Chapter 3

He stepped up, one long leg before the other, and offered me a long, strong hand. “You must be Bolton.”

I grimaced. “Unfortunately, yes,” I said, slipping my hand into his, a stone wrapped in silk.

“Unfortunately?”

“Please call me Bo.”

He grinned. “I understand,” he said. “Beau.” His mouth emphasized the similarity to the French wordfor “handsome,” so when he said with a wink, “It suits you,” like that would be our little secret, my stomach flopped. I was at once ecstatic at the proposition of living in the same house as this man forthe foreseeable future, and deeply distraught that he was a blood relative.

“Where’s your stuff?” he asked me, casting a glance at my luggage.

“This is it here,” I said, shouldering my backpack and preparing to wheel my little blue suitcase into my new life.

“I mean your shooting stuff.”

My what? “Oh, like my gun?”

“For example.”

“Um…I’m kind of between guns at the moment,” I hedged. “I was hoping maybe you’d have one I could borrow.”