Mina.

​

While I wait for Grayson, the hum beneath my skin returns full force. I try to work it off by pacing, then, when that doesn’t work, by downing more wine. As a last resort, I take the hottest shower I can tolerate. I decide I need to wash today’s dirt off regardless, though I have trouble explaining why I put makeup on afterward.

​

I pace some more. The buzz rises to a fever pitch.

​

I am not, I think, even remotely prepared to face a clone of my dead husband. But after sixty-seven minutes of agonizing anticipation, when a knock cuts through the percussive burble of the fire and I swing the door open to find six feet and three inches of man on my doorstep, my first thought is not that he looks like Michael.

​

Nope. He’s even more attractive.

​

Grayson props one elbow against the doorframe and looks down with drawn brows. His hair is longer than Michael’s ever was, the rich gold waves feathering against his cheekbones. The scar on his eyebrow glints in the firelight, and that, coupled with the leather jacket and dark jeans, gives him a faintly dangerous air, as if I’ve opened the door for a battle-worn tiger, already coiled and ready to pounce.

​

A tingle sweeps through me. Too late, I question the wisdom of allowing a stranger to drive out to my remote cabin in the middle of the night.

​

“Hi,” I say.

​

“Hi.” The furrow between Grayson’s brows deepens. “Are you okay?”

​

I fiddle with my hair, tucking the ends behind my ears. “Should I not be?”

​

“I don’t know. You tell me. I wasn’t sure if you’d throw up. Or pass out.”

​

I feel myself out. Neither seems imminent. “Do women often vomit when they first meet you? Or lose consciousness?”

​

The ghost of a smile touches his mouth. “I haven’t gotten those reactions yet, no. But it’s not every day that your husband’s identical twin shows up.”

​

I smooth down my sweater with both hands. “You know, I think I’m okay. You don’t actually look like him. I mean, you do. But not as much as I expected.”

​

He gives me a skeptical look. “People always say the opposite.”

​

“No, really. Compared to Michael, you’re much more...” Raw, I want to say, because a single glance tells me Grayson’s past contains something cataclysmic. Unlike his brother, he wears his pain openly. It glitters there in the blue-green ice of his eyes, buried in plain view instead of behind a locked door.

​

“Good-looking?” he says hopefully.

​

The corners of my mouth curl. That, too, but I don’t give him the satisfaction. “Wounded.”

​

“Oh.” He abandons his lean against the doorframe. “Well, shit. That’s not what I was going for at all.”

​

I step back. “Do you want to come in?”

​

“Yeah. Thanks.” He ventures over the threshold, his eyes sweeping the room. I can’t tell if he’s cataloging the kitschy coziness or scanning for bears hiding behind the wicker furniture, but when he flips the lock and draws the latch chain, I suspect the latter.

​

“I don’t think that’s going to stop that mama bear if she wants to get in,” I say.

​

“Can’t hurt.”

​

“I guess not.” A flush creeps into my cheeks. With him here, I suddenly have the urge to hide. He’s so big, and so close, and... God, I’d forgotten how tall Michael was.

​

“Even if you’re not going to puke,” he says, “you do look like you could use a drink.”

​

I wonder if that’s code for him needing a drink, but decide it doesn’t matter. My years of abstention with Michael were all about moral support, and I’m not the booze police. With a nod, I go to the kitchen and pour two cups this time.

​

I return to find Grayson standing by the fire.

​

The sight of him glaring down into the flames like he’s contemplating some life-or-death decision stops me in my tracks. He’s laid his jacket over the daybed, revealing a body that’s honed and carved in ways even Michael’s never was. I already knew from those photos, but seeing it in real time astonishes me. His dark green T-shirt accentuates his musculature and reveals two tattoos—a lion on his upper arm, inked in black except for sapphire eyes so vibrant they seem to glow, and some kind of Celtic knot work adorning the inside of his opposite forearm.

​

I shake myself and hand off the wine, which he reduces by half in a span of moments. “Cabernet,” he says. “Nice. I always was a fan.”

​

“Me, too. Sorry about the paper cups. It’s all I have.”

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“No problem. Wine is wine.”

​

“True.” I nod at the tattoos. “What do those mean?”

​

He shrugs. “Nothing in particular. I just liked the way they looked.”

​

I study the lion, which stares right back. Michael didn’t have any tattoos. Neither do I, so I can’t say from experience, but I’ve always assumed people have some deep meaning in mind when they get one. “None of your tattoos have any significance?”

​

“I didn’t say that.” His eyelids flicker. “One of them does.”

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I know without asking which one he means. The one he doesn’t let anyone see.

​

My eyes stray to his chest. A few buttons adorn the neck of his shirt, only half of which are done up. The inky end of something oblong and pointed—a stylized leaf, maybe?—peeps at me from the curve of his pectoral muscle.

​

I tell myself to stop staring, but the urge to know more pushes questions against my lips. And from the way Grayson’s watching me, intently and with half-hooded eyes, I have the strangest sense that if I asked, he’d strip off his shirt right now and let me see for myself...​

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