Deep River Promise by Jackie Ashenden (cat reading book txt) 📕

“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 then 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, but it still paid to be vigilant.

Her family might not own the town anymore, yet 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 with painted-on ears 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