I nodded with pursed lips. “Yes. Because you coming in here and saying you need to stay in my home because I couldn’t possibly be able to stay in my home alone, me, a thirty-three-year-old woman who has lived on her own her entire adult life without sticking my fingers in any light sockets.”

His lips twitched. Maggie, who was now obviously sick of this whole thing, abandoned her post at her master’s side and padded over to my fireplace, plopping herself down in front of it like she owned the place.

I was momentarily distracted by the dog and the way she made my home feel… complete.

Yes, it was the dog, not the man who gave me that feeling.

I needed to get a dog.

“Maggie can stay,” I decided, looking back at Rowan. “But you, sir, have to leave.”

Rowan’s lip was no longer just twitching. He was now smirking. I’d never seen him smirk. He looked really, really good smirking.

“Maggie goes where I go,” he informed me.

“Everywhere you go?” I countered.

He nodded.

“But you work construction.”

“I’m aware.”

I let out a puff of air. “You cannot take a dog on a construction site.”

“Tell that to Maggie,” he replied. “She’s been on site with me since she was a puppy.”

“That’s got to be against code.”

“We really talkin’ about construction code?” Rowan asked, obviously amused.

“No,” I frowned. “We’re talking about you. Not staying here. Nathan is not a problem.”

All twinkling and smirking ceased. “He’s not,” he shifted his position. “I watched his taillights leave town limits less than an hour ago.”

I blinked at him several times. “Excuse me?”

“Watched while he packed a bag then watched him get in his car and leave Jupiter.”

I tried to digest all of these details.

“Wait, you drove him out of town?” I asked. “You literally drove him out of town.” It wasn’t quite a question because the intensity in his eyes told me he wasn’t bullshitting, nor did he strike me as a man prone to hyperbole.

Rowan hummed in agreement. His demeanor was still somewhat intimidating, with the tight shoulders, the stiff jaw, those stormy eyes. But there was no longer that simmering intensity that had taken over the bakery earlier today. That still lingered on my skin. Something else had replaced it. Something slightly softer but no less powerful.

“But Nathan’s family has lived here for years,” I spluttered. “They were some of the founders, if you believe his mother, which I do not.”

Fiona and I were of the opinion that his family were the ones who likely pushed out the rightful settlers of this place—either with force or bribes… I thought it was the former—then buried the truth down deep in order to lord their power over everyone.

Rowan didn’t respond to this. Not so much of a shrug of his shoulders. Nothing. Just that intense, unwavering stare.

“He’s gone?” I repeated.

A nod.

Nathan had always been a big fish in a small pond. He’d spent all of the time we’d been together talking about how he was better than Jupiter. How this town was backward and stuck in the past, how the people were all small-minded idiots. I did not agree with him on any of that. Though I wasn’t one to push back on much, I pushed back when he talked shit about the town that had become my home and the people who had become my family.