“You obviously don’t know her,” he spat.

“Don’t need to know her to know you never got call to treat a woman like that,” the stranger returned. He waited the barest of moments before he continued, “You’re still standin’ there.”

Conrad scowled at him then turned that scowl to me. “This isn’t done.”

The stranger moved, leaning forward an inch, and Conrad instantly (and wisely) turned his attention back to him. It was wise because I only got the back of it, but I still knew that inch was a significantly threatening inch.

He glared at the stranger for a second before he turned and stalked to the drive where he’d parked his Yukon.

I stood and watched.

The stranger stood and watched.

Only after Conrad got in, reversed out too quickly and took off even more quickly, did the stranger turn around to face me.

I looked up into his eyes realizing that it hadn’t been a figment of my imagination just minutes before.

They were the most beautiful eyes I’d ever seen.

“You okay?” he asked.

The honest answer to that was that I wasn’t. I hadn’t been for years. Decades. Perhaps my entire life.

“Yes,” I answered.

His eyes moved over my face. The sensation was pleasant at the same time disconcerting.

Before I could get a lock on how both of these could be, he shoved a hand my way. “Mickey Donovan.”

I looked at his hand and so as not to appear rude, I didn’t study it like I wanted to. The squared off fingers, the closely clipped nails, the roughness, the strength, the sureness.

Instead, I took it, raised my eyes to his and said, “Amelia Moss…I mean, Hathaway.”

His fingers remained warm and strong around mine in a way I liked before he let me go and asked as if to confirm, “Amelia Hathaway?”

“Yes. I, well…I was Amelia Moss. I’ve recently changed it back to my maiden name. That was my ex-husband.” I tipped my head to the drive and went on hesitantly, “We have a…somewhat rocky history.”

He nodded once, doing it shortly, taking that in as understood without making a big deal of it or asking anything further, something that brought me relief and made me like this Mickey Donovan even more.

“I’m really sorry you had to step in on that,” I said.

“No problem,” he replied, shaking his head and flipping out a hand. “Woulda done it just if I saw it but,” he grinned a highly attractive, somewhat roguish grin that made my stomach flip, “I’m your neighbor.”

He twisted his torso and threw a long arm out toward the street to indicate an attractive, somewhat rambling, one-story, weathered, gray shingle-sided house with pristine white woodwork around the windows, eaves and front door.

I stared at the house he occupied, a house that was right across the street, feeling a number of emotions. Elation and terror, however, reigned supreme.

He turned back to me. “We have to look out for our neighbors.”