by Emma Castle
Devastate Me
A Next-door Neighbor Romance
Emma Castle
Emma Castle Books
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Love in the Wild
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Other Titles By Emma Castle
About the Author
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright (c) 2020 by Emma Castle
Cover Art by Pretty Little Design Co.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitutes unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
ISBN: 978-1-952063-20-6 (e-book edition)
ISBN: 978-1-952063-21-3 (paperback edition)
For my father who served in Vietnam as an engineer in the Construction Battalion. I’m proud to be his daughter.
1
“Who is that?” Ophelia Wescott asked her new neighbor as they finished carrying in the last few boxes of Ophelia’s belongings into the starter home she’d just purchased.
“Who?” the neighbor in question, Miranda Oakland, asked with a grunt as she set the box she’d been hauling down on the living room floor. Miranda was older than Ophelia, close to forty-five, as opposed to Ophelia, who was twenty-four, but Miranda was fun and energetic, and the age difference didn’t even seem to exist between them. Ophelia had taken to her instantly when she’d introduced herself a few hours ago after the moving van had pulled into the driveway.
Ophelia approached the wide window in her living room and pointed to the house on her left. “That. Who is that?”
There, mowing the lawn, was the most attractive man Ophelia had ever seen. He was at least six foot three, with dark hair the color of chocolate and a body that made a woman’s thighs clench.
Miranda shadowed her at the window, and when she saw where Ophelia was pointing, she chuckled.
“Oh. That, my dear, is Colt Henshaw.” Miranda sighed. “Isn’t he gorgeous? Wait until you see those whiskey colored hazel eyes of his.”
Ophelia leaned against the window as Colt stopped pushing the lawnmower and pulled his shirt up to wipe the sweat away from his face. The simple action showed the sharp vee of his abdominal muscles as they disappeared beneath his black basketball shorts. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on Colt, as far as Ophelia could tell.
Miranda pretended to fan her face. “He has that effect on all of us. But don’t expect him to notice you. It’s not personal. He keeps to himself. Robert talked to him at one of the homeowners’ meetings when he first moved here two years ago. He’s a former Navy SEAL, I think.”
“Really?”
“According to my husband, anyway.”
Ophelia sighed. A Navy SEAL, just like the heroes in those romance novels she read. Of course, reality was nothing like those books. It was still fun to dream, though.
“Come on,” Miranda said. “Let’s get the rest of the boxes from your porch so you can send the movers home early.”
“Thanks.” Ophelia appreciated her new friend’s help. She was new to Havensport and still a little tight on money. Sending the movers home early would save her a few bucks. Thankfully, she would be starting her new job tomorrow. Even though it would be a Sunday, she liked the work and didn’t mind the unique schedule of working Sunday to Thursday.
“So, what’s your job again?” Miranda asked as they each grabbed a box and headed back inside.
“I’m an online stylist. I select outfits, clothes, shoes, and accessories for clients based on their fashion profile, and then my company mails a box to them with the items I’ve chosen. They try the items on and buy what they like.”
“Hmm, what will they think of next?” Miranda smiled at her, and then Ophelia quickly met the movers at the door as they carried in the last piece of furniture. While she was standing outside and writing a check for the movers, she caught a glimpse of Colt, who’d finished mowing and was now carrying an assortment of gardening tools. He halted at the invisible line between their two yards and knelt by a flower bed. Now she had a better chance to see his face. He had one of those masculine square jaws, outlined by a short beard. She’d never seen the appeal of a beard before, but on Colt? It was hot. A little too hot.
“You’re as cute as a button, honey, but I promise you, that man isn’t looking for anyone or anything. Best not to get your hopes up.”
Ophelia sighed and turned away from the window. Miranda was right. Colt was a little too sexy, and she’d never had much luck with overly attractive guys anyway. She was only five foot two and a bit too much on the curvy side. Her last boyfriend had dumped her for a tall, leggy blonde. As a result, she’d decided to move—she wanted a fresh start in a new city. So she’d packed up her life and used her savings to buy this house. She wanted no regrets, and that included being shot down by her beyond hot, emotionally unavailable next-door neighbor.
Colt always knew when he was being watched. After serving fourteen years in the navy, he’d never lost that sixth sense of heightened awareness. He sat back on his knees by his front flower beds to pull weeds from the red azaleas in front of his house and shot a covert glance at the house to his right. The subtlety of this move would have made his former commanding officer proud.
The moving truck was pulling away, and his new neighbor was watching him through the large front window of her house. She had also watched him mow the lawn. He was used to the women in the neighborhood eyeing him anytime he was outdoors.
Last summer he’d been digging holes to plant tulip bulbs when two of the more aggressive divorcées in the neighborhood had actually parked folding chairs across the street, sipping margaritas as they ogled his ass like he was part of the Magic Mike crew in Vegas. He had allowed it, but he sure as hell hadn’t liked it. He liked his privacy. He liked being left the hell alone.
Colt had a strange sense that his new neighbor was going to change everything. He had caught a glimpse of her, and she was a sweet young thing with big dark eyes and hair as black as a raven’s wing. Her skin was a creamy pale like alabaster. He sure as hell didn’t want to get interested in her. He was done with that sort of thing. He’d been burned, and he wasn’t about to let this sweetheart next door get anywhere near him. She looked like she carried a pocketful of matches that just might set him ablaze.
He finished up his weeding and headed inside. His German shepherd, Noah, was watching him with dark, serious eyes from his favorite perch on the couch backed up against the window facing the street. At the sight of Colt, Noah’s tongue lolled out, making him look like he was smiling. The dog had been trained to sniff out explosives, and after three tours of duty in Iraq, Noah had been allowed to retire. Colt had signed up to adopt the dog, and the two of them had stuck together. Given his rocky upbringing, Colt rarely spoke to his parents, and he had no siblings. Noah was the closest thing he had to family now.
Colt took a quick shower and changed into jeans and a T-shirt. Noah was
waiting for him at the back door to the garage. “You want to go see the boys?” he asked as he retrieved Noah’s leash.
The dog sat patiently, tail thumping as Colt leashed him up and then they got in his truck. He drove through the tiny main street of Havensport toward the VA center, where Noah worked on the weekends.
“Come on, boy.” Colt led the shepherd into the center, and they were immediately surrounded by men and women, nearly all of them recovering from injuries, both physical and mental.
One man missing an arm from the elbow down had a big goofy grin on his face as he knelt to rub the dog’s head. “Hey there, Noah. You’re a good boy, aren’t you?”
Colt gave the man a nod. “Hey, Charlie. How’s the arm?”
“Wouldn’t know. It’s still somewhere in Afghanistan.” Charlie laughed. “But seriously, the phantom pain is lessening now.”
Colt looked at the other men and women who were crowded around the room. Each and every one had something they had sacrificed for their country. For some, the cost was physical. For others, it was mental. Colt had his share of scars like all the rest, but he’d suffered more emotionally in the end. While Colt didn’t have night terrors or ever worry about hurting anyone near him, he had enough bad memories and nightmares to last him a lifetime. Yet at the same time, he knew he was luckier than the men and women here.
Colt unclipped Noah’s leash and stood back, letting the therapy dog do his thing. Noah walked respectfully up to each veteran he encountered, sniffing their hands and letting the people pet him. There was a quiet nobility to the dog, as though he knew just how much his gentle, healing presence meant to the bruised and battered souls here. It made Colt proud to be Noah’s owner. Not that he viewed Noah as property. They were a two-member unit. A family.
“Hey, Colt.” Nancy, a former army sergeant, came over to him. These days, she helped run the VA center and took care of everyone like a mother hen. She offered a smile that made Colt relax. She was beautiful, with dark skin, rich brown eyes, and a head of tight black curls that reflected her natural excitement for life by the way they bounced on her shoulders.
“Hey, Nance, how’s things?”
“Not bad.” Nancy chuckled as Noah licked an older veteran’s face enthusiastically. Then she turned back to Colt. “I heard from Dean.”
Colt’s entire body went rigid with fury.
“He was asking about you,” Nancy continued carefully. “Wanting to know how often you came to the center.”
“Wish I could say I give a fuck,” Colt growled.
“Colt, I know what happened between you. I know it was bad, but you can choose to let it go, you know.”
“When a man comes home from war, he doesn’t expect to find his fiancée in bed with his best friend.”
Colt wished more than anything that he could erase that memory. He’d come home from the naval base, exhausted, still recovering from a knife wound he’d gotten three weeks before. He’d dropped his bags on the floor and headed into the bedroom, only to find Talia with Dean, his best friend and fellow Navy SEAL. And they weren’t talking over a cup of coffee while waiting for him.
His stomach still turned at the memory. He had taken one look at their faces, flushed with passion, and a part of him had died. He’d grabbed his bags, called a cab, and was halfway down the street before the cab found him. He hadn’t even looked back. He’d returned to the naval base and made plans to move the next day.
“If Dean comes here looking for you . . . ,” Nancy began.
“Tell him I’m dead.” Colt was deadly serious. Whatever lay between him and his former friend was gone.
“Okay, tough guy, I get it,” Nancy said with a wry smile. “So, what’s new with you? Still afraid to go out and have fun?”
“I’m not afraid. I just don’t want to.” He said this a little too gruffly, which only made Nancy laugh.
She had never been afraid of him or what she called his “Heathcliff-like broody demeanor.” He’d once asked her what she meant by that, and she’d handed him a book titled Wuthering Heights. He had never read much as a kid. Neither of his parents had been much for reading to him, or fostering a love of books.
After Nancy’s teasing, though, he’d decided to read Wuthering Heights. He’d devoured that book, and it had actually spawned a love of reading. And Nancy had been right—he was the antihero Heathcliff, dark and brooding and holding on to an anger from a past wrong.
Anger was an emotion he understood. It was one he could control. It didn’t drown him like despair or choke him like grief. It gave him fuel so he could face the day.
“Well, don’t try to have too much fun, handsome. You’ll break every girl’s heart.” Nancy stood up on tiptoe and brushed her lips over his cheek before she walked away.
Colt frowned as he put Noah’s leash back on and took him home. He needed to hit the grocery store after he dropped Noah off, since he wanted some steaks to grill tonight. He just hoped he didn’t run into any of those damned nosy housewives, or his new neighbor. There was only so much temptation a man could take, and the sweetheart next door had irresistible written all over her.
Ophelia stared at her empty fridge. It was plugged in and running, but it was completely bare, just like her cupboards. There was nothing left to do but go shopping. Normally she wouldn’t mind that, but she was bone-weary from putting everything away and setting up her furniture the way she wanted. She grabbed her keys and purse and, with a resigned little sigh, left her new house. She really wished she had a few days to properly settle in before starting her new job, but at least she was working from home.
The grocery store in Havensport was small, but Miranda had assured her earlier that afternoon that it had everything she might need. As she parked and walked into the store, the sun was resting on the tops of the trees, painting the world in a beautiful golden glow. It was lovely here in this small coastal town. She might never have moved here if it hadn’t been for an article on social media about how it was one of the quietest and loveliest places to live in Oregon.
Ophelia grabbed a shopping cart and started to peruse the aisles, trying to think of all the things she needed for the next week or so. She turned the corner and maneuvered around a huge tower of tuna cans that formed an endcap display, only to jerk to a halt at the sight of her new neighbor standing at the meat counter fifteen feet away.
Colt was leaning on the curved glass counter, talking to the butcher behind it. Ophelia ran her gaze over his hard, lean, and thoroughly developed body. His jeans hugged him just right, and his T-shirt clung to his broad shoulders and tapered waist like it had been painted on. He was sheer gorgeous masculine perfection with those high cheekbones and his square jaw. Her mouth ran dry at the sight of his forearms and the way his muscles flexed when he moved. His lips were fuller than she remembered, yet despite their innate sensuality, she knew they could purse into a foreboding scowl.
Colt accepted a package of meat from the butcher and set it into his basket before turning her way. In a panic, Ophelia swung her cart away, only to run into the endcap display of tuna. With a loud crash, the metal cans fell in an avalanche. Ophelia stumbled on the rolling discs and fell, her ankle twisting as she accidentally stepped on one of the cans.
“Ouch!” Her cart shot away from her as she cried out, heading straight toward a stand of locally harvested honey in glass jars. She closed her eyes, desperate not to see the inevitable disaster about to unfold.
But nothing happened. Colt had somehow bolted ahead and caught the front of her runaway cart, stopping it before it hit the jars. She opened her eyes and then saw him set his own small basket down and come over to her. His face darkened with a stony expression that made her light-headed. If he started yelling at her in the store, she’d make a run for it . . . assuming she could even walk right now. She tried to stand and winced as her ankle twinged. She could put her weight on it, but she wasn’t running anywhere.
Colt’s hand gripped her upper arm, holding her steady
. She stared up at his face as he pushed her cart back into her hands, giving her something to lean on.
“You okay, sweetheart?” His rumbling voice sent wild shivers of excitement through her. God, she’d never reacted to a man’s voice like that before. And he’d called her sweetheart. Why was that so sexy? It shouldn’t be, should it? Yet she wanted to melt into a puddle at his feet the second he called her that.
“I . . . Yeah, my ankle just got a little twisted.” She tried to shake the sudden fog of desire that rose up around her. She was supposed to be focusing on being on her own, starting a new life and career, not dating. But that was hard to do when someone like this was standing so close. The man was a solid wall of masculinity that made her tremble.
“Your ankle?” His hazel eyes swept down her legs with hawklike precision. She flushed as she realized she must look like crap right now, dressed in a pair of old shorts and a T-shirt. Her hair was even pulled up in a messy bun. This was not how she had pictured having her first—or any—face-to-face meeting with Colt. It wasn’t fair that men could shower and throw on clothes and look fine, but women needed to schedule in advance.
Colt’s dark brows lowered with obvious frustration at her lack of response. “Can you walk?”
“Yes. I can.” She would walk out of there even if it killed her. Stupid tuna cans . . . She wasn’t a klutz, but he would probably assume she was now.
“Good. You sure know how to make an entrance, sweetheart.” He extended his hand and said, “I’m your new neighbor, Colt Henshaw.”
Ophelia placed her hand in his and his warm hand closed around hers in a surprisingly gentle squeeze despite his strength.
