Книга - Secrets in a Small Town

Secrets in a Small Town
Kimberly Van Meter


Some things are meant to stay buried. For Owen Garrett, that includes his past.The successful logger has worked hard rebuilding his family name. He's not about to let some former-hippie reporter dig up ancient events. Besides, Piper Morning Dew Sunday has already vilified his company in the press–three times! Now she wants an interview? It's not gonna happen, no matter how captivating she is.But when Piper swears she can clear his father's name, Owen has a change of heart. Soon he finds himself working with the stubborn beauty to find the truth. Only, uncovering secrets may have more consequences than either expect.









“I want an interview—with you.”


Ah, hell. Owen wanted to walk away, but Piper looked determined. It wouldn’t be so bad, he reasoned to himself, quickly weighing the pros and cons. She probably wanted to grill him about one of the projects she and her parents were adamantly opposing. “A half hour.”

“As long as it takes,” she countered.

He shook his head. “No open-ended deals. One hour.”

“Two.”

“Woman, what on earth could you possibly want to talk about for two damn hours?” he said, annoyance getting the better of him. “An hour and a half. Final offer. Take it or leave it.”

“Deal.” She smiled. “And I get to pick the topic. And you have to cooperate.”

She drove a hard bargain. “Fine. Now get the hell out of here.”

She frowned and opened her mouth to protest, but the dark look he sent her snapped it shut pretty quickly. One thing was for sure—she wasn’t dumb. Whatever she was after, she was likely to get. He wondered if she approached relationships the same way. Heaven help the man caught in her crosshairs. He wouldn’t stand a chance.


Dear Reader,

I confess. I’m a sucker for a story where opposites attract. I love the push-pull of a relationship that seems doomed from the start because both characters are stubborn, determined and absolutely certain they know what’s best.

When I envisioned Owen Garrett, the gruff but deliciously sweet logger, I knew right away the woman of his dreams was going to be the last he’d expect. And Piper Sunday didn’t disappoint. Immediately I loved her quirky sense of humor and easy acceptance of things that might make others balk. I also loved that she refused to let Owen push her around even when he was blustering. Who wouldn’t love a pair like these two?

As the last of Mama Jo’s Boys, it’s a bittersweet ending. I’ve loved these “boys” as much as my ever-lovin’ Mama Jo. I hope you’ve enjoyed the journey. I know I certainly have!

Hearing from readers is one of my greatest joys. Feel free to drop me a line at my website, www.kimberlyvanmeter.com, or through snail mail—P.O. Box 2210, Oakdale, CA 95361.

Happy reading,

Kimberly Van Meter




Secrets in a Small Town

Kimberly Van Meter





www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)




ABOUT THE AUTHOR


Kimberly Van Meter wrote her first book at age sixteen and finally achieved publication in December 2006. She writes for Harlequin Superromance and Harlequin Romantic Suspense. She and her husband of seventeen years have three children, three cats and always a houseful of friends, family and fun.


My biggest thanks go to Bob Berlage

of Big Creek in Davenport, California.

My husband and I thoroughly

enjoyed your crash course on logging practices

in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

Without your help, I surely would’ve been

floundering. Any deviations from true practice is

no reflection of your teaching,

for you were a great resource!

Thank you!




CONTENTS


CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

EPILOGUE




CHAPTER ONE


OWEN GARRETT TRIED TO KEEP it cool but he’d already crumpled the newspaper in his hand because he couldn’t stop imagining it was the neck of one nosy journalist who’d decided making his life miserable was her single goal in life.

He pushed open the glass door of the Dayton Tribune’s office and went straight to the receptionist, with a demand to see the editor.

“She’s not here.” The woman, her name plaque identifying her as Nancy, arched her brow at his tone. “Perhaps I could take a message?”

He ignored her suggestion and barreled forward, too hot to follow the advice circling in his head. “Then, I want to see the general manager. And if that person isn’t available, I want to see the publisher. There ought to be rules about what can and can’t be printed without verifying the facts. Oh, wait, there are. If I don’t see someone right now about this—” He thrust the mangled front page in front of Nancy’s face and she scowled but took the paper from his hand. He pointed at the lead story. “Then the next call I place is to my lawyer. This is slander and I want a retraction. Now.”

Nancy exhaled softly and she plainly didn’t appreciate his tone or his attitude but he didn’t care. This was the third article that reporter, Piper Sunday, had written about his logging operation that basically painted him to be the “big bad logger” out to clear cut the forests without any consideration for the environment, which was complete and total crap. He’d tried to take the high road, but she’d pushed too far this time.

“The editor is out for the day and the managing editor is on vacation until next week. However, Ms. Sunday is here in the office. Perhaps you’d like to speak with her?” she asked in a voice so perfectly bland it could be taken only as a rebuke for his own hotheaded blustering.

Speak with Ms. Sunday? Hell yes. He tried to school his face into some semblance of calm, but he couldn’t quite manage it. “I would love to speak with Ms. Sunday,” he said.

Nancy picked up the phone. “Ms. Sunday, you have a gentleman up front to speak with you regarding a story you wrote in this week’s edition.” She returned the phone with a smile. “She’ll be right up. Would you like to sit and wait?”

“It’d be my pleasure.” Except he didn’t sit, he stood, arms crossed and fuming. This morning he’d nearly choked on a chunk of his granola cereal when he’d read the lead story—Logger Proceeds With Flawed Harvesting Plan—printed with big, bold type running across the page and he’d quickly and suddenly lost his appetite as he’d spewed a litany of curse words that made his German shepherd, Timber, cock his head in confusion and then walk away to flop on his bed with a sad expression. Somehow he’d known they weren’t going for a walk after breakfast. Instead Owen had raced into town to deal with lying reporters, which was a waste of a perfectly gorgeous spring day in the Santa Cruz mountains. Yet another reason to want to strangle Ms. Sunday.

He’d only spoken on the phone with her once and she’d taken everything he’d said completely out of context. So when she’d called again, he’d ignored her calls. Well, he’d mistakenly thought if he offered no comment, perhaps she’d find a different story to chase after, but this woman seemed to have an agenda and it was to ruin him. She’d run the story without the benefit of his involvement and it made him look like an evil bastard.

A slim brunette, wearing soft, flowing, white linen pants walked into the foyer with a professional smile on her full lips. “I’m Piper Sunday. How may I help you?” she asked pleasantly.

“You can help me by not slandering me and my company. You have balls of steel, woman.” He nearly amended the woman part when he noticed the white bow tied neatly in her hair. When she had little to no reaction, he introduced himself. “I’m the evil bastard you seem to enjoy vilifying in the press.”

“Perhaps you could be more specific…”

“Owen Garrett, owner of—”

“Big Trees Logging,” she finished with a slow smile. “And the man who has an aversion to answering phone calls.”

“You mean, an aversion to having my words twisted,” he countered. “The one interview I gave you turned into a mess in print.”

“That’s your opinion.”

“No, it’s fact. And I’m about to sue this newspaper for slander if I don’t get a retraction.”

“First, if it’s anything, it would be libel, which it’s not. Second, you’d have to have a court order to get us to do a retraction. Out of curiosity, which part of the article did you take exception to?” she asked.

“All of it.”

“That would be a very long correction, if I were of a mind to offer it,” she said, crossing her arms. “And I’m not. Everything I wrote is true.”

“I say it’s not.”

“Well, we’re at an impasse. However, I would be happy to sit down with you for an exclusive interview for your rebuttal. I’m sure our readership would love to read your side of things.”

Owen clenched his teeth. “I’m not kidding around here.”

She held her ground. “Neither am I.”

He caught the round-eyed stare of the receptionist as she enjoyed a front-row seat of their little drama and remembered himself. He was playing right into Ms. Sunday’s game by appearing every inch the bullying blowhard she practically accused him of being in her articles. He dialed back his temper but it tasted like bile going down. “You’ll be hearing from my lawyer,” he said quietly, not trusting himself to continue.

There was the tiniest frown that betrayed her surprise when he called her bluff but she didn’t try to placate him in order to make him change his mind. When she gave him a shrug as if to say “go for it,” he swallowed a snarl and stalked from the office.

He didn’t even care if he slammed the door. And in fact, he took perverse pleasure in the hope that the sound rattled the windows and echoed throughout the small building.



OH, BOY, WAS HE MAD. PIPER stifled a nervous giggle. “He has a temper, doesn’t he?” she remarked to Nancy.

“Yes, he does. And you’ve riled him pretty good. You sure you want to do that? He just might sue us, and you know how that will upset Mr. Cook.”

At the mention of the publisher, Piper shrugged but the kernel of nervousness remained. She couldn’t lose her job. She had big plans. Besides, Owen Garrett could holler all he wanted. It wasn’t going to change the fact that she’d done her due diligence on all of her articles on Big Trees Logging. She studied her fingernail and frowned at the hangnail she saw. She nibbled at the offending skin. “It’s not my fault that I write the stories that put people on the defensive,” she said to Nancy, though the receptionist had already returned to her work, which meant she wasn’t paying much attention to her. Piper exhaled and walked to her office where she’d been doing her research on the aging computer. A spinning rainbow greeted her on the monitor as the computer wheezed through her request without much success. “Damn archaic piece of junk,” she muttered, wondering whether if she gave it a whack like they do in the movies it would miraculously start working. Instead of bitch-slapping her hard drive like she wanted to, she sighed and shut it down so it could reboot.

“Who wants your head this time?” a voice asked behind her. “It must suck to write the stories people love to hate.”

She rolled her eyes before turning to face the owner of the annoyingly snarky tone. “Yes, and it must be tiring to have to be the one to write the stories nobody reads.”

Charlie Yertz, the bane of Piper’s existence, pulled a nasty face but didn’t disappear as she’d hoped. Instead, he tilted his head and regarded her shrewdly, saying, “I think you have an agenda with that Big Trees guy.”

She affected a bored expression. “An agenda? Pray tell.”

“I don’t know yet but I’ll figure it out.”

“You’ve been reading too many conspiracy-theory blogs,” she said, dismissing him and turning her attention to her slowly booting computer. But it was hard to seem absorbed with nothing showing on the screen, so she busied herself with tidying her space. When Charlie remained, she glared. “Can I help you?”

“You’re ambitious,” he stated as if that were a revelation, which it wasn’t. Everyone knew Piper had big dreams of landing a Pulitzer someday.

“Charlie, who knew you had such hard-core investigative skills. Now, go on, shoo. I have work to do.”

“So smug. You didn’t let me finish. You’ve been going after Owen Garrett like a dog with a bone. I can understand one story on the logging hunk. But three? Care to share?”

Charlie thought she had the hots for Owen. If it weren’t so ludicrous, she’d be offended. He was not her type. She preferred her men cultivated, civilized and sophisticated, not rough, big and completely disinterested in protecting the environment. Oh, lord, if she were ever to bring home someone like Owen Garrett, much less the brawny man himself, her parents would wilt. Oh! Speaking of… She made a buzzer sound for Charlie’s benefit. “Wrong. However, two points for trying to think outside the box. Oops, actually you didn’t. Not really. It’s not a huge jump to try and draw a line between two single adults with some kind of cockamamie romance theory. Rest your little brain, Chuck. I’m starting to see smoke.”

Charlie’s face reddened and she bit back open laughter. It was just too easy with this guy.

“If I find out you’re moonlighting behind the paper’s back, I’ll take great pleasure in ratting you out.”

She kept her face implacable as she said, “I’m sure your uncle appreciates your loyalty.”

“I am loyal,” he agreed, his gaze hardening. “Unlike some.”

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes, and instead, checked her watch. “Oh, look at the time. Gotta go. If you’ll excuse me, I have a lunch date scheduled.”

She moved past Charlie, who was no doubt plotting her death. The irony was that if he managed to pull off the perfect murder, her obituary would end up on his desk and she wasn’t sure she felt comfortable with the idea of Charlie being in charge of her last words printed in the paper.

The funny thing was, for once Charlie had hit the nail on the head, though he was far afield with that romance idea. She was on to something with Owen Garrett and, really, it had nothing to do with his logging operation. She was digging into a bigger, better, far juicer story than the environmental angle her parents were pushing her to pursue.

And Owen Garrett was at the epicenter.

Of course, he was oblivious to the part he was going to play in her master plan—the plan where she busted open a decades-old case involving Owen’s late father and, in the process, earned herself a spot among the greats in journalistic history. Now that she had him good and riled, when she pulled the bait and switch on him, he wouldn’t know what hit him. He’d be so grateful that she was dropping the logging angle, he’d likely tell her whatever she wanted to know about his father.

Well, that’s how it played out in her head. Of course, her mother was fond of telling her that she had a terribly overactive imagination, which, coupled with her writing skills, would make her a terrific fiction writer. But she didn’t want to write fiction. She wanted to write the next big story. She wanted to rub elbows with the likes of Judith Miller of the New York Times and Dan Balz of the Washington Post.

And Owen Garrett was going to make that possible.

But first she had to choke down a tofu casserole with her parents, when what she really wanted was a triple-decker beef burger with all the trimmings over at Buns and Burgers. She tried not to drool at the thought and resigned herself to a lovely luncheon marred only by the prospect of the menu.




CHAPTER TWO


“I WANT TO SUE THE NEWSPAPER,” Owen growled to his lawyer, Scott Everhall. “She refuses to print a retraction without a court order, so let’s give her what she needs. I want to go to court.”

“Calm down. Let’s talk this through,” Scott said as he grabbed a fresh tablet to take notes. “What’s got you so full of piss and vinegar?”

“Piper Sunday,” he spat.

“I read her stuff. She’s good,” Scott said, then quickly added when Owen gave him a dark look, “Well, I mean, as good as any small-town reporter, I guess. So what’s she said that’s upset you so much?”

“She wrote that I’m going forward with the east mountain project with a flawed timber harvest plan, which basically points me out to be some kind of bull-headed jerk who doesn’t give a rip about the environment or the endangered fairy shrimp or whatever damn bug that’s in need of protecting.”

“Well, you are going through with the project, right?” Scott asked for clarification.

“I filed all the necessary paperwork and permits. I’m doing everything by the book. I was given clearance.”

“Of course, but that’s not the point she’s making, right? You’re not going to win with her. You know who her parents are, right?”

“No. Should I?”

Scott chuckled. “Well, they’re only the king and queen of liberal politics, Coral and Jasper Sunday. They love to take on people like you. I can just imagine how they would enjoy vilifying a logger.”

“This is bullshit,” Owen grumbled, raking his hand through his hair, feeling as if he were slipping deeper into a mud pit. “So what are you saying? I’ve got no recourse, because her parents are pushing an agenda and they’re using their daughter to get it done?”

Scott shrugged. “I’m not saying anything. I’m just providing information.” He leaned forward and flicked imaginary lint from his desktop. “Here’s the thing— I’m your lawyer and your friend. As your lawyer, I can drag the newspaper into court and demand a retraction. But in the end, it’ll cost you more than it’s worth and, frankly, it’ll just make you look worse. Hell, maybe that’s what she’s hoping. Of course, as a lawyer billing you for my time, I’ll do whatever you feel is necessary. But as your friend, I say let it go. Don’t let this woman get under your skin. You’re not doing anything wrong, so stop letting her make you feel as if you have.”

“Just let it go?” Owen repeated, not quite sure if he was able to do that, not while he was as mad as he was anyway.

“Well, that’s my advice. But you do what you want. I surely won’t turn away your money if you’re feeling like throwing it down the toilet.”

“I think I need a new lawyer,” Owen growled, but Scott knew he was just blowing steam and simply made a gesture as if to say “you can do what you want” before leaning back in his chair, lacing his hands behind his head. Finally, Owen gave it up. “Fine. I’ll let it go. But so help me, if I run into her on the streets, I might not be able to play nice.”

Scott laughed. “Come on now…she’s not bad-looking, you know. You ought to play nice. The saying ‘you catch more flies with honey’ has a certain logic to it. You could do a lot worse.”

Owen barked a short, mirthless laugh in response. “I’d rather bed down with a rattler than pretend to like her just to get her off my back.” With a wry dig at Scott, he added, “Some of us have standards.”

“Suit yourself.” Scott smiled, the insult bouncing right off him without causing a scratch. “Is there anything else I can do for you today?”

“No,” Owen answered sullenly, his blood still hot from his encounter with that wretched reporter. “I suppose not if you aren’t interested in helping me sue the newspaper.”

“Perhaps another time,” Scott suggested with an amiable grin. “In the meantime, want to hit the links with me sometime?”

Owen glowered. “I don’t golf. Stop asking.”

“Stop being so stubborn. You might like it.”

“No, thanks. I have work to do. You might try that sometime.”

“I work. And you’ll have evidence of that as soon as you get my bill in the mail.”

Billable hours. He swallowed a sharp retort. As the woman who raised him would say, he had a bee in his bonnet and he needed to chill out. “All right. I’m out of here then. And don’t hurt yourself, okay?” he said, gesturing to the paperwork on Scott’s desk before heading for the door.

“Stay out of trouble,” Scott called out, and Owen waved in response.

Play nice, that was Scott’s advice. Some lawyer he was. Weren’t they all bloodthirsty, bottom-feeders? Apparently, he had the one lawyer on the planet who had a conscience.

Wasn’t he the lucky one. Yeah…lucky wasn’t what he was feeling right at the moment.



PIPER FORCED A SMILE AS HER mother dished a healthy portion of bulgur, lentil and tofu casserole onto her plate and tried not to stare at the offending mess as if it were the enemy. She’d been eating this stuff for years; one would think she’d be used to it by now. But once she’d discovered meat, covertly of course, she’d had a hard time appreciating the taste of tofu. Her parents would be devastated if they knew she was no longer a vegetarian, which was why she hid it from them. She imagined if she took up smoking they’d be more understanding than if she told them she had a hankering for a quarter-pounder with cheese.

“Your article was fantastic,” Coral said, her voice warm with pride. “You’re keeping your clippings, right?”

“Yes, Coral,” she answered dutifully. That was another thing about her parents, she’d never called them “Mom” and “Dad,” instead always referring to them by their given names as they believed it was unnecessary to cling to archaic traditions. Her friends used to think it was wild that she was treated like an adult when she was ten, but secretly, Piper had wished she had a bit more of that “tradition” her parents shied away from. It wasn’t easy being the only kid in class with parents like Coral and Jasper. She took a bite of the casserole for her mother’s sake. It wasn’t terrible, the spices helped; but it wasn’t beef and that’s what she wanted at the moment. “Actually,” she said around the hot bite, “I had a visitor at the paper earlier this morning and, boy, was he mad.”

Jasper grinned above his own heaping plateful of casserole. “The owner of Big Trees Logging came down to rail at you, huh? How’d that go?”

“As well as can be expected,” Piper said with a shrug. Mad was an understatement. If fire could’ve shot from his eyeballs, she’d have been reduced to a smoldering pile of ash. “He’s pretty ticked off. He threatened to sue the paper.”

“That’s so like a conservative,” Jasper growled, and Coral nodded in agreement. “Censor the press so that the message is muffled. Don’t worry, sweetheart, the truth is on your side.”

She wasn’t entirely sure of that. She felt a twinge of regret for having to railroad Owen Garrett, but she was playing both sides against the middle for a bigger cause. Sure, she was helping her parents further their own agenda of protecting the marbled murrelet, but in her heart burned a secret desire for bigger things than their little slice of heaven could provide. “Did you know that Big Trees was awarded a green certification for their environmentally sound and sustainable logging practices?” she asked her mother, who only scowled in response.

“Political designation, kickbacks, there’s all sorts of terrible things that go on at the expense of the environment, honey.” Coral seated herself and dug into her casserole with relish. “Logging disrupts the natural order of things, creates sediment that kills the fish and erosion that causes a landslide hazard. We are stewards of the land, honey, and it’s time people remember that fact.”

“It also provides lumber that’s used to build homes,” Piper countered, unable to help herself. “And jobs, so that people can feed their families. And Garrett’s company actually improved the Chileaut watershed.”

Coral blinked in surprise. “Piper, you know there are plenty of alternative building products out there that are just as good, if not better, than timber for building homes. If we don’t make people change, they never will. And who’s to say that the Chileaut watershed was improved?” Piper opened her mouth to answer but Coral continued with a knowing expression that Piper found particularly annoying, saying, “Just because some report by some independent water group claims that the watershed quality has improved, doesn’t make it so. We don’t know if money changed hands.”

Piper had a difficult time imagining Owen paying someone off just to get what he wanted. There was something…noble about the man, even though he did scare her a little with that intense stare of his. It was as if he could zero in on her most intimate thoughts with unerring accuracy. She suppressed a shiver. Her mother was still ranting. The fleeting thought came to her to try and set Coral straight with some facts, but she realized in her mother’s current frame of mind the effort would be useless.

She adored her parents, but sometimes they were…well, zealots, and she didn’t want to spend the rest of the afternoon listening to them tag team her in a one-sided discussion. It was best to nod and agree and then disagree privately. Piper choked down another bite and smiled, ready to switch subjects.

“Do you remember that case involving the Aryan Coalition?”

Jasper paused, his next forkful nearly to his mouth. “You mean, the massacre at Red Meadows? Why would you want to know about that? It’s an embarrassing chapter in the town’s history, best left alone.”

Coral agreed resolutely, her gaze darting. “I was so glad we didn’t have a television. I heard you couldn’t turn the channel without something being on about it. Your father is right, the memory is best forgotten.”

Oh, Piper heartily disagreed. How something so dark and scandalous could lurk in the shadows of the town’s history without piquing at least some kind of outside interest baffled her. When she’d found the details, she’d nearly fallen from her chair in her shock and excitement. It wasn’t every day you found the ticket to the big time just waiting for you to discover it. The second coup had been when she’d discovered that the local recluse, William Dearborn, had actually been at Red Meadows when it all went down. It’d been like stumbling across a buried treasure, only the loot had been in plain sight the whole time.

“Well, when I was doing background research on Big Trees Logging, I stumbled across the information that Owen Garrett was at the massacre. In fact, it was his father who was the leader of the Aryan Coalition.”

“That’s right. I’d forgotten,” Jasper said, returning to his paper. “He was just a kid then, about ten or so?”

“Eleven, actually,” she corrected her father. “What a terrible thing to have lived through.”

“Yes,” Coral hastened to agree, but it was plain that the topic unnerved her, which was saying something because Coral wasn’t easily bothered. She often viewed most awkward, volatile or embarrassing situations as an excellent opportunity to study human behavior within the constraints of a working civilized society. “It’s probably a blessing he was sent to live with his aunt on the east coast. No telling how twisted he might’ve grown up to be if he’d remained here after everything he went through with that father of his.”

“You knew them?” she asked, unable to contain her delight at this unexpected nugget of information.

Coral looked to Jasper, but quickly shook her head. “Of course not, Piper. It’s not as if we ran in the same circles. I’m just saying, the leader of a racist cult is hardly what I’d call a candidate for Father of the Year. You never know what he was teaching that boy.” Then she added with a mutter, “I’m shocked Owen returned.”

“Yeah, me, too,” Piper murmured, her mind moving rapidly. Her parents had definitely shared a conspiratorial look. What did that mean? Dare she ask? Would they tell the truth? Piper decided to sit on those questions for the moment.

“Piper, you’ve hardly touched your tofu casserole. Are you feeling all right? Are you taking your elderberry? Springtime is notorious for being cold season. You need to bolster your immunity. Oh, that reminds me, are you coming to the planting on Sunday at the farm?”

The annual community garden planting was something her parents orchestrated as part of the sustainable-society project they started when she’d been born. It had turned into a community of like-minded individuals who operated a co-op of sorts. They all shared in the work and then when harvest time came, they enjoyed the bounty equally. “Of course,” she answered, swallowing a sigh. Sometimes she felt she lived two lives. One life was for Piper Sunday, reporter, meat-eater, and quite possibly a closet conservative; the other life was for Piper Morning Dew Sunday, vegetarian, environmentalist, love child who was raised on a commune with slightly odd parents. She used to slide quite easily between both lives but lately, she found more in common with reporter Piper than environmentalist Piper and she didn’t know how to reconcile that fact. The idea of spending a full day with her former “community” didn’t thrill her. She’d come to appreciate the uses of deodorant and razors, two things the women in particular eschewed because it wasn’t “natural.”

In answer to her mother’s question, she took another bite and then pushed away her plate. “I’m stuffed. I had a big breakfast at the office this morning,” she explained, planning to fudge the actual contents of her breakfast, which had consisted of doughnuts and coffee. “I had one of those veggie burritos and it just filled me up. I might not even eat dinner.”

Coral nodded in understanding. “Sometimes I cut one in half to share with your father. Would you like me to put some of this casserole in a container for you to take home?”

“No, that’s okay,” she said, offering a different suggestion. “Why don’t you share it with Tia and Rhonda?”

“That’s an excellent suggestion, sweetheart,” Coral said with a reflective nod. “I should’ve thought of it myself.”

Tia and Rhonda were life partners on the farm who had just adopted a baby together and were struggling with the sleeplessness that came as an accessory with the new kid.

Piper prepared to put her exit strategy in motion when her dad piped in, asking about her love life. “Any prospects?” he asked, a twinkle in his eye.

“Jasper, stop pestering her,” Coral admonished, but Piper could tell she was just as curious. “I’m sure if Piper had something to tell us, she would.” She looked to Piper for assurance. “Right?”

“Of course. Nothing to report. I’m too focused on my work to worry about dating.”

“You know, Farley was asking about you the other day while we were harvesting the seedlings at the greenhouse. He’s a great young man. He makes a mean tofu parmigiana.”

Blech. The thought turned her stomach more than the idea of dating Farley did.

“A man with shared values who can also cook—you don’t find that too often,” Coral added, as if sharing a trade secret of some kind.

“Not according to eHarmony.com,” Piper quipped, earning a confused look on her parents’ part. No television, no computer. All her best jokes lately had been falling on fallow ground. “Never mind. I was kidding. Forget it. Anyway, gotta go.” She rose and pressed a kiss to both their cheeks. “Thanks for the grub. It was great.”

“See you on Sunday, lil Miss Sunday,” her father said with a wink.

“Can’t wait,” Piper said with a private sigh.




CHAPTER THREE


PIPER SAT IMPATIENTLY OUTSIDE the classroom of Mrs. Hamby’s second-grade class, still chafing a bit at her assignment. She wasn’t the education reporter but here she was, stationed outside, getting ready to cover a small piece on the Bring Your Parent To School Day.

“Damn you, Charlie, for getting the flu,” she mumbled, adjusting the strap holding the camera on her shoulder. However, if there was ever a person she wouldn’t mind knowing was doubled over, going and blowing from both ends, Charlie was the top candidate. As enjoyable as the thought may be, she couldn’t make her future on pieces like this. She doubted Diane Sawyer ever did time covering student-of-the-month assemblies. She had a degree in journalism, for crying out loud, and yet, she’d been sent to chase after second-graders and their parents. She’d really need to talk to her editor about assignments that were a waste of her talent. They had an intern for occasions like this. She had research to do and a council member to shake up.

She’d received a delicious tip that Councilman Donnelly had been caught with another woman. Big whoop—what politician didn’t dip his wick in other pots when the occasion presented itself?—except, Donnelly was an outspoken proponent of old-fashioned values. It was enough to make her giggle with anticipation. The look on his florid face when she casually mentioned the woman’s name was going to be priceless.

That is, if she managed to wrap up this silly assignment quick enough to catch Donnelly at his favorite restaurant around lunch. “Ah, crap.”

She heard the expletive muttered behind her and she turned to find Owen Garrett striding toward her, his expression as sour as if he’d been sucking on a lemon for the past half hour.

“What are you doing here?” The question popped from her mouth before she could stop it. But she was legitimately curious. Piper knew Owen wasn’t married, nor did he have kids, so it begged the question—why was he strolling through the elementary campus?

“Serving some kind of penance, apparently,” he answered.

She ignored that. “I know you don’t have kids and you were an only child, so that precludes nephews and nieces. So why are you here?”

“So the yellow journalist has done her homework.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Why? Does it bother you to be called something you’re not? I know the feeling, but in this case, I have to disagree. If I were to look up ‘yellow journalist’ in the dictionary, I wouldn’t be surprised if they used your picture under the definition.”

“I’m not a yellow journalist, nor have I ever been one. For your information, I’ve never sensationalized anything just to attract readers. My stories are just naturally interesting,” Piper retorted, refusing to let his digs get under her skin. “You still haven’t answered the question. I’m not surprised, though. You’re the king of avoiding any question that doesn’t suit your purpose to answer.”

His mouth clamped shut and she stifled the tickling urge to grin in victory. He was too easy to nettle. And she realized she very much liked to nettle him.

Oh, that didn’t bode well for her bigger plan. She straightened with a shrug. “Whatever. I don’t care why you’re here. I’m here for an assignment, not to trade insults with you.”

“That’s a shame. I was just getting started.”

She turned away from him, mentally kicking herself for not remaining on track. She had to be careful around him. He managed to get under her skin in a fairly short period of time.

“I heard you grew up on a commune,” he said conversationally to her back. When she refrained from offering a rejoinder, he added, “With a bunch of nudists.”

Heat crawled into her cheeks. It wasn’t that she was ashamed—the naked body was a beautiful thing—but the way he said it made it sound insulting. And most people found the fact that she’d grown up in an unorthodox household ripe for conversation. Frankly, she was over it.

“Well, we have something in common, then,” she quipped, turning to give him a cool look. “I heard you were raised on a racist compound. I guess you could say we were both raised in nontraditional households. Mine ran around naked and yours fantasized about genocide.”

That stunned him into silence but the lock that slid over his expression told her she’d gone too far. Damn her mouth. How was she ever going to make it to the big time if she couldn’t govern what fell from her lips? She ought to pull it back. She chewed the inside of her cheek as she raced through a number of different ways to apologize. But before she could settle on the best one—not that he would’ve accepted, judging by the stony look on his face—the door opened and Mrs. Hamby welcomed them with a warm greeting. Piper scuttled inside, eager to escape the shadowy feeling of guilt that followed.



HE SHOULD’VE KNOWN BETTER than to poke at her but when he’d seen her standing there, looking harmless as a daisy in her white sundress, her brunette bob framing her angelic face without a hair out of place, he’d dearly wanted to push her into a mud puddle. Barring any available mud, he’d settled for throwing a few verbal shots her way.

He’d hit a nerve with the nudist bit but she’d kidney punched him with a shot about his past. The ghosts of Red Meadows were alive and well in Dayton no matter what he did to try and atone for his father’s actions.

She was a damn reporter. Of course she knew about Red Meadows. That’s why he should’ve just kept his mouth shut.

It was true he didn’t have kids or nieces or nephews but his office manager, Gretchen Baker, had a daughter without a father and when she’d asked him to do this he didn’t see how he could refuse. He’d always gone out of his way to educate the public about logging but he also enjoyed doing what he could to change the town’s memory of the Garrett name.

So, it was a little self-serving coming to the classroom today and that damn journalist was bound to see right through him.

Mrs. Hamby, a short round woman with apple cheeks and puffy curls clinging to her head pointed to the tiny desk and chair, indicating that he and Piper would be sitting beside one another.

Piper took one look at that little red molded plastic chair and saw how close they’d be to one another and she opted to stand at the back of the room, citing the need to be able to move around for pictures.

He was willing to bet his eyeteeth she was lying. But that was fine with him. He didn’t want any part of him pressed against her, least of all their thighs and shoulders. He caught the eye of Gretchen’s daughter, Quinn, and winked when she brightened with a gap-toothed grin the width of Texas. This part he didn’t mind at all. Quinn was a great kid. It wasn’t her fault that her mom had terrible taste in men. Quinn’s daddy took off when she was just three years old and the newest baby daddy—because Gretchen was seven months pregnant—couldn’t seem to make up his mind whether or not he wanted to stick around.

“Class, we have very special guests today,” Mrs. Hamby said, her blue eyes twinkling. “Today, we have our mommies and daddies, uncles and aunts, or caregivers here to talk to us about what they do for a living. Remember, we must all show our guests our best manners so that they might want to visit us again sometime. And as an extra-special treat, we have a reporter from the newspaper who is going to do a wonderful story on our special day!” At that, twenty-seven kids turned toward the back where Piper was standing nibbling on her cuticle, causing her to straighten and flash a reluctant smile. Mrs. Hamby beamed at Piper, saying, “Piper Sunday was one of my very first students here when I came as a young teacher and it’s so wonderful to have her here today. She’s growing up to be a fine journalist. We might even see her go on to write for the New York Times or San Francisco Chronicle.”

Owen slid his gaze to Piper and caught hers. She seemed to blush a little but lifted her chin with a small smile for Mrs. Hamby’s benefit. He didn’t know anything about what it took to get to a big metro area paper but he suspected it didn’t involve biased reporting or Bring Your Parent To School events. So, in his opinion, she had a snowball’s chance in hell of making it anywhere other than little ol’ Dayton. She’d be writing about the dangers of riptides for tourists and preschool recitals for the rest of her life. Heh. That actually lightened his mood a bit. Just to throw her off, he sent her a blinding smile.

And it worked. She nearly dropped her writing pad.

Perhaps this day was salvageable.



PIPER SCRIBBLED A FEW NOTES and snapped a few pictures but she was on autopilot. Another part of her brain was processing that smile. From a purely objective place, she could see a certain rugged handsomeness to the man. When he wasn’t scowling hard enough to bring on a thundercloud, Owen Garrett wasn’t so hard on the eyes. She wondered what relationship he had with the cute kid who’d introduced him. She’d said Owen was her mom’s boss and friend. Hmm…translated, that meant boyfriend.

He was sleeping with his office manager. What a jerk. Her mouth tightened as a wave of indignant—something—washed over her. She shouldn’t be surprised. A man like Owen Garrett probably had to kick women out of his bed on a regular basis. He made a good living raping the land of its resources—okay, rape was probably a harsh word, but given her pique, she wasn’t in the mood to be politically correct—and he was unattached, which meant no ex-wife hanging around or siphoning from his paycheck. In other words, he was Dayton-delicious as her girlfriends would say.

It was a good thing she had higher standards. A girl could easily lose her focus around all that muscle and brawn. Speaking of, was it really necessary to wear that tight, artfully faded T-shirt that clung to his broad chest like a lover draped across all that hard skin? There were children around, for crying out loud. She pursed her lips and pretended to scribble some additional notes, when in fact, she was just tired of looking at him, which was a problem only she seemed to have as a quick glance revealed plenty of mommies caressing him with their eyes.

Eww.

And, naturally, he didn’t seem to notice the effect he had on the estrogen in the room. Why were some good-looking men oblivious to their charm? She drew a deep breath, glad it was nearly over. The next time Charlie couldn’t make it to work, she was going to insist their editor see a doctor’s note.

And unless he had Ebola, Charlie better have his skinny ass at his post.

Finally finished, she tried slipping from the room, eager to return to the office to write the silly story so she could get back to real journalism, but she was waylaid by an unexpected cute factor.

As the adults said their goodbyes and filed from the room, the little girl launched herself at Owen with the unabashed enthusiasm of the very young. He didn’t miss a beat and hefted her slight weight without blinking. She buried her face into his neck and he reciprocated with a tight hug. Before Piper put much thought into her actions, she snapped a quick picture of the scene.

“Thank you for coming, Owen,” she heard the little girl whisper, and he murmured something back that Piper didn’t quite catch.

Oh, dear. She didn’t want to see that. She ought to delete the picture right now before her editor saw it. She already knew from her gut that it was a great shot. He was under her skin again. Without even trying. She snared a look by a single mom who was eyeing Owen as if she wanted to give him a tongue bath. She was tempted to tell her “Go for it, honey, he’s all yours” but her mouth wouldn’t open. A little fact she refused to examine too closely. Instead, Piper edged past the two and nearly ran from the room.




CHAPTER FOUR


OWEN RETURNED TO THE OFFICE where Big Trees Logging administration did the magic of keeping the business afloat and immediately Gretchen was full of questions. “How’d it go?” she asked.

“It went great. Thanks for asking me to go,” he said, moving to the stack of mail he hadn’t had the chance to sort through just yet.

“I was going to ask Danny, but Quinn wanted you,” she said, almost apologetically.

At the mention of her newest boyfriend, the guy who knocked her up and then decided he needed space to think things through, made Owen want to scowl and say something rude but he held the urge in check. Gretchen had a soft heart and would likely get hurt feelings if he said what he felt right at the moment about the guy who’d bailed on her and their unborn child. “Yeah, not a problem,” he assured her, moving to his office. He paused as a sudden thought came to him. “Oh, and I’ve reconsidered my earlier request to send all calls from Piper Sunday to voice mail. Send any and all calls straight to me.”

Gretchen’s mouth pinched as she rubbed her distended belly. “Why for? So she can print more lies about you and Big Trees Logging? You ought to sue her and the paper for slander.”

“You mean, libel.” He grinned at Gretchen’s protectiveness. “I wish my lawyer agreed. Unfortunately, it’s more trouble than it’s worth. I just want to put the whole thing behind me. We’re better than that anyway.”

“Of course we are,” she agreed, nodding vigorously. “But still…seems wrong that she’s going to get away with being so mean.”

“She’s just doing her job, I suppose.”

“That’s a matter of opinion,” Gretchen said with a glower but finally sighed as she relented. “You got it. All calls from Piper Sunday will go straight to you.”

“Thanks, Gretchen.” He was midway to his desk when he remembered something else and poked his head out to call to Gretchen again. “Hey, anytime you need something for Quinn…it’s no imposition. Just ask. You got it?”

Gretchen’s eyes warmed and he half expected tears to follow as her pregnancy had been doing a number on the waterworks. Once he found her crying over the coffeepot when she’d run out of filters. But to his relief, her eyes remained dry, but appreciative.

“I wish more people saw what a good man you are,” she said, surprising him. “You act all gruff, but you’re really a sweet guy.”

Uncomfortable with the praise but knowing it came from an honest place, he simply cocked a grin her way and said, “Don’t tell anyone. It’ll ruin my rep as a badass.”

Gretchen winked with a broad smile. He returned the grin until he realized he had a missed call from Mama Jo. He frowned and quickly punched in the retrieval code.

The beloved voice of his foster mother sounded in his ear as she left a short message, wondering if he might be able to come visit soon, perhaps before the heat of summer got too bad. Since it was only spring, he smiled at the request even if a twinge of guilt followed. He hadn’t been home in a long time. He tried to go once a year but he’d been swamped as of late and the time seemed to get away from him.

Piper Sunday didn’t know everything about him. She knew only the surface stuff. Everyone knew that his father was killed in an FBI raid at the compound at Red Meadows. They also knew that his father was the head of the Aryan Coalition, a racist group with ties to bad things.

After it’d all gone down, he’d been sent to live with his only living relative, his aunt Danica on his mother’s side in West Virginia. But he’d proven to be too much of a handful for his aunt and she’d relinquished custody of the boy she’d never truly known anyway to the state. And he’d landed in the care of Mama Jo, a petite black woman with more heart and wisdom than anyone he’d ever met.

It’s also where he’d met his two foster brothers, Thomas Bristol and Christian Holt. He missed them all so much it was like a fire in his gut but he had a job to do here and he wasn’t about to walk away because it was easier.

Thomas and Christian had thought he was nuts to return to the town where his name was associated with something so dark and shameful. But he’d needed to give people something positive to associate the Garrett name with and he figured the best way to do that would be to become a productive member of the community.

To his dying day, he’d never forget Mama Jo’s advice to him as he broke the news that he was headed west.

“They got trees right here in West Virginia,” she’d said when he’d told her he was going to go into commercial forestry in California.

There’d been no sense in dancing around the truth— Mama Jo would see right through it anyway. She’d always had an uncanny sense about those things. It’d made it rough getting anything past her, which was probably why she’d managed to take three universally screwed-up kids and turn them into something useful to society.

“I have to go,” he’d said quietly.

“I know you do,” she’d said with a sigh. “I just wish you didn’t feel the need to prove yourself to a bunch of people who don’t matter anyway. All the people who know your heart are right here.”

“It’s not about me. It’s just something I need to do for my dad. The Garrett name doesn’t need to be forever associated with something bad.”

Mama Jo’s eyes had misted and for a second he’d felt like that lost eleven-year-old boy again. She’d cupped soft, careworn hands around his jaw as she’d said, “You’re a good son. You do what you feel is necessary to make it right for you. Your daddy is gone and it don’t matter to him none. You do this for you. And when you’ve done what you feel needs doing, you know where home is.”

He’d choked up and Mama Jo had wrapped him in a hug that said as much as her words.

Heading back to California, it’d felt as if he were going to battle.

Just thinking of that day so many years ago caused tears to spring to his eyes and, if he wasn’t careful, he’d end up a slobbering, bawling mess at his desk.

So when Mama Jo called, he always answered if he could.

“Hello, Mama,” he said when she picked up the line. A smile formed at the sound of her voice as her face appeared in his memory. “I just got your message. What’s going on? Everything okay? Did you get that package I sent?”

“Sure did. Never seen fruit arranged like that before. It was good, though Christian and Thomas wiped out the chocolate-topped strawberries before I could blink.”

“Oh, Mama, you should’ve smacked their paws as soon as they tried reaching for them,” he grumbled. He loved his brothers but he’d paid a pretty penny to have the fresh fruit arrangement delivered across the states. The overnight cold-storage shipping had been nearly as pricey as the arrangement but Mama was worth it. “I just wanted you to have something different for your birthday.”

“It was very thoughtful of you and I loved it, don’t you worry. But I wasn’t calling about the arrangement. I want to know if I can get a commitment out of you to come visit.”

She always asked, but there was something else in her voice—an underlying urgency perhaps that gave him pause. “Everything okay?” he asked.

“Does there have to be some kind of calamity for you to visit your family?” she joked, but it didn’t escape his notice that she’d sidestepped the question. A trickle of unease made his heart race. “It’s just time to come home for a visit. Don’t you think? It’s been years,” she reminded him.

“It’s high time,” he agreed, but he was looking at his calendar and there weren’t too many open spots. Still, he couldn’t get himself to just shut her down. “I’ll see what I can do, Mama,” he offered, but the weight of her disappointment pressed on him to try harder. He flipped his calendar, scanning for any possible leeway. “How about I bring you here for a visit? We could take a drive into the Bay, see the sights…”

“Maybe another time. You let me know when you can come. I’ll see that your brothers are here, too. It’s time we spend some time catching up.”

“Okay,” he agreed, but he didn’t know how the hell he was going to manage it. “Everything okay? You sound funny.”

“Never tell a lady that, son,” she admonished. “Take care, honey. I love you.”

“I love you, too, Mama,” he murmured, still troubled even as he disconnected. He’d have to call Thomas. His older brother always knew what was going on with Mama. He was the only one who’d stayed behind, getting a job with the local FBI office out of Pittsburgh. He’d recently moved back to Bridgeport with his wife, Cassi.

In Thomas’s case, he’d married his childhood sweetheart—eventually. Before the happily-ever-after happened, he’d been hell-bent on putting her in federal prison. From the stories he’d heard, Cassi had communicated her displeasure with that idea by repeatedly punching, kicking and scratching Thomas each time he tried.

As for Christian, he’d managed to fall in love with a woman on the run from a real bad character that had, for all intents and purposes, enslaved her for his own gain.

His brothers had a knack for finding the most difficult women on the planet and then falling in love with them. He was going to buck that trend. If he didn’t, he might end up shackled to someone like that reporter.

He waited for the shudder. But when it came, a shiver of awareness followed and that freaked him out more than finding a rattlesnake in his toilet.



PIPER DONNED A BIG, FLOPPY HAT to shield herself from the sun and exited her car, scanning the farm for her parents. She found them laughing and talking with Tia and Rhonda as they fawned over the new baby. She trudged that way, each step reminding her to stow her annoyance at being pulled away from spending time at the library going through the archived newspapers on microfiche, because she truly loved these weird, left-to-center people with all her heart.

Tia exclaimed when she saw Piper. “There she is. Little Miss Intrepid Reporter. Come here, you, and give me a hug,” Tia demanded with mock seriousness. “For a while, I started to think you’d forgotten all about your friends and family in your quest for journalistic fame.”

“You’re a hard bunch to forget,” Piper said, returning the embrace. “How’s the new baby?”

Tia glanced down at the sleeping baby tucked into a beautiful antique pram that Tia likely rescued from a garbage heap somewhere and the corners of her mouth tipped in a gooey smile. “She’s perfect.”

Rhonda smoothed a lock of jet-black hair from the baby’s porcelain China-doll face. “More than perfect. Divine.”

Piper smiled indulgently, but held her tongue. She’d never understood the baby thing. To her, the kid looked like any other newborn. Sort of smooshy and wrinkly. And helpless. Piper couldn’t even commit to a fish, much less a kid. “So what’s her name?”

“Echo Breeze,” Tia answered, sharing an adoring look with Rhonda.

Echo. Whatever happened to traditional names like Mary or Nicole? She’d often wished her parents had picked something a little less out there when they’d named her. The kids in school had teased her mercilessly. She gazed down at the baby with a rueful expression. Good luck with that name, kiddo. “She’s cute,” Piper acknowledged, then moved to her parents with an expectant expression. “So what’s the plan? I have an appointment later today and can’t stay the full day.”

Her mother frowned but seemed to understand. “We’ll start with the seed blessings and the offering to Gaia and then we’ll start planting. It’s a shame you can’t stay. Farley was going to sing at the banquet.”

“Yeah, bummer,” Piper said, nodding, yet inside she chortled at her luck. Farley sang like a boy whose balls hadn’t dropped yet. She found it odd, and not in a good way.

“So what are you working on these days?” Rhonda asked. “I read the piece on Big Trees Logging. Fantastic. It’s about time someone called that sucker out for what he’s doing to the land under the guise of legitimate business. Hopefully, a follow-up piece is on the horizon.”

“Actually, that was the third piece and I’ve run out of steam on that angle. I’ve been working on something different now.” Something far more interesting. She smiled. “But don’t worry. There’s always something to uncover.”

“You bet there is,” Rhonda agreed vehemently. “With the amount of corruption out there, you could find things to write about for years. However, I’m sure your parents told you about the tree-sit that’s coming up, right?”

They hadn’t but she’d had to cut their conversation short during lunch, so that could account for her not knowing. “They might’ve mentioned it,” Piper murmured vaguely, mildly troubled at the prospect. Tree-sits always made her nervous. If people were meant to sit in trees, God would’ve given them feathers. Her aversion to heights wasn’t phobic but she certainly wouldn’t volunteer to shimmy up a tree unless her life was in danger.

“Well, it’s going to be great. We have a good group this time.”

“Are they really that effective?” Piper wondered out loud, earning a quizzical look from Tia that made it seem as if Piper had just uttered something in a foreign language. “I mean, you go up in the tree, you manage to shut things down for a few days at most until Big Trees Logging manages to find a way to get you to come down.” She’d never truly subscribed to the ecoterrorism bent of her parents’ group but what could she do? They were her family.

“Of course they’re effective, particularly when we have our very own reporter to capture everything, right?” Tia smiled but Piper could only return a wan imitation. She was beginning to feel more like a tool to further the personal agendas of her “family” than an actual journalist. Not for long, a voice whispered in her head, bolstering her flagging spirit. Soon, she’d have the biggest story this town had ever seen.

“Well, tree-sits aside, this town seems to have more than its share of corruption from philandering politicians to drug-trafficking,” Piper said. “It’s not hard to find people doing things they shouldn’t, it’s finding people who will go on record with their proof.”

Tia and Rhonda agreed, but Piper could see their interest level had slipped. The baby made some kind of gurgle—or a burp—and they both dissolved into cooing, doting mommies with a one-track mind, effectively forgetting the grown-up talk in the blink of an eye.

Somewhat relieved, Piper went to search for her parents, who had slipped away to mingle before the blessing ceremony.

She found them in a cool, shaded spot, enjoying fresh lemonade.

“I can’t wait to have grandkids,” her father said, surprising her.

“Well, you’re going to wait a long time,” she quipped, shuddering at the thought of being a parent. “My biological clock is set to snooze, so don’t start picturing little heathens just yet.”

Her father nodded but he was plainly disappointed. “Of course, sweetheart. I was just saying…looks like a cool gig.”

“Yeah, I’m sure it is.” For someone else. “But I’m nowhere near ready for that kind of commitment. Besides, I can’t be thinking about kids when I’m chasing after big stories.”

Her mother agreed, nodding resolutely. “That’s right, Piper. Keep your eye on the prize.”

Yep. Although she didn’t think she and her mother were on the same page as far as the prize went. However, that was a fight for a different day. “I think I need some lemonade, too,” she announced, but as she turned she found herself face-to-face with Farley. “Oh! I’m sorry, I nearly ran you over,” she said, trying hard not to let her lip curl in distaste. Why her parents thought he was a good catch she’d never understand.

If Piper had one word to describe Farley Deegan it would be lanky. In fact, he reminded her of Charlie Yertz, and that wasn’t a compliment in her mind.

Farley was at least six feet tall and probably weighed one hundred and thirty pounds soaking wet. He always seemed to slink when he walked and when he touched her, she was overwhelmed by the urge to wash. He wasn’t that bad, really. In fact, at one time she’d been briefly charmed by his gentle manner and passive nature, but as she’d matured, she found him…annoying.

And the fact that he was clearly eyeing her as the most suitable candidate to bear his progeny made her want to run, screaming, the other way.

The idea of Farley’s penis… Ugh. It was too much to even fathom.

The awful part? She’d already seen it because, as Owen so mockingly put out there, a community of nudists had raised her.

And Farley had gleefully chucked his clothes whenever possible.

At the thought, she tugged her mom’s shirt hem and leaned over to whisper, “The blessing will be performed fully clothed, yes?” When Coral nodded, she didn’t hide her relief.

Farley, on the other hand, was quick to show his disappointment. “That’s a shame. It seems highly appropriate to be nude as the day we are born when asking for bounty from the earth.”

“Yes, well, it’s a little on the nippy side and we wouldn’t want anyone to shrivel up unnecessarily,” she said, unable to hold her tongue. She received a look from her mother for her uncustomary sharpness and she exhaled loudly. “I’m getting lemonade.”

“I’ll go with you,” Farley announced, making Piper want to groan, but what could she say? She forced a tight smile and started walking briskly in the hopes that it might curtail conversation. No such luck. Farley loped alongside her with ease and started yammering. “You look great, Piper. You blossom more and more into a beautiful woman each time I see you.”

“Thanks, Farley,” she said, and simply to be polite, added, “And you seem to get taller each time I see you.” And more annoying.

“When I see you, it’s nearly impossible not to remember what good times we’ve had together.” She cringed inside. If he had the gall to bring up the time they… “You know what I particularly enjoy remembering?” Oh God. He’s going to do it. She walked a little faster. He slipped his hand into hers, causing her to startle and jump a little. He took advantage in her loss of momentum and pulled her close even as she resisted. “Your lips were like drops of summer rain dancing on mine. It was like…heaven.”

Her cheeks fired with intense heat and she tugged her hand out of his grasp. She took a quick glance around to make sure they were relatively on their own then glared at Farley, who was watching her with confusion at her obvious rejection. “Listen, Farley, I don’t feel that way about you. Once, when I was a teenager, I thought you were mildly cute. But I’ve grown up and we don’t suit. Please stop trying to make something out of nothing.”

“We had a connection,” he persisted, his brown eyes going melty and gooey again. He grasped her hand and put it to his heart. “I felt it here. I know you did, too.”

“Stop it,” she snapped, jerking her hand away. “You’re embarrassing yourself. Go find a connection with someone else. I’m not attracted to you in that way and I don’t relish hurting your feelings but you have to take a hint. It’s not going to happen with you and me.”

His mouth hardened. “We do suit. In time, you will see that. But I’m patient. I’ll wait.”

She groaned. “What’s it going to take? Trust me, if you wait, you’ll wait your life away, because I’m not interested. I’ve changed and you deserve someone who will appreciate your particular beliefs and way of life.” She was trying to be nice but he just wasn’t getting it. She didn’t want to pull her ace because it was also an H-bomb but she didn’t see that she had a choice. “Farley, I stopped being a vegetarian years ago. I’m a…meat eater.”

His eyes widened at her admission, which was exactly what she was going for. She didn’t like to think of herself as cruel but she did register the smidge of enjoyment she gained from his look of horror. “Meat? How could you?” he asked, pained.

She shrugged. “What can I say? I like a juicy steak.”

He shuddered in revulsion and she nearly crowed. “See? We don’t suit. Stop wasting your time on me and find someone who likes tofu.”

Piper thought she’d won but then the look on Farley’s face made her uneasy. He had the look of a man on a mission, like he was going to make it his job to bring her back to the fold. Oh, Lord, please not that. He clasped her hands in earnest and she wanted to stomp her feet in frustration.

“Piper, you’ve just lost your way. You can come back to us. I’ll help you, my love. You just need to remember that you’re eating a living being and think of the terror that animal must’ve felt at its last moment before slaughter. I know you’re not capable of that kind of cruelty.”

Ugh. She pulled away. “Farley…leave me alone.”

She was thankful when he stayed behind.




CHAPTER FIVE


PIPER MANAGED TO AVOID Farley for the rest of the day, a small fact she was immensely grateful for, but there was no escaping her thoughts.

She couldn’t blame Farley entirely for his misplaced affections. At one time, she had thought Farley was cute enough, but really, thirteen-year-old girls have no true appreciation for what makes for an attractive male and that fact shouldn’t be held against her for the rest of her life.

It was safe to say she’d changed in more ways than just her penchant for meat. During the blessing, her thoughts had wandered to Owen and it was a full minute before she realized the route and quickly redirected.

Her gaze drifted covertly over the crowd, taking in the people she’d known her whole life, and while she loved them to pieces, there was the distinct feeling she sat apart from them. At one time she’d felt completely at home eating tofu and sunbathing nude. Now, she didn’t know if that was her path.

Her father caught the unhappy sigh that escaped before she could stop it.

“What’s wrong, peach pit?” he asked.

“I’m just preoccupied,” she answered, which was only slightly untruthful. “I’m sorry I’m not great company today.”

He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Pah. You’re always good company. And you know, don’t worry about that stuff I was saying about grandkids. I’m plenty young enough to wait a while longer. Just not too long,” he teased, eliciting a rueful smile on her part.

“No promises, but I won’t rule it out. How’s that?”

“Sounds like a good compromise.”

“Jasper…I was wondering…the other day I got the impression that you and Coral knew more about the Red Meadows incident than you wanted to let on. What was I picking up on?”

He frowned and pulled away. “Nothing. Why?”

An odd, uncomfortable tingle buzzed the back of her skull. She’d never known her parents to lie to her, about anything. Yet, she couldn’t stop the nagging certainty that her father was lying to her. “Dad?”

She only used the traditional name when she wanted to get their attention. It worked. Jasper shook his head, faint agitation in the movement. “Honey, why are you so curious about the Red Meadows stuff? It’s a terrible shame on the town of Dayton. We all would just like to forget about it.”

“I imagine it’s hard for Owen Garrett to forget,” she murmured, glancing up to meet her father’s troubled gaze.

“We all have crosses to bear,” he said simply.

“Yeah, but some are heavier for others, wouldn’t you say?”

He shrugged. “That’s the way it goes.”

“Why should a son bear the sins of the father?”

Speculation glittered in Jasper’s eyes. “Where is this coming from? This sudden need to know all about Red Meadow? It happened when you were just a baby. It’s ancient history by now and best left there.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“Why?”

“Well, I’ve been doing a little digging and—”

“Stop.”

She stared. “What? Why?”

“Because nothing good will come from dredging up that mess. There were too many people who were hurt, ashamed and broken after that incident. I don’t want you anywhere near it.”

“I don’t understand—”

“Just do as I ask,” he demanded sharply, startling her. He collected himself to add more gently. “Please.”

All her life, she’d known her father as the kindest man on the planet. Yet, with the topic of Red Meadows between them, he seemed to harden. She didn’t know what to make of this version of her father. She glanced at her mother, who was chatting with another community member, and wondered what hid behind the laughter of the two people Piper trusted the most.

The thought scared her as much as the knowledge that she wouldn’t stop until she found out.



OWEN’S CELL PHONE BUZZED on his desk, set in motion by the vibration and he caught it before it danced right off the desk. He frowned when he saw it was Gretchen.

“What’s up, Gretch?” he asked, noting the late hour.

But instead of Gretchen, he heard the frightened quiver of seven-year-old Quinn on the other line. “O-wen,” she said in a tight whisper. “Can you come get me? I’m scared.”

He stood and grabbed his keys. “Sure, honey. Where’s your mama?” he asked, keeping his voice calm even when a bad feeling had started to crawl down his spine. “Everything okay?”

“Nooo,” she wailed, letting loose with a stream of babbling that he couldn’t hope to piece together until she stemmed the tears.

“Hold on, honey, I can’t understand you when you’re crying. Tell me what’s going on. Where’s your mama?” he asked again.

She sniffed back the tears and answered in a watery voice. “He took her.”

“He who?”

“Danny. And he was real mad. They were yelling and mama was crying,” she said, lowering her voice as if she were afraid that Danny might hear her. “And he hit her in her tummy. Mama was hurt real bad I think. And I’m s-scared that he’s going to come back and get me, too. Please hurry, Owen.”

“You got it, sweetheart. But I want you to do something for me until I get there, okay?”

“Uh-huh,” she agreed, listening.

“I want you to walk over to Mr. Peters’s house and wait for me there, okay?”

“But Mama said not to leave the house when she’s gone,” Quinn said, worried.

“That’s a very good rule and I’ll tell your mama that I said it was okay just this once.”

“Okay,” Quinn said, her tone solemn and trusting. She sniffed again. “Do you think Mama is going to be all right?”

“I hope so, sweetheart. Now, hang up and walk to Mr. Peters’s right now. I’m leaving the office and I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

Quinn hung up and he pictured her running through the dark to the elderly neighbor’s house, a man Owen knew would keep her safe until he got there. As he ran to his truck, he dialed 9-1-1 and quickly told the dispatcher the situation.

His mind raced with the bare bits of information Quinn had given him but he tried not to let his imagination paint the worst picture possible. It wasn’t as though a seven-year-old was the best source of information but there was an ominous feeling at the base of his skull that he couldn’t shake.

A punch to the gut when a woman was in her third trimester… He didn’t know much about babies but he had a bad feeling that it spelled tragedy.

Damn it, Gretchen, I told you he was bad news.



IN A LIGHT DOZE AFTER SLUGGING down a half-pint of creamy mint-chocolate-chip ice cream, Piper nearly jumped at the shrill beep of her portable scanner as EMS crews rolled out on a call. She blinked and rubbed the sleep from her eyes to focus on the time. Geesh, nearly eleven o’clock at night. She listened to the call, contemplating just following up in the morning and dragging herself to bed, until she heard “possible kidnapping, scene unsecure” and suddenly all remnants of sleep evaporated. She hopped from the sofa and ran to her bedroom to tug on her jeans and sweatshirt. Within minutes, she was on her cell phone to dispatch getting the location of the incident and then she was in her car, barreling toward what she hoped was something big.

She pulled up to a residence flanked by deep forest growth in a neighborhood sparsely populated by older homes typically used as rentals. She recognized the address for a few disturbance calls she’d read in the police log, but nothing major. She didn’t normally chase after ambulances on a domestic-violence arrest unless it sounded particularly violent.

She exited her car and was two steps toward the incident commander when a familiar voice turned her around.

“Sniffing after blood?”

She stared at Owen, momentarily thrown off track by his presence at the scene. “What are you doing here?” she asked.

“None of your business.”

Her mouth tightened but she didn’t have time to play games or trade witty banter. “Fine. Suit yourself. If you’re a witness to whatever went down here, I’ll just find out myself when I read the report.”

In the pale moonlight, the planes of his face seemed to harden and he looked ready to hurl a litany of curse words her way but as she tried to leave, he stopped her again.

“Listen, I need a favor,” he bit out, and she turned slowly, not quite sure she’d heard him correctly. Owen needed a favor from her? How deliciously fortuitous.

“What kind of favor?” she asked, more curious than anything else. “Nothing illegal I hope.”

“Don’t print this story,” he said.

“I don’t even know what the story is yet. Why don’t you tell me?”

He looked away, plainly wrestling with his desire to tell her to go screw herself and his need to play nice to gain a favor. Finally, he said in a low voice, “Okay. I don’t know what’s going on but my office manager seems to be missing. Her daughter—”

“The one in Mrs. Hamby’s class?”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “She called me and said her mama’s boyfriend kicked her around a bit and then they took off.”

Ouch. Her demeanor softened when she imagined how scared the kid must’ve been to witness that kind of abuse, only to be left by herself in the middle of the night. Tragic. But a helluva story. And he wanted her to walk away? Impossible. “I have a job to do…I can’t just look the other way,” she said with a shrug.

“It must be nice to live in a world where nothing bad ever happens and you’ve never had to make a difficult choice in your life.”

Stung, she pulled back. “You don’t know my life, so I don’t see how you have the right to judge.”

“I know if you had an ounce of compassion gained from walking a mile in someone else’s shoes, you’d honor my request. There’s a scared little girl sitting in my truck, terrified that her mama is hurt or dead. All I’m asking is that you don’t make it worse for her by splashing her tragedy all over the front page of the local rag.”

“It’s not a rag. We’ve won several CNPA awards for coverage in our category,” she said stiffly, chafing silently at his angry rebuke. So she hadn’t suffered through an abominable childhood; it didn’t mean she couldn’t feel compassion. She chewed her lip, caught between the urge to get all the gritty details and forcing herself to walk away and proving him wrong about her. He didn’t realize what he was asking of her. Had Pulitzer-prize-winning New York Times investigative journalist David Barstow ever been asked to look the other way while a top story went untold? She shuddered under the weight of her indecision. She ought to tell him tough cookies but she couldn’t quite get the words to form. As much as she hated to admit it, she squirmed at the thought that he might actually despise her, which if he didn’t already he certainly would if she ran with this story. “It’s not really my choice,” she hedged, still searching for which way to turn. “I mean, the editor makes the determination of what will run or not…”

“Cut the crap. I know if you write this story, it’ll be splashed all over.”

“Yeah, and if I don’t splash it first, I’ll get scooped,” she muttered, hating the very idea. Top reporters didn’t allow themselves to get scooped. They were the ones who did the scooping and left everyone else panting after their sources. She glowered. “So what do I get if I allow this favor? And it’s a biggie, so don’t try and say something lame like your eternal gratitude.”

“I wouldn’t dream of assuming you would care about my gratitude,” he remarked dourly. “What do you want? And how do I know you’ll keep your word?”

“You’ll just have to trust me, I guess.”

“Fantastic.” He glanced back at the truck, where the little girl was watching the scene with wide eyes. Man, that would make a compelling picture. The headline could read Waiting for Mommy or Mommy Come Home. On autopilot, she started to reach for her camera until Owen made a sound in his throat that resembled a growl. A growl? Are you kidding me? It was ridiculous—and sexy. “Name your price and keep your trigger finger off that camera,” he instructed in a low voice.

She shivered but tried to put on a brave face, even scowling a bit. “Don’t make it sound so sordid. I’m not after your money or anything like that.” What did she want? Oh, that was easy, she realized with dizzying speed as the words tumbled out. “I want an interview—with you.”



AH, HELL. HE WANTED TO WALK away but the woman looked determined, and she wouldn’t settle for anything less than a little face time. It wouldn’t be so bad, he reasoned to himself, quickly weighing the pros and cons. She probably wanted to grill him about one of the projects she and her parents were opposing. “A half hour.”

“As long as it takes,” she countered.

He shook his head. “No open-ended deals. One hour.”

“Two.”

“Woman, what on earth could you possibly want to talk about for two damn hours?” he said, annoyance getting the better of him. “An hour and a half. Final offer. Take it or leave it. I gotta get Quinn out of here. I’ve wasted enough time as it is.”

“Deal.” She smiled. “And I get to pick the topic. And you have to cooperate.”

She drove a hard bargain. He didn’t really have a choice. He’d do anything to keep this story as quiet as possible. “Fine. But I better not hear one peep about this to anyone. You got me?”

“Loud and clear.”

“Good. Now, get the hell out of here.”

She frowned and opened her mouth to protest but the dark look he sent her snapped it shut pretty quick. One thing was for sure, she wasn’t dumb. He figured that wasn’t a point in his favor. Whatever she was after, she was likely to get. He wondered if she approached relationships the same way. Heaven help the man caught in her crosshairs. He wouldn’t stand a chance.

He climbed into the truck and instructed Quinn to buckle up.

“Is Miss Sunday going to help find my mom?” Quinn asked, surprising him when she remembered the reporter’s name from class a few days ago.

“I doubt it, honey,” he answered truthfully, that heavy weight of worry returning to his chest. “But the police sure will. They’ve got everyone looking for her. She’ll turn up. In the meantime, you get to stay with me. You think that’s all right?”

Quinn’s eyes watered. “I want my mama.”

“I know you do. And as soon as we can we’ll get things figured out. But until then, you’re stuck with me, okay?”

“Okay,” she answered, her bottom lip quivering so much it nearly did him in. “Thanks, Owen, for coming to get me.”

“You bet, sweetheart. You can always count on me.”

She nodded and swallowed what was probably a lump of sadness and fear and he was struck by her bravery. This kid was something else.

But he had a bad feeling about Gretchen.

He hoped to God he was wrong.




CHAPTER SIX


PIPER’S MIND WHIRRED faster than a CD-ROM drive as one single thought ran through her head like a ticker-tape parade: she’d finally wrangled an interview with the elusive and extremely private Owen Garrett. She’d overlook the part where she’d used extortion to get it.

By the time she reached her house, she already had a list of questions zooming through her head. Piper grabbed a notepad—she always had extras lying around for when her brain kicked in and couldn’t wait—and jotted down her erratic and fevered thoughts.

How much did he remember from that day, she wondered. He’d been a kid. But sometimes a traumatic event seared itself into a person’s brain, clarifying and crystallizing the event until it was impossible to forget. She figured watching your father get gunned down in a hail of bullets was enough to traumatize an adult, let alone an eleven-year-old boy.

She tried to imagine Owen as a kid, a serious, tow-headed child with solemn eyes and a mischievous glint that flashed now and then when he thought no one would notice, and her mouth flirted with a smile. He’d probably been a damn cute little kid. Figures, because he’d grown into a pretty good-looking adult.

And why didn’t such an eligible bachelor have a missus attached to him? There had to be something wrong with him, possibly something deep and dark and maybe, perverted.

She toyed with the idea. Owen a pervert? She supposed it was possible. But even as she bandied the idea about, testing the theory, she discarded it with distaste. No. He may be a lot of things but she didn’t get the pervie vibe from him.

No, she got a distinctly different vibe from him and it made her shudder and made her think of topics that were inappropriate—and highly unlikely—given their current relationship.

She wondered what he looked like without a shirt. He had the build of a man accustomed to hard work. Big, strong hands, roughened from handling axes, saws and power tools. She moistened her lips and noted her heart rate had kicked up a bit. Oh, goody. Attraction. She recognized it for what it was. She grew up with two professors of anthropology. Dissecting human emotion was something they used to do over dinner. So why did she feel warm and fuzzy and just a bit uncomfortable?

Because she was on the threshold of something big, she reasoned. Finally, she was going to sit down and pick his brain.

And she might just be able to find the clue she needed to bust the case wide-open like never before.

And yes, grandiose music played in the theater of her mind as she envisioned that particular dream.

She laughed, her mood lightened considerably, and she almost skipped to bed, eager for the morning.



IF PIPER DRIFTED TO SLEEP with a smile, Owen did the exact opposite.

Now he had two problems. By agreeing to talk with Piper, he was opening himself to a whole new world of grief. There was no telling as to her true agenda. She played a good game about hearing his side of things but he didn’t trust the way her eyes had glittered with barely contained excitement when he’d agreed. It’d put him on edge, worse than he already was. And if that weren’t bad enough, the situation with Gretchen had him in knots.

The cops still hadn’t located that worthless SOB, which meant Gretchen was still unaccounted for. He had a scared little girl camped out on his couch and there was nothing he could offer her for comfort aside from a cup of warm milk. Hell, he didn’t even have any chocolate powder he could mix in. His house wasn’t made for guests. It was a space where he washed his clothes, sometimes ate and, most times, crashed when he was too tired to keep his eyes open a minute longer.

He scrubbed his hand over his face, feeling each and every year of his life weighing down on him. That sick feeling in his stomach intensified when he thought of how much worse the situation could have been if Quinn had been taken, too.

That sick bastard. Who kicks a pregnant woman in the stomach, much less the woman carrying your child? He couldn’t even fathom. In the eyes of the law, his father was scum, not worth the price of the bullet that ended his life, but to him, he’d been a fabulous father and one of the things he’d always taught Owen was to treat women kindly.

“Son, you always got to watch out for the welfare of your woman. She’s the weaker sex and the Bible tells us we have to protect them,” his father had said one day when he’d gotten his tail chewed for throwing a rock in the general direction of an obnoxious little girl named Patty living on the compound with them.

“Even colored girls?” he’d asked, wiping at his nose and glowering in Patty’s direction because she’d started the fight and then run to her daddy when he’d fought back.

His father, leader of the Aryan Coalition, had straightened, glanced around before answering in a lowered voice so only Owen could hear. “Even colored girls, son. A man isn’t a man the minute he hits a woman. You got that?”

“Yessir,” he’d answered glumly, still angry but not about to go against his father. “Don’t seem fair that she started it, though,” he’d added, glancing up at his dad.

Ty Garrett had smiled. “Never is, son. It never is. Don’t change a thing.”

Owen roused himself from the memory. It was hard to reconcile that image of his father with the one everyone else harbored. He shook off his melancholy. No sense in crying over the past. Not right now, anyway. He had bigger problems.

“Gretchen…” he muttered to himself, checking one last time on Quinn, who was fast asleep. “If you manage to make it through the night, you’d better promise me you’ll break up with this bastard.”

He turned off the lights and resigned himself to a restless night.



OWEN GOT THE CALL AT 3:00 A.M. that Gretchen had been found alongside the road, bruised and bloody, unconscious from a vicious blow to the head.

But she was alive.

He listened as the police officer gave him as much information as he knew, which wasn’t a lot aside from the fact that she’d been beaten and left for dead like roadkill.

“Danny Mathers did this,” he said in a low tone so as not to wake Quinn.

“We’ll find him,” the officer assured him. “You can see her tomorrow if the doctor thinks she can have visitors. Is her daughter all right with you for a few days?”

He glanced over at Quinn, a small bundle curled on his lumpy sofa, and he nodded. “Yeah. No problem.”

“Good. If you change your mind, we can call social services but since you’re her emergency contact, we figured the girl was safe with you for the time being.”

“What about the baby?” he asked, his throat tight, almost afraid to know.

There was a long pause and then the officer said, “It doesn’t look good.” He rattled off a case number for reference in case Owen needed it later and hung up.

Returning to his bedroom, he fell back into bed and wondered how the hell he was going to run a business without Gretchen at the office and with Quinn at his heels.

Ah, hell, he thought just as his eyes fluttered shut.

That reporter was coming tomorrow.

Shit. The day had just officially gone from bad to worse.



PIPER TOOK GREAT CARE in choosing her wardrobe that morning. She’d bounced from bed five minutes before the alarm went off, the spring in her step mirroring her excitement, and after enjoying a hearty breakfast of eggs and bacon—God, how she loved bacon—she showered and donned her most professional attire. She wanted her outfit to reflect her drive and ambition and she wanted to appear confident and smart, a sharp-witted shark accustomed to swimming in a pool filled with other maneaters. Except, it took her five outfits to achieve that look and even as she stood before the mirror, she wasn’t sure if another change was in order.

She twisted to stare at her backside, fretting that the powder-blue pencil skirt wasn’t aggressive enough of a color and it made her butt look enormous. But it had a matching jacket, she lamented to herself even as she prepared to shrug out of it. Black, she thought, seizing her favorite slacks and blazer. Too austere? She didn’t want to seem as if she were going to a funeral. Piper blew hair from her eyes and stared at herself, standing in matching pink bra and panties. Well, at least her undergarments were sharp.

Finally, she was dressed—hopefully for success—and ready to leave. She grabbed her extra notebook and her camera and left for Big Trees Logging administrative offices.

But when she arrived, she was disappointed by Owen’s absence. The office was locked up tight and there was no one around to even question. She frowned and muttered something that would make a sailor proud and contemplated her next move. A deal was a deal, she groused, glancing around the deserted office. Well, if he wasn’t going to meet her, she’d meet him. She just happened to know his home address. The internet was a beautiful thing, particularly when one knew what to look for. She smiled and climbed back into her car. Owen was going to learn that she didn’t give up easily.



OWEN HAD JUST CLOSED HIS front door, harried and worried that Quinn was going to be late to school, when he turned and found Piper striding down his front walk, a determined expression on her face.

“Did you forget something?” she queried, seeming to miss the sack lunch clutched in his hand and the little girl trailing behind him as they made their way to his truck.

“I didn’t forget. Just a little busy at the moment,” he said curtly, adding over his shoulder. “No need to chase me down like the damn paparazzi.”

She scowled, obviously taking offense at the term, but she also had the grace to notice Quinn. Her frown eased and something akin to guilt flushed her face. “I didn’t know you’d still have…um…”

“Her name is Quinn,” he answered, reaching down to lift the girl into the truck. “And we’re late for school. We’ll have to table this until later.”

“Later when?” she asked, concerned. “I’m ready now.”

“Well, I’m not.” The engine of his diesel truck rumbled to life and she scrunched her nose at the sound. He glanced at her ride—a hybrid of some sort—and he resisted the urge to smirk. She probably didn’t think too highly of his truck. “Later.”

“No, wait,” she exclaimed, running after the vehicle as he slowly pulled away. “When? I need a date and time. A commitment! Owen! I swear to God I’ll run that story with all the gory details if you don’t stop this instant and talk to me instead of running off with some lame excuse.”

The truck growled to a stop and idled loudly. Owen’s brows pulled together in a harsh line. “We had a deal,” he reminded her.

How was it that he got more handsome when he looked ready to tear someone’s head off? Mainly hers as of late? She pushed that annoying thought aside and took a step his way, going so far as to stand on the running board and to get right into his face. “That’s right. We did. So honor it.”

A tense moment passed between them and she half wondered if she hadn’t pushed too far and she was a heartbeat away from getting tossed as he peeled away. Just when she thought she might have to back down, he jerked his head toward the passenger seat and instructed her to “Get in or get off.”

She jumped down and scrambled to the passenger side and climbed in beside Quinn with a sense of triumph.





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