If You Hear Her: A Novel of Romantic Suspense Read Free

degrees, but he didn’t let it slow him down.
    Nope, he was going to get this damn deck built before fall. He wanted it done so he could spend the cool—assuming it cooled off—fall nights out on the deck, staring into nothingness while he contemplated the best way to waste the rest of his life.
    “Anything other than carpentry,” he muttered. “Anything.”
    Once he got through the damned, do-it-yourself hell that was this house, he was done with hammers. At least that was what he told himself. Part of him enjoyed it, though. It was kind of cool, watching something unfold in front of you, something that started with just a bare wisp of an idea. Hard work, money, and sweat was all it took to make that idea into reality.
    Ezra had been raised to appreciate the value of hard work—he’d hated it at the time, but now it served him well. Nothing worth having came for free. A guy wants something, he works for it or pays for it. Otherwise, he doesn’t get it—doesn’t deserve it. That was life.
    Like this deck. Ezra wanted it, he wanted it done his way, and he didn’t want to pay somebody else to do it for him—he might have some money tucked away, but if he wanted it to last, he had to be careful. So here he was, doing it himself. But damn, he’d be glad when it was done.
    Around lunchtime, he stopped, but only because his stomach was growling so loud he could hear it over the hammer. After a messy BLT and half a pitcher of iced tea, he headed back outside and once more fell into a rhythm, hammering nails into the wood, fetching another, and another.
    He lost track of time, his mind blanking out on him.
    Stripped down to a pair of low-slung khaki shorts and tennis shoes, he worked. A red bandanna held his sweat-dampened brown hair back from his face and sunglasses hid green eyes.
    He had a pretty face, a fact he’d been told more than once in his life. Back in school, he’d gotten into more than a few fights because of it. It was just a face, his dad’s face, with his mom’s green eyes.
    Having that face was both a curse and blessing, as far as he saw it. Girls had been flirting with him for as long as he could remember, even before he was old enough to really understand what flirting was. As he got older and started school, all the pretty little girls who flirted with him ended up catching the attention of the boys in his grade and more than once, that had gotten him into trouble.
    Eventually, he got to the point where he enjoyed all the flirting enough to ignore the teasing that was directed his way. At least, most of the time.
    In his junior year of high school, he got into a fight with one of the other players on the basketball team. His nose was broken in that fight and he was also forced to quit the team after his folks got the call from school.It had seemed harsh at the time, but looking back, he was glad he had parents who loved him enough to be strict, who loved him enough to enforce their rules, even when it hurt.
    To his mother’s dismay and his own delight, his nose hadn’t healed perfectly straight. That slight crook to his nose made his face just a little less pretty.
    Over the years, Ezra hadn’t changed much. The dimples in his cheeks had deepened to slashes. He shaved in the morning, but come late afternoon, that five o’clock shadow made its appearance. He was still long and lean, although he’d finally put some weight on in college, thanks to lifting weights.
    Now, those muscles were warm and loose. Even the screwed-up muscles in his right thigh. He’d taken a bullet in that leg six months earlier, which was why he was living out here in Ash, Kentucky. He’d walked away from his job, from his badge, and he didn’t think he wanted to go back.
    He knew his leg would hurt like a bitch later once the muscles tightened up on him. It would be hell come nightfall. But he’d deal with it then.
    The deck was shaping up pretty damn good, he had to admit.
    He took another short break around three