’s three friends who’d inherited the town from him, but to all the people who leased land in Deep River—a.k.a. the entire town. The leases were bought and sold for nominal amounts of money, since when Jacob West had founded the town over a century earlier, during the gold rush years, he’d intended Deep River to be a haven for those who weren’t comfortable anywhere else.
A refuge and a sanctuary for those who needed it, even those who had no money.
Morgan believed very strongly in her ancestor’s vision and so had Cal, and the oil discovery had been a shock. Especially since Cal had kept it a secret from her.
She wasn’t sure why he hadn’t told her, but whatever, the town deciding to take up Silas’s suggestion of kickstarting tourism to replace oil dollars and getting some projects started had eaten up her time.
That and the usual duties of a VPSO—fire safety, search and rescue, first responder duties, plus all the paperwork—didn’t allow for much rest and relaxation. She also involved herself in the day-to-day running of Deep River, so yeah, busy.
But still, she could be handy with a hammer. She was an independent person who much preferred taking care of others to being taken care of herself, especially by persistent men with painted-on ears.
“Zeke,” she said, striving to keep a grip on her patience. “If I need help with the place, I’ll be sure to let you know. But right now—”
Zeke walked off abruptly yet again, going back to the porch and climbing the stairs.
What. The. Hell?
“Hey,” she called, going after him and hurrying up the steps and onto the porch. “Where are you going?”
He vanished around the corner again and so she followed, catching up as he strode to her front door.
“Hey!” she repeated. “Zeke, you can’t just—”
Zeke pulled open the front door and stepped inside as if he owned the place.
The bear is in your house now, Goldilocks.
Ignoring that aggravating thought and trying to hold on to her thinning patience, Morgan went after him.
He stood in the entranceway, giving everything another of those slow, careful scans. The space was high ceilinged, with big wooden beams crisscrossing overhead, and it had always felt echoing to Morgan, especially when she’d been a kid. Like a church, her mother, who’d never liked the house, used to mutter darkly. But with Zeke’s massive form standing there filling the space, it felt…small almost.
He glanced up at the big chandelier a West ancestor had made out of deer antlers that her mother had always wanted to get rid of but her father had insisted needed to stay.
“Light fitting could use replacing.” His voice was very deep and rumbling, a bit like the river when it flooded. Or an avalanche. “I bet the electrical work in this place could do with a look over.”
Morgan put her cop face on. “Zeke Montgomery.”
“What?” He didn’t even spare her a glance. “If you’re gonna arrest me, then get on with it.”
But she’d gone off that idea. It wasn’t worth the aggravation.
“I’m not sure I can be bothered.” She eyed up his tall form. “Are you always this annoying?”
He frowned at something he’d obviously spotted on the ceiling. “Yes.” Then he turned and walked calmly through the doorway to the left that led into the big living room.
Lord, give her strength. What was with this guy?
Morgan found herself following him yet again, this time into the living room. “You know that walking away from people without a word is rude, don’t you?”
Zeke had gone down to where the fireplace was, looking at it and frowning yet again. “I didn’t walk away without a word. I said yes.” Crouching down in a surprisingly fluid movement for a man so large, he leaned forward into the hearth to peer up the chimney.
There had been no sarcasm in his voice, or at least none that she could detect, so maybe he genuinely thought that his curt “yes” wasn’t rude. Maybe he genuinely thought that turning and walking away before a conversation had ended was fine too.
Taciturn and stubborn, Cal had told her about Zeke. A man of few words.
She gave him a more appraising look, the tug of curiosity deepening.
The way he’d twisted himself revealed that it wasn’t only his jeans that had holes in them. The faded black Henley he wore underneath his parka also had some holes, through which she could see bare, bronzed skin.
For some reason, the sight made heat rise in her cheeks.
She shoved it away, concentrating instead on the holes and not on the skin beneath it. Huh. Looked like he’d been living rough for quite some time, at least if the state of his clothes was anything to go by. Where had he been? And why?
Perhaps that was why he was also being such a stubborn, persistent ass. Perhaps he hadn’t been around people in a while. Sometimes that happened to hunters and trappers who’d been in the bush too long. They simply forgot how to interact.
Morgan’s annoyance, though intense while it lasted, never lingered, and it quickly faded now.
Out of the three of Cal’s friends he’d owned the supply and transport service Wild Alaska Aviation with, she knew Silas the best since Silas had grown up here. Damon was a transplant from LA, whom she’d only gotten to know once he’d moved to Deep River weeks earlier, but Zeke had remained an enigma, no matter what Cal had told her about him.
She wasn’t really a fan of enigmas, not when oil had been discovered in her town and she had people to protect. The townsfolk had taken the oil news pretty well and had successfully managed to resist the lure of the oil company flashing money about in return for their leases and drilling rights, yet it still paid to be vigilant.
Her family might not own the town anymore, but she still had a duty to it.
Morgan chewed on her lip, examining Zeke’s muscular form.
One of Cal’s friends wasn’t going to be a threat to the town. And hey, if he wanted to do a few odd jobs around the house, why not take advantage of the free labor? Especially when he seemed hellbent on doing them.
But he could give her a little something in return too. Information about himself for example.
Zeke shoved himself back from the fireplace and rose to his full height, dusting his hands off on his jeans. “Chimney’s good.”
“Well, thank God for that,” Morgan said. “I might have a giant stranger who doesn’t listen to a word I say in my house, but at least the chimney’s good.”
He studied her from beneath ridiculously long, thick black lashes and didn’t smile. “Yes, that’s what I said.”
Right, so in addition to being rude, he didn’t have a sense of humor as well. Had he somehow lost it out in the bush? Or had he never had one at all?
The curiosity inside her deepened further, along with a weird echo of the unsteadiness she’d felt out on the porch. A small flutter, like a firefly flying around in a jar.
Strange. She had no idea where that had come from.
“Where have you been, Zeke?” she asked. “And why are you here now?”
He hooked his thumbs into the pockets of his jeans, a classic dude pose. “I told you. I’m here because Caleb asked me.”
Morgan gave him her cop stare. “I’m afraid I’m going to need more than that.”