The lunch rush was dying down at the Coyote Moon on the square of Evansville, Texas. Even the sheriff and the mayor had abandoned their usual table and headed back to work. Cassidy Simon balanced three salads and carried them to the table of women by the front window. The scent of hair product overwhelmed the usual aroma of grilled steak and fried, well, everything.
“Cassidy, have you been to Liz’s new salon?” Heather Saldana asked as she scraped some of the olives to the side of her salad.
Since Cassidy’s hair was twisted into a claw clip on top of her head, Cassidy would have to say Heather knew she hadn’t.
“No, is it nice?” she asked, just to make conversation. Every penny she had was either put back into the RV park she’d built on her land to house the oilfield guys, or tucked into her escape fund. No way was she spending it on herself in a salon.
“Oh, it’s great. She’s made it really luxurious. The chairs are just heaven, and she has these stones for your feet. And she hired a manicurist from Houston.” Trinity waggled her fingers at Cassidy. “Aren’t these just perfect for wildflower season?”
Her nails were decorated like tiny wildflowers, each finger a different flower. They were, admittedly, adorable. Cassidy curled her own uneven nails out of sight.
“Victor’s coming home from a hitch tomorrow and I imagine my nails are all I’ll be wearing.” Heather nudged Victoria, who laughed.
Trinity turned to Cassidy. “You should totally go, but you need to make an appointment. She’s pretty busy already. I think everyone’s just so anxious to see what she’s done with the place.”
Liz had rented the store in the center of the block on the rundown square a few months back. Her plans for a modest salon had expanded as money started pouring into the town when the men found lucrative work in the oilfields and their wives started looking to spend the money. Places like that were few and far between in Evansville, but the boom was providing opportunities no one in their quiet little town had expected. Several residents had flocked to the fields. Including Cassidy’s ex, Mason, who’d started driving trucks and left her behind.
After Cassidy made an empty promise to check out the salon, she ensured her customers had all they needed before she made her escape to the kitchen.
“Lucky you,” Carla Martinez said, looking through her lashes at the three women at Cassidy’s table.
“What? Why?”
“They may be gossips, but they’re good tippers.”
Not in Cassidy’s experience, probably because they’d all gone to school together, though Heather, Trinity and Victoria had been a couple of years older. In a school the size of Evansville High, everyone knew everyone else.
“Think they’ll tip me enough to go get wildflower nails?” Cassidy asked, forcing a light tone.
Carla rolled her eyes. “Manicured nails are wasted on you, seriously. You’d just gnaw them off.”
“That’s not fair. I don’t bite my nails.”
“You just chew on them.” Carla hefted her purse on her shoulder, her shift over. “I’m outta here. Need me to do anything else before I go?”
Knowing Carla wanted some time alone before her kids got home from school, Cassidy made a shooing motion. “Go. Enjoy peace and quiet.”
Cassidy kept an eye on her remaining table while she did her side work. Unlike Carla, she was in no hurry to get home. Her peace and quiet was here, even during the lunch rush.
The door swung open—odd this late in the day—and a man Cassidy didn’t recognize walked in. He was a big guy, not uncommon in ranching country, but what was unusual was that he was alone. For a moment, she thought he’d join Heather, Trinity and Victoria, but he chose a table closer to the pool table.
He drew the attention of the three women, who quieted, nodded in his direction and whispered.
Grateful for a distraction from her other customers, Cassidy picked up a menu and crossed to the man, who sat back in the creaking wooden chair and smiled at her. Wow. He was a cutie, blond hair sticking up just slightly as it grew out of a short cut, blue eyes fringed with thick lashes, a straight nose, a strong chin. She placed the menu on the table in front of him.
“Hey.”
His voice was gravelly, and sent skitters of awareness down her spine, reminding her how long it had been since she’d been out with anyone, had a man other than her regulars give her attention.
No, she needed to push that thought out of her head right now. She wasn’t sticking around here. Once she made her money, Evansville was going to be in her rearview mirror.
“What can I get you to drink?”
“Sweet tea?”
“Sure. I’ll be right back. Will anyone be joining you?”
“Nah, I’m on my own today.”
Something about his blue eyes was familiar, but she couldn’t place how she knew him. “I’ll go get your tea.”
After she delivered the tall glass in the textured plastic glass, she went to check on the ladies, who had shifted their chairs so they could watch the newcomer.
“Do you know who that is?” Victoria asked Cassidy, not as quietly as she probably hoped.
Cassidy shook her head as she cleared the plates from in front of the women, in a subtle effort to invite them to leave.
“That’s Grady McKenna. You know, of the McKenna ranch.”
One of the biggest ranches in South Texas, in the same family for over a hundred years. Two brothers and a sister. Now she remembered why she recognized those blue eyes. His sister, Sage, had tormented her all through high school. She didn’t remember Grady at all, though she didn’t think he was much older than her.
“Grady’s the one who went into the Air Force out of high school. I didn’t know he was out, and back. And damn, he looks good.”
Heather nudged her friend. “Remember you’re engaged to my brother!”
“I can still look. It’s not like Ben doesn’t look at Cassidy’s ass every time he comes here.”
Cassidy almost dropped the dishes as all three women turned their attention from Grady to Cassidy’s ass.
“Cassidy! Phone call!” Charlie, the cook, called from the kitchen.
Her stomach clenched, and she turned, carrying the dishes back to the kitchen. She set them on the counter and frowned at the expression on Charlie’s face.
“Your mom,” he said, confirming her fear.
She took the phone, wishing it was cordless so she could have some privacy instead of being tethered to the register. “This is Cassidy.”
“Yeah, Cassidy, sorry to bother you at work.” It was Dylan Hoyt, one of the oilfield workers staying at the RV park she’d built on her land, who acted as unofficial manager when she was at the cafe. “Your mom is kind of wasted and she’s knocking on all the guys’ trailers. They worked the late shift, and they’re not so happy about it. I tried to get her back to the house, but she wouldn’t go.”
“All right. All right.” She lifted her thumbnail to her mouth, but thought about what Carla said, and lowered it again. Damn, she needed some kind of stress relief. “It’ll take me a bit to get there. I have a couple of customers right now, and Charlie’s by himself. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
Charlie took the phone from her. “I’ve got it. You go on.”
Cassidy wanted to argue, to resist, because God knew she didn’t want to go home. But she couldn’t have her mother chasing off her tenants. Those guys paid her rent, and they were her ticket out of here. She had to deal with this.
“I’m sorry, Charlie.”
“Not the first time I’ve heard that. Just get your guy’s order before you leave, and maybe leave a pitcher on each table. I don’t think those ladies are leaving as long as he’s here.”
He was probably right. She carried her order pad back to Grady’s table, aware he was watching her every step.
“You decide what you want?”
“Sure, I’ll take a chicken-fried steak. Haven’t had a good one in a while.”
“I heard you’re just back from the military?” She didn’t have time to engage him in conversation, but she couldn’t deny her curiosity.
He glanced toward the women at the other table, a half-smile curving his lips, letting her know he knew where she’d gotten her information. “Not just back. I mean, yeah, just back to Texas, but I was in North Carolina for a couple of months. Good to be back in Texas, though. No place like home.” He held his glass while she refilled it with tea. “You never left?”
Did he remember her? “Not yet.”
He lifted his eyebrows, but she didn’t elaborate. She couldn’t. “I need to put your order in, then I need to run. A family emergency. Charlie will take care of you. I’ll ask in advance for you to forgive him. I swear, we usually have better service.”
He smiled, white teeth flashing. “I’ll hold you to that.”
Wow. That smile lit up his whole face, and lit something deep inside her. But she didn’t linger, instead hurrying his order back to Charlie, delivering pitchers to both tables, then grabbing her purse and bolting.
The drive home over the crumbling asphalt roads took longer than usual, probably because Cassidy was dreading it so much. She turned onto the gravel road she’d just put in for easier access for the RVs, then pulled into the parking area where the guys kept their trucks. She took a deep breath and opened the car door, scanning the area for her mom.
And there she was, stumbling down the steps from a Rambler, tugging up the sagging strap of her camisole. Ah, hell, had she just gone into Chris’s trailer?
“Mom!”
Her mother twisted and fell on the gravel, then rose to her knees, tugging at the blouse again. “Cassidy! You’re home early.”
Cassidy hurried to her side to help her to her feet. “Mom, what are you doing? You know these guys work the night shift and need their sleep. You need to leave them alone.”
Angie Simon slumped against the side of the Rambler and pushed her hair back from her face. She should still be a pretty woman. She was only forty-three, but the drinking and the cigarettes had put miles on her. Apparently, though, that didn’t stop the workers from taking advantage of her advances.
“You leave me alone out here in the middle of nowhere all day long. I’m lonely.”
Cassidy had taken her mother’s car keys on purpose, because she couldn’t risk her driving into town to buy more alcohol, and then getting behind the wheel wasted. So far, she hadn’t hurt anyone, though she had two DWIs on her record.
“These are men with families, working men. They are not here to entertain you, or for you to entertain them. Where did you get the liquor?”
“Jordan was nice enough to buy me a bottle the last time he went to town. And Chris brought back some weed.”
Jesus. Thanks for the help, guys. She should let her mother bang on their trailer doors all day long. Maybe they’d supplied her in the hope she’d pass out.
Cassidy tucked her hand under her mother’s arm and guided her toward the house.
Her mother pulled away. “I don’t want to go home. Take me into town.”
“Oh, no. I have to go back to work. You need to go in the house and sleep it off. Did you take your birth control pills?” Because the last thing she needed was to raise her mother’s baby.
Angie looked affronted. “I always remember. And I use a condom, too. Can’t be too careful.”
“Too much information,” Cassidy muttered, urging her mother forward.
“You need to get a man.”
“No, I really don’t.”
“You’d relax if you got laid.”
“Mom!” But the picture that came to mind was Grady McKenna and that lazy smile. She pushed it away again. “I’d relax if you’d stop drinking and bothering our tenants. I’d relax if I could trust you to behave yourself like an adult.”
“You’re no fun,” Angie pouted.
No. No, she wasn’t. She was no fun, and she had no fun. All she wanted was enough money to maybe put her mom in rehab and get the hell out of Dodge.
She got Angie into the house and into the shower, and went to the kitchen to make coffee. While it was brewing, she searched in all the usual places for the booze and the pot. At least the house wasn’t very big, and her mother wasn’t adept at hiding things, because Cassidy found the bottle, plus a couple others, and the bag of pot. She considered the pot a moment. What was she going to do with it? Flush it, maybe. The booze was going down the drain.
Every time she did that, she winced. Even if it wasn’t her money, it was expensive. Still, she twisted off the tops, wrinkling her nose at the smell, and dumped the contents down the drain, running the water at the same time so her eyes didn’t burn from the fumes.
Once the job was done, the weed flushed and the bottles in the recycle bin, Cassidy poured a cup of coffee and set it on the table. The shower wasn’t running any longer. She headed down to the bathroom and opened the door to see her mother sitting naked on the toilet, rocking herself back and forth and sobbing.
“Oh, Mom.” Cassidy wrapped a towel around her mother’s shoulders, crouching before her at the same time. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m not pretty anymore!”
“Mom, don’t be silly. You’re still beautiful.”
“When I was a girl, all the boys wanted me. I was Bluebonnet Queen. Everyone thought I was the most beautiful girl in town.”
Cassidy knew the rest of the story. Angie had let the fame go to her head, had let the boys talk her into bed, had her heart broken when Cassidy’s father denied the baby was his. Cassidy’s grandparents had helped raise her, up until the time when she was thirteen and they had had enough of Angie’s drama, left the land to Angie and Cassidy and moved to Oklahoma to be closer to Cassidy’s uncle and his nice, normal family. They spent most of their retirement in an RV driving around the country, but never back to Texas.
Angie hadn’t allowed the stigma of being a single mother in a small town keep her down. She lost her baby weight and started dating again. Cassidy wasn’t sure if she wanted a father for her baby, or if she just wanted to prove to herself that she could still get a man.
She could get a man, but not a father for her baby. Cassidy wondered how hard she tried.      
“Let’s go get you something to eat,” Cassidy said now in an attempt to stem the pity party. “Did you eat today?”
“I just want to feel pretty.”
“I know, Mom, but you can’t go to these guys. They pay us to live here, and we need that money.”
“What for? We’re not poor.”
Thanks to her grandparents, who signed over their land to her when she became of age, they didn’t have house payments, only taxes. But she’d borrowed against the land to put in the RV park, the gravel road and parking area, the hook-ups, the drainage, and the laundry hut. She owed the bank a pretty penny that she had to pay back before she could funnel serious money into her escape fund.
Her mother wasn’t privy to either concern. The land was Cassidy’s, and it was her decision. Her salvation.
“We’re doing what others are doing—taking advantage of what we can go get some of this oil money before they leave.” Or before they found more permanent housing.
She got her mother dressed and into the kitchen, made her some soup and settled her in front of an afternoon talk show before Cassidy headed back to the restaurant.
“Didn’t expect to see you,” Charlie said when she walked in. Debbie was lounging by the drink station, called into work early, though no tables were occupied.
Cassidy didn’t tell Charlie she hadn’t wanted to stay home with her mother. Instead, she said, “Put me to work.”

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The Texas Frontier, 1826


“Kit!”
    Katherine Barclay straightened from stirring the laundry in the iron pot. She swept loose tendrils of hair back from her face and schooled her features into patience before she turned to her sixteen-year-old sister-in-law. Mary ran into the yard of the garrison, not wearing a wrap to protect her from the winds sweeping across the coastal plains. The young woman was recovering from a fever and didn’t have the sense to cover her head on this frosty Texas day?
But Mary revered Kit, and while that admiration frequently tried Kit’s patience, she had to remain conscious of it. There was no living with the girl if Kit hurt her feelings.
     “What is it?” Kit asked, at the same time Mary blurted, “A man is riding this way!”
     Kit’s heart thumped. Could it be John? Had the word they’d received of his death on the Texas border been a mistake?
She tamped down that hope as she’d trained herself to do. Fear rose in its place. Only she, Mary and her mother-in-law, Agnes, remained at the garrison standing guard between the Karankawa tribe and Stephen Austin’s colony of San Felipe. The other inhabitants had fled. John had urged Kit to accompany him on his mission back to the States, but their young son, Daniel, had been sick. She’d feared traveling would make him worse. Agnes and Mary had agreed to stay with her, a fact she’d been grateful for when she received word that her husband had been killed in a skirmish with outlaws, and when she’d buried her son a week later.
    Before regret could squeeze her heart, she closed the door on it. She couldn’t dwell on the past now.  She was in charge. As much as she loved Agnes and Mary, they were too frail for this frontier life. And now their safety was threatened.  
    She released the stirring stick she’d been gripping and flexed her cold, aching fingers. “Where is this man?”
    “He’s coming from the northeast. We saw him through the window.”
    Another transgression. They shouldn’t have had the window set in the fort wall open, not when the January wind had such a bite. The last thing Kit needed was to bury her sister-in-law if she caught another fever. Kit stepped away from the laundry fire and snatched her wrap from the chair nearby. She folded the woolen fabric around herself as she headed for the steps leading to the top of the wooden cabin that sat just inside the fort wall.
    “Stay here,” she ordered over her shoulder as Mary began to follow.
    The command did no good, and the young woman trotted behind her up the steps.
    Wind whipped at Kit’s already wild hair and tore through her thin cloak and damp dress. The low gray clouds offered no hope of sun. She buried her hands in the folds of her cloak and scanned the flat horizon.
    There, astride a beautiful roan, slumped a man in a saddle, heading straight toward the garrison.
    Alarm shot through her as she realized she’d left her loaded rifle beside the chair where her cloak had been. She cursed her lack of foresight. She hadn’t expected him to be so close. 
    She whirled to run for the rifle when a movement from the man caught her eye. She turned back just in time to see him drop out of the saddle and remain motionless on the road.
    Drunk, was her first thought. Or hurt. Or sick.
    She stiffened. No more sickness. She couldn’t bear expending her energy on someone else she couldn’t help.
    She stared at the man, so still in the golden dry grass, his horse standing patiently beside him, and gnawed her lip in indecision. 
Mary gripped her arm, huddling against Kit for warmth. “What are we going to do? Just leave him out there?”
     What could she do? Bring him into the fort not knowing who he was, what his purpose was? They were three women with little means of protecting themselves against someone who meant them harm. And if he was indeed sick, could she risk the three of them contracting his illness?
    But could she just leave him out there to die? Then what? Watch carrion destroy his body? Hardly a Christian act.
    Confused and tired of making all these decisions, she crossed the yard and closed her fingers around the reassuring metal of the rifle barrel. With the gun in one hand, she tucked her arm around Mary’s shoulders. The girl shivered uncontrollably, her teeth chattering. Kit removed her own wrap and folded it about the girl. “The first thing we’re doing is getting you warm before you sicken again.” 
    That would also buy her time to think.
    Agnes waited in the doorway of the garrison commander's quarters, the rooms they had claimed for themselves when they realized no one would return to the fort this winter. The older woman hurried forward to gather her daughter, but her worried eyes sought Kit.
    “Did you see him? He’s fallen.”
    “I saw.” Kit ushered the women into the room and closed the door. Immediately, she felt warmer, but she moved to stand by the hearth anyway, arms wrapped around her middle.
    Agnes peered out the window, past the parchment paper covering it. “What are we going to do?”
    “Has he moved?”
    Agnes shook her head. “He could be dead.”
    He could be. And that left the beautiful horse, a horse they could use. If he was sick or drunk, he was hardly a threat. 
    Decision made, Kit reached into the box over the fireplace and drew out the pistol John had left her. Her fingers flexed when she opened the box, as the memory of how he’d taught her to shoot it stabbed through her heart.
Before he’d brought her to this place from her home near New Orleans, he wanted her to be able to defend herself. So he took her to an open field with this pistol and the rifle still in the yard. He’d taught her how to load each, his big, sure hands guiding hers through the motions. He’d shown her how to sight down the barrel, his arms around her, his strong chest at her back, his muscled arms along hers. She could still feel the heat of his breath against the back of her neck, the way his fingers curved around hers, his soft chuckle as she flinched at the sound. He hadn’t allowed her to back down, hadn’t allowed her to quit until she could load each gun in under two minutes. 
    Then, when her arms had trembled from lifting the heavy rifle, he’d taken her home and made love to her.
    Tears swam in her eyes. She missed him so much. It wasn’t right that she should lose them both, her husband and her son, so she had nothing left.
     “Kit?” Mary rested a hesitant hand on Kit’s arm.
     Kit drew in a deep breath, straightening her shoulders and blinking back the tears she didn’t have time to shed. She set the box on the table and tucked the heavy pistol into the pocket of her dress.
“You’re going out there?” Agnes’s strident voice rang in the small room. “What if it’s a trap? If he’s just using illness as a ruse to get in here?”
      “He has no way of knowing we’re the only three here. That’s why I fire the cannon every day, so anyone around will think the soldiers are still here.”    
    “We barely have enough food for ourselves,” Agnes pointed out.
    That was true, and their supply was dwindling.  Kit herself had only taken a small amount of porridge this morning in an attempt to make their supplies stretch. What would they do when they ran out of the oats and wheat flour they had stored in the root cellar? They’d already used the dried meat and root vegetables she’d stored. Her skills with the rifle weren’t nearly good enough to hunt, even if she were brave enough to leave the fort. She had to hope that what they had would last until spring, when they could leave this place. At least it would be warmer, and there would be more opportunities to find food. And maybe the Indians would be on the move, away from them, following the game.
    “His horse looks healthy enough.” She met Agnes’s gaze.
    “Riding him would be dangerous,” Mary asserted.
“We can butcher him,” Kit said softly, though the words pained her to say.
Mary gasped, her brown eyes opening wide.
Kit clamped her jaw and ignored the outrage. She had to. She strode through the door and tried to shut it behind her, but as usual, Mary was there, still in Kit’s wrap. Kit would need that to venture out of the fort, though the heavy cloth would limit her mobility. She picked up her loaded rifle by the barrel, pivoted and returned to the window, where Agnes watched the stranger, her body vibrating with anxiety.
Kit raised that anxiety by thrusting the rifle at the older woman. “If he makes any sudden movements when I’m out there, shoot this.”
Agnes raised her hands, palms out, and stared at the gun in horror. “I can’t shoot a man.”
Kit bit back a sigh of frustration. “You don’t have to shoot him. Just make him think you are. He doesn’t know who is in here, remember? Please, Mother. I need your help.” The last words, words she rarely spoke, dragged out of her.
Agnes must have realized what the plea cost Kit, because she pursed her lips, lowered her hands and reached for the rifle.
After a quick review of the weapon, Kit retrieved her wrap from her terrified sister-in-law and marched out of the room, hesitating only a moment at the fort’s giant wooden doors, which she hadn’t opened in weeks. Not allowing herself to think of what would happen to her family if she died out there, she tugged one door open wide enough to slip out.
The stranger was farther from the walls than she had realized. Every step away from the fort made her feel more vulnerable to Indians and outlaws. She reassured herself by remembering they hadn’t seen any of the Karankawa tribe in a week or more—the days blended together—and by pressing her hand to the gun resting heavily against her thigh in her skirt pocket. Though the land was open for miles, every brush of high grass against her skirt sent a chill of alarm through her.
She expected the horse to react to her approach, but he merely lifted his head and widened his nostrils. Her gaze returned to the man sprawled face down in the dirt, one arm pinned beneath his big body, one long leg curled out, the other straight behind him. His hat had tumbled off into the grass, revealing dark hair with a touch of red.
He was breathing. She could see the rise and fall of his back beneath the wool coat, could see the dance of dust in front of his mouth with every exhalation.
He was young, younger than John had been, close to her own age, his face long and lean and bristled with reddish stubble, his cheeks ruddy. His full lips were chapped. She knew before she reached him that he was feverish.
But he was alive. What was she to do now?

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Lori Cervantes let her mind wander on the drive to her happy place as mid-90s grunge rock pounded out of the speakers of her SUV. Since her divorce, she was used to being alone on weekends while her kids went with their dad. Now her kids were in college and off doing their own things, and Lori didn't want to sit home alone, so she headed to her little sanctuary on the San Marcos River.
Not many people knew about the little campground, populated by enormous teepees and elevated cabins, fire pits and a dock and a tire swing over the water. The campground was close to the road, and neighbors lived nearby, so it wasn’t large or fancy, but the place itself filled her soul. Some nights she’d sleep in the teepee, but tonight felt like a good night to sleep under the stars.
She turned off the highway and down the one-lane road, the stress melting away. She turned the corner, and saw a chain across the driveway leading to the campground. Frowning, she pulled up into the driveway as far as she could get, her bumper hanging out into the road a little, and she opened her door.
She stood and inspected the campground. No cars at any of the teepees, but of course it was still pretty early, and not a lot of people came here anyway. But the Adirondack chairs were tipped forward to lean against the fire pits, the swing was pulled in from the river and hung on a tree. 
The camp looked…closed.
The chain was padlocked to a pole that she didn't remember being there before. With a huff, she stepped over the chain and marched toward the office, just a room off the activity room. She didn’t get an answer when she knocked, so she walked around back to the house. Mr. and Mrs. Langston owned the place, and lived around back, so they were always available. Mrs. Langston liked to make it homey, but now no hanging baskets adorned the porch, no plants were in the stands, no wreath on the door. The house looked lonely, and a strange truck was parked in the driveway.
She marched to the door, thinking of her car parked awkwardly at the driveway, and knocked firmly. 
After a few moments, the door swung open to reveal a large man in a damp white t-shirt and jeans, wearing heavy work gloves, and with flecks of white in his dark hair. He was maybe her age, maybe a little younger, and maybe not so bad looking under that scowl.
“Can I help you?” he asked, his tone impatient.
“I have a reservation for this weekend. Lori Cervantes. I have the teepee farthest from the road.”
“We’re closed. You got an email and a refund.”
She forced herself not to take a step back in shock. “You’re closed? What are you talking about? It’s summer, your busy season. Why would you close?”
“It’s all in the email,” he said, and started to close the door.
She didn't know what came over her, but she stepped forward and slapped her hand against it, holding it open.
“I had a reservation. I’ve been looking forward to this all week. What is going on?”
He sighed, cocked his hip and leveled a look at her. 
“My folks retired. They’re selling the place, and I’m fixing it up. Therefore, no guests. It’s all in the email.”
“Well, I don't read my email when I’m off work,” she countered, then his words sunk in. “They’re selling? When did they decide?” She tried to remember the last time she’d been out here, but she couldn’t. She’d spent a lot of time talking to the Langstons, getting to know them, especially when she’d come out here alone. 
“I don't know, they’ve been talking about it for months. Finally decided they didn't want to do all the work this summer. My siblings and I have been trying to talk to them about it for years.”
“What are they going to do now? They’re moving completely?” She couldn't wrap her head around that. They had loved this place so much.
“They want to buy a condo at the beach, just for themselves. Retire and have a good life.”
Lori hadn’t thought about them being that old, since they were younger than her own mother. She rocked back on her heels. She was at a loss. Sure, she’d only driven an hour to come out here, but she had needed this escape after a rough week at work, making sure all the vendors were paid at the end of the school year.
“What if I help?”
“What if you what?”
“What if I help you get it ready to sell? I know how to paint, and I can clean, and, I don't know, take care of landscape or whatever you need me to do.” He appeared to be working by himself, so why wouldn't he take her up on her offer?
His frown deepened as he looked down at her. “Why would you want to do that?”
“Because I want to spend the weekend out here.” She gestured toward the river. “This place—means a lot to me. I would like to help.”
He looked her up and down, like he couldn't believe she was capable. She wanted to flex her muscles, to let him know she worked out and was more than capable of learning whatever he needed her to do.
“I don't think it’s a good idea.”
“Why? Because you want to do the work all by yourself?”
He glanced back over his shoulder into the house, and his shoulders sagged a bit. He turned back to face her. “I don't even know you.”
She stuck a hand out at him. “I’m Lori Cervantes from San Antonio. I’ve been coming out here like six times a year for the past four years. I’ve had dinner with your parents on several occasions.” She cast back in her memory for mention of their son. The Langstons had three children, but the one they talked about most often was their daughter, who lived in San Diego. “You’re Jackson? A firefighter? Or Justin, the IT guy?”
His frown morphed into surprise. “Yeah, ah. Jackson. Huh. But no, I can’t ask you to help me with this.”
“You didn’t. I offered. And if you’re selling it to someone who doesn't want to run it as a camp, this might be my last chance to stay here.”
Jackson looked at Lori for a long moment, a tiny curvy woman with jet-black hair, straight as an arrow, sweeping her shoulders. Big eyes in a tiny pixie face made her look like a doll, except he’d never seen a doll with such a stubborn expression. 
Sending her away should be easy enough. He’d refunded her money. He had no obligation to her. 
But something in her voice told him she needed this, and hell, if she knew his name, knew his job, knew his parents, maybe she did feel invested in the place.
He backed away from the door, motioning for her to enter. “You’re going to get dirty.”
For the first time, he saw hesitation in her expression. 
“Do you have a job for me…out here? I’ve, ah, I’ve been inside all week and I was really looking forward to being outside. I can run a mean weed-eater.”
He saw wariness in her eyes. Smart, actually. She didn't know him, and she probably didn't want to be alone in the house with him. 
“Yeah, I mean, sure. If you’re sure. You know how to run a weed eater?”
She lifted an arm to flex, and he felt a smile tug at his lips. 
“Let me get it for you.”
He walked past her and headed toward the garage. He lifted the door to reveal the full but mostly-neat garage, and walked over to pick up the weed-eater, leaning against the zero-turn lawnmower. Her big eyes took on a gleam as she looked at the tractor. 
“Can I do that?”
“Ah. It takes some getting used to. I don't want you to land in the river.”
“I won’t go near the river until I get used to it.”
He actually enjoyed using the mower, but mowing the property was time consuming, and her taking over would save him a bit of time, to be honest. “Let me get it out for you.”
She watched closely as he turned the key, pulled in the handles and guided the machine into the yard. Then he shut it off and hopped off.
“You have to be in the seat to get it to start,” he said, motioning for her to take his place. He tapped the key when he did. “This starts it.” He tapped the lever. “This adjusts your speed. Start slow. Pull this knob to start mowing, but maybe you should drive it around a bit first.”
Her hands rested on the bars. “And these?”
“Pull them toward you. Push to go, pull to stop, pull the right to turn right, pull left to turn left. This is a zero-turn, so it will respond as soon as you pull.”
She nodded, her focus on the ground before her. He stepped back.
“Okay, take off,” he said.
She started the mower, and her take-off was a bit jerky, but she got the machine moving, heading for an open patch of lawn between the common room and the river. He watched her long enough that he was convinced she could handle it, and he went back inside. 
He liked hearing the run of the mower as he painted, even as the shadows grew longer. He had a work light clamped to the ladder to illuminate the room, but he wanted to check on Lori and see how she was doing.
He was surprised, when he stepped out, to see that she’d made great progress. All the common areas were mown neatly, and she had gone close-ish to the river, stopping just before the slope. She had pretty good control of the thing, too, he saw, as she whipped back around in his direction and stopped the machine.
Her bare skin was flecked with bits of cut grass, her skin glowed with sweat, but she was grinning. 
“You mastered that thing pretty quickly.”
Her grin widened. “I play a lot of video games with my kids. Once I started thinking of it that way, it was pretty easy.”
Her kids. Huh. He didn't know why he hadn’t thought about her having kids, especially kids old enough to play video games. And yet they weren’t here with her today.
She turned the key and handed it to him, then stood to rise, staggering a bit, then laughing at her own instability. “My arms are like noodles, holy cow. I hadn’t anticipated that.”
He caught one of her arms to steady her, and they felt nothing like noodles. Taut and strong. Warm. He helped guide her to the ground and then released her. 
“The place looks great. You did a lot of work. I didn't mean for you to do so much.”
“I don't mind working for my room. Speaking of, do you have the key handy so I can go in and take a shower? Although I have to say I was tempted to just jump in the river. I really feel like I need soap.”
He grimaced. “I haven't cleaned any of the rooms yet, changed the sheets or stocked with soap.”
Her shoulders sagged, just a little. Then she perked up again. “I can change the sheets and wash them and all that after I shower. And I brought my own soap and shampoo, so you don't have to worry about that. I just need access to the washer, and some detergent.”
Man, did nothing deter her? Most people would have taken the hint and headed out by now. “Sure, okay, I’ll get you the key. You said you like the one farthest from the road?”
“Yes, please. Number six.”
“You, ah, how many times have you stayed here?” he asked as he turned to lead the way to the house.
She hesitated a moment, looking at the mower, before she fell into step with him. “It depends. I came out almost every other week when my divorce was first final. Sometimes I’d bring the kids, sometimes by myself. It’s just so peaceful here. But it’s been a few months this time. My daughter just graduated, you know, and I wanted to be closer to home any time she went out. I still do, to be honest, but she’s got to grow up, and she can always call her dad or her brother to be with her until I can get there.”
“How old are your kids?” He couldn’t wrap his mind around the idea that she had a kid who had graduated.
“Sophia is eighteen, Andrew is twenty-one.” She swept her hair back from her face as she said it.
“You’ve got to be kidding. You don't look old enough to have kids that old.”
“Well, I started young, and it helps that I’m short. People think of short people as being younger, for some reason.”
“No, it’s—” He shook his head, not wanting to insult her. “I’ll get you the key.”
When he returned, she smiled up at him. “You’ve been working hard, why don't I set up the fire pit? I brought beer. And stuff for s’mores. It’ll be a nice way to unwind.”
“Ah.” He looked toward the river, back at the house. He was tempted, but he had so much work to do. “I can keep going a few more hours in there with the lights.”
“Oh.” She took a step back, bouncing the key in the palm of her hand. “Okay. Well, if you change your mind, I’ll be over there. Unless you object to me starting a fire.”
He looked back at her. “No, no, that’s fine. You go enjoy yourself.”
“All right.” The lilt in her voice told him she thought he was making the wrong decision, as she backed away, a smile curving her lips.
He thought about teasing her, asking her if she would be all right with her noodle arms, but no, better to just let her go do her thing. She’d come here to be on her own, anyway, hadn’t she?

Claiming Her Happy Place is available at all retailers. 

Melody Servantes stepped out of the elevator door into chaos. College students dressed in bathing suits filled the hallway of the hotel, their screeches echoing off the walls, waving bottles about so the liquid sloshed out of them and onto the carpet, infusing the closed space with the scent of malt.
A few years ago, she would have been in the big middle of it, possibly the one sitting on the broad shoulders of the shirtless hottie, twirling her bikini top over her head. She touched the inside of her wrist, the small stylized seahorse tattoo there, some‐ thing from her old life.
But now she was the manager of The Friendly Shores Hotel in Starfish Shores, and it was her responsibility to see the place wasn’t ripped apart by spring breakers who were frustrated by the constant rain that kept them inside. She lifted her fingers to her mouth and whistled shrilly, but the sound barely penetrated the raucous noise. She pushed her way down the hall, shouting herself hoarse to no avail. Hands clamped on her ass and she maneuvered with experience to avoid the grabby college student. Once upon a time, she would have leaned back into those hands, and the man wielding them. She might even have grabbed a bottle from one and helped herself to a healthy swig.
She cursed the unceasing rain that had the spring breakers trapped in her hotel, instead of partying by the pool or out on the beach, or any other damn where. This was her first spring break as a manager, and everything that could go wrong, had.
A ding behind her signaled the elevator opening and she turned, wondering if more tenants were coming to invade the hallway. Instead, she turned and met the blue-eyed gaze of Deputy Whit Calhoun. The last time she’d looked into those eyes, she’d been bent over the back of a cruiser, her hands being cuffed behind her by his father. The khaki shirt he wore told her before she even got a good look at him that he’d continued to follow in his father’s footsteps. So not a deputy anymore. He was the sheriff now.
He made a sound that she couldn’t believe she’d heard over the cacophony, and almost immediately, everyone in the hall turned toward him. Once he had their attention, he strolled into the center of them and raised his voice.
“We’ve had some complaints about the noise and mess. I need you all to make sure everything here is picked up, no glass or anything left on the floor, then head on back to your rooms, or out someplace else. I apologize for the weather. I know that’s not what you came here for. But there are other ways to have a good time.”
She marveled at the command in his voice, and the way the guests responded, meekly turning away and collecting the mess. He shifted his shoulders and approached her.
“Aren’t you going to give your friends a hand?”
She snapped her back straight. “I’m the manager here.” Surprise widened his eyes and his gaze flicked to the snug tank and jeans she wore before he brought his eyes—decidedly warmer—back to her face. A smile canted his lips. “Well, well. Melody Servantes. Good to see you again. I didn’t know you were back in town.”
She put her hands on her hips—drawing his gaze again—and scowled, remembering the party he and his daddy busted up all those years ago, not so different from this one, where she’d been arrested for being drunk and disorderly, and underage. How she hadn’t been too drunk to hear his father tell him, as he pushed her into the jail cell, that no one should be surprised she was in trouble, given who her father was. The words had filled her with a strange mix of defiance and defeat, and she’d never forgotten that emotion.
She’d left Starfish Shores shortly after, but had missed the beauty of her hometown. “I’ve been back about four months.”
“And I haven’t seen you before now?”
What was he asking, if she had been in trouble? She wouldn’t satisfy him with an answer. “Who called you?” she asked instead.
He lifted a broad shoulder. “One of the hotel guests who didn’t want the noise anymore. You up here to calm them down?” That she hadn’t been able to accomplish her goal made her defensive. “I was getting there.”
The glint in his blue eyes told her he didn’t believe her.
Around them, the crowd thinned and disbursed, leaving a few wet spots from spilled alcohol, but no bottles, broken or otherwise.
“You need any help with them, you let me know.” He inclined his head and ambled back to the elevator. “You going down?”
She gritted her teeth. Yes, she needed to go down, but she’d be damned if she’d ride the elevator with him.
“I’ll just make sure everything gets cleaned up,” she said.
“Suit yourself.” He stepped into the elevator, and with one last look at her, he pressed a button and the doors shuddered closed.
She let her shoulders slump, then headed for the cleaning closet for the carpet cleaner and the vacuum. She hadn’t worked her way up to manager without knowing how to clean up messes. Hell, she’d had more than her fair share of experience at that.


At least the grocery store off the main drag wasn’t as crowded that evening as most places in town—though the cereal and frozen pizza had been wiped out, as had the wine and beer section. Mel hadn’t seen the store so decimated since the last hurricane had clipped Starfish Shores when she was sixteen.
Thank goodness she knew how to cook—actually enjoyed cooking, or she’d be shit out of luck on the food supplies. She had no desire to wait for a table in a restaurant crowded with bored spring breakers.
She was straining to reach the last Diet Coke, way in the back of the top shelf, when a deep voice behind her rumbled, “Let me get that for you.”
She swung about to look into the blue eyes of Sheriff Calhoun. He was wearing his full uniform, including his hat. Just terrific. In the months she’d been back in town, she’d managed to avoid interaction with him, and now she’d seen him twice in one day?
“I can do it myself,” she said automatically.
“Sure, if you climb up on the other shelves to get it. Just stand aside and I can get it.”
She stayed where she was for a moment, but so did he. She knew she could out-stubborn him, but really, she just wanted to get out of here and go home. So she stepped aside.
He had to strain a bit to reach it, and she couldn’t help noticing the way the cotton pulled against those shoulders, and how his shirt became a little untucked, revealing bare skin at his waist.
Bare tanned skin, over tight muscle. Above a really nice ass.
Holy hell, she needed to get laid if she was lusting over the man who’d seen her at her lowest.
She took a step back as he dragged the bottle forward and turned to face her.
“That desperate for your caffeine fix?” The corner of his mouth quirked in a handsome grin.
“I’m not a pleasant person without it.”
He laughed. “How long has it been since you’ve had some?” She scowled and snatched the bottle from him and put it in her shopping cart. “You do remember arresting me, don’t you? You can see why you’re not my favorite person.”
He leaned on the handle of his own cart, looking up at her. “You do remember you were underaged, under the influence and in possession of an illegal substance. Not to mention that putting you in jail meant those two boys couldn’t do what they wanted to do to you.”
She ground her teeth together. He remembered everything. Did he think about it every time he saw her? “Maybe it was my idea.” That had been the rumor, anyway.
He straightened. “Some people may believe that. I don’t. You need anything else, give me a holler.”
He tapped the brim of his hat and headed off at that infuriating pace. But she couldn’t help herself from watching until he was out of sight.


Mel settled on her balcony with a sandwich. Sure, she liked to cook, but for some reason, not when she got back from the grocery store. So she’d treated herself to a deli sandwich, bag of chips and a soda.
The balcony was the very best part of her job at The Friendly Shores Hotel. She had an apartment on the third floor, facing west, as part of her salary, making sure guests had easy access to her if they needed her. She could only see the ocean if she set her chair just so, but she could listen to it all night long.
Unfortunately, the rain dripped right on the spot she needed to be to see the ocean, so she had to drag her chair closer to the sliding glass door, but the location beat the hell out of any other places she’d ever lived.
She crossed her legs in the chair, making herself as compact as possible to avoid the rain that occasionally drifted beneath the overhang.
Shouting from the beach surprised her as she bit into the sandwich. The rain was coming down pretty good. Why would anyone be out there? Probably just some of the guests fooling around on the beach. She couldn’t blame anyone for being stir crazy in this weather.
But the shouts increased in intensity, followed by a woman’s scream. Mel vaulted from her seat and peered over the edge of the balcony, but all she could see was a group of kids standing and pointing at the water. Damn it, had someone gone into the water? Knocking over her soda, she bolted for the front door and ran barefoot down the cement stairs, grateful she didn’t live in a taller building.
By the time she hit the deck, her feet burned from the friction, but she dared not slow down longer than it took to get a flotation log that hung on the wall in the pool area. If she was going in the water, she would not have someone take her down with him.
Her thighs ached by the time she crossed the wet sand to the group now thigh deep in the water.
“What’s going on?” she shouted, using up what felt like the last of her breath.
“Jesse went in the water and now we don’t see him!” the girl wheezed, rain plastering her hair to her head and shoulders. “He was so drunk. I don’t know what he was thinking.”
“How long since you lost sight of him?”
The girl shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“Call 911.”
The girl held up her phone. “I already did.”
Good. Adrenaline had gotten Mel this far, but she didn’t know what she could do on her own. The sky was growing darker every minute. “Point to the last place you saw him.”
Two of the boys joined the girl on the beach, and once Mel got a consensus about where to look, she dove into the waves.
Because of the storm, the waves were choppy, inhibiting her vision, and the ocean wasn’t as clear as it could have been. Damn it, this was going to be hard. And she was on her own.
Looping her arm through the strap on the flotation log, she swam, looking both above and below the surface for the idiot Jesse. She would not have some kid drown at her hotel, damn it. The salt stung her eyes and nose, but she couldn’t give up. Couldn’t give up. Her arms ached, her thighs screamed, but some kid was out here and--
There! There! She saw him flailing above the waves. With renewed energy, she plowed through the water toward him, feeling like she’d never reach him.
And then she did. He reached for her, but she managed to avoid him, to get him onto the flotation device. Once he had a hold of that, he calmed down a bit, so she didn’t have to slap the shit out of him to get him back to the beach.
Lights flashed against the darkening sky and for a moment she thought lightning, and here she was in the water with an asshole. But then she realized the light was colored—red and blue, to be precise. Then arms were grabbing her, lifting her, and she looked into the granite jaw of Whit Calhoun.


“Holy Shit. Holy shit, Mel.” Whit crouched beside her chair under the overhang of the hotel as one of the paramedics from Gulf Shores cleaned her feet. “What the hell were you thinking, going out there by yourself?”
“I was thinking if I didn’t find him, he was going to drown,” she shot back, her voice raspy from the salt water. She pulled the blanket closer around her, clearly miserable in her wet clothes. “I couldn’t just wait—I didn’t know how long it would take anyone to get here.”
“So you just grab something and throw yourself into the water?” The guy she’d pulled out of the water had been nearly twice her size. When he’d recognized her, fighting her way back to shore, he swore his heart stopped for a minute before he’d charged into the water afterwards. He flexed his toes in his wet socks. His shoes would never be the same.
“I’m certified,” she told him. “I’ve been thinking about applying for Search and Rescue. It’s part of the reason I came back to Starfish Shores.”
Search and Rescue? She was probably a buck twenty right now, drenched to the skin, slender, not even up to his shoulder in her bare feet. How could she think she could rescue someone?
But then, she just had, hadn’t she?
She looked past him at the ambulance where the other paramedics were working, surrounded by the young man’s friends, who were clinging to each other. “He’s okay, right?”
“Drunk as a skunk,” the paramedic kneeling before her said. “Puking up moonshine and sea water. But he should be okay. Brave thing you did out there.” He packed up his stuff, then rested his arms on his thighs, looking up at her. “Keep those cuts clean and you’ll be fine. And get out of those wet clothes and into a warm shower as soon as you can.” He rose and winked. “You can give me a call if you need help with any of that.”
Whit cleared his throat and the younger man sobered. But he placed a hand on her shoulder before he walked away.
“Kid would be dead if not for you.”
Mel raised defiant eyes to Whit. “Do we have business?”
“I need to get your statement.” And figure out why in the hell she’d scared him so bad. Yes, he remembered her from when she lived here before, the trouble-maker daughter of a small-time criminal. He remembered how tough she’d been then. She hadn’t softened much, and that intrigued the hell out of him.
“I heard shouting, I ran, I grabbed the flotation log, I swam, I found him, I pulled him in. Then you pulled me in.” She pushed to her feet and let out a hiss of pain. “There you go.”
“I’m going to need more than that. I can walk up with you, if you want.” She shrugged and hobbled around the corner of the building.
He walked beside her, resisting the urge to sweep her into his arms again. He got the feeling she wouldn’t be a fan of the maneuver. Maybe it was her independence, so different from his ex-fiancee Hillary, that drew him.
Well, Hillary had shown her independence in the end, hadn’t she?
“I was sitting on my balcony and heard shouting. I saw people gathered, looking at the water and pointing. I ran downstairs, stopped long enough to get the log, and ran up to the crowd. The girl with them told me what happened, said she’d called 911, but I couldn’t see him. I couldn’t wait.”
Whit stopped, the light from the cafeteria window washing over the walkway as he stared at her. “You couldn’t see him, but you went into the water anyway?”
“What was my option, Sheriff? To stand helplessly by and wring my hands until someone else came? I saved his life.”
“You sure as hell did.”
She pressed the elevator button and turned to look at him, her eyes weary, her body sagging as the adrenaline drained from her.
“Is there anything else, or can I go now?”
“Are you going to be okay?” He’d resisted to this point, but now he had to touch her arm through the blanket. “Can you get to your apartment by yourself?”
“I’m perfectly capable,” she said as the elevator slid open behind her.
She probably would have preferred that she hadn’t stumbled into the car in front of him, but she straightened, drew the blanket around her and lifted her chin as the doors closed behind her.


Whit walked into The Pit the next night, wondering if he should have just tried to drive farther inland and gone some place quieter. He was off-duty, but some of the spring breakers apparently recognized him anyway and gave him a wide berth.
As the crowd cleared in front of him, he caught sight of gorgeous long legs beneath a short white skirt at the bar. He followed them up and his grin widened when he recognized a familiar tank top. Gorgeous, courageous Melody Servantes sat with Brenda Wesley from the Top Tier bakery, surrounded by college kids, some reaching past them to get drinks, some more interested in the women. Melody was ignoring them, but by the way Brenda tossed her curls, he had a feeling she was enjoying the attention.
Then Melody spotted him, and her brows drew together over her beautiful dark eyes. He wasn’t deterred and headed toward her.
“Melody. Brenda,” he greeted, leaning on the bar to get the attention of Liam, one of the owners of The Pit. He let his arm brush Melody’s back, and felt her stiffen. She drew her arms toward her and he caught sight of a small tattoo on the inside of her wrist. Was that a seahorse? “You ladies enjoying the evening?”
“Looking for lawbreakers tonight?” Brenda asked, leaning around Melody to look at him.
“Looking for a beer tonight,” he replied, saluting her with the bottle when Liam slid his favorite brand across to him. “Why? You see something I should address?”
“Nobody’s causing trouble,” Melody said, not looking at him. “Everyone’s just having a good time.”
“Good.” He turned, scanning the crowd, wishing he didn’t always think like a cop, searching out which of these drinkers might be underage. He knew Liam and Sam, the owners, would be especially careful this week, but he’d seen some damned good fake IDs, and didn’t want to make any phone calls to distressed parents. “Then I can relax.”
“Can you relax somewhere else?” Melody asked.
Wow, she really didn’t like him.
“Mel!” Brenda gasped and elbowed her friend, and gave her one of those looks that women share when goals are being thwarted.
Huh. He hadn’t realized there was interest there, not that he would have acted on it. Brenda was a sweet girl, pretty, but entirely too virtuous for him. He’d done the virtuous thing, and it kicked him in the gut. Now he wanted something that had some teeth. Melody Servantes seemed to fit that bill.
“How are your feet?” he asked Mel, looking down to see she wore pretty flats with a jeweled strap that hooked between her toes. He couldn’t tell by looking that she’d barely been able to walk on them last night.
“Your feet?” Brenda asked her friend.
“Mel didn’t tell you about her adventure last night?” Whit asked.
“What adventure?”
“She saved a kid from drowning outside the Friendly Shores.” “You did?” Brenda’s voice raised an octave, drawing the attention of those around them. “Tell me everything.”
“I don’t—it was—there was no one else to help.” She gave Brenda the same abbreviated version she’d given him last night.
“End of story. He lived to drink and make stupid mistakes another day.”
Brenda wrapped an arm around Mel’s shoulders and hugged her. “That’s amazing. You are amazing. But then, I already knew that.”
“I don’t want everyone around town talking about it,” Mel said, leveling a look at Whit.
He lifted his hands, but couldn’t force a lie past his lips. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it, how she’d looked plowing through the water with that kid in tow.
“It was a sight to see,” he told Brenda.
“My feet are fine, I am fine, the kid is fine. Thank you for your concern,” she said, straightening her shoulders.
Dismissing him. He got that. He pushed away from the bar, lifting the bottle in farewell as he walked away.
Most of the crowd was way too young for him. At thirty, he never thought he’d feel like an old man, but he did right now. His gaze drifted back to Melody, who kept a suspicious eye on him. As he recalled, she was about five years younger than him, not so young that he felt dirty when he looked at those gorgeous legs, or the small of her back when she leaned forward. He couldn’t quite make out the tattoo there, but its existence made him a little crazy. He definitely needed to work on some goodwill with her.
At least he wasn’t the only man she was turning away. Boy after boy walked away dejected, but she treated most of them pretty gently. Not like the get-the-hell-out attitude she gave him.
Yeah, he definitely needed to figure out goodwill there. He just wasn’t sure how to start.


Between the Rainbows and the Rain is available at all retailers!

By the time Mallory Reeves reached the campsite, the sun had set behind the mountains, giving the crescent of sand below her a red glow. The color matched her mood.
She’d flown hundreds of miles, ridden four hours beside her sullen former brother-in-law Toney, all because Adrian had run off to his dig without signing the papers. Contrary beast that he was, he must have sensed how much she wanted this divorce.
The camp was like so many she’d been to before, only smaller. Even with her eyes closed, she’d be able to map out where everything was. The location might have been a resort, complete with palm trees, if not for the olive-drab tents in a circle, two bigger than the rest, with a fire pit in the center. Along one side of the camp were aluminum barrels raised off the ground on wooden brackets—the water supply. The shower would be over there, a none-too-private nylon-walled tent that could never wash off all the dirt.
Generators lined the other side of camp, silent until the lab was up and running, which would happen once Adrian started bringing up artifacts. Strung from one tent to the next were clotheslines, covered with clothes, mostly male and mostly collegiate. If she looked closely, she could identify Adrian’s collection of T-shirts with rude archaeological sayings. She doubted he’d changed that much.
The sound of the ocean on the other side of the dunes washed through the open windows of the truck. The beach was carved from high rocky cliffs. Toney parked on a ledge above the campsite. To leave, they would have to back up the narrow road to turn around.
Other teams stayed in hotels and commuted to the expedition site every day. They had fast food available and running water. Alcohol. She had to marry the one archaeologist who didn’t think he was on a dig unless he was living like Grizzly Adams.
Not that he knew who Grizzly Adams was. Being raised in Scotland and living in camps most of his adult life made him weak in the area of pop culture.
About the only area he was weak in.
That and, well, practicality.
Being here was more like being home than the house she and Jonathan had bought. She was no longer the down-and-dirty girl she’d been, looking for clues about ancient civilizations in the writings they’d left behind. Her job translating for Allied Global wasn’t as hazardous.
Or as exciting.
She climbed out of the Land Cruiser, scanning the camp for Adrian. She had to guard herself from surprise when he appeared.
No matter how she’d prepared herself for affecting a cool reaction, nothing readied her for the man who approached. He moved with sinuous grace, hard muscled, lean faced, with his dark hair cropped close in what he called his “dig cut”, easier to keep clean. Silver-blue eyes glinted in the firelight. Her mouth dried up at the sight of him in the muscle-shirt style she’d always loved, his broad shoulders and sculpted arms tanned dark. She fisted her hands against the memories of stroking her fingers over his skin, casual gestures, sexual ones. She’d never touch him again, and the loss of familiarity weighted her belly. The past couple of years had been good to the man she’d known nearly half her life. The man who’d turned his back on everything she held precious.
Adrian Reeves, gorgeous as ever.
“Mal.” He was the only one to call her that. He braced a booted foot on a tree stump, the picture of virility. Unbidden, memories of being wrapped in those arms flooded back, and with them the heat of desire. The one thing they’d been able to do right every time.
Mallory swallowed. “Adrian.”
“You look good.” His mocking smile took in her mud-spattered boots and pants even as his Scottish burr tickled her nerves. “Never thought I’d see you in those clothes again.”
She pushed away her reaction to his look, that jump in her stomach, by recalling Jonathan’s expression of surprise when she’d packed. Her need to keep her gear had given him evidence she hadn’t put this life behind her as she’d claimed.
“Toney wouldn’t tell me what you’re looking at. I think he’s still mad at me.” She glanced after the younger man as he strolled off toward an open-sided tent before she turned to Adrian. “Have you found something good?”
A light came into his eyes, sending the cynicism she’d seen there before scurrying into the shadows. That hadn’t changed. Dr. Adrian Reeves loved his work.
“You might say that. Will you be able to stay through tomorrow? I’ve got some stuff to show you.” He rubbed his palms together, grinned, and she caught a glimpse of the idealistic boy she’d loved.
She glanced toward the dunes. On the other side would be the dive boat, the gear they’d need to go out to the site dozens of feet beneath the surface. She could taste the oxygen and feel the regulator in her mouth. The wash of nostalgia was unexpected. Turning back, she shook her head. “I need to get home as soon as I can.”
He stepped forward, his eyes scanning her, but she didn’t flinch. He was looking for a weakness. She refused to show him one.
“You said that on the phone. What’s your hurry?”
God, she didn’t want to tell him the truth, not two seconds after she got out of the truck. “I have a life in the States.”
“One you were willing to drop to come out here.”
“You didn’t leave me any choice.” She held his gaze for a long time, wanting him to understand he’d inconvenienced her, but also needing to hide how much it hurt her to come.
“Yeah, well, you have to stay tonight. I don’t want anyone in the jungle in the dark.” He flicked his gaze over her. “You’re probably hungry.”
He turned away, his body loose limbed, relaxed, the opposite of the tension that ran through her own body.
“Dinner should be almost ready. Let’s hit the mess tent.”
She fell into step beside him, unwilling to give him the slightest edge. “Let me guess. Chili and beans.”
“The digestive tract’s best friend.” He looked over his shoulder at the Land Cruiser. “You going to leave your bag in the truck?”
She flushed. Over the past few years she’d gotten accustomed to being waited on by bellboys, waiters, valets, but Adrian’s gentle prodding reminded her of his rule—everyone carried their own weight in his camp. She backtracked the few steps to the Land Cruiser for her duffel and turned to see Adrian’s smirk as he recognized the worn bag.
She swung the strap over her shoulder as they crossed the short distance to the mess tent.
“You’re early, as usual,” the young woman in the tent told him.
The smirk turned into a full-blown smile, complete with dimples and white teeth. Mallory was glad she wasn’t the recipient. It had too much power, and after her long trip, she wouldn’t have any resistance. As it was, it sparked a hum low in her belly. The girl behind the table seemed immune.
“Linda, this is Mallory.”
He didn’t add any more, but the hardness in Linda’s eyes told Mallory he’d mentioned her name before. Well, what did she expect, that he’d have glowing things to say about her after Tunisia? Thank heavens she would be out of here tomorrow.
“Mallory. Welcome to our camp.”
Mallory wondered if her imagination put Linda’s emphasis on the word “our”. Linda’s smile was tight as she served up a bowl of chili that ordinarily wouldn’t have looked appetizing, but after the cardboard burger she’d had on the flight, Mallory’s mouth watered.
Adrian motioned her out to the benches set around a campfire. The evening was already cooling. She suppressed a shiver as she stepped gingerly around the crude wood. Facing the flames with her left side away from him, she balanced her bowl on her lap.
“You did bring a sweatshirt?” Adrian gestured to the goose bumps on her arms.
She inclined her head toward the duffel she’d dropped at her feet. She wasn’t exactly sure why she didn’t want him to see her engagement ring; she fully intended to explain why she was anxious for this divorce. The very thought of that conversation tightened her throat. “I’ll get it in a minute.”
She took a bite of chili. Either she was hungry or had spent years away from camp food, but she found the lumpy brown glop delicious.
Adrian watched her, amusement crinkling the corners of his eyes.
She looked down to see she’d cleaned her bowl. Embarrassed, she set her bowl aside. When she did, her ring glinted in the firelight.
Adrian stilled beside her.
Funny how she was so tuned to him after all these years.
“What’s that?” he asked, his voice flat.
Damn his eagle eyes. She straightened. If she had to choose, she would have waited to talk about this. “My engagement ring.”
His lips thinned. “You’re engaged.” So matter-of-fact, when it couldn’t be easy to learn.
Needing something to do, she bent down and unzipped her duffel. She pulled out her sweatshirt, though she was no longer cold. “You had to know there was a reason I came here to get the papers signed.”
“When’s the wedding?” His eyes didn’t leave the ring, but the muscle in his jaw jumped.
“July 21.”
“That’s—” He calculated, his brow furrowed. “What? Five weeks away?”
“Not quite.” She barely restrained herself from squirming under his inquisition.
He set his full bowl aside with a thunk that showed his emotions were barely constrained. “Who’s the guy?”
“Jonathan Montcroft.” She’d never noticed how pretentious his name sounded on her tongue. The man himself wasn’t, but Adrian would jump to that conclusion. Half an hour with her ex and she was already thinking like him again. “We work together at Allied Global. He’s a linguist.”
The raised eyebrow had her blushing even before he asked, “Better than me?”
She resisted the urge to tell him to grow up. “He speaks five languages.” But her remark didn’t erase the picture his double entendre brought to her mind.
“Five languages. Beats my measly three all to hell, doesn’t it?”
“It’s not a competition.” She was too tired to have this conversation.
“Let me guess.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “He’s the kind of man who wants the white picket fence and two point four kids.”
“Three, but yeah.” She watched him, so masculine it hurt to look at him. She squeezed her eyes shut. This man had been the joy of her life and her downfall.
“What happened to Smoller?”
She drew back. The animosity between the two former partners had begun with Adrian’s accusations that Valentine had taken the ivory casket Adrian and Toney claimed to have uncovered. The casket disappeared soon after and, despite in-depth searching, was never discovered in Valentine’s possession. The vehemence with which Adrian went after Valentine had stunned Mallory. She’d tried to reason with him, but that had only made everything worse. He’d accused her of taking Valentine’s side over his.
Their marriage had not improved from there.
“I haven’t talked to him in months. There was never anything more than friendship between us, Adrian. You know that.”
“Not before I moved out, anyway.”
She sucked a breath through her teeth. “Or after.”
Adrian scrubbed his hands over his face. He sat back, wiped his hands on his hips. “You have those papers?”
Shoulders sagging with relief, she turned away to the duffel at her side and drew out a thick sheaf of papers and a pen. Colorful little flags stuck out from the pages, indicating where his signature was needed.
The two bites of chili Adrian had eaten rose up in his throat and he leaned back to look up at her. Her face was drawn, her eyes anxious as she held out a pen.
Seeing her climb out of the truck dressed in her dig clothes had sent him spiraling back in time, had sent hope tumbling through him. Yeah, he’d known she was coming but sure as hell hadn’t expected to see her in her cargo pants and boots, blonde hair swinging behind her in a ponytail, looking like no time had passed.
“Are you happy?” She didn’t look it. He’d fallen in love with her enthusiasm and her passion for life, for archaeology. For him. Now something more than three years and a thousand miles separated them.
She almost dropped her pen in surprise. “I will be.”
With a nod, he took the pen. If she believed it, he would too. His name looked very final scrawled across the white paper.
He was letting her go. It was what she wanted, so it was the right thing to do. They could both move on.
He was just used to being married. He’d broken habits before. After almost three years apart, this one should be a snap.
“I’ll head back to the city first thing in the morning if you can spare someone to take me to the airport. Probably not Toney because he barely said a word to me. I think he was pissed off.” She took the papers and folded them neatly into an envelope before tucking them away.
“I thought you might want to dive, see what we’re working on.”
Mallory tugged at her ponytail and looked across the camp. “I don’t do archaeology anymore.”
“All right. Never mind, then.” He stood. “First, there’s someone I want you to see.”
He led her to a tent, situated away from the center of the camp, a little sturdier, a little bigger than the others. She cast a curious glance at Adrian, but he said nothing, only watched her face as he pushed open the tent flap.
A rush of joy engulfed Mallory at the sight of the old man in the camp chair. She dropped to the ground beside her mentor, Dr. Robert Vigil. He’d aged so much in the short time, his cheeks hollowed, his eyes sunken but still sparkling in delight at her arrival. He was so thin. He’d never been a large man, but now he seemed frail.
He tossed his familiar cloth dig journal on the floor beside her and closed his bony hands around her shoulders, pulling her up for a warm embrace. Just for a moment, she rested her head against his skinny shoulder, all her worries evaporating in the security of his arms. He’d been her anchor when she’d lost her parents, when her marriage had fallen apart. Now he was here—with Adrian.
She opened her eyes to see Adrian watching them and all those worries rained down again.
“What are you doing here?” Dr. Vigil eased her away to look at her.
“I—” She dropped her gaze from the dark brown eyes that always saw too much, that knew her too well. “I came to see Adrian.”
She heard the hitch of breath that could be hope or wariness. Dr. Vigil had loved both of them but their constant fighting and their split had been hard on him. Mallory felt guilty—and not a little jealous—that Adrian had kept in contact with him. She’d known the professor since she was a child. But once she split with Adrian, she hadn’t wanted any reminders of Adrian, of her digger’s past, of the career that destroyed dreams. Because of her need for distance, she’d lost the only family she had left.
“She brought the divorce papers,” Adrian said, still near the entrance of the tent. He pulled a cellophane bag of beef jerky out of the pocket where he used to carry his cigarettes. “She’s getting married again.”
She whipped her head up to meet Dr. Vigil’s gaze, knowing if she looked at Adrian, she’d burn a hole through him for beating her to the punch.
The professor’s stunned expression lasted only a second before a smile spread across his face, not quite reaching his eyes. “Congratulations, Mallory. I hope he’s worthy of you.”
She heard the censure in his voice and defensiveness rose. Did he want her to continue pining after Adrian, who couldn’t give her what she needed?
Dr. Vigil must have seen the pain in her face because he shifted subjects. “You look wonderful. Doesn’t she look wonderful, Adrian?”
Adrian shoved the jerky into his pocket. “She’s too skinny.”
She scowled, rising. “It’s the stress of planning a wedding. This time I want to do it right.”
Their own wedding had been an outdoor affair in Greece, and they’d dressed in their dig clothes. Their only concessions to convention were the rings and the flowers in her hair. At the time, the ceremony had seemed the height of romance. They’d been young and wild about each other, certain nothing or no one would ever come between them. She imagined most young couples felt that way, but she and Adrian—she’d been so sure. She glanced at his left hand. Of course he’d stopped wearing his ring.
She folded her left hand into a fist. Now she wore someone else’s.
“You might have considered planning it after you were divorced.” He’d stopped his laconic lounging and stood straight, tension in the lines of his body.
She stepped closer. “You might have signed the papers before you left civilization. You’ve had them for months.”
They were nose to nose in the small space, his scent washing over her, filling her with a memory of gliding hands and hot skin, while his flashing eyes filled her with another, aching recollection. So many fights, just like this one. This wasn’t what love was supposed to be. She drew back, relieved she and Jonathan never fought, never lashed out at each other. Never hurt each other.
Adrian glared a moment longer before he spun and left the tent.
“I’m sorry, Dr. Vigil,” Mallory murmured, embarrassed that he’d witnessed such a spectacle, that she hadn’t grown up where Adrian was concerned. In that moment, she’d forgotten the old man was there.
Dr. Vigil waved a hand, dismissing it as if it didn’t bother him. His eyes crinkled as he looked after Adrian. “It feels like old times.”
She glanced toward the opening. “Is he still chasing after the Theophilius boxes?”
Dr. Vigil’s gaze sharpened. “He hasn’t told you?”
She shook her head.
“He thinks he’s found one.”

Beneath the Surface is available at all retailers. 

“Join the army, see the world,” Master Sergeant Alex Shepard mocked under his breath.
He hated jungles. Yet here he was, stuck in another one. Central America this time. Why couldn’t he be sent to the Arctic or Siberia? What drew the bad guys to the heat and humidity? Or did the atmosphere make them the bad guys in the first place?
He wiped sweat from his eyes with a shrug of his shoulder. Almost midnight and hotter than midday back home in Texas.
He and his team of Rangers joined a group of DEA agents crouched on a hillside, surveilling a sprawling home in a manmade clearing in the middle of the jungle, a compound as out of the way as Santiago Saldana could make it.
Saldana was the baddest of the bad when it came to drug kingpins. He’d kidnapped, tortured and killed DEA agents, and used the scum-of-the-earth MS-13 gang to get his product over the border. A DEA agent had infiltrated Saldana’s inner circle, but hadn’t been heard from in weeks, so here they were.
Problem was, they might be too late. They hadn’t been able to confirm Saldana’s presence in the compound. After three days, there was no sight of him, or the American infiltrator who had been their source of information.
So they waited. In the heat. With the bugs. And the rain.
“Showtime,” Sergeant Julian Cervantes murmured from Alex’s left, his binoculars trained on the compound.
A light flickered on in the house below and a goddess stepped into the bathroom, a goddess with dark wavy hair, eyes that tilted up in the corners like a cat’s, and creamy skin that glowed in the soft light. Alex didn’t have to raise his own binoculars to know—they’d managed to be on this side of the compound the past two nights at this time. The side on the hill, with the view of the bathroom which held the luxurious large tub and glassed-in shower.
The goddess wore a silky white robe tonight and flipped back the sleeves as she reached over to turn on the water. She poured in a pink glob of some stuff she’d had sitting on the side of the tub, no doubt sweet smelling, and it foamed under the stream of water. Then she twisted her shoulder-length hair up and pinned it with a clip, exposing a long, graceful neck.
Yeah, he was watching through his binoculars now. This job had damn few perks and she was just about the best he’d seen during his twelve years in.
Then facing the window—she had to think she was alone, with this damn jungle all around—she let the robe slide down her arms in a slow, sensuous movement.
Beside him, Julian uttered what sounded like a prayer.
She was a fantasy woman, with full, round dark-tipped breasts, her nipples erect from the friction of the silk. Her skin was flawless. He could almost feel the smoothness of it under his rough palm, and he folded his fingers against the sensation. The curls at the apex of her thighs were dark and neat.
She stepped into the tub—hell, even her feet were graceful—and slipped beneath the bubbles.
This time Julian swore.
She lathered up some fluffy cloth and smoothed it over her arm, leaving tiny bubbles in its wake.
The sight of a woman indulging in a bubble bath in the middle of the jungle was so incongruous. She poured soap on the thick cloth, lifted her legs from the bubbles to smooth it on, such feminine actions. So out of place in his world.
Then her hands disappeared under the water. For a while.
She closed her eyes, scooted lower and her lips parted.
“Jesus,” Alex breathed.
“I hate bubbles,” Julian said in a choked voice.
Alex shouldn’t be watching. He should tear his gaze away as she tilted her head back, offering her throat to her invisible lover. Who was she imagining over her, touching her? Saldana? The thought almost gave him the strength to turn away before she reached out of the tub and picked up a bright pink object.
He recognized it from last night, when there had been no bubbles, only the woman, standing with her robe parted, one leg on the edge of the tub and--
“Is that her—?” Julian didn’t say the word. “Are those things waterproof?”
She arched her back, revealing soapy breasts. Alex imagined his own touch smoothing away the bubbles to make way for his mouth. Her body undulated with pleasure, sending water and bubbles over the side of the tub.
He jerked his gaze away with a curse. He had no business watching this woman, Saldana’s lover, not when he had sweet Rebecca waiting for him back home.
Rebecca, who he’d never seen naked, never touched, never more than kissed. She wasn’t ready for a physical relationship after her bastard of a husband had taken off on her, and Alex treasured her too much to push for it. Rebecca Kelso was his ideal, not the goddess in the tub. Rebecca was the kind of woman who would make him sane again after the things he’d seen and done. She would give him balance.
He reached over and smacked Julian’s arm. The younger man turned with glazed eyes and inclined his head. The goddess was rising from the tub now, soap bubbles sliding down her flushed body, her movements languid with the aftereffects of her ministrations. The cat eyes were heavy lidded, the look of a satisfied woman.
Alex hadn’t seen that look in a long time.
“Let’s get out of here,” he mouthed to Julian.
“Who is she, do you suppose?” Julian whispered as they slipped through the foliage on their way back to the rudimentary camp. “Saldana’s girlfriend? We don’t have any intel on a girlfriend.”
“Who cares?” Alex said. “She has to know what kind of person he is, and she doesn’t care. If that’s what floats her boat, she ain’t worth fantasizing about.”
“Were you not watching the same thing I was? Damn, have you ever seen a woman do that? I’ve never seen a woman do that.”
Alex didn’t think Julian expected an answer. Thank God. “She’s given up her soul for the lifestyle he offers her.”
Julian frowned. “Way out here? Not a lot of women would go for that. The question is, why would he leave a woman like that out here alone so long? Something’s wrong with that picture. You don’t think he’s already moved to the States?”
Alex shook his head. He didn’t know. He had to hope they weren’t too late. “Maybe there’s a leak. The agent who gave us the intel on Saldana also could have given him the heads-up that we were coming. Maybe he tortured it out of him. No matter how, Saldana isn’t here. We’re wasting time and resources waiting for him to come back.”
He pulled away from Julian, as they entered the camp, already reaching in his rucksack for the spiral he kept there. When the younger man went to make a report to Keith Vasquez, the agent in charge, Alex dropped against a tree and flipped open the battered spiral to write to Rebecca.
But he couldn’t get his mind off the raven-haired goddess. He had to do something.
“We’re wasting time.” Alex confronted Vasquez when he couldn’t calm down enough to finish his letter to Rebecca. They weren’t going to complete the mission by waiting Saldana out. The man was long gone. “Saldana isn’t coming back. He’s not stupid enough to just drive past us to get home. We missed him. Time to regroup.”
“Master Sergeant,” Vasquez said coolly, keeping his voice low to avoid detection. “He left something valuable behind.”
“What would that be?”
“The woman. Isabella Canales. She’s an American citizen.”
“Saldana’s whore,” Alex spat.
Even Vasquez drew back. “You know her?”
“We saw her on surveillance. You think she’s worth his freedom? More importantly, does he?”
“Hell yeah,” Julian murmured.
Alex shot him a look. “You don’t get it. Women like that are a dime a dozen. It’s not like he loves her for her mind.”
“Maybe not. But she is an American citizen,” Vasquez said.
“Who shares her bed with the scum of the earth.”
Vasquez tightened his jaw. “One more day. We haven’t seen Agent Cortez yet.”
They wouldn’t. If Saldana was gone, he wouldn’t have left his associates behind. If he’d knocked the agent off as a spy, well, they’d likely stumble over his body in the jungle. But this wasn’t Alex’s call. Vasquez made it clear his opinion didn’t count.
“Send me back down to watch, then. Let’s make the most of these twenty-four hours.”
“I already have Lee and Jordan out there.”
“Another man can give you another angle.”
“I need you fresh.”
Alex looked at him pityingly. “I’m a Ranger. I do what needs to be done.” He turned to find Julian.
“You know she’s asleep, right?” Alex asked Julian a few moments later as they hiked the short distance to the compound.
“Yeah, but if you think I’m going to be the only Ranger snoozing while the rest of you are on the mission, you got another think coming.”
“Did it sound to you like Vasquez wants to go in for the girl?”
“That is what it sounded like.”
“He better have damn good information on the inside of that place. I do not want to be booby-trapped in the jungle.”
They moved clockwise around the perimeter, west of where they had been at their earlier post. A spider the size of a tennis ball dropped on Alex’s arm, and even after he flicked it away, he could feel the hairy legs on his skin.
He hated the jungle.
“What the hell is that?” Julian muttered, directing Alex’s attention to a corner of the compound and the slight figure emerging from it.
“A kid?” Alex theorized. “Out for an adventure?”
“In the jungle?” Julian scoffed. “At night?”
“They aren’t always smart.” Damned if he didn’t know that from experience.
“This one is.” Julian motioned to the way the figure glanced over his shoulder. “Doesn’t want to get caught.”
“Running away from a parent.”
“You see anyone besides the girl and the guards in there since we’ve been watching?”
“Christ.” Alex focused his binoculars on the kid, only it wasn’t a kid. Dark hair hidden under a dark cap, pulled back into a ponytail that curled in at the nape of a slim, graceful neck. When she turned to look behind her, he saw the feminine tilt of her nose. “What the hell is she doing?”
“Who is it?”
Alex lowered his binoculars and started moving down the hill. “The goddess.”
“Who?” Julian asked from behind him. “Where are you going?”
“Vasquez says she’s the only thing Saldana cares about, the only thing that will draw him out. We need to get her.”


Isabella Canales’s heart pounded. Maybe this wasn’t the best idea. How would she find the American soldiers in the jungle at night? Clearly they didn’t want anyone to know they were here. If that was the case, how would she, with no training and no real jungle experience, find them?
When Eric Reyes had told her soldiers were on their way to take Santiago into custody, she’d hatched her plan. But Santiago had seen the American talking to her, alone, secretively, and he’d gone into a rage. She didn’t want to remember what he’d done to the man.
She didn’t want to think about what Santiago had done to her. So she’d planned her escape.
She’d staged her show every night at midnight, luring the guards into an unofficial schedule. They would stop outside her window at that time, then they’d move on, leaving her a window of time to get out of the compound unseen. No one would miss her till the morning.
If Santiago even dreamed she was thinking about escaping, her life would be so much worse. She couldn’t afford for him to catch her. She couldn’t be his prisoner anymore.
Her stolen boots rubbed with every step despite three pair of socks, and the rough fabric chafed her skin after years of wearing only the finest fabrics. She hoped the soldiers had transportation, and that it wasn’t far. She hoped she could charm them into taking her home. She didn’t want to play her trump card yet.
A stealthy rustling to her left froze her in her tracks. Jaguars were nocturnal, right? But surely they’d be intimidated by her size.
If she were a hundred pounds heavier.
Too late, she realized the jungle had gone silent, as if the creatures in the trees froze as well, hoping the predator would ignore their existence.
Great. She was out in the jungle, in danger of either being discovered by Santiago’s guards or being eaten.
Then a face emerged from the brush, only it wasn’t the face she was expecting. It was…green and black streaked, and a moment passed before her terror-stricken brain processed it as human, beneath a helmet wound with vines.
A soldier.
Her relief was short lived, because the soldier had an automatic weapon pointed at her chest.
“Isabella Canales?” His American accent skipped over the nuances of her Spanish name.
“Yes?” Her voice was shaky.
“Toss your pack over there and put your hands in the air.”


Goddamn. Up close she was even more stunning, a tiny little thing, the kind of woman a man wanted to care for, protect. The kind who, while he was watching her back, stabbed a knife in his.
“You stay there while Cervantes goes through your pack, then he’s going to pat you down.” He wished he didn’t have to hold a gun on her so he could do it himself. To make sure she was safe before he brought her back into camp. That was why.
His grip tightened. Yeah, right.
He glanced over to see Julian unzip her pack and swear.
Alarm raced through Alex, and he weighed possibilities and solutions. Was she armed? Wired? He scanned the area for cover. “What?”
“It glows in the dark.” Julian gingerly lifted a familiar pink object from the bag with two fingers.
“Christ.” Alex turned back to the goddess. “You’re going out into the jungle to get off? Putting on a show in front of a window wasn’t enough?”
She didn’t answer, every line in her body tight as Julian dug through her things. Keeping one eye on her, Alex noticed Julian paw past a colorful piece of fabric, saw the flash of high heels. Where the hell did this woman think she was going?
“Clean,” Julian pronounced after another minute. “You want me to search her?”
“I’ll do it.” Instead of shouldering his gun, he passed it to Julian, never taking his gaze off her.
He reached to remove her hat, forking his fingers through her hair, dragging the rubber band free, ignoring the silky strands catching on his rough fingers and the flowery scent rising as he dragged his fingers along her scalp. She looked up at him, eyes large and wary, her gaze not leaving him as he moved his touch down her slender back and into the waistband of her cargo pants, skimming his palms over silky panties. The pants were loose enough that he could reach her thighs, but that would mean bringing her body even closer to his. Already he could smell her on his clothes, no doubt the scent from that pink stuff she’d poured in the tub.
Stepping back, he snatched his hands out of her pants. The expression in her eyes was daring. A thrill of admiration ran through him.
He squashed it like the spider.
He reached under her tank top, over her smooth flat stomach, under the underwire of her bra, his fingertips brushing the plump undersides of her breasts.
Soft.
Then hard. Her nipples pebbled at his touch and he tried to quell the lust that rose up. He didn’t linger, but searched under her bra, beneath her arms.
Still she looked at him with those dark eyes.
Then he slid his hands down inside the front of her pants, kicking her feet apart.
The flesh of her belly jumped under his palm, but other than that she didn’t move when he reached down the front of her panties, over those neat dark curls that he could see in his memory. He probed her heat briefly, businesslike, ignoring the tightening in his groin, then removed his touch to pat down her thighs.
“Take off your boots.”
“May I sit?” A thread of fury underlay her voice.
“Be my guest.”
She dropped to the ground, untied one boot and shoved it at him. He inspected it, marveling at the large size, then dropped it to the ground beside her and took her other boot.
“What exactly did you think I’d be hiding?” she asked as she retied her boots and got to her feet.
Her voice was too loud, so he hushed her, leaned close to answer. “I’ve seen women stick some nasty things in some nasty places to kill soldiers.”
“You think I’m coming to attack you?” She glared, and her words whipped out. “I’m coming to you for help.”
He eased back, the scent of her overwhelming the scent of the jungle and his own stink. “We’re to believe you because you tell us? You’re not exactly trustworthy.”
“Why not?”
He inclined his head toward the compound. “The company you keep.” He motioned her to walk ahead of him back to camp. What the hell was she doing out here in the first place? He squelched his curiosity. He was the muscle, not the detective. He’d let Vasquez take care of it. The more distance he kept from Isabella Canales, the better.
But he could still smell her on his hands.


This was a bad idea. Isabella’s skin hadn’t stopped crawling since the silent soldier had stopped touching her. She was a prisoner, a suspect. She hadn’t foreseen this, the disdain, the suspicion. The near-hatred.
The man the soldiers took her to introduced himself as Vasquez and looked down at her like he had found some prize. Her whole body tightened so much she thought her muscles would snap.
“Where is Saldana?” Vasquez asked, his voice smooth.
Isabella didn’t fall for the attempt at charm. “You think he’d tell me?”
Vasquez lifted an eyebrow. “You’re his lover, aren’t you?”
She felt herself flush. The young Hispanic soldier who had gone through her pack studied her, and the others didn’t hide their smirks. Only the silent one, the one who had searched her, had no expression. But he watched her.
“He left when he heard you were coming.”
“Where did he hear it?”
She swallowed her fear. If they hated her this much now, how would they feel about her if they knew an American had been tortured and killed in the compound and she had been the reason? “I don’t know.”
“You’re lying.”
She recognized the tone. Santiago used it often enough to intimidate her. “Why would I lie to you? I need your help.”
Vasquez drew back a little. “You need our help?”
She didn’t look away, though she wanted to. God, she hated how he was looking down his nose at her. “I want to go home.”
“Saldana wouldn’t take you?”
She had to turn her head then. “I served him better here. And I didn’t have money to leave on my own. You’re my only chance.”
“You’re saying you’re his prisoner.” The silent soldier spoke at last, and all the contempt she’d gotten from Vasquez was nothing compared to the tone of his deep voice.
“I haven’t been allowed to leave the compound in four years.”
“In my experience, hostages don’t get silk robes and vibrators.”
She kept her head turned away. Of course he’d assume she was lying, but she was still humiliated by the search. “Those things were for his pleasure, not mine.”
“Not from what I saw tonight.”
She whipped around on him then, needing to release the tension that threatened to shatter her. “You have no right to accuse me. You don’t know what I’ve endured.”
“I know drug dealers. I know what whores endure.” He pushed away from the tree at last, looking down at her with hate in his dark eyes. A contempt even Santiago didn’t show.
“Shepard, that’s enough.” Vasquez’s voice was calm but firm, and the soldier stepped back.
Shepard. That was the name of the man who’d touched her so roughly. He straightened at the order but didn’t look away. So she didn’t either.
“If you won’t tell us where Saldana has gone, we use you as bait,” Vasquez said, drawing her attention.
That forced a laugh from her. “You overestimate my value. If I was so valuable, do you think he would have left me here?”
Vasquez moved closer. “I don’t believe I do. I know Saldana—I know he doesn’t tolerate having something he owns being taken from him.”
So, in four years, she had made no gains. She was nothing more than a pawn. Her safety, her happiness was important to no one, and the only person who loved her was thousands of miles away.
She had to get to him.
These men, the three agents and four soldiers, planned on using her. She would use them in return. She just couldn’t let them know.


Surrounded by DEA agents in a Humvee, heading back home, and still Isabella didn’t feel safe. Would she ever feel safe again? She would spend the rest of her life waiting for Santiago to catch up to her. What Vasquez had said about him was right. He didn’t like things taken from him, and she was his property. If she didn’t get back to the States before he found out she was missing, he knew just how to hurt her most. She hadn’t thought that part through.
Maybe this wasn’t the best plan, but it was the only one she had.
At least the silent soldier, Shepard, was in the other vehicle. She was operating on the last reserves of the courage that had brought her out of the compound, and didn’t need his constant judgment.
The ground shook and the men in the front seat swore. There was a rattling, and the man beside her grabbed the back of her head and shoved her down behind the seat onto his lap. She tensed instinctively. This had been a risk, but here? Now?
“Don’t fight me.”
What did he mean? Did he think she would do what he wanted here?
“They’re shooting at—” He grunted, but as soon as she heard the word shooting, she was down. The rattling sound was louder, almost constant, sometimes in harmony. God, how many were shooting at them?
The vehicle lurched forward, the front end dropping at an angle, flinging Isabella against the back of the front seat and pushing the other man on top of her.
The shouting in the front seat had stopped, and the man on her made no effort to get off of her, his dead weight pushing her to the floor, bending her waist at a painful angle, something wet soaking into the back of her shirt.
Dead weight. Wet and warm, a coppery scent of…
Oh, God.
She gagged, then forced the thought away and gathered her strength to push out from underneath him. He must weigh over two hundred pounds. She couldn’t get enough leverage with her legs to lift him off her, so she had to squirm toward the door sliding out from underneath him.
She reached for the door and the metal handle was hot. She snatched her hand back. God, the car was on fire. She was going to die here, burn alive. Would she never get home, never see—?
“Come on.”
She turned to the other door, saw a hand reaching in and followed the arm to the dark eyes of Shepard.
“Come on,” he said, sharper this time.
“I can’t. He’s—” The weight of the man still pinned her to the seat. But the other door was beneath her. “Can you open this door?”
“No.”
The heat was unbearable through her pants, and Shepard withdrew his arm, probably figuring she wasn’t worth saving. She didn’t want to burn to death. She shoved harder against the dead man on her back, and suddenly the weight was gone, she was free, and Shepard was stretching toward her again.
She reached for him, and the truck lurched forward, putting another foot between her hand and his. It felt like she was standing on the door she’d been trying to escape from. Another lurch, another few inches. She screamed his name and saw him throw himself forward, his fingertips brushing hers.
“You have…to climb…on him,” he grunted, every word an effort.
Oh God. Climb on a dead man to lever herself out. Could she do it?
“Now. The truck’s about to go.”
Go where? She wanted to ask, but the strained expression on his face told her now wasn’t the time for questions. She put one booted foot on the man lying against the door, then the other, sinking into the soft tissue. Heaven forgive her.
He grasped her wrists firmly, and when she looked up into his eyes, she saw the first hint of approval.
But when he started to lift her—she could see the strain in his face, his arms—she remembered. She couldn’t leave her pack behind, not after what she’d risked to get out. She pulled one hand free and twisted to look for it, found it wedged between the dead man and the floorboard.
She pulled her other arm free and bent to tug it loose.
Above her, Shepard swore a string. “What are you doing? Do you want to die? The truck is going over.”
She tugged it by the straps and the truck lurched, along with her heart. Another tug and it was free. She looped it over her arm and turned back to see Shepard still waiting, reaching, and she lifted her arms to him.
He pulled both wrists, making her arms ache as the slender bones held the weight of her body. He slid one hand down to her elbow, then the other to her shoulder as her feet scrabbled for purchase first on the seat, finding a place on the back of the front seat, pushing her way toward him. The truck shifted. Over the sound of her pounding heart, she heard the groan of metal, the rattle of more gunfire, which had grown louder now, closer.
Finally Shepard had her, his arms hooked under both shoulders, her face pressed to his sweaty, stubbled throat as he lifted, as the truck fell away in a screech of metal and she tumbled onto Shepard’s chest.
She couldn’t even catch her breath because he was yanking her to her feet and shoving her—his hand on her ass and back, keeping her bent over as she moved—shoving her toward the sound of the gunfire, the intermittent muzzle flashes. She hesitated, turned to protest, and he tackled her, sending her face first down a muddy incline with a mouthful of vegetation. He skidded beside her on his back, gun cradled to his chest. When she turned to give him a dirty look, she saw that the shooting was coming from the other soldiers, providing cover.
So Shepard could save her butt.
She opened her mouth to say thank you and spit out some leaves.
Shepard turned to her, his eyes hard with a layer of desperation sheening them. “Put your arms around me.”
“What?” She fought to focus, still shaking.
“We’ve got to go down there.” He pointed.
She turned. In the moonlight, she could see that a few feet away, the ground dropped off. A cliff.
Shepard was pulling her toward it. She dug her heels in and clutched her pack to her with both arms.
“Are you crazy?” she shouted over the continuing sound of gunfire, both from their enemies and from the other soldiers.
He glared, jaw set, lips tight. “If you don’t we are going to die. I don’t think you can make it down on your own. Put your arms around me.”
She couldn’t. She couldn’t even look down.
Shepard stuck his face in hers. “Would you rather go back with him?”
That riveted her. She slipped the knapsack against her chest and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. He pulled her against him, harder than she expected, knocking her breath out.
“Don’t let go,” he said, his muscles bunching so she could feel the tension running through his body as he stepped back, and the world dropped out from beneath her.

Breaking Daylight is available at all retailers.

Brioney Dawson balanced on the stool, one heel hooked on the bottom rung, and tuned her guitar. She strummed, adjusted, then, satisfied, look out over the customers of The Wharf, the restaurant where she performed every week. For a Friday night in October, the place was pretty empty, though it would probably fill up closer to sunset. The restaurant’s location on pylons extending over the bay made it an ideal spot to watch the sunset.
This time of year, the snowbirds hadn’t started drifting down to the Texas coast, ahead of the heavy work that went with winter up north. But by January many would descend, after enjoying a picture postcard Christmas before heading to warmer climates.
Right now Brioney would venture a guess that the dinner crowd was mostly Texans, having a last summer hurrah.
The open-air restaurant suited that, cooled by the ocean breeze through the rolled-up doors.
“Good evening, everybody. I’m Brioney Dawson, your entertainment tonight. If you have any requests, I have a book here.” She motioned to a cute little journal with butterflies that her daughter had bought her. It sat at the edge of the stage next to the tip jar. “I’ll do my best to play it. I’m going to start with one of my favorites.”
Her fingers moved on the frets without conscious thought as she closed her eyes and swung into an old Stevie Nicks song. She was so lucky JoAnna let her sing here. She only sang on Friday, and only for tips, but she loved it. Performing made her feel like there was life beyond being a maid at the one hotel on Avalon Island. As she sang, the noise softened, the clink of glasses and clank of silverware disappeared, and she slipped away from the small town and landed on a stage in Nashville or L.A. or Las Vegas. Instead of dozens of people in her audience, she had thousands. A ridiculous fantasy, she knew, but she enjoyed it anyway.
When she’d finished the song to what she always thought was surprised applause, she opened her eyes, back to reality, and met the amused blue eyes of Blue Ramsey. He leaned back on the barstool and clapped his big hands heartily before he stopped to take a deep swallow of his beer. This was a usual routine. She sang at The Wharf on Friday nights, he’d drink at The Wharf on Friday nights. JoAnna could count on them for consistency.
She thought it was kind of strange, though, that she and Blue had become friends, considering he’d dated her sister throughout high school and followed her to Austin, before they’d broken up and he’d moved back to Avalon Island. Still, he’d been coming around for a while, like he was looking out for her and her daughter.
Brioney sang a couple more songs, including a new Taylor Swift her daughter had urged her to learn, then two of her own compositions before she consulted the notebook. She had three requests, a folk song from the 1960s, a song from the radio, and an obscure title written in Blue’s distinctive hand.
This was a game they played. He would try to stump her with a song, and she would play it. Since he’d grown up with eccentric parents—thus the name Blue—he had an eclectic taste in music. Sometimes his songs were indie rock and sometimes they were bluegrass. So far, she’d been able to meet his challenges.
She attributed her broad knowledge to the fact that she spent most of her days cleaning hotel rooms, listening to all kinds of songs on her earbuds. This one was from the movie her daughter Joy had been watching over and over, so she knew it cold. She played the other two first, then met Blue’s gaze as she sang his song with a bit more sass than the original.
“I guess that can count,” he said when she took a break and joined him at the bar.
“Not even a challenge,” she retorted.
“Buy you a drink?” he asked, motioning to his own beer.
“I don’t drink when I’m playing.” Or ever, really. She didn’t want to go home to her daughter with alcohol on her breath. And she needed to set a good example for her younger brother, Brandon, who lived with her.
“Lemonade, then? Sweet tea?”
She took the seat next to him. “I wouldn’t say no to a soda.” She’d cut back on those, too, but every once in a while liked to indulge.
“How’s Joy?”
“She’s good.” She shifted on the barstool, happy to discuss her favorite subject. “Fourth grade math is kind of kicking her butt, but thankfully Brandon is good at it and can help her. They do a lot of writing in fourth grade, and that she likes.”
“Can’t believe she’s in fourth grade. Before you know it, she’ll be a teenager.”
That was not her favorite subject. “I have plenty of time for her to be a little girl.”
“You should bring her down to the docks. I’ll take y’all out for a ride on the boat.”
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d enjoyed the benefits of living on the coast. “I’ll have to check my schedule to see when I’m off, and she doesn’t have anything going on. When do you work?”
“I go out on weekends, mostly, but I’m down there most days, doing something or another.”
That was Blue, always doing something or another. During the summer, he ran a rental booth on the beach with his friend Logan, renting beach chairs and canopies to beach-goers. Occasionally, he gave surfing lessons, and sometimes he drove a tow truck, usually catering to tourists who got their little cars stuck in the sand. Now and again, he filled in as bartender. No focus, no responsibility. She didn’t understand it, the lack of drive, when she was working as a maid, going to college online and singing here. And she thought of herself as a late bloomer. When Blue had returned to Avalon Island after college, she’d figured he just wasn’t ready to grow up, but now, nearly seven years later, he hadn’t changed.
At all.
Brioney couldn’t understand that.
“Come down tomorrow. When was the last time you were out on the water?”
“Won’t you have a full boat on a Saturday?”
“Maybe, maybe not. You know what you’re doing, though, so you don’t need me to hold your hand. It’d be good for you to get out on the water.”
Why did he think that? He couldn’t know how stressed she was. He didn’t know the meaning of the word.
She saw another person drop her notebook back to the stage, and she nodded in that direction. “I need to get back up there.”
He smiled. “Yeah, you do. Come down tomorrow,” he urged again, and she wondered if she should.
* * *
Joy was asleep when Brioney got home, but Brandon was awake, playing a violent video game she didn’t allow him to play when Joy was awake. She greeted him with a kiss on the cheek, no longer noticing the ink-black hair, the black painted fingernails. Her brother had been a cute kid before he’d gone full-on gamer. But if this was what made him happy, if that kept him going, she wasn’t going to fight him.
“How was she?”
“Good, as usual.” He paused the game and sat back, but didn’t take his gaze from the screen. They held most of their conversations like this.
She set her guitar on the floor on the far side of the kitchen table. She’d eaten a little at the restaurant, but she wanted something sweet, and wondered if Joy and Brandon had found her secret stash of Milanos. “What are you doing tomorrow?”
He gestured with his controller at the big-screen television. “Same thing I’m doing now.”
“Blue invited us out on the boat.”
“Ah. No.”
“Seems a shame for us to live so close to the water and never take advantage of it, when so many people spend so much money to do the things we take for granted.”
“Yeah. I’m sticking with no.”
“I feel bad leaving you behind.”
“Nah, it’d be nice to have the house to myself.”
He’d definitely find her Milano stash then. “And what will you do if you have the house to yourself?” Even as the words left her mouth, she regretted them, especially when he paused the game and turned to give her a look over his shoulder.
“Okay, well, I’m going to bed so I can get out there early.” Giving up her desire for cookies at the risk of giving away the hiding place, she kissed the top of his head and walked toward her bedroom.
* * *
Brioney shifted her weight to balance the backpack over her shoulder as she followed Joy out on the dock. How did the kid have so much energy this early? She’d been up over an hour already and helped make their special Saturdays-off breakfast of pancakes and sausage.
She made a beeline for Blue’s boat Blue Skies, where he stepped out and caught her in his arms, swinging her up. She squealed with laughter, like a little kid, before he deposited her on deck and turned to smile at Brioney, white teeth flashing, blue eyes crinkling.
She came to a stumbling stop as her stomach dropped to her toes. Where had that reaction come from? She’d known Blue since she was a kid. Her sister was only a year older than her, so the three of them and Mercedes, her best friend, had done a lot together. Okay, maybe more than once she’d admired the look of him, like when he’d been shirtless on the beach or by the pool. But she loved her sister too much to do more than that. But today, the ratty flip-flops, ragged cargo shorts, and the faded-to-colorless T-shirt didn’t matter, only that smile and the way he was looking at her.
His smile dimmed, and he stepped forward. “You okay?”
How long had she been standing there, gawking like an idiot? “I’m fine. I’m good.”
He took the backpack and staggered, exaggerated, under the weight. “What do you have in there?”
“Water, sunscreen, a change of clothes, a jacket for each of us.” All the things a mother needed to think about.
“I have water and sunscreen, and extra jackets on the boat.”
“Well, I didn’t know that.”
“Because you haven’t been out in so long. Come aboard.”
“Do you have a lot of clients today?” she asked, ignoring his proffered hand because honestly, she just wasn’t sure what touching him would do to her brain right now. She pulled the backpack away from him.
“Two older couples. Should be here any minute. You ladies get settled in.” He hopped on the deck beside her and tugged on Joy’s braid, much like he’d done with Brioney’s hair back in the day. “Good to see you, kid. Give me a hand making ready, and tell me what you’ve been up to.”
She watched her daughter tag along after him, and stowed their bag under the seats that lined the boat. Blue was good with Joy. She’d forgotten about that, how he’d been around her whole life and seemed to feel invested, like an honorary uncle. And it was good for Joy to learn about boats and fishing and things Brioney didn’t have time to teach her. She dropped to her seat and leaned her head back, closing her eyes against the sun reflecting off the water. She knew she should put on her sunscreen, and she would in a minute, but for now, she wanted to just savor the warmth.
“Hello?” A gruff voice brought her out of her reverie, and she opened her eyes to see Blue’s clients standing on the dock. She stood quickly to welcome them, and Blue joined her to offer his own greeting.
The man with the gray beard stepped onto the deck before helping down a blonde woman. Then a tall, slender man with military bearing followed, and his wife, a brunette, was on her own.
Brioney watched as Blue settled them in, showed them where to store their belongings, where the cooler was so they could help themselves to refreshments. He was good at this, good with people, making everyone comfortable before he beckoned Joy to come to the bridge with him. He motioned for Brioney to cast them off from the dock, then they were on their way out of the channel, heading toward the bay. She leaned her head back again, letting the breeze wash over her, and watched a flock of pelicans soar overhead. They were her favorite, so primitive-looking. One broke away and dove toward the wake of the boat, startling an exclamation from one woman as the pelican swooped beneath the surface, then emerged victorious, a large fish flapping in its beak.
“I wish I was that lucky,” one of the men, who’d introduced himself as John, said.
“If you had that laser surgery like I told you to, you might be,” his wife Marie countered.
He scowled at her.
“How long have you been married?” Brioney asked, and wondered what compelled her curiosity. Lord knew she saw enough people at the hotel and didn’t want to know their stories, beyond what they left behind in their rooms.
“Twenty-eight years,” Marie said. “Long enough that I hear that every time we come on vacation.”
“Are you from Texas?” Brioney asked.
“North Dakota,” John responded. “We live there half a year, and here half a year. Tired of shoveling all that damn snow.”
“I can see that.” But she couldn’t help a wistful sigh. “I’ve never even seen snow.”
“Have you lived here all your life?”
“Yes, and I couldn’t ask for a better place to grow up, but we don’t have much in the way of seasons, unless you count hurricane season.”
“Now that would be terrifying,” the other woman, Sharon, said. “Risking losing everything by living here? I couldn’t do that.”
“We’ve been lucky, nothing major in my lifetime. We’ve evacuated a couple of times, when I was a kid, but at the last minute the hurricanes took a turn toward the north and we were spared.”
“That is fortunate.” Sharon looked toward the bridge. “Your husband is good with your daughter.”
The words took a minute to penetrate, then a flush heated her face. “Oh, Blue? No, he’s not my husband. He’s just a friend. He just wanted to do something nice for us today.”
“Oh, I wondered. You have such a good rapport, I was sure you were married.”
“We’ve just known each other forever.”
“What is it you do?”
“I’m a maid at the Avalon Island Hotel.” She had worked there since she was in high school and was used to the pitying looks she got. Sometimes she was compelled to let people know she was studying for a business degree, but not today. Let them judge.
“I guess you meet a lot of people when you work in the tourism industry,” Marie said. “Even people from other countries?”
Brioney took the opportunity to tell them about the British couple she’d met this past summer, who claimed to have minor roles in Downton Abbey, only to be interrupted when Joy bounded down the stairs and skidded to a stop in front of her.
“Blue told me to remind you to put our sunscreen on.”
“Right. Get the bag.”
As she applied lotion to her daughter, Blue guided the boat out on the open water.
“Blue said we might see dolphins today. Are we going to fish?”
“Maybe. It’s up to Blue.”
“You like to fish?” the other man, William, asked, surprised.
“Yes, my uncle taught me, but I don’t like to clean them.”
“If you catch them, you have to clean them. That’s the rule.”
“I know. My uncle taught me that, too, but I still don’t like to do it.” She wrinkled her nose. “Sometimes I just throw them back so I don’t have to clean them, but sometimes I like to eat them. My mom cooks them really good. Are you going fishing?”
“We certainly hope to. The advertisement said your friend knows the best spots.”
“He should. He’s been doing this since he was Joy’s age,” Brioney said with a smile.
When Blue brought the boat around and anchored it, Brioney sat back and watched him settle his clients, then Joy, with fishing poles.
“Are you sure you’re just friends?” Marie leaned over to ask. “You haven’t stopped looking at him since he came down from the pilothouse.”
Brioney willed herself not to blush, the new feelings rushing forward again. “You have to admit, he’s nice to look at.” But maybe the older women didn’t think so, not with his collar-length hair blowing in the breeze, the sun-bleached hair of his beard glistening on his jaw, the loose T-shirt plastered against his body by the wind.
“Oh, he is definitely that,” Sharon said.
Blue turned his head to flash a smile at them. “Any of you ladies game?”
Brioney shook her head. “I’m just going to sit here and do nothing for a change.” She’d thought about bringing one of her textbooks, and probably should be studying for midterms, but she needed a brain break, a day off. She wished she’d brought a novel, or even a magazine.
“Okay, well, if any of you need me, I’ll be in the water. I need to check out one of the props.” He stripped off his shirt even as he crossed to the opposite side of the boat, and dove in before anyone could say anything.
“Oh, my!” Marie said, leaning over to watch where he’d disappeared. “Is that safe?”
“Blue is part fish,” Brioney assured her, though the glimpse of muscles she’d just seen had her throat knotting.
Just then, he bobbed back to the surface, whipping his hair out of his face. “The water’s just fine, ladies!”
“How deep is it there?” Sharon wanted to know.
“Forty feet?” Brioney surmised.
“Are there sharks?”
“Probably a few. I’ve seen hammerheads and tigers off of the pier. But Blue does this all the time.” Which was why he looked like that. “He’s a surfer, so he’s in the water more than he’s out of it.”
The three women watched him dive and surface repeatedly, until William made a sound like he’d caught something. Blue heard, too, and pulled himself back onto the boat, the muscles in his lean arms rippling, the wet hair of his chest glinting in the sun. He crossed the boat to support the man reeling in his fish, but William was clearly experienced and didn’t need Blue’s help. At Blue’s quiet suggestion, Joy put her own rod in the holder and moved aside, out of the way. She came to stand by Brioney as the older man started to struggle with his catch.
“What do you think he got?” Brioney asked aloud, but no one answered as Blue stepped forward then, his mouth grim as he lent a hand.
And then the animal broke the surface, thrashing against the line.
“Shark!” Blue barked, then looked over his shoulder at the women as he pulled a knife from his pocket and switched it open. “You see it?”
Brioney saw it, all gray anger and triangular teeth, an animal that had been in the very water Blue had been in. She nodded and tightened her hands on Joy’s shoulders when she would move closer. Blue dropped his gaze to Joy, motioned her closer.
“Are you crazy?” Brioney demanded.
“I’m going to cut it loose, but I want to make sure she gets a good look. I won’t let anything happen to her.”
Because she knew that to be true, she released her grip on her daughter, who immediately slipped away to Blue, her focus on the pissed animal. Blue looked from her to the fisherman, who nodded, and with a quick motion, cut the line. The shark dropped back into the water, which calmed almost instantly, except for the fin moving back and forth, agitated, before disappearing.
Blue and William dropped into their chairs at almost the same moment, while Joy leaned over the side of the boat, scanning the water for the fish. Brioney resisted the urge to pull her daughter against her, to take her below, away from danger.
“I know what I want to do now,” Joy declared, turning to face Blue when she didn’t see the creature any longer.
“What’s that?” Blue asked.
“I want to study fish.”
“That’s a lot of science,” Marie said. “Do you like science?”
“She likes everything,” Brioney said.
“I guess this is the place to figure out if you want to do that,” John said. “Do you scuba dive?” he asked Blue.
“Nah, I don’t. Her uncle does, though. Maybe when he comes home, he can teach you,” he said to Joy.
“So she can get in the water with sharks?” Brioney demanded, still a little breathless. “Um, no.”
“She won’t start out in the water with sharks,” Blue pointed out.
But also scuba diving was expensive. Brioney couldn’t swing lessons on her budget. Maybe by the time Fitz got home from the army, she would have new interests. She felt bad even thinking that, because part of the reason she sang at The Wharf on Friday nights was to show Joy she should follow her dreams. She wanted her daughter to follow whatever path excited her.
Except getting in the water with sharks.
Once the excitement settled down, Blue started up the engines, and they moved away from the shark’s territory before dropping their lines into the water again.
“You were in the water with that animal,” Brioney said quietly to Blue, joining him in the pilothouse.
He reached past her to adjust a lever, not meeting her gaze. “He wasn’t all that big. I wasn’t in danger.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I kind of do.” He turned to her and stroked a strand of her hair back from her face. “You worry about me?”
She stepped back, breaking contact, and dropped her gaze. “You’ve been good to us. I’d be sad if something happened to you.”
“I’m your friend, Brioney.”
The rumble of his voice, kept low, sent shivers down her spine. She couldn’t meet his gaze, didn’t have enough confidence in her emotions to face him.
“I don’t know why, after the way Jessamy treated you.”
His mouth straightened into a grim line. “I won’t say it didn’t hurt, but it was a long time ago. She wouldn’t have been happy here, and I wouldn’t have been happy there, so it is probably for the best.”
He guided the boat through the waters, the rumble of the engine and the flow of the water mesmerizing. So she was caught off-guard when he spoke.
“I’m meeting my parents for dinner tonight, but do you want to go get something to eat tomorrow night? You and me and Joy?”
“I can’t,” she said automatically.
“Why not?”
She couldn’t think of a reason. “Brandon. I have to make sure he eats.”
“He can come, too.”
“I can’t.”
“You came today.”
“I…Blue, I don’t date.”
He rested a hip on the console and folded his arms over his chest. “I didn’t ask you on a date. I asked you and your daughter to have dinner with me. If I wanted a date, I wouldn’t have invited your daughter and your brother.”
“Oh.” Embarrassed by the conclusion she’d jumped to, she took another step back and lost her balance over the step. With lightning reflexes, he caught her arm and pulled her against him.
Her palms collided with his chest, the bare skin still cool from the water, so firm beneath her hands, the blond hair crisp beneath her skin. She knew she should pull away, but she couldn’t make herself.
“Mom!”
Okay, that did the trick. She snapped her gaze away from the sun-browned skin, the drips from the ends of his hair that made paths along his chest, avoided his gaze and turned toward her daughter.
* * *
“My God, Mercy, I wanted to lick him, head to toe. What is wrong with me?” Brioney asked as the two of them cleaned out one of the ocean view rooms on Sunday afternoon. The couple who had stayed here had been reasonably neat, but Lord, there was even sand in the bed.
Mercedes shook her head. The three of them, Mercedes, Jessamy and Brioney, had been best friends since kindergarten. They’d been through the ups and downs of men and jobs and ambitions. Mercedes had been there for the drama of Jessamy and Blue’s break-up, for Brioney’s own stormy relationship with Cameron and her teen pregnancy. She trusted Mercedes as she trusted her own sister, but she couldn’t talk to Jessamy about this. No. Way.
“Are you seriously thinking about going out with him?” Mercedes asked.
Brioney blew out a breath. “Jessamy would be pissed, wouldn’t she?”
Mercedes frowned as she wiped down the plate-glass window. “I don’t know. They were together for a long time. And they were close. I mean, I remember them talking about happily-ever-after, don’t you? And her talking about the sex?” Mercedes rolled her eyes. “I’ve spent my entire adult life trying to get the sex she talked about having with Blue.”
Brioney did remember. She blushed at the memory of some of the things Jessamy had told her. Could she ever be with him, knowing he’d done those things with her sister?
“I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s just a fantasy. I’ll never act on it. He’s been too good of a friend for me to chase him off when it’s over. I’d hate for Joy to get hurt because she couldn’t see him anymore.”
“So you’d go into it thinking you’d end it? You don’t think he’s a forever kind of guy?”
“No. Lord. He has a million different jobs, each one easier than the last. He has no ambition. I need more than that for me and for Joy.” She blew out a long breath after smoothing the duvet and straightening, stretching her back with her fists pressed into the aching muscles. “Cameron will be in town this weekend. Maybe he’ll help me work off some tension.”
“I cannot believe you sleep with your baby daddy, still.”
“Not all the time, and not, you know, with any expectations. We suck as a couple, but we’re really good in bed.”
“You’re an idiot. You say you’re thinking about your future, and Joy’s, but you can’t do that if you’re holding onto your past.”
“I’m pretty sure Blue isn’t my future. I mean, technically, he’s my past, too, since I’ve known him forever.”
“He’s a good guy, though. He would never hurt you.”
Mercedes was probably right about that. Blue didn’t have a vicious bone in his body. “So why don’t you go out with him?” Brioney asked her friend, even though just thinking the question gave her a twinge.
“Because I like a little bit of pain,” Mercedes said with a wink. “Otherwise, it’s no challenge.”
Was Brioney like that, too? Is that why she kept Cameron in her life? When Cameron arrived, she could see then if her attraction to Blue was just sexual frustration, or if these feelings were something more.
* * *
Wearing a tank and cut-offs, Brioney opened the door to Cameron, feeling a little slutty. She didn’t usually dress like this, but she wanted a reaction, to gauge if this weekend would be one where they slept together, or not.
“Hey, Brioney, looking good,” he said in an off-handed way, not really looking at her, but past her to Joy, who came running out of her room when she heard his voice.
“I’m going to be a marine biologist,” Joy announced first thing as he swept her into his arms.
In a couple more visits, he wasn’t going to be able to do that. Brioney had to admit, he wasn’t a bad dad, though he wasn’t around much. He lived in Houston, which was about four hours away. And he’d grown up really nice. She had to remind herself why they weren’t together—he’d hidden behind his parents when they said the baby wasn’t his, that she was just grasping onto him to ruin his future. He’d been a summer boy, had already been accepted to Tulane when she’d peed on that stick. But she’d never been with anyone else—still had never been with anyone else. His parents had insisted Cameron continue pursuing his education, and her parents, well, they were gone. Her older brother Fitz, who was raising her, Jessamy and Brandon, essentially told Cameron’s parents to fuck off, that he would make sure Brioney and her baby got everything they needed, and they and their deadbeat son could take a hike.
After Joy was born, Cameron had come crawling back, wanting to be part of her life. Brioney allowed it, for Joy’s sake, but she’d never forgiven him for letting his parents accuse her of being a liar.
“A marine biologist? Where did that come from?” He looked past her to Brioney.
“We went out on Blue’s boat last weekend and one of the fishermen caught a shark. It’s all she’s been able to think about.” Brioney closed the door behind him.
“Blue’s still around?” He set Joy down with an exaggerated groan. “Man, he used to be able to get the best—”
Brioney cut him off with a look. He nodded his understanding and turned to his daughter. “What do you want to do this weekend?”
“What are my choices?” she countered, as she always did.
“You are your mother’s daughter. I heard the water park in Port Isabel is open, and it’s fun. Have you been?”
Of course she hadn’t been. It cost an arm and a leg, and Brioney didn’t have the money, or the time, to spare.
“No, we haven’t been,” Joy said, her voice relatively calm, though her eyes were bright.
“Would you like to go?” he asked.
“I would. Can Mom come, too?”
“No, sweetie,” she said before unease could do more than flash across Cameron’s face. “This weekend is for you and your dad.”
As she said it, a strange sense of peace washed over her. Yes, she’d have time free to study. Not that Joy bugged her when she knew she was studying, but Brioney felt guilty not spending their limited free time together.
Joy’s face fell. “You’d have fun.”
“I need to study. You have fun for both of us.”
“You need anything?” Cameron asked Joy, standing uneasily in the entryway.
“I have my bag,” she said, and hurried to her room to get it.
“You can come, if you want,” he offered awkwardly.
She shook her head. “I have things to do around here. Enjoy your day.” Her daughter reappeared, and she kissed her, hugged her hard, and sent her off with her daddy.
Since Brandon was still asleep, the house was quiet. She could get a lot done.
But she could only sit at the books for an hour, when her toes flexed into the carpet one too many times. She looked out the window at the sunny day. There wouldn’t be many beautiful days once November arrived. She’d take her book to the beach, sit in the sun and study. Sure, it wouldn’t be quiet, and she’d be easily distracted, but the urge was fairly overpowering. Ridiculous, when she should be appreciating the quiet house.
But she needed it. She wrote a note to Brandon, pulled on a different T-shirt—this tank was one thing for greeting her ex, but another to wear out in public, packed a couple of bottled waters and a towel into her book bag, along with her textbook and her composition book, tucked her keys and phone in the front pocket of her shorts, and headed out the front door.
She walked the few short blocks to the beach, feeling the heat of the sun relax her shoulder muscles. She lifted her arms over her head, hands clasped, to stretch, and tightened her toes in her flip-flops. The beach wasn’t as crowded as usual, one of the reasons this was her favorite time of year. Not as many people, not as loud. She found a spot where her view of the water wasn’t obscured, spread her towel with two snaps, and stretched out on it. She knew that a few hundred yards down the beach, either Blue or Logan would be renting chairs and canopies to tourists, but she didn’t come here to see Blue. She came here to feel the sand, to let the sound of the waves relax her, let the rhythm somehow wash the words she read into her brain. The glare of the sun on the page was nearly blinding, and she dug into her bag for her sunglasses.
Finally she settled into the chapter and made notes as the warm breeze flowed over her. She didn’t know how long she’d been there when a shadow cast over the page.
Blue dropped to the sand beside her. “Surprised to see you here today.”
“What? Why?”
“Thought you’d be working.”
“No, I told Leeayn I’d work today, since Cameron has Joy, but she didn’t schedule me. Just as well, since I’m behind on my reading.” She held up her book.
He angled his head to read the title. “Macroeconomics Business and Policy. A little light reading?”
“Midterms.”
“Yeah? How’s it going?”
She stuck her composition book inside the textbook and closed it. “I wish I’d chosen another major.”
“Like what? Music?”
She snorted. “What would I be able to do with that?”
“Sing. You have a beautiful voice.”
“Thanks, but musicians are a dime a dozen. I just want something so I can give Joy a good life. I know I shouldn’t have waited so long, but…”
He put his hand over hers. “You’re doing a good thing. Once you have your degree, what are you going to do?”
“I thought maybe I’d be a manager or something. As long as I could stay on the island.”
That didn’t leave a lot of options, she knew, and if she truly wanted the best for Joy, she’d leave the island, go to another city.
“You’re getting red.” He touched the tip of her nose. “Did you bring your sunscreen?”
She’d grown up on the island, where sunscreen was as much a part of life as flip-flops. But she’d forgotten it today in her desperation to get to the water’s edge. 
“Gah. No.” And she usually kept it in her bag for Joy, but she’d run out when they’d been on the boat and hadn’t replaced it.
“Come on, I have some at the booth.”
“I probably should just head home.” She opened her bag to tuck her book and notebook inside. 
“Ah, come on. We’re in for some rain this coming week. You need to get outside while you can.” He hopped to his feet and stretched a hand to help her up. 
She hesitated, thinking it would be just as easy to push herself to her feet, but instead, she put her hand in his lean one, the palm hard and callused, strong and firm as he wrapped his fingers around her and tugged.
“Did you like college? Getting to go away, I mean?” she asked as they walked, once he released her hand.
“Not really. College was a challenge for me.”
“Was it? I wouldn’t have thought so.”
“Really? Why not?”
“I just remember high school being really easy for you.”
“Sure, it was, but that was part of the problem. I didn’t have any study skills, and college was exponentially more challenging than high school. Plus, you know, even though my parents weren’t particularly strict, having that freedom was heady.” He turned to look at her. “I do wish you’d gotten to experience that, if for no other reason than to say you did.”
She’d made her decision when she decided to keep her baby. And now it was too late, she was too old, and really, almost ready to graduate. “Did it get easier?”
“I got used to it, but I was never really disciplined. It’s pretty amazing, actually, that I got into UT because my grades weren’t great. I would have tanked grad school.”
“Is that why you came home?”
“Austin was great, you know? Great. But it wasn’t the place for me.” He motioned for her to precede him up the steps to the boardwalk. “This is home. Always has been, always will be.”
* * *
Blue told himself he was only checking on Brioney and Joy because Cameron was in town. He didn’t trust the guy. He remembered too well how he’d hurt Brioney when he left.
He hadn’t been to Brioney’s house since he and Jess had broken up almost seven years ago, but his bike flowed along the roads as if it had been yesterday.
Blue bounced the book on the tips of his fingers, his excuse for coming to the house tonight. He rang the doorbell. A few minutes passed before Brioney answered, pushing her hair over her shoulder, bare in the skimpy top she wore. And were her lips swollen?
“Blue, hi. I didn’t know you were stopping by.”
Her voice was husky, too, sexy as hell. “Yeah, ah, I saw this book on sharks and thought of Joy.” He held it up, like it was evidence, glancing past her at Cameron, who’d stepped out of the living room, adjusting his pants. Blue almost didn’t recognize the anger that rose in him, that she was fooling around with the guy who had treated her so badly. “Where is she?” He turned what he hoped was a bland expression to Brioney. Of course she would be here, but Brioney wouldn’t be making out with her ex, with her daughter nearby.
“She’s in the living room. We were watching a movie.” Her tone was almost accusing.
Had that been what they were doing? Watching a movie like a normal family, when Cameron had walked away? His temper flared. He buried it and forced a smile.
“Cameron. How’s it going?” Uninvited, he stepped into the house and closed the door behind him, like he belonged here.
“Great.” Cameron recognized the challenge and lifted his chin. “Pool business has never been better. I have four crews working at all times. Good money.” He moved closer to Brioney and folded his arms over his chest. “Brioney and Joy were telling me about your boat. Just the one?”
“Well, there’s just me.” Blue forced a casual tone. “But I love doing it.”
“And you still do the rentals on the beach, too?”
Blue rarely felt defensive about his life choices, but he was already off-balance finding Cameron here. “With Logan, yes. I like meeting the tourists.”
“Plus, you know, not a whole lot of pressure.”
Blue remembered, clearly now, how he’d hated Cameron even before Brioney turned up pregnant and he dumped her. He could see why Brioney was attracted to him, tall, dark and handsome, broad shouldered. But he was a rich, entitled asshole.
“I like my life,” he said, just as Joy came out of the living room, rubbing her eyes.
So she’d been asleep. Maybe Brioney had been making out with her ex. Again, he battled back the anger.
“Hey, Blue, what are you doing here?” Joy asked, her voice slurred by sleep.
“I came to bring you this book.” He held it out to her. “I saw it at the store and thought of you.”
His words penetrated her lethargy, and she bounced forward to take the book from him. Immediately, she let it fall open and flipped through the pictures. “This is great! Thanks, Blue!” She hugged him, quick and hard, and moved away, looking through her book.
And then he was left, awkward, by the door, as Cameron and Brioney watched him. He no longer had an excuse to be here, so he stepped back, his hand on the doorknob. He looked at Brioney, wishing he could ask her what the hell she was thinking. But it wasn’t his business.
“I’ll see you around,” he said instead, and let himself out.
* * *
Brioney flopped onto her bed—alone—feeling a little dirty. She’d thought all week about taking the edge off her libido with Cameron, but when the time came to follow through, she couldn’t go through with it and sent him home. Something about them pretending to be a happy little family left a bad taste in her mouth.
Blue stopping by hadn’t helped. The posturing between the two men had been subtle, but kind of exciting. God, what was wrong with her?
Would she have settled for Cameron if Blue hadn’t stopped by? The way Blue had looked at her….
She rolled her shoulders, as if that could relieve the tension running through her. At least she knew it wasn’t just sexual frustration. She was attracted to Blue.
What would Jessamy say? Could she really get involved with her sister’s ex?
She pushed the thought aside. She didn’t need that drama. She had her daughter, she had school, she had work, she had singing. She would get out her guitar right now to work this off, if she didn’t think the noise would wake Joy.
At least Cameron was gone, and she wouldn’t see him for another month. She had known he was an asshole, but thought maybe he might have outgrown it until she saw him with Blue tonight. She wished she’d risen to Blue’s defense, but honestly, she’d never thought Blue was the type to need defending. He was living the life he wanted, wasn’t he? She’d always just assumed. Maybe it was time to ask.
What was she doing? Was she really thinking about getting involved with Blue? Her sister’s ex? A man with whom she had nothing in common? She thought he was interested—why else was he coming around the bar, inviting her to go on the boat, bringing Joy a book?
Joy. She’d been trying to show her daughter how to follow her dreams. How could she do that and be involved with a man who had none? At least Cameron was ambitious and successful, and wasn’t that what she wanted for her little girl?
But did she really want to wait to find love?
Her head was starting to hurt, and she would never get to sleep, so she got up and headed to the living room for the television. She didn’t let herself watch TV much while she was in school because she could better use the time to study. But tonight, she wouldn’t be able to study, so she may as well clear some shows off the DVR.
She was halfway through an episode of her favorite romantic series when footsteps padded into the living room and Joy plopped on the couch beside her. Without a word, Brioney lifted a corner of her afghan. Joy curled up against her, and even though it was late on a school night, she let her daughter watch a few minutes until she fell asleep again, nestled against her side.

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Bailey Tanner unlocked the door to the log cabin and immediately drew back at the musty smell of the place. Musty and...nasty. She had never smelled something dead up close but she was pretty sure something had died in here. 
December in the Northwoods of Minnesota meant opening the windows wasn’t an option. 
But she was definitely not going to be able to sleep here as she had planned. She might have to go get a room at The Landing a couple of nights. She was pretty sure Lily had a room available this time of year. 
When was the last time anyone had been up to the cabin? Not this past summer for sure. Her brothers lived out of state, and her dad wouldn’t have even been able to make it up the front steps to the door before his knee replacement last month. So at least a year. 
She pulled her sweater up over her nose and said a little prayer that she wouldn’t find whatever had died in here. 
No, better to find it and get rid of it, rather than it be stuck in a wall somewhere. 
She entered the living room with its secondhand plaid furniture in front of the outdated flatscreen television sitting on a cedar chest where they stored blankets. The wall-to-wall carpet the salesman had assured her mother was durable looked sadly out of style. Bailey turned toward the sliding door that led to the deck. Her favorite thing about summers here was reading on the deck at all hours. Her love for books had driven her to become a professor of children’s literature in St. Paul. 
She checked behind the drapes before she pulled the cord— the last thing she wanted was a spider bite—and when she pulled the drapes open, yep, there was a pile of fur right against the window. Gray, maybe a baby raccoon or a squirrel. She didn’t look too closely, but reached around and opened the door before she headed to the kitchen for a broom. Gagging, she pushed the carcass over the threshold—with some effort—and toward the edge of the deck and over the side. 
She took a moment to gather herself before she took a deep breath of cold fresh air and looked out through the bare trees to the icy lake beyond. 
She hadn’t been up here in the winter in years, had forgotten the stark beauty of the place, even with the leaves blanketing everything, where snow should be doing that job this time of year. None of the state had gotten much snow yet this year, and the drive up had been kind of sad and gray. 
Walking into the neglected cabin had not dispelled the sad grayness that was settling over her. 
But the breeze made standing outside unbearable so she turned back inside, which was only marginally warmer. At least removing the source of the smell had been accomplished, and she left the door open a little longer to see if that helped dissipate the odor. She walked back into the kitchen and again took a deep fortifying breath before opening the refrigerator. It didn’t smell great, but at least it was working, and a good scrub should take care of the lingering odor. She braced herself before opening each cabinet, but apparently the exterminators had held up their end of the contract, because nothing scuttled in the empty spaces. 
She would have thought her mother would at least have left a few canned goods behind, but no, Bailey was going to have to go into town, go by the grocery store, maybe pick up a hot meal from Quinn’s. 
Eat it there, because eating anything here was not going to be appetizing. 
At least the kitchen was minimally disgusting. 
Then she headed upstairs. Her parents’ bedroom was in the front, with the view of the lake out of the wide triangular windows, and hers and her brothers’ were in the back, toward the woods. Once, the area had been a big bunk room, designed with the idea that the extended family could come stay and have space, but that rarely happened. Her parents erected a wall in the space after Bailey had come sobbing into their room one night too many after her brothers had told her scary stories. So now the space contained one regular sized room, and one tiny room. 
She opened the door to check each, and none had any bedding. 
Of course. She’d forgotten that her mother took all the bedding home at the end of each season to launder it. Why hadn’t she thought of that, before she’d driven all the way up here? Amazon had to deliver here, too, didn’t they? She wondered if she’d even have internet service. She needed to ask her mom if they’d had service in the cabin. The fact that she didn’t know bothered her. She had been invited up here every summer since she got married, but David had never wanted to come. They’d both worked summer school for extra money that they never spent because he never wanted to do anything. So she had closed in on herself more and more until...she didn’t know who she was anymore. 
She was going to have to figure it out, now that David was out of the picture. She closed the doors to the bedrooms again, and headed down the stairs to close the sliding door. She was going to have to see what could be done about the dead animal smell before she turned on the heat and stunk up the whole place. She wondered who she could ask. 
Just as she turned away from closing the drapes, the front door swung open, and a man strode through, gun drawn. 
She jerked her hands up reflexively as he shouted, “Sheriff’s department, freeze!” 
*****
Zach Zephardt stared down at the woman in the puffy coat and messy hair as she gaped with wide eyes, her hands up before he’d even finished the command. 
To be fair, this was his first B&E call, so he hadn’t really noticed she was complying before he barked at her. 
He holstered his weapon, then held out his hands to the woman, palm out. 
The light in the cabin was bad, and damn, the cabin was cold, and smelled like something had died. Was she squatting? He hadn’t seen a car in the driveway. How had she gotten all the way out here? Not many people used this road this time of year— most of the cabins in the area were summer places. 
“I got a call,” he said. “A prowler in this cabin.” 
“I can’t be a prowler in my own family’s cabin,” she snapped, and stepped forward. 
He squinted and...no. It couldn’t be. “Bailey?” Bailey had been a summer girl, had spent every summer with her family here in Bluestone. He’d watched her grow from a chubby self-conscious girl who spent most of the summer reading on the deck to a lighthearted teen who’d made the place her own, and had drawn everyone to her, even himself, though she was about five years older than him. 
But that young bright girl was nowhere in sight now. The woman before him was hunched inside her coat, and, okay, he’d drawn a gun on her so maybe that was part of it, but she just seemed to be a shadow of the girl he’d known. 
She stepped forward, her expression tired, sad, and he instinctively moved forward, hand out in apology. “I didn’t know you’d come back. Sorry. Mrs. Filbert reported a prowler and I had to come check it out.” 
He didn’t see any recognition on her part, though. He scrubbed a hand over his chin. He didn’t think he had changed that much. Maybe she hadn’t expected him to stay in town. Maybe she hadn’t thought he would become a cop. 
“It’s me, Zach. I was Brian’s friend, remember?” 
She stepped back again just as fast, drawing in a sharp breath that must have been a mistake in this stinky house, because she started coughing, pressing a hand to her chest and bending over. 
He caught her arm and guided her toward the door and fresh air. “Let’s get out of here for now. You don’t have any power, and it’s going to be dark soon.” 
“I forgot how early it gets dark up here,” she said, letting him lead her, then pulling her arm free when they reached the porch. “I thought my parents left the power on.” 
That would make sense because they wouldn’t want the place to freeze up in the winter, but when he flicked the light switch by the door, nothing happened, so... 
“We can get Chase Granzer out here tomorrow and give it a look. You weren’t planning to stay here, were you?” He spotted a suitcase just inside the door. 
“I had been, before I saw what bad shape it was in. I’m going to try to get a place at The Landing, I guess. I saw it was still open.” 
He drew in a breath through his teeth, then reached back in to grab her suitcase and roll it out. “That might be difficult. They’re doing the fish house parade this weekend, and she might be pretty well booked.” 
Bailey looked up at him, brows drawn together. “I thought that was always Thanksgiving week.” 
“Yeah, usually, but the lake didn’t freeze over until after that, and the fishermen couldn’t get their houses out on the lake, so we postponed it.” 
“That’s crazy.” 
He shrugged. “We had temperatures in the nineties until October.” 
Now that they were out of the shadows, he got a good look at her and yeah, he wouldn’t have recognized her if he’d passed her in town. She was pale and solemn, her auburn hair piled haphaz‐ ardly on top of her head, but her attitude more than anything made him certain he wouldn’t have known her. She was— hunched in on herself. Okay, yes, when she’d been in middle school, she’d been like that, but she’d blossomed in high school. He saw nothing of the girl she’d been in the woman before him. 
“Let’s see about getting you a place to stay,” he said. 
She looked from him to his patrol car, parked in the driveway. “Don’t you need to get back to work?” 
He motioned to the radio on his hip. “They’ll let me know if they need me.” They usually didn’t. “You want to follow me into town? Where’s your car?” 
She gave him a look he couldn’t read. “In the garage. And it’s been a while but I know the way.” 
He nodded, and headed down he steps ahead of her. 
She hadn’t given any indication she remembered him, at all. He wondered if she did, and what had made her change so much. 

​Bluestone Holiday is available at all retailers.
​

The Log Cabin Quilt Shop buzzed with conversation as the women bent over the quilting frame, glasses perched on noses, needles dipping and sliding. Willow slid bolts of Christmas fabric back on the shelf. Finally the bolts were thinning out as people realized they were running out of time as the holidays grew closer. She needed to make room for her Valentine prints, and she had bolts of 1930s reproduction fabric coming in. 
She smoothed her hand across the cloth. She loved her shop, loved what it signified. Home. Her home. Hers and her daughter Lala’s. A fresh start, a new holiday in her new home.
She looked into the open door of her office, where her daughter was sitting at the desk doing her homework, her blonde head bent over the notebook, her pencil gripped in her little hand. Willow would check it in a minute. Just knowing her daughter was within arm’s reach as she worked gave her a warm feeling...which was good for a Minnesota winter.
Even though they had yet to see one snowflake. As she listened to the women in the quilting room, she understood that this was one of the warmest winters on record. It figured, her first winter on her own, when she looked forward to building a snowman, going sledding, having snowball fights, all the things she had never experienced growing up in Texas. 
She’d been assured the snow would come, and she’d have all those experiences, but she wanted them for Christmas.
She was going to take a snow day the first chance she got.
“Oh my goodness, look at the time!” exclaimed Sharon Marcel, accompanied by the sound of her chair scooting back from the quilting table. “I need to get home and get dinner started.”
Other murmurs of assent followed, and more chairs scraped along the floor. Willow peeked around the corner to see women stretching their backs, tucking glasses away, folding up sewing kits. They’d leave the quilt stretched on the frame until they could get back to it—usually the same women, though some alternated. They’d return every day until the quilt was finished, since they’d be raffling it at the Bluestone Christmas Festival. 
Good for the town, good for her fledgling business. 
The women retrieved their coats from the hooks near the door and bundled up. It may not have snowed, but it was still cold. They all called their goodbyes to her and Lala before they headed out into the evening.
Something else she had to get used to in Minnesota—it got dark really early.
The shop was so quiet after the women left. Willow spent a few more minutes restocking the store before she walked into her office and dropped her hands to her daughter’s shoulders and bent to kiss her head. 
“How’s the homework?”
“Hard. I don’t get fractions.”
“Oh, well, you’re in the world’s best place to learn fractions.” Willow crouched beside her daughter and looked at the paper. “What are we looking at?”
“Comparing fractions. How am I supposed to know if three-fourths is bigger than two-thirds?”
“Come here, and I’ll show you.” She led the way to her cutting table, which had the fractions etched into the metal ruler, along with the inches. “Two-thirds of a yard is twenty-four inches. See? Three-fourths of a yard is twenty-seven inches.” She put her fingers on the points of the ruler. “If I sold Mrs. Marcel three-fourths of a yard, and Mrs. Givens two-thirds of a yard, who would get more fabric?”
She didn’t think Lala was listening, only stretching to peer at the ruler. “Can I take this ruler to school?” she asked as she transferred answers from the ruler onto her paper.
“Um, no, but you can take the concept of it with you. Pretty soon it will all be in your memory and you won’t have to think about it.”
“Done!” Lala announced, straightening. “Can we go home now? I’m starving.”
So was Willow. She had dinner in her new slow-cooker, and just the thought of the warm meal waiting for her made her stomach growl. Her store hours stated she would be here until six, but she didn’t think anyone would be coming in the last forty minutes or so. And a lost sale or two wouldn’t break the bank.
“Pack up your stuff and we’ll get going. I’ll just make one more round and then we’ll head home.”
Home was a little Craftsman-style house three blocks away, newly renovated and cozy. She took Lala’s mittened hand in hers and they swung arms as they walked home. Walking home in this weather was probably ridiculous, but she loved her new town and driving just seemed like a waste. She’d be driving plenty when the snow started.
She opened the door to the house, anticipating the smell of cooking roast and…nothing. Rats. Had she forgotten to turn on the slow-cooker? She flipped the light switch to investigate and…nothing.
“Mom, it’s cold in here.”
Willow rubbed her nose. “The power’s out.” 
“What are we going to do?”
She pulled out her phone and turned on the flashlight app. “Wait here. I’m going to see if maybe it’s a circuit breaker.”
“What’s that?”
“Erm.” The questions were getting harder, and Lala wasn't even a preteen yet. “The builders put in different electrical circuits in the house so not everything is drawing power from the same thing at the same time. So it doesn't overload the system, see? And if it does overload the system, it automatically shuts that area off.”
“So why is the whole house dark?”
Good question. “Let me just check. Wait here.” Using the phone, she found her way to the breaker box in the kitchen pantry and opened it. No, everything looked set. Maybe the fuse box, then, but she didn’t know how to change a fuse. 
She needed to call someone, but she didn’t know who. She considered going to the neighbors, who still had lights, but hated to intrude at dinner time. 
“Let’s get in the car and head to town for some dinner.” She’d have to dispose of the no-doubt ruined meal, but she’d do that when she had more than the light from her phone. 
Lala groaned, dropped her backpack to the floor by the door and turned toward the garage. 
Quinn’s Bar and Grill was busy, the gravel parking lot filled. Willow waited for Lala to get out of the car and they walked up the stairs from the parking lot to the bar that resembled a two-story log cabin. From what she understood, it used to be just a bar, frequented by the fishermen and hunters that had come to town. But as the town had changed and tried to draw people back to it after the recession had kept people home and away from the lake, the bar had started to serve a pretty decent menu, and had become pretty popular in the small town.
They walked into the large open room, lit along the walls with neon beer signs, with green garland draped from one to the other in an attempt at Christmas cheer. She scanned the rough-hewn pine tables for an empty spot. She steered Lala toward an available one and sat down, a little disappointed as she thought of the meal she’d taken the trouble to make. Nothing on the menu was going to satisfy her. But she’d needed to come somewhere where she could ask for help with their power. They couldn’t go the night without it.
She recognized the waitress who came to their table with menus, but couldn’t remember her name, and she wasn’t wearing a name tag.
“Hey, Willow, Lala,” the waitress said brightly. “What can I get you to drink?”
They placed their orders, but before the waitress could walk away, Willow leaned her arms on the table. “Hey, I’m sorry, but our power’s out. Do you know of anyone who can come take a look?”
“I’ll ask Quinn.” She motioned to the man behind the bar, the owner of the place, who was leaning on the bar playing with the feet of a baby in a carrier.
Willow followed her gaze. “I don't want to take him away from his family. Is there someone I can hire?”
“Let me ask Quinn,” the waitress said again, and hurried off. 
“Why didn’t you let me get a Coke?” Lala asked.
“Because the last thing I need is a hopped-up sugar monkey running around a dark house.”
Lala giggled and Willow stopped herself from grabbing her daughter’s hands and holding onto them. Lala was getting to an age where she wouldn't want to be seen holding her mother’s hands…and probably was going to be tired of being called Lala before long. The nickname came from her inability as a toddler to pronounce her real name, Lorelei. 
“Do you think the power will be back on by the time Rudolph comes on?”
“Oh. Hm. I guess it depends on what’s wrong with it. If not, we’ll buy it and make a special night of watching Christmas shows.”
“Well, what do you think could be wrong with it?”
“I don’t know.” Willow sat back, unwrapping the silverware from the tightly wound napkin, then flashed her daughter a smile. “We reached the extent of my expertise with the circuit breakers.”
“What if they can’t fix it tonight?”
“Then we might have to sleep in the quilt shop. Cover up with lots of fabric.”
“We could make a fort,” Lala said with a bounce in her seat.
Willow grimaced. “Yeah, probably not that. It won’t come to that, though.” She hoped. “It’s probably just a fuse or something.”
“What’s that?”
She was saved from another electrical explanation when Quinn Alden approached the table. 
“Hey, Willow, Jess said you’re having some trouble at home? No power?”
She folded her arms on the table with a sigh. “Yes, the whole house is dark. I checked the breaker box, but it seemed to be okay.”
“I have a friend who could come take a look for you.”
Hope surged, which surprised her because she’d thought she’d been pretty sure they could fix it today. “Would he be able to come by tonight? Or she?”
Quinn grinned. “He. Yeah, let me give him a call.”
“Oh. Well. Should we get our food to go?”
“Nah, I’ll tell him to meet you here, that okay?”
“That would be perfect.” She relaxed a bit, not all that comfortable with meeting a strange man alone at her home. 
Quinn hooked his thumb over his shoulder. “I’ll take care of that, then. You all good here?”
“We’re great, thanks.”
“Do you know him?” Lala asked when he walked away.
“Everyone pretty much knows everybody. He’s married to that pretty lady there.” She motioned to the bar, where a tall blonde was wrangling a dark-haired toddler while balancing a baby carrier on the bar. “She owns The Landing, where people rent boats and ice fishing huts, and he owns this place, so they’re probably the most well-known people in town.”
“Are we really going to live here forever?” Lala’s tone held the slightest of whines. “I miss Texas. I miss my friends. I miss having places to go.”
“Come on, Lala.” This time she didn’t stop herself from taking her daughter’s hands. “This is our adventure. It’s going to be good for us.” She hoped. All she wanted was a new start, making it on her own with her daughter. She was determined to be an independent woman, to show Lala how to be one.
Their food arrived at the table and she didn’t even admonish Lala for her overuse of ketchup. 
The door opened and a cold draft swept into the room, accompanied by a guy in a knit hat and shearling coat. He didn’t take off his coat before he approached the bar, as most people did. Willow couldn’t say why she watched as he braced both hands against the bar and leaned in, calling to Quinn. Quinn didn’t respond, just pointed in her direction. The man turned and looked right at her with eyes the color of the leaves outside.
Was this her electrician? The question was erased as the man approached her table.
“Hey, you’re Willow Branson? Quinn said you don't have any power?”
“Right. We walked into the house and it was dark. Not the circuit breakers,” she added quickly, to show him she wasn’t completely helpless.
“Yeah, no, the whole house wouldn't be out if it was. I’m Chase Granzer, by the way.” He stretched out a gloved hand to her. 
She dropped her burger into the basket, wiped her hands hastily on her napkin and took his hand, strong and warm beneath the leather glove. Whoa. She hadn't had a reaction to a man since—since, well, watching Aidan Turner in Poldark. Hm. 
“I’ll just get Jess to bring us some to-go boxes,” she said, turning her attention to practical matters.
“No hurry.” He pulled out a chair and sat. “You can finish eating. Not like another fifteen minutes is going to make a difference.” He turned to her daughter. “Hey. I’m Chase.”
“I’m Lorelei,” she said, sitting straighter. 
Willow lifted her eyebrows at the formality in her daughter’s voice.
“Lorelei. I’ve always loved that name. How old are you?”
“Nine.”
“Nine. What’s that, a freshman in high school?”
Lorelei giggled. “Fourth grade.”
“Fourth grade.” He bounced Lorelei’s still-wrapped silverware on its end before unwrapping it and handing her a napkin, then touching the corner of his own mouth to show her she had some ketchup there. “I don't suppose Mrs. Finch is still teaching that?”
Lala’s eyes widened as she dabbed at her mouth. “She is! She was your teacher?”
“She was.” 
He leaned on the table, suddenly seeming very large in his heavy coat. Willow was torn between protectiveness toward her daughter and, well, appreciation.
“Did you like her? I mean, she’s kind of scary.”
He shook his head, a smile tilting up one corner of his mouth. “Best teacher I ever had, not even kidding. I still remember her reading to us after recess.”
“She still does that!”
“I bet she doesn't still read Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, with the voices.”
Lala’s eyes were huge and bright. “She does!”
“‘Funny funny funny Fudgie,’” they both said together, in oddly guttural voices, and both cracked up laughing.
Willow knew enough of Mrs. Finch and the book to smile. “So you’ve lived here all your life?”
He leaned back in his chair. “I have. I live right over on the lake there.”
“On the lake?” Lala asked.
“Near the lake, but I can walk out my back yard and sink a line, if I want.”
“Do you? Fish from your back yard?” Willow asked.
“Not much good fishing from the shore. I prefer taking my boat out.”
“You have a boat?” Lala asked, meal forgotten. “What kind?”
He waved a hand. “Ah, not very big, a fishing boat with a motor. It’s in dry dock now, for the winter. I’m waiting for the lake to ice over so I can take my ice house out there.”
“Can we see your ice house when it’s on the lake?” Lala asked.
“Lala,” Willow chided gently. “We don't invite ourselves, and we barely know Mr. Granzer.”
“What did she call you?” Chase asked Lala.
Lala blushed to the roots of her hair. “My nickname. Lala. I couldn't say Lorelei when I was little, so my parents started calling me that.”
“It’s cute. I like it. And of course you can come to see my ice house. It’s got a TV and a heater and I’ll take a cot out there sometimes.”
Willow smiled. “I don’t know if any of that makes sense to me.”
“Where are you from?” he asked.
She liked his easy tone, his kindness to Lala. She liked the look of him, light brown hair curling from beneath his knit hat, golden stubble dusting his chin, broad shoulders beneath the bulky coat, those autumn-colored eyes.
Girl, get a grip. You don't need another man in your life telling you what to do.
“Texas,” she said.
“Texas.” He repeated the word on a laugh. “This is going to be a change for you, for sure.”
“That’s what we wanted.”
He gave her a considering look, but if he had a question, she cut it off by motioning for Lala to finish her burger. 
“So are you a fisherman, or an electrician, or what is it exactly that you do?” Willow asked as they walked down the steps to the parking lot a few minutes later.
“I’m a bit of a jack of all trades. A handyman, I guess.”
Something in the way his lips thinned made her think there was more to his story, but she didn’t ask. “This is my car. We live on the same street as the school, so if you want to follow us…”
“I know where you live,” he said.
“What?” The statement alarmed her. “How?”
He shrugged. “Newest residents in town. Not many places for you to move into. You’re in the old Hughes place.”
“I had heard that.”
“And you run the quilt store.”
She straightened. “I own it, yes.”
The corners of his lips twitched at her distinction, and he opened her car door for her. “You lead the way, then.”
Her fingers were shaking a little when she slipped the key into the ignition. 
“Mom, are you okay?”
“Sure.” She smiled at her daughter in the rearview mirror. “Why?”
“Because you’re just sitting there and Chase is in his truck waiting to follow.”
“Oh!” She put the car in reverse with a little spray of gravel and pulled out of the parking lot, onto the main road that ran along the lake, and back to her house. 
“You probably should get snow tires on that car before long,” he said when they reached her house, closing the door of his truck on the street.
“Do you know something the weatherman doesn’t?” she asked as she walked up the sidewalk from her driveway. 
“I know this is Minnesota and we don't go the month of December without snow. By first snowfall, it’s too late, and it’s cold enough at night that those tires aren't going to do you good much longer. I can do it for you, if you’d like. Have you bought them yet?”
“I guess I’ll go to Beaudin and get some this weekend. They can put them on there, can’t they?” She was determined not to give that control to another man.
“Yup,” he said easily, and flicked on his flashlight as she tried to find the lock in the dark. 
She swung the door open, and started to go in first, but he gently pulled her back so he could precede her with the flashlight. 
“You don't have a dog, do you?”
“No, but Lala’s been wanting one,” she said before she understood he was asking so he didn’t get bitten. “No, no dog.”
“Where’s your fuse box?”
“In the garage.” Then, again thinking, “This way. Lala, stay put.”
She led him through the living room, into the kitchen, the mud room, and opened the door to the garage. 
“I see why you don’t park in here.” His flashlight beam bounced off the boxes that filled the space.
“I still have some unpacking to do, but I haven’t gotten around to it.”
“You’ve been here almost a year?”
“Not quite. We got here in May.”
“I’d say whatever’s in those boxes isn't important enough to unpack. You should get a storage unit, and save them for the big rummage sale we have in the spring.”
Just the thought of getting rid of her belongings made her stomach flutter. She’d made enough changes in the past year. She couldn’t let go of her belongings, not even if she couldn’t exactly remember what was in each of the boxes.
“At the very least, put them somewhere else so you can park your car in here. You don’t want to get outside more than you have to this time of year.”
She didn’t need him to tell her that. “I have a spare room. I’ll start moving them in there.”
“Have you got an engine heater?” 
“No. What’s that?”
“Once the temperature gets below ten, you’re going to have to plug your engine in so it doesn't freeze up. You have a couple of weeks to get one of those, I'd say.”
He popped open the cover of the fuse box, flashed his beam up and down, grunted. “Most of these fuses are blown. You must have had a power surge or something. Go make sure everything is turned off. I don’t know how many fuses I actually have on hand, but I’ll replace what’s important. We need to get the utility company out here to find out what happened, though. We don't want it to happen again.” He looked up at her. “You need a flashlight?”
“No, I have my phone.” She pulled it out and tapped the screen to show him. He gave her a nod of approval and she went back into the house. She turned off light switches and the slow-cooker, the heater, unplugged her television and computer, and Lala’s tablet. She heard Chase come in the front door, heard the rattle of something that was probably his toolbox. 
She realized, as she rejoined Lala in the living room, that she wouldn't know if the power was back on with everything turned off.
And then light flooded the kitchen. Chase grinned at her. “Check the heater.”
She did, and breathed a sigh of relief when it clicked on and started to roar. 
“Mom, the TV isn’t coming on,” Lala announced from the living room. 
“Check your computer, too,” Chase said. “If it was a surge, it might have fried your electronics.”
“Oh no! Is there any way you can tell?”
He grunted and crouched behind the TV stand. “Yeah, looks like it wiped it out.” He straightened and looked at Lala. “Sorry about that, sweetheart.” He turned to Willow. “Your computer okay?”
She sat and pulled it onto her lap, tried to boot it up. Nothing. “Oh, no. Lala, your tablet?”
Lala checked, and almost started crying. “Nothing. Mom, it’s broken.”
“Okay, well, don’t panic.” She tried to take her own advice as she looked at the black screen of her laptop. Thank God she stored everything on the cloud, so her work wasn't lost, and she had another computer at the shop. “We’ll figure something out. The most important thing is we find out what made this happen in the first place. We’ll get the utility company to come out to see what caused it, and we’ll replace the television and the tablet, okay? Why don't you get ready for your bath?”
Lala glanced at Chase, then nodded, wiping her eyes, and headed to the bathroom. A few moments later, Willow heard the bathroom heater come on. She turned to Chase and reached for her purse. 
“What do I owe you?”
He named a figure, and she froze with her hand in her purse. “You have to be kidding.” 
He frowned, like he hadn’t expected her to argue. “Well, that’s just to cover the cost of the fuses.”
“Chase, that’s not enough. You took time out of your evening to come help.” She pulled a couple more bills out of her purse, and he stepped back as if she’d pulled a snake out. 
“I’m not going to take that.”
“I have money. I don't need charity.” She didn’t intend for her voice to sound so sharp, but the shift in Chase’s eyes told her she’d hurt his feelings. “I pay my way.” She didn’t know how to tell him she didn’t want to depend on someone ever again, even if it was something as simple as changing fuses or snow tires. Okay, she’d get someone to do it for her, but not for free, or for an insultingly low price that probably wouldn't cover the little bit of gas he’d used to get here. “I don't want to take advantage,” she said, softening her tone.
“In Bluestone, we do the neighborly thing.”
Great, a stubborn gentleman. He was becoming less cute by the minute. “Please, can we not do the noble thing? Can you just take the money?”
He hesitated. “I’ll take half.”
Well, that was progress. She could work with that. She tucked one bill back into her purse and handed him the rest. “Thank you so much.”
“Make sure you call the utility company tonight. They might get out here tonight, which I doubt, but they’ll get here as soon as they can. Tell them it’s just the two of you living here and they might get here sooner.” He rested his hand on the door, then reached into his pocket. “If you need anything else, give me a call. Try not to overload the power tonight. And let me know what happens.” He stepped forward and handed her a business card. 
She glanced down at it and read Chase Granzer, Construction. “Thanks. I really do appreciate you coming out tonight.”
“I’ll see you around,” he said, and walked out. As she locked up behind him, she hoped it was sooner rather than later.

​Available at all retailers.

Harley Blume stood outside The Pit, the beachfront bar her brother Sam co-owned, digging the heels of her boots into the sand in the parking lot. Sam had been quick enough to invite her to come to Starfish Shores, Alabama, when she’d confessed her woes to him, but telling him on the phone was one thing. Seeing the pity in his eyes was something else.
Poor pitiful Harley, dumped by her high school sweetheart, left without a place to live, stuck in a dead-end job because she’d been an idiot and followed Asshole Tony to Nashville, where he’d been so certain he’d make it as a country songwriter. He hadn’t been bad, truly, but songwriters in that town were a dime a dozen. So were the girlfriends who supported their dreams by answering phones in an office and fending off too-friendly bosses. Naturally, once Asshole Tony started seeing some success, he celebrated by sleeping around.
So here she was, twenty-five and homeless. Sam had offered her a place to stay until she could figure out what to do next.
A fresh start. That’s how she’d look at this. The first step was going into the bar and facing her brother. She rolled her shoulders and stepped through the door leading in from the street.
She hadn’t been to his bar before, so when he’d told her it was an open bar, she hadn’t been sure what to think. What it was, was, well, an open bar. Ahead of her, across the weathered decking, were the beach and the ocean. Around the deck, space heaters were placed at measured intervals. To her left was a wood and tin structure where the main part of the bar was located. Bleached wood fronted the bar, painted in alternating colors one would see on beachfront houses, but the color had worn down so some of the wood was exposed. In front of the bar was a row of similarly painted barstools, and clear bulbs hung on strings from the posts in the bar outward over the seating area in a fan shape. Cute.
Behind the bar, however, looked like Sam’s old dorm room. The University of Alabama sports paraphernalia—elephants wearing red sweaters, cups and other things bearing giant scrolling “A’s”— littered the shelves in between the bottles, signs were hammered to the walls there, and on the wall to her right. It made sense—Sam and his college roommate Liam had played football with the Crimson Tide, and were of course in Alabama, where football was king. And the decor went with the flat-screen TVs mounted in shielded areas, both showing different sporting events. But seriously, these were two men, almost thirty, reliving their glory days?
Customers gathered near tall space heaters. Maybe her blood had thickened in her time in Nashville, because she wasn’t cold at all. She was, however, surprised the place was so busy on a Tuesday night in December.
“Harley!”
Her brother’s voice carried cheerfully above the conversation and the sound from the TVs. She barely turned before he caught her up in a bear hug.
Instantly, she relaxed in her big brother’s arms. She’d heard horror stories of sibling rivalry, but had honestly never experienced it with Sam. Maybe because he was five years older, but he’d always been protective and she’d always felt safe with him.
It didn’t hurt that he was six three and in the Coast Guard Reserves.
He drew back to look at her, and his cheerful expression collapsed. “You look like hell.”
“Gee, thanks, what I love to hear.” She passed a hand over her hair. “Not so much sleeping going on lately. A lot of worrying.”
“Yeah, well, you don’t have to worry now. You’ve got a place to stay as long as you need it, while you figure out what you’re going to do next.”
God knew she would need time, because she had no flipping idea what she was going to do.
“Look, come say hi to Liam, then we’ll take off, I’ll get you settled in the house and then I’ll come back.”
Liam. She hung back just a bit. If she looked as bad as Sam’s reaction suggested, she did not want to face Liam. She’d had a major crush on him when he and Sam were in college. Of course she’d never said anything, because how childish was that? She’d been fifteen at the time, gangly as hell, and Liam was one fine specimen. Even now, she looked like something the cat dragged in. Plus, Jesus, if Sam told Liam her pathetic story, she may just as well go bury herself in the sand over there.
But Sam tugged, and she staggered forward to where Liam worked behind the bar.
If she’d hoped he’d gotten fat and bald in the few years since she’d seen him, well, she would have been stupid, that was for sure, because that would be a waste. But no, if anything, he’d gotten better with age, his face leaner, bristling with a bit of stubble. He still kept his dark hair almost military short, which only emphasized his blue eyes. Damn, he had pretty eyes. Right now they were trained on a blonde who was toying with a beer bottle and clearly in no hurry to leave the bar, but then Sam drew his attention and he focused his gaze on Harley.
Holy crap. “I love Alabama,” she whispered.
“What?” Sam asked, but she waved him off.
“Harley!” he greeted, and used the bar to lift himself up to give her a kiss on the cheek.
She didn’t know what she appreciated more, the way the muscles in his arms rippled when he lifted himself, or the brush of his stubble against her cheek. Suddenly, she felt tons better.
“Hi, Liam.”
“Hey, you want a beer?” The words came at her like bullets. She’d forgotten how, er, energetic he was.
“No, thanks.”
“I’m going to take her to my place and get her settled, and I’ll be back in a bit,” Sam said. “You got this?”
Liam gave a casual wave. “No problem. Sure you don’t want to have a drink first?”
“I’m sure,” she promised, backing away. The sooner she got to Sam’s and could hide, the better.
Only that wasn’t to be. If she thought Sam would just drop her off and head back to the bar, she was mistaken. Instead he took her to the two-bedroom bungalow where he lived, a little more than half a mile from the beach, a cute enough place for a bachelor—and a hell of a lot more than she had to her name. He showed her to her room, almost completely taken up by a full-sized bed, but she could see he’d made an effort to clean out his gym equipment and other paraphernalia to make room for her. The Coast Guard recruiting poster featuring him still hung in the room, grinning at her. Yeah, great. Big brother was watching.
He set her suitcase on the bed and hefted a hip onto the corner of the dresser.
“So, you know you’re welcome here as long as you need to stay.”
“You’ve said,” she said, stopping with the key halfway into the lock of her suitcase. Where was he going with this?
“I was just wondering why you wouldn’t rather go home. Especially since it’s almost Christmas.”
She braced her hands on top of the suitcase and met his gaze. “Okay, let’s say you were living with someone your parents thought was worthless, and you thought you knew better, that she was awesome, and it turned out your parents were right. Would you be in any hurry to come face-to-face with them? Christmas will be soon enough, and long enough, and then I’ll escape back here with you.”
He grunted, and she turned back to opening her luggage.
“I’m sorry I’m pretty clueless right now. Still reeling, though I should have seen it coming.”
“The offer to go kick his ass still stands.”
She sighed. That had been Sam’s answer for everything since she started dating. As satisfying as it might be... “I need to start kicking asses all on my own.”
“That is true.” He stood with a sigh and kissed her forehead. “There’s Diet Coke and lunch meat and stuff in the fridge. I got some bananas and M&Ms, too. Not sure which you might be in the mood for.”
She hadn’t been in the mood for much of anything, to be truthful, and had dropped seven pounds. Her jeans hung looser on her than they ever had. “You’re a good brother.”
“I hate to leave you, but I don’t want Liam to have to close up on his own.”
“I meant to ask, how are y’all so busy in December? People still come to the beach in December?”
“A lot of them, actually, because it’s off-season and cheaper. We get snowbirds, and locals, and more tourists than you’d think. Not as busy as we’ll be in March, and later. But we’re doing okay. You want to come back out tonight?”
“Definitely not. I’ll be fine, Sam. Go ahead and go. I’ll just watch some TV and hopefully get some sleep.”
“I’ll try to be quiet when I come in.” He leaned over and kissed her forehead.
“Look, Sam,” she said as he started out the front door.
He stopped and turned.
“I don’t want to cramp your style. If you want to bring someone back, don’t worry about me.”
He gave her a grin that she couldn’t quite interpret, and headed out.
* * *
It turned out she could fall asleep, but couldn’t stay asleep. She stared at the clock beside her bed, willing the numbers to change. Sam was asleep in the next room, or she’d turn on the TV to soothe herself. She checked the weather on her phone. Upper forties. Warmer than back home.
No, wait. There was no “back home.” She sighed and pushed herself out of bed, then peeked out the curtain at the quiet dark street. The beach wasn’t far away, and Starfish Shores was a small town. She’d go for a walk. Maybe the ocean air would kickstart her brain, or relax her enough to go back to sleep.
She dressed quietly in yoga pants, a T-shirt and a hoodie and crept out the front door, making sure she had a key to get back in. Sam would not like being awakened by her banging on the door. She tucked a couple of bucks in her pocket, in case she came across an open bakery or something. Not likely at barely five in the morning, but possible. At the last minute, she rummaged for a flashlight, tested it to make sure it worked, and put it in her hoodie pocket.
The chill in the air stole her breath for a minute, but as she walked briskly to the end of the street, she warmed up enough to unzip the hoodie. She could smell the ocean, and the lure of it increased her pace. She crossed the main street of the town, and stepped with more force than necessary on the wooden walkway that led over the dunes and to the beach.
She paused. It was darker out here than she expected, even with the lights from the condos that lined the beach. Ahead of her, at the edge of the water, she saw a few people with flashlights aimed at the sand, probably looking for shells. She pulled out her own, flicked it on and grimaced at the weak beam of light. But she was here, and the sand was calling to her. She toed off her shoes, scooped down to pick them up and stepped onto the sand.
Holy crap, it was cold! She did a little dance in the sifting grains before curling her toes into it. Again, she thought about heading back to the warmth of the bungalow, but no. She could deal with the chill.
She’d forgotten how hard it was to walk in loose sand, so staggered a bit toward the water, stopping a couple of times when small crabs darted past her crappy flashlight beam.
“It’s okay, little dude, I don’t want to step on you any more than you want to be stepped on.”
Finally she reached the packed sand, and like the people she saw around her, shone the flashlight in search of shells.
She was so engrossed in the search—and shells bulged in her hoodie pockets—that she was unaware of the sky lightening and more people joining them on the beach, some searching, some out for a run. Which had been her original plan, to run herself, she realized guiltily.
She heard pounding footsteps and moved out of the way, only to meet a wave coming in. Her shriek of alarm rang out along the quiet beach, drawing everyone’s attention and once more making her want to bury herself in the sand.
And then it got better. The runner whose path she’d been clearing caught her by the arms to steady her before she fell on her ass in the water, and she looked into the blue eyes of Liam Channing.
Of course she did.
His hoodie fell back and his eyes brightened when he recognized her. “Hey, you’re not wanting to go for a swim, are you?” Instead of letting her answer, he pulled her away from the water, placing himself between her and the waves. “It’s low tide, but it can still sneak up on you.” He released her and stepped back. “What are you doing out here so early?”
“Couldn’t sleep.” Good Lord, he’d said more words than she’d thought all morning.
“Yeah, well, good call. Nothing like a walk on the beach.” He pointed to her lumpy pockets. “Find anything good?”
“Um.” Yep, she was always so verbose around him.
“Let’s go get some coffee, and you can show me what you found. One time when I was out early, I found a sand dollar that was still alive.”
“No way.”
“Yep. You could see its little tentacles or legs or whatever sticking out the sides, as it tried to swim away. They’re darker than the shells, you know. It was cool.”
“Are you sure you need coffee?” she blurted. “You seem wide awake to me.”
He laughed, another sound that carried over the beach. “Believe it or not, it calms me down.” He tapped his temple. “ADD.”
“I never would have guessed. Do you sleep? I mean, didn’t you close the bar last night?”
“Sure, I did, and sure, I sleep. But I like to run on the beach, too, and this is the best time of day. So, coffee?”
“Sam will be wondering where I am.” She took a step backwards. “I didn’t leave him a note.”
Liam snorted. “He won’t see daylight for another four or five hours at least. Come on. We’ll get some coffee, then you can come fishing with me on the pier.”
Her stomach rumbled and he grinned, as if he’d already won. “The place I get coffee has great pastries, too.”
Even though she’d been thinking of pastries all morning, she resisted. “If I get pastries, I’ll have to start running, too.”
“Good, then I’ll have someone to run with. Sam is too competitive. Plus, he sleeps late.”
“From what I remember, you’re pretty competitive yourself.”
“Stubborn. Stubborn is what I am. So come on. Pastries and coffee sound really good right now.” He started walking up the beach and despite herself, she fell in step.
“Aren’t I holding you back from your run?”
He turned back as if to gauge the distance. “Nah, I did okay.”
“So you’re going fishing? Do you have your gear? And doesn’t that require, I don’t know, patience?”
He flashed a grin that made her knees wobbly. “I’m plenty patient. Again with the stubborn, see. I can out-wait just about anything.”
She didn’t know why she got a feeling he was sending her a message. Maybe it was just her sleep-deprived mind drawing lines where there weren’t any.
“So how long are you in town?” he asked as they continued down the beach.
“I don’t know yet.” She was sure Sam had told him the whole story, but she so didn’t want to go into it with him.
“Yeah, well, the reason I was asking is that once Sam goes on his annual training maneuvers, I’m going to need help at the bar.”
She stopped. “When he goes where?”
“He didn’t tell you? He’s got annual training coming up starting this weekend. He’ll be gone until just before Christmas.”
“Why wouldn’t he tell me that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he was waiting until you got settled in or something. Don’t worry about it. You’ll have the house to yourself when he goes.”
But she didn’t know a soul in Starfish Shores, didn’t have a thing to do. But what had she wanted, really? Him to babysit her? Entertain her?
And technically, she did know Liam. Working at the bar might give her something to do, though that meant working beside Liam. She’d have to think about it.
Finally Liam turned and started hiking toward the road. Harley was slightly gratified to see that he had as much trouble walking in the sand as she did. Still, he reached out to steady her when she staggered, his hand hard and warm.
She should not be noticing what his hands felt like. She’d just ended a long-term relationship, and Liam was her brother’s best friend. The fact that he was smoking hot should not weigh on her consciousness at all. Still, she felt her face heat as she pulled away, breaking contact.
Once they reached the wooden walkway that would take them over the dunes—a different walkway than she’d used to come down to the beach—the sun was peeking over the horizon, and the shorebirds were making a racket as they soared overhead against the high clouds. Liam touched the small of her back to guide her forward, though she could now clearly see the coffeehouse in front of them. She should move away. She really should. But that might send him the wrong idea, that his touch affected more to her than it should. So she let his hand ride on the small of her back and ignored the tingles of awareness shooting through her body.
For God’s sake, she’d just broken up with Tony. Was she any better than him, if she was turned on by Liam’s touch? She gave a little skip to outpace him, and broke contact.
The aroma of coffee reached past the sidewalk, and she disguised her move as eagerness to get to it. She pushed through the door to find the shop dark-paneled and cozy, the menu and prices written in looping script in different colored chalk on a chalkboard on the back wall. The other side of the L-shaped counter contained a few sample cakes and a fancy binder with the title, “Wedding Cakes.” A few small tables were scattered about, but this wasn’t a restaurant. At this early hour, the place was quiet except for the sound of the brass coffeemaker behind the counter. When Harley crouched to inspect the variety of baked goods behind the glass counter, a redhead with her curls tucked into an unruly ponytail popped out from a doorway that led to the back, presumably the kitchen. Her eyes brightened when she saw Liam. She wiped her hands on her apron and hurried forward.
“Liam, you’re running a little late. Want your usual?”
Harley straightened and the redhead jumped, her hand on her heart.
“Oh. Hi. I didn’t see you there.” But her smile definitely dimmed.
“Brenda, this is Harley Blume, Sam’s little sister,” Liam said easily. “Harley, Brenda Wesley, the best baker in Starfish Shores.”
The wattage turned up a bit, and Brenda slid a flirtatious look in his direction. “The only baker.”
He leaned on the counter. “Doesn’t mean it isn’t good. Give me the usual, plus a bear claw for Sam, and whatever she’s having.”
Her mouth was watering, the first time she could remember wanting to eat in weeks. “That cupcake, and a mocha.” She pointed to a cupcake swirled with rich chocolate icing.
“A cupcake for breakfast?” Liam asked as Brenda moved to select it for her.
“How is that worse than a doughnut?” She pointed to the powdery confection Brenda had put on a plate for him. “And you don’t need to buy me breakfast. I brought money.”
“You get it tomorrow.” He placed a bill on top of the counter.
“If you eat like this every day, no wonder you need to run.” She took her cupcake and turned toward one of the small tables. Okay, she’d not thought this through. She’d be sitting in this small coffeehouse at a small table, and eating one of the messiest foods. She knew of no graceful way to eat a cupcake.
It didn’t matter, though. She didn’t need to impress Liam. He was Sam’s friend, was all. And she might be working with him if he was telling the truth about Sam’s yearly training. Why would he lie?
But then, why wouldn’t Sam tell her?
Brenda brought their coffee to their table, along with a bag with Sam’s bear claw. Then, to Harley’s surprise, she pulled up a chair and sat down. That was probably good, to distract Liam’s attention from her.
“So where are you from, Harley?”
“Originally, Oregon. More recently, Nashville.”
“So, visiting Sam for a few days?”
“A few weeks, I think. Not sure how long I’ll stay.”
Brenda widened her eyes. “So you don’t work?”
“I recently left my job. Just wasn’t what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. What about you? Do you own this place?”
“I wish. No, I’m just the baker, and during the off-season, also waitress and cashier. It’s a great job if you don’t like sleep.” She cast a wistful glance at Liam. “Or going out. I haven’t been to The Pit in ages. I heard you have a new band playing Friday nights.”
“They’re pretty good. You should try to come out.”
“One beer and I’d fall asleep. I swear, I’m worthless after eight, since I wake up around four. How is it?” She pointed to Harley’s cupcake.
Since Harley had bitten into it, the icing had streaked her nose and she was trying to wipe it away discreetly before Liam noticed. She sent a mental gee, thanks to Brenda when Liam grinned, leaned over and wiped the errant frosting with his thumb. Brenda’s eyes narrowed at the casual gesture.
“It’s good,” Harley managed.
“Are you looking for a job in Starfish Shores?”
“Harley’s going to work at The Pit,” Liam said.
“Harley has not said she’s going to work at The Pit,” Harley countered. Harley doesn’t know what she’s going to do. But tending bar, or waitressing in her brother’s bar, did not seem to have any more of a future than answering phones and dodging her boss’s hands. “Harley has never waitressed before.”
“Nothing to it. And you can make some decent tips.”
Right. Tips were going to help her start over. But to look at it another way, it might show her what she didn’t want to do. It might give her the motivation to figure the rest of her life out. She looked at Brenda. The woman was probably her age, maybe younger, and had a career. Liam and Sam had careers, hell, were business owners. How had she missed out on knowing what she wanted to be when she grew up?
She polished off the cupcake, picked up her paper cup of coffee and the bag with the bear claw. “Thanks for breakfast. I’ll see you.” And she bolted out the door.
* * *
Harley sat on the corner of Sam’s bed with a bounce, waking her brother, who grunted and tugged at the covers before rolling onto his back and opening his eyes. She made a show of reaching into the white bakery bag and tearing off a piece of the bear claw, and shoving it into her mouth.
“When were you going to tell me you were leaving?” she demanded around the pastry.
He climbed on his elbows until he was in a sitting position. “Where have you been?”
“On the beach.”
He blinked, coming awake. “You ran into Liam.”
“More or less. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You had enough going on, and I thought you might think I wouldn’t want you here when I was gone, and I knew you didn’t want to go home to Mom and Dad, so I waited. I was going to tell you today.”
“You’re going to leave me in a place where I don’t know anyone, alone, for two weeks.”
“You know Liam. And who do you know back in Oregon anymore, anyway? It’s just two weeks, and when have you ever lived on your own? This will be a good experience.”
All the benefits, none of the risk, she supposed. “When are you leaving?”
“Saturday.”
Saturday. Three days away.
“Do Mom and Dad know? Will you be back for Christmas?”
He grimaced. “Christmas Eve. I won’t make it up there in time. But hey, you weren’t going to go, either, remember.”
Because she’d been going to spend Christmas with Asshole Tony’s extended family, in a lake house in Minnesota. The idea had seemed so romantic and cozy, something straight out of a Christmas card. Now she was going to spend the Christmas season on the beach. Not Christmasy in any way. But she wasn’t ready to tell her parents what had happened, not yet.
“Liam wants me to help out in the bar while you’re gone. I don’t have any experience with that.” She didn’t have much experience with anything, come to think of it.
“You don’t have to do anything for two weeks. Just get your life sorted out. Now, give me that.” He reached over and snatched the bakery bag.
* * *
Truth was, there wasn’t much to do in a coastal town in December, not when one was avoiding the bar and the bakery after making a fool out of oneself. Sitting around the bungalow feeling sorry for herself wasn’t working, either.
She found herself at The Pit the following night. Again, the place was surprisingly busy. Probably more people like herself who didn’t want to be home alone. She didn’t let Sam know she was there, just kept to the back and watched he and Liam work side by side behind the bar, joking with each other and the customers as a hockey game played on the screen overhead. Something tugged at her, and she was reminded of how she felt at Tony’s gigs, watching him with the band, him a part of something he loved, she on the outside. It was the same thing with Liam and Sam and their neighbors, only this time she’d been invited in. She had a feeling it wouldn’t take her long to get to know the people of Starfish Shores if she worked here.
She watched the waitress wheel about the crowd in tight jeans, tray held high, balancing half a dozen drinks or more without spilling them. Could she learn to do that?
She moved forward, and Liam spotted her. His grin split his face and he waved her over to the end of the bar.
“What’s your pleasure?” he asked, leaning over to hear her answer.
Was he ever in a sour mood? Just once, she wanted to see that. “If you ask all the girls like that, no wonder you’re so busy.”
He winked. “Missed you on the beach this morning.”
She’d actually slept last night, something like seven hours straight. That was part of the reason she’d come out. She could function again without exhaustion dragging at her.
“I’ll take a beer.” She pointed to the sign with her preferred brand. “So how long did it take her to learn how to do that?” She gestured to the waitress, who was loading up another tray.
“Cindi? Few days. Why? You going to come work for us?”
“Better than sitting home alone, I guess.”
His grin widened. “I can get Cindi to start training you tonight.”
“Er, I’d really rather do it when there weren’t so many people around watching me make a fool of myself.”
“All right,” he said. “Come in tomorrow around three. I’ll be in early to get things ready for Sam’s going away party. You can get some practice in then.”
Surprisingly, now that she’d made the decision, she wasn’t so jittery. “I’ll be here.”
She stayed at the end of the bar, invisible, watching. The girl on the other end of the bar flirting with Sam might be a tourist, but the guys joking with Liam were local, as was the group of girls, including Brenda from the bakery, watching Liam from one of the tables on the deck.
Harley had grown up in a city and moved to another city, but she thought she could get used to living in a small town.
“Heading out already?” Liam asked when she slipped off her barstool.
She jolted and bumped into the next barstool. She hadn’t realized he’d been paying attention.
“I’m not quite ready to close the place down.”
“Okay. Three o’clock tomorrow, then. Or come find me on the beach in the morning. I’ll be there.”
She didn’t know what to do with that invitation, so just waved and ducked out.
* * *
She didn’t make it out to the beach, even though she was awake and tempted. She didn’t want Liam to think she was following him around like some lovesick girl. Instead, she did the thing she’d been dreading since she walked out on Tony.
She called her parents.
“Hey, Mom,” she said as brightly as she could, channeling Liam and his blasted perpetual good mood. “What’s new?”
That was probably the wrong thing to say, since her mother went on forever about the new neighbors who had three adorable children and often needed a babysitter, and the new alarm system that kept going off at all hours, and the unseasonably warm weather.
“What’s new with you?” her mother finally asked.
“Funny you should ask.” Harley missed the days of phone cords that she could twist when she got anxious. “Tony and I broke up.”
Then she listened to another five minutes about Tony and how her mother had always known and had warned Harley. Because that’s what every daughter likes to hear. “I told you so.”
“So what happened?” her mother finally asked.
Harley considered lying after that diatribe. Instead, she took a deep breath. “He cheated on me. A lot.”
This tirade was shorter, about his wandering eye and his big ego, followed by, “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. He had no idea what he had. I’m sorry he hurt you.”
“Well, the plus side is, I’ll be home for Christmas.”
Silence on the other end. Holy cow, her mother was never silent.
“Mom?”
“Sweetheart, since you and Sam weren’t planning to come home for Christmas, your dad and I made other plans with some friends from the neighborhood. The group of us are going skiing in Aspen. I’ve always wanted to go at Christmastime, and we were able to get a good deal. It’ll be like a second honeymoon.” Hesitation. “You could come with us, if you’d like, and sleep on the pull-out bed.”
Right. Just what she wanted to do, crash her parents’ second honeymoon. But wow, that was unexpected. She wasn’t sure how she felt—disappointed, or glad she didn’t have to go home and listen to more “I was right about him” lectures. “I’m good here.”
“You could come stay in the house, though I’m afraid it’s not really Christmasy.”
“I’m staying at Sam’s for now. I quit my job in Nashville. I’m going to work at The Pit while he’s gone to his training, help out a little.”
More silence. Then, “Oh, that’s good. And then what are you going to do?”
“I haven’t figured that out yet. Maybe my Christmas miracle will be ambition of my own.”
One could only hope.

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