“Nancy Hall please,” Dylan said with his eyes on the brunette, who’s name he didn’t know. “Hey, Nancy, it’s Dylan. I’m just giving a lift to a woman, her car has broken down, and she thinks my business card is from a cereal packet. You want to reassure her I’m not a fake?”

Nancy laughed, and then told the woman he was legit.

“Satisfied yet?” Dylan pocketed his cell.”

“Thank you, I will accept.”

The words came out dripping with ice. Dylan opened the passenger door and she got in with a mumbled “Thanks,” then he walked around the hood to get into the driver side. He fired up his Range Rover, and soon they were heading to Ryker Falls.

She spent the journey looking right, and Dylan straight ahead; neither made an effort to speak, and the tension in the car climbed. Her scent teased his nostrils. Soft and sexy, it wrapped around him, tugging at something inside him he rarely felt. A need to communicate, a need to get to know this woman better. He shut it down. Dylan didn’t make friends, lifetime connections, or anything in that category. He didn’t want to know her name either. She would forever be the nameless woman with attitude that he’d one day forget.

It wasn’t like he didn’t date women—hell, he even liked a few of them enough to call acquaintances—but right at this moment he was tense and he wasn’t interested in being nice.

He exhaled when he saw the sign announcing Ryker Falls. He’d drop her off and hopefully forget about her. The town wasn’t big, but he was sure if they saw each other again, there’d be no eye contact.

“What?”

“I didn’t speak.” He shot her a look.

“You exhaled loudly.”

“And that’s meant to mean something?”

She didn’t reply, just sat there radiating pissed-off-ness.

Situated at the foot of two mountains, Ryker Falls was named after its founding fathers. The mountains were called Roxy and Phil, after the original Ryker twins. He felt something settle heavy in his chest as he studied them. He’d done his fair share of tramping over them in his youth, and up to the falls where he’d often met a girl and spent some time getting to know her better behind the waterfall.

Heading his car down the main street, he took in the changes. Saw the fancy new storefronts that in his day had housed basics like the butcher and drugstore. Now there were homewares, a tea shop—that one was a shock—and clothing places. Tourists, he’d read, made up most of the income in Ryker now.

Fancy frosted globes sat in black wrought iron streetlamps, and people were everywhere. That was the biggest shock, the number of people walking up and down the streets. He’d left a sleepy little town, but not now.