His eyes were soft and deep. Gentle. He was everything she’d ever dreamed of, she thought. Why was there some part of her that wanted to run? He wouldn’t hurt her. He wasn’t the kind of man to be afraid of. Not like … She couldn’t quite complete that thought, and it made her worry.

“Of course,” he said, reaching out to smooth her forehead with a thumb. It seemed as though her worries fled before his touch like birds flushing before a wolf. “Jailbait indeed.”

“How old are you?” she asked, because turnabout was fair play.

“Older than you,” he said with a wry smile. “Here, move over. I’m doing the driving tonight.”

She climbed over the center console obediently and put the seat belt on. She pressed her face into the leather and inhaled. It smelled of mint and musk and … something familiar. Something safe.

“What are you doing?” he asked her, a smile in his voice.

“It smells good,” she said, feeling as though she was being held, warmth against a storm. She pulled up the flannel shirt and found herself huddling down deep. Some part of her was lying low, and that part thought that the shirt was a way to hide.

“Are you cold?” asked Zander. He turned up the heat and then started forward without waiting for her answer. “I thought you might bring something waterproof. It’s going to rain tonight.”

“I don’t mind the rain,” she said truthfully, pressing her cheek against the window and staring out into the darkness. Her right leg began bouncing with her growing agitation. It was probably the storm that had her tense. There was such energy in the air.

The dash lights hollowed out his cheeks and hid his eyes. For a moment he looked like a stranger. She averted her eyes and saw the big Sasquatch statue.

“Do you think,” she said, because it felt like the right question, “that Sasquatches are as big as that statue?”

“I’ve never seen one,” he said shortly. He lied.

“I have.” Which was a lie, too, right? But it didn’t feel like a lie. She had never been in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest before.

What was she doing here? In this car with this beautiful stranger? She made a sound like a whine. There was something wrong. She wanted … not her dad. She wanted … She reached for the door handle, though they were going faster than the thirty-five-miles-per-hour speed limit.

He started singing. There were words to his song, but they weren’t in English. Or any other language she’d ever heard.

“Not Pachelbel,” she said as her hand dropped away from the door.

He didn’t quit singing, but she could hear the smile in his voice.