“How about you get up and use the bathroom before going back to bed?”

Dad muttered something else unintelligible but grasped her hand as she led him out of bed, shuffling beside her in his strange, stooped posture.

“Excuse me,” she called to where Wilder was sitting. Or had been sitting. The rocking chair was empty.

“Yeah?”

He stood in the hall, behind her. Close enough she could smell pine, shaving cream, and the faint scent of honey. She fought the temptation to turn and burrow her face into his broad chest, sniffing deep and long. Instead, she refocused her grip on Dad’s hand.

“I need to take him into your bathroom.”

“I heard. I came to take him myself.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Your dad might not know what’s happening, but trust me, he’d rather not have his daughter watching him take a leak. It’s no big deal. The bathroom is off the back. He’ll be out in a minute.”

She released Dad and he smiled at Wilder, offering his hand, looking so much like a trusting boy that it was almost impossible to swallow the knot in her throat.

Dad never went to a new person willingly.

Wilder must send out some sort of good vibe, some wavelength Dad picked up on. Or she’d spent way too much time on the California coast. Good vibes? Wavelengths?

“What’s so funny?” Wilder asked, back again with all his faint yet distracting manly smells. He stood, shoulders relaxed, casual, as if the two of them in a dark narrow hallway was no big deal.

And it wasn’t a big deal.

It wasn’t.

“Hey.” She cleared her throat, hearing Dad opening the door. “Do you have a book I can borrow? My dad likes me to read to him before bed. It might settle him down.”

“You know I have books.”

“I mean, may I use one for an hour or so. I don’t want to presume—”

“Shelves are through there.” He pointed. “My bedroom.”

She froze. “You stash books in your bedroom?”

“That’s where I read them so . . .”

Good lord, the man liked to read in bed too? The idea of his bare chest bathed in lamplight while he furrowed that strong brow over a hardcover created a flurry of butterflies that transformed into water buffalo, trammeling her insides to mush.

Come on, this is so not fair, fate. Really not fair.

“Light is on your left,” he called.

“Got it.” She walked through the door and ran her hand over the wall to find the switch, flicking it on. If she hoped to discover any clues about the mysterious man, this room wasn’t yielding answers. There was a full-sized four-poster bed covered with a plain green down comforter, a framed poster of Mount Whitney, a bedside table with a half-full glass of water. And then . . . oh. Okay. Now we are talking.

Two large pine bookshelves bracketed either side of the window, stuffed with books. Many she recognized. Many she had sent herself.

Never in a million years did she expect to ever see them again.

As she stood, staring at the titles, she became aware of something else. The room smelled good.

It smelled like him.

“See anything you like?” With the light on, his face was clear for the first time that night. None of those rough features could ever be described as handsome. But he had that quality, the elusive and indefinable spark that made you look a second time, everything an interesting paradox. Wide brutal lips, but at the same time, the idea of them fastened to her skin made her dizzy. His hair tumbled in every direction, thick, dark, and shaggy, grazing his shirt’s collar, and yet the texture invited touch, and those eyes held a magnetic longing, as if compelling her to give . . . what?

Good God, get it together, woman. He’d notice her legs shaking in another second, rattling the floorboard. “Anything I like? Um . . . yes . . . this.” She grabbed blindly, realizing it was Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Good enough.

“Interesting choice,” he rumbled. “Those stories were darker than I expected.”

It had been a long time since she had read any Grimm, but vague recollections hung over her. “They are pretty macabre, huh? Death. Doom. Old ladies snacking on young children, etcetera.” She rubbed the front cover to avoid his intense scrutiny. The book seemed oddly perfect, like of course she’d read a fairy tale on such a windblown wintry night, hunkered in a little lost cabin down a strange lane, haunted by a brooding man who—

Dad coughed from the kitchen as a flood of guilt doused her warm heart in a cold splash of realism. What was she doing? Romantic thoughts had no place in her real world.

Not when she had to take care of Dad, handle his affairs. Not to mention that her own brain might be a ticking time bomb.

Better to keep her dreams confined to imagination. Live vicariously through plucky bluestockings and dashing dukes or wolf shifters or alpha tycoons. Those men might be dangerous on the page, but they were safe for a bookworm like her.

“You okay?” His deep voice broke up her train of thought.

She snapped up her head. “Huh?”

“I asked if you were okay. You made a face.”

“What kind?”

“A thinking one.” A note of amusement clung to his words.

She squashed her brows together, readjusting her glasses. Was he making fun of her? “Newsflash, I do have a brain.”

“I wasn’t hinting you were a scarecrow.”

She stared, lost.

He scanned the shelf and plucked another title, holding it up while arching a brow. The Wizard of Oz.

“Oh. Right. If I only had a brain.” Duh. “I’m not really winning any Mensa awards tonight.”

“You’re tired and worried.” He shelved the book. “Go take care of your dad and then think about getting some shut-eye yourself. You look as if you could use it. My bed is free.”

If she was befuddled before, now her brain turned to mashed potatoes. “Your bed?”

“Not with me.” He tripped over his words in haste and coughed into his fist. “I’ll settle out by the fire. You take my bed. It’s more comfortable.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Where else will you sleep?”

“The floor next to Dad.”

His expression turned stony. “You really think that I’ll let you curl up on the frigid floorboards?”

“I don’t think you are going to let me do anything,” she snapped, hackles up at his tone. “I make decisions for myself.”

“You will sleep in my bed.” He stepped forward, his flat tone suggesting the debate was over.

He clearly didn’t know who he was up against.

“I wouldn’t sleep in your bed in a million years.” He flinched at her riled-up response. Shiznits. She hadn’t meant the words as a personal insult, only as hyperbole. If truth were to be told, under vastly different circumstances, she’d be interested in sleeping in that bed all right—just not alone. No, she didn’t want to sleep on the ground, listening to Dad’s snoring but she also didn’t want to kick a guy out of his own room. Especially this tall, broody, Byronic stranger whom she’d already inconvenienced and who was dealing with a score of physical injuries.

“You’re as stubborn as a Missouri mule.” It didn’t sound like he offered the line as a compliment.

She bit the inside of her cheek. “Takes one to know one.” Good lord, this guy really brought out her sass.

He glowered down at her. She was tall but he was taller still. Made her five-foot-nine feel dainty, petite, which never happened.

She marched past him into the spare room where Dad stood next to the bed. “In you get,” she said, throwing back the sheets.

He responded easy as a child. Easier actually. The meds must be kicking in, coupled by exhaustion.

“You’ve had a big day, haven’t you?” She smoothed back his hair, feeling not for the first time like the parent rather than the child.

He nodded, probably not because he comprehended, but because she ended the sentence on an upward inflection. He answered every question with some sort of yes. She liked to take that as a sign of innate optimism.