# Part Time Cowboy

Maisey Yates

A onetime bad girl comes home to small-town Oregon in the first in a sexy, heartfelt new series from USA TODAY bestselling author Maisey YatesSadie Miller isn't expecting any welcome-home parades on her return to Copper Ridge. Least of all from part-time rancher, full-time lawman Eli Garrett. The straitlaced, impossibly hot deputy sheriff glares at her as if she's the same teenage hoodlum who fled town ten years ago. But running from her demons has brought Sadie full circle, ready to make a commitment at last. Not to a man, but to a bed-and-breakfast. On Garrett land. Okay, so her plan has a tiny flaw…Eli works too hard to let a blonde ball of trouble mess up his town. But keeping an eye on Sadie makes it tough to keep his hands off her. And if she's so wrong for him, why does being with her feel so right?

A onetime bad girl comes home to small-town Oregon in the first in a sexy, heartfelt new series from USA TODAY bestselling author Maisey Yates

Sadie Miller isn’t expecting any welcome-home parades on her return to Copper Ridge. Least of all from part-time rancher, full-time lawman Eli Garrett. The straitlaced, impossibly hot deputy sheriff glares at her as if she’s the same teenage hoodlum who fled town ten years ago. But running from her demons has brought Sadie full circle, ready to make a commitment at last. Not to a man, but to a bed-and-breakfast. On Garrett land. Okay, so her plan has a tiny flaw…

Eli works too hard to let a blonde ball of trouble mess up his town. But keeping an eye on Sadie makes it tough to keep his hands off her. And if she’s so wrong for him, why does being with her feel so right?

Part Time Cowboy

Maisey Yates


www.millsandboon.co.uk

Dear Reader,

I chose to set the little town of Copper Ridge up in the northwestern corner of Oregon because, to me, it’s got some of the most beautiful scenery in the world. Mountains, evergreens, ranch land and the ocean. A little bit of everything lovely.

Of course, after choosing the setting for a series, populating the town is next. With shops and homes, with people to live in them and work in them.

I love stories that center around family, particularly groups of siblings, and the first family that came to my mind were the Garretts—a group of siblings who have supported each other through great times and bad times, who still get together every week for dinner, conversation and the chance to insult and encourage each other.

The first Garrett you’ll meet is Eli, the upstanding brother who takes care of everyone, not just in his family, but in the whole community. And I hope you love him as much as I do.

You can get a taste for the town in Shoulda Been a Cowboy, an ebook novella that’s out now. And later this summer you’ll see more of Connor Garrett in Brokedown Cowboy and more of Kate Garrett in Bad News Cowboy.

I hope you enjoy their story, the Garrett family and the town of Copper Ridge.

Happy reading!

Maisey

To Haven. I’ve dedicated a lot of books to you, but in truth, you deserve them all. You’re the reason I get anything done, and the reason I believe in love and happily-ever-afters. I’m so grateful that I’ve got you.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Title Page

Dear Reader

Dedication

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

Extract

Acknowledgments

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

WHOEVER SAID YOU couldn’t go home again had clearly never been to Copper Ridge. The place hadn’t changed. Not in the ten years before Sadie Miller had left town, and not in the ten years since. It probably wouldn’t have changed much in another ten years.

Well, it would change a little bit now. The population sign would increase by one, adding back the resident she’d taken away when she’d left town at eighteen. And it would also contain at least one more bed-and-breakfast.

So, in an unchanging landscape, she would be responsible for two changes in a very short amount of time.

She deserved a medal of some kind. Though she doubted anyone in this town would ever give her a medal. She was just the wild child from the wrong side of the tracks. Not many would be welcoming her with open arms.

But that was fine with her. She wasn’t here for them. She was here for her.

She looked across the highway, at the ocean, barely visible through the trees on her left. She could remember walking there as a kid. A long hike in the sand, through gorse and other pricklies, around the lake and across the road.

A walk she and her friends had always made without their parents. Because the main perk of getting out for an afternoon was getting away from their parents, after all. At least it had been for her.

It was strange to see something familiar. She’d spent so many years moving on to the next new place. She never went back anywhere. Ever. She went somewhere new.

This was the first time she’d ever been somewhere old. And she wasn’t sure how she felt about it.

She looked at the gas gauge on her car and sighed. The little yellow light was reminding her that she hadn’t made a pit stop since she’d gone through Medford, nearly three hundred miles ago. She was going to have to stop somewhere in town before she went out to the ranch. She wasn’t exactly sure where the Garrett ranch was, just that it was on the outskirts of Copper Ridge.

She’d never been invited onto the property before.

The fact that she was leasing a business on it now would have been funny if she didn’t just feel horrible, stomach-cramping nervousness.

But then, she figured facing past demons was supposed to be scary. She wouldn’t know for sure since she’d spent years avoiding them. Six months ago, that had changed.

Working with people dealing with grief and loss was always impacting—there was no way around it. But one very grumpy older woman who’d lost the house she’d been in since the 1940s had forced her to think about things she’d always avoided.

“Home is wherever you are,” Sadie had told her.

Maryann, whose every decade on earth was marked clearly in her snow-white hair and the deep lines etched in her face, had scowled at her. “Home is where I raised my children. Where my husband breathed his last breath. I don’t know who I am outside those walls.”

“You’re still you. I’ve spent a lot of my life moving from place to place, and I take my essence, my soul, or whatever you want to call it, with me wherever I go.”

The other woman had waved her hand in dismissal. “You can’t know, then. You’re a vagrant in your own life. If nothing matters to you, how can you sit there and tell me that something I poured the past sixty years of my life into is meaningless?”

And that was when she’d realized...as a crisis counselor she’d helped so many people deal with loss. Either the loss of a loved one, the loss of a marriage or, very often, the loss of a home, and she’d realized that all that advice had been thin. Rootless, because she was.

Because nothing was permanent in her life. Because not one thing had the kind of deep resonance and meaning for her that Maryann’s home had for her.

She’d never before been quite so conscious of the transient nature of her life. But in one blunt sentence her patient had reduced the past ten years to a tumbleweed in her mind’s eye, while Maryann’s own past had risen up like a redwood. Towering, significant. Rooted.

After that she’d felt so aware of how alone she was. That she’d let every friendship she’d left behind wither on the vine and die, that she’d done a crap job of making new friends since she’d moved to San Diego. That her last boyfriend, Marcus, hadn’t been missed from the day she’d rolled him out of bed and out the door for the last time.

Those revelations had led to online perusals of Copper Ridge. Which had led to an ad she hadn’t been able to get out of her head.

Long-term lease. Perfect for a private residence or bed-and-breakfast.

From there, she’d examined her savings, done estimated profit and loss based on exhaustive research of similar businesses, and before she’d quite realized what she was getting herself into...she’d committed. Committed to leaving the career she’d spent more time in school for than she’d spent actually practicing.

For the first time in ten years, she’d agreed to an extended time frame in one location. And for the first time in ten years, she was headed back to the one place she’d ever called home.

Of course, now she felt like she was approaching doom. Which she didn’t think was at all dramatic. Since she was never dramatic.

Except for when she was dramatic.

From the backseat, she heard Tobias, more commonly known as Toby, let out a plaintive meow. The entire road trip had been endured with growing indignation by her cat. But then, she paid the rent, so he had to deal.

“Sorry, bud,” she said. “I have the thumbs, I man the can opener. That means you have to stick with me. And if that means moving up the coast, it means moving up the coast. At least I didn’t fly and throw you into cargo.” Which, during their many moves together, had been a necessity on occasion. Toby wasn’t a fan of air travel.

The cat didn’t respond to her attempts at mollifying him. Which didn’t really surprise her. In many ways, she was much more dependent on him than he was on her.

Sadie looked out at the expanse of evergreen trees that lined the road, a rich, velvet green that she hadn’t found anywhere outside of Oregon. California was sun and palm trees, deep blue ocean and heat. It was beautiful, but in a different way.

Copper Ridge was all majestic mountains, shades of green and steel-gray sea. Not the kind of beach you hung out on in a bikini unless you were a local. The wind was cold and blew the sand up hard and fast, the grains biting into skin like little teeth.

It was its own kind of beauty, that was for sure. She’d been all over the United States. From the Deep South to the East Coast and back west again, and nothing had ever been quite like this. She’d never thought she’d be back.

But she was. And the dread was ever encroaching.

Suddenly, the car engine started to growl, and she pushed down the gas pedal, hoping to feel it rev again, only to be disappointed.

“Oh, frickety frick,” she muttered as she pulled to the side of the road and the engine went totally silent.

Gas had apparently been needed sooner than expected.

She leaned forward, pressing her head against the steering wheel. “I knew it was doomed. I knew I was doomed!” She straightened up and looked backward at Toby. “Don’t start. Don’t get judgey.”

Toby did nothing but stare at her with green eyes that were extremely judgmental despite her command. “You suck, cat,” she said, reaching down and digging for her purse, then feeling around for her phone.

She pulled it out and saw one bar of service. Oh, right. Because that’s what you got for moving away from civilization and settling in the absolute sticks.

She tapped her fingernails against the side of the phone and contemplated who to call. She didn’t really know anyone in town anymore. Her own parents had moved away ages ago, and she wouldn’t call them even if they hadn’t.

Thankfully, she could get roadside assistance, but what a freaking pain.

She pulled up the browser on the phone and typed tow trucks into the search engine, then grimaced as she watched the little wheel up in the top left-hand corner of the phone spin, and spin and spin while it tried to grab hold of a satellite signal for long enough to pull up some results.

“Oh, Copper Ridge, you’ve bested me before, you aren’t allowed to do it again.” She kept her eyes on the phone and then growled at it, setting it on the passenger seat while she leaned over and pulled a stack of papers out of the glove box. She had to have a number for her insurance on hand at least.

Somewhere. It had to be somewhere.

A loud rap on the glass behind her shot a shock wave through her and she whipped around, releasing her hold on the stack of papers, sending them flying through the car, where they settled in both the front and backseats.

She looked around at the mess, then at the knocker. On the other side of the glass was a man in a tan uniform, a gold star on his chest, sunglasses over his eyes. What she could see of him was...well, hot. Which was the last thing she expected, because she’d been living in San Diego for a few years, the land of the beautiful, and rarely, if ever, was she so overcome by a man’s face that all she could think was “hot.” But maybe that had to do with the recent startle. She was just a little dazed, that was all.

He pointed downward, an authoritative gesture that took her a minute to attach meaning to, mainly because something was pulling at the back of her brain. A memory that was attempting to come to the forefront.

She blinked and tried to get herself together, tried to get herself back into the present. She pushed the button on the door and the window slid down, removing the barrier between herself and Officer Hottie.

“Hi,” she said. “I’m out of gas. But I have roadside assistance so...I mean, I’m okay. Except I don’t have very good cell service. So I was looking for... Well, anyway, did you stop for a reason?”

“To check on you,” he said, the expression on his face strange. He looked like he had a memory tugging on his brain, too, and that made her own memory pull even harder.

“Yes...because...distressed motorist.” She looked around at all of the scattered papers. “Right. But I’m not really distressed. I’m fine.”

Wow, but he really was hot. Chiseled jaw, short dark hair. He created a response, low and deep in her body, that felt familiar in a very disquieting way.

He bent down in front of the window and she caught the name on his badge.

E. Garrett.

Oh, no. No no no no. There were not enough swearwords in the English language to express all of the bad in this situation. She was stranded on the side of the road, and she’d just encountered one of the chief demons from her past. In a uniform. The welcome committee from hell. Not that she’d imagined she’d be able to avoid him forever, considering her B and B was situated on his family’s ranch, but she’d imagined she might avoid him for at least ten minutes after hitting the city limits.

She was not in the mood to deal with him. She was revising his nickname. Not Officer Hottie. Officer Stick-Up-the-Ass. That’s who he was.

Not only that, he was a reminder of a whole host of things she would rather just forget.

And then his expression changed, and she knew he was catching up.

“Sadie Miller,” he said.

“Well, damn.” She smiled at him as best she could, but her palms were starting to sweat. Authority figures did that to her in general, and authority figures who had once fingerprinted her were an even bigger issue. “You do have a good memory.”

“You never forget the first woman you put in handcuffs,” he said, his voice low and firm, giving zero impression of a double entendre, and yet, it hit her that way.

Hit her and ricocheted around to parts inside of her that had gone ignored for a long time.

She cleared her throat and straightened her shoulders, trying to look arch and serious, and everything she’d spent the past ten years turning her life into.

Eli Garrett wasn’t allowed to make her feel like a scroungy teenage girl, because she was not a scroungy teenage girl anymore. Similarly, he was not allowed to make her feel hot and bothered like he’d done back then, either, because...well, because she wasn’t the same person she’d been then.

“Indeed,” she said.

“What brings you back into town?”

He didn’t know? She looked at him, studied him. He didn’t know. Well, that was just peachy. Connor Garrett had neglected to tell his brother that he’d offered her the lease on the house. She had a feeling that was going to go down with Eli like a live leech in his breakfast cereal.

“Am I, um...am I being detained?” she asked, fidgeting in her seat.

“No,” he said.

“Then am I free to go?”

“Where? You’re out of gas.”

Point to Officer Garrett. “Yes. I am. Maybe...maybe you could help me with that?”

His lips, which were far more interesting than they should be, didn’t smile, didn’t lessen their tension. They simply remained in a flat line. Uncompromising. Unfriendly. Like the man himself. “Just a second.” He turned and walked back toward his squad car and she started picking up the papers she’d strewn all over the car.

Her heart was beating so hard she thought she might have a medical event. What were the odds that he was the first person she saw when she came back to Copper Ridge? It was a bad omen. A very bad omen.

Of course, her first thought, still, was that he was hot. She’d thought that at seventeen. But then, to a rebellious kid with an affinity for underage drinking, a man who was part of the sheriff’s department was sort of the ultimate fascination. The ultimate no-go. So of course, even when she’d resented his presence, she’d gotten a little kick out of checking him out.

She let out a long breath. She’d sort of hoped that he’d gone on to law enforcement in another town. Or that maybe he’d given up wearing a uniform altogether and discovered a passion for pottery...maybe in the south of France.

But no. Eli Garrett had done what most people from Copper Ridge seemed to do. He’d found his place in the little community and stayed in his carved-out niche.

You should judge. Since you’re back and all.

Yes, she was back.

At this point in the game, Copper Ridge had seemed as good a place as any to give her demons the big middle finger.

And hey, she was facing one of them a little bit early. But, considering he had a gun strapped to his lean hips, she thought maybe giving him the finger wasn’t the best idea.

“I put a call in for you,” he said from over her shoulder.

“Gah!” She startled. “Could you not sneak up on me like that?”

“Do I make you nervous?”

“No. Why would you make me nervous?”

“Criminals do seem to get nervous around the badge.”

She frowned. “I am not a criminal. I am a licensed therapist in eight...no, nine states.”

“With a criminal record.”

“I was a minor.”

“No arrests since then?” he asked.

“I ask again, am I being detained?”

“No.”

“Then...I’m free to go.”

“Except that you’re out of gas,” he pointed out. Again.

“Well, you’re free to go, then.”

He lifted a shoulder. “Yeah, I could. But I feel like it’s my mission to make sure you don’t get into any trouble. Or light anything on fire.”

“Okay, look, I didn’t light anything on fire on purpose. I knocked over a lantern.”

“Which is why arson wasn’t on the list of things you were arrested for.”

“Do you forget anything?” she asked.

“Public drunkenness. Disturbing the peace, resisting arrest. Not arson, though. And that’s not even mentioning the number of times we had to come and ask you and your friends to leave a store, or stop loitering where you didn’t belong.”

“Good lord, what a sad small life you must lead to remember my rap sheet. I barely even remember it.”

“As I said, you don’t forget your first.”

She screwed up her face. “That sounds possibly more sexual than I think you mean it to.”

“How does it sound sexual?”

She squinted. “Really?”

She waited for a full four seconds while it registered. She could see when it did because his humorless, impassive face had a slight shift before going back to being total granite. He still had his sunglasses on, so she couldn’t see his eyes, only her own reflection. Which looked flushed and flustered. And not from heat, that was for sure.

“Why are you here?” he asked.

“I didn’t say,” she said.

“I know. I tend to remember conversations that happened less than five minutes ago.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t see how that’s any of your business, since I’m not being detained for questioning.”

“For someone who hasn’t been arrested more than just the once, you have the lingo down perfectly.”

“I’m a therapist. I work with some troubled souls. I’ve seen more than one arrest.”

“Hmm,” he said. A noise halfway between a word and a grunt.

“What?”

“I’m surprised you became a therapist, is all.”

“Why?”

“Because.”

She knew what that because meant. Because you’re such a mess. That was what it meant. And she was not a mess. She wasn’t perfect, but she wasn’t a disaster, either. Anyway, thankfully, having your crap together was not a requirement for being able to help others get their crap together. So there. She didn’t say that last part, though. Because...well, gun. Badge. Handcuffs.

“I like to fix things,” she said. That was honest. “To fix people, actually. I don’t just arrest them and throw away the key. I try to make an impact on people’s lives.”

“Well, it takes both types, I guess,” he said.

“Yeah. So anyway, don’t you have some teenage miscreants to harass? I seem to recall that being your MO.”

As soon as she said it, an old red pickup truck eased into the space in front of her and an old man, one who looked familiar, got out, holding a gas can the same color as the truck.

“Well,” the other man said, a smile on his face, “if it isn’t Ms. Sadie Miller.”

Apparently she was wrong about not having anyone in town who still knew her. It was like these people had nothing better to do than remember every single soul who was born in this burg. For all eternity.

In fairness, though, she remembered Bud, too. She had no idea what his real name was. Or if he had one. Hell, that could be it. There was more than one Bubba in town, and they went by it completely un-ironically, so there really was no telling.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, it’s me.”

“What brings you back to town?” he asked. “Your parents aren’t back, are they?”

“No,” she said. “They’re still down in Coos Bay.” Not that she spoke to them. For all she knew they could be somewhere else entirely by now, but she didn’t care. Not anymore.

She couldn’t watch their dynamic, not now that she had a choice. She’d moved away from her father’s rages. She wasn’t going to expose herself to them again.

And her mother wouldn’t leave. No matter how many times Sadie begged, her mother wouldn’t leave.

“I see. Well, it’s good to have you back.” He put his hand on the bill of his ball cap and tugged it down sharply before heading to the back of her car and opening up the gas tank.

Just like that. Like her presence mattered. Not like she was some hooligan who’d accidentally started a little barn fire and gotten herself arrested. Not like she was the child of a wife-beater or a disturber of the peace.

Like he was happy she was there.

Darn. She felt a little emotional now.

She unbuckled and got out, standing next to the car and watching Bud, bent at the waist and pouring gas into her car. “Hey, whatever I owe you, I’ll bring it by the gas station. I don’t have cash, but...”

Bud straightened. “Don’t you worry about it,” he said. “Consider it a welcome home.”

She couldn’t fathom why he was being so nice. She’d barely had any interaction with him. Back when she’d been a kid she would often go into the store that was adjacent to the station, after she and some friends had gone swimming in the river, and buy candy bars for fifty cents. Shivering in wet bathing suits in the cold, air-conditioned building.

But she hadn’t really thought of him as someone who would know her. Or...care. “I appreciate that.” But she would still be going down to the gas station to pay him back as soon as she could.

Maybe even before she went to the Garrett ranch.

“Thank you. Both.” She wasn’t going to let Eli Garrett get to her. She wasn’t going to let this stand as some sort of sign of how the rest of her venture here was going to be.

Nope. Just because it began with a vehicular disaster and Eli Garrett did not mean it would continue on that way.

Her eyes clashed with Eli’s and she looked down at the ground before realizing that was more awkward than just looking at him like he was a normal person. And not like he was a very handsome person who had once handcuffed her.

Even though he was.

She cleared her throat. “I’m going to go now. I have...places to be.” Eli would find out what those places were eventually, but hopefully that didn’t mean they would have to actually see each other.

She got back in the car and shut the door, and saw in her rearview mirror that Eli had done the same. Good.

She took a deep breath and started the engine, then put the car into gear. She was on to new things, reclaiming an old past and stealing its power.

And a little run-in with Eli Garrett wasn’t going to change that.

CHAPTER TWO

THE CATALOG HOUSE was even more beautiful than advertised. Rough around the edges, yes, but Sadie had been warned about that.

The lawn needed replanting. Or sod. But she wasn’t sure she had the budget to lay down a grass carpet. Which meant she might be stuck with seeding, and patience. She hated being patient. She didn’t like sitting around. And she had never waited for the grass to grow.

She leaned back against her car and studied the house. From the rocks that went halfway up the facade, to the solid, original wood paneling and the cut-glass windows, it was something that spoke of a different time.

It was hardly a rough-hewn cabin. It was almost too elegant to be out here, buried in the trees at the base of the mountains. But she knew, from what Connor had sent in his email, that the house was one his great-great-grandfather had ordered for his wife from a Sears and Roebuck catalog around 1914. Something to make the wilderness of Oregon seem a little less wild, compared to their old home in Boston.

Sadie imagined that, in a land of log cabins, this had been the most modern dwelling in the area.

Not so much now, but it had charm. And really, that was what a bed-and-breakfast needed. Connor had said renovations would be up to her, but she had permission to do what she wanted to the place, so long as she paid for it and—per her lease—left it in better condition than when she came. Which meant, according to him, “no stupid shit like shag carpet.”

She took in a deep breath, let the smell wrap itself around her. The sharp tang of salt from the sea, wood that was heated by the sun, and pine all lingered in the air.

It was familiar, but different, too. She’d been away from this air for a long time, and when she’d left, there was nothing about Copper Ridge that had felt special to her. She hadn’t been able to see the beauty anymore. It had all shrunk down to a little house on the wrong side of the highway, and the smell of dirt, blood and booze.

There hadn’t been a lot of moments where she’d stopped and smelled the forest. If she’d ever gone into the forest it had been to hide out, in a little alcove not far from the Garrett ranch, and smoke a cigarette. Which sort of negated the fresh clean air aspect of it all.

It struck her then that she was within walking distance of the place. That if she wanted to, she could leave her half-unpacked boxes and see the haven she’d gone to with her friends all those years ago.

A strange ache filled her chest, a feeling of longing and homesickness that was unfamiliar to her. There was weight in that clearing. Roots. And, she strongly suspected, a high probability of ghosts of bad decisions past.

She and her friends had been nothing more than children then, angry at life. Determined to do whatever they could to take back some control. Which had taken the form of drugs, alcohol and sex. Because those little rebellions felt like an achievement.

But she was an adult now. And she had the control. The life she made here would be hers. More than just a reaction to what was happening in her family home.

She didn’t need to see the clearing. And there were no ghosts.

With that final thought, she picked up Toby’s pet carrier and strode up the front porch and lifted the lid on the mail slot by the door. Connor had said he’d put a key in there for her. She had the impression he intended to interact with her as little as possible.

Which suited her just fine. She had the money she needed to do the remodeling on the house, and she was sort of looking forward to spending a few weeks in relative solitude handling all of it before she got things up and running.

Maybe then she’d look up her old friends. Or not. That would be...well, it would be too close to revisiting times that hadn’t been fun for anyone. Maybe she would meet a guy. Go on a date.

Lately she’d been out of the habit of both dating and making friends.

The moves made it hard. And if she was honest, starting fresh was her preference. She didn’t like bringing old places with her into the new ones. Not that there weren’t friends and boyfriends she had cared for. She had cared. She did. It was just that she liked them as happy memories. She didn’t like letting a relationship stretch on to the point it started to show wear and tear.

She pulled the brass key out of the box and put it in the matching lock, turning it hard before it gave. “All right, Toby,” she said. “Welcome home, whether we like it or not, because we can’t back out of the lease, and after I remodel this place, we’ll officially be broke.”

She walked them both inside and looked around. It was dark, but it was clean. The wood floors were definitely in need of polishing, but nothing was seriously wrong with them. There were some threadbare rugs that needed replacing, light fixtures that needed updating. But it didn’t smell like mold or anything, so that was a bonus.

“It really does have to work out,” she said, setting Toby’s carrier up on the kitchen table. “Because otherwise you’ll be reduced to standing on a street corner and offering kitty head scritches for money. And none of us want to see you stoop that low.”

She opened up his cage and he wandered out, looking around and sniffing the air, his tail twitching. She ran her hand over his gray striped fur, then scratched him behind his ears. “Really, though, you could charge for this service,” she said. “You give me instant Zen.”

Toby just looked at her, as though to say he would be much more Zen if they were back in their bright, white apartment in sunny San Diego.

But then, Toby was used to following her around at this point, so she knew his indignation would be brief.

First order of business was to get Toby’s litter box out of the car. The second was to start making this place habitable.

Like it or not, ready or not, she’d made a five-year commitment, and she had to see it through.

“All right, Toby,” she said. “It’s time to do this thing.”

* * *

“THERE WAS A CAR over at the Catalog House. I saw it when I pulled in,” Eli said.

“Yeah.”

Eli glanced at his brother, who was at the kitchen table looking more sullen and antisocial than usual. Which was saying something.

“And there was a light on,” Eli continued, pushing for an explanation.

“Yeah.”

“You don’t sound surprised.”

“No shit. I thought you were the law enforcement around here. You’d think you could put two and two together.”

Eli was tempted to hit Connor over the head with something, but it was June. And June was a bad month for Connor, since it was his anniversary month. But then, March was a bad month for Connor, too, because it was Jessie’s birthday. And April was a bad month because it was the month she’d died three years ago. August was when they’d started dating, ten years ago. December was when they’d gotten engaged.

So basically, there were a lot of bad months for Connor. And Eli got it, and he hurt on his behalf. But it didn’t mean he didn’t want to hit his brother for his obnoxious surliness sometimes.

“Would you care to explain?”

“Sure. We need some more revenue. I leased the house. Long-term.”

“What? Don’t you think we should have talked about this?” he asked.

“No,” Connor said. “Because while I respect that this ranch is yours, too, you have to respect that it’s more essential to me. It’s my only job, Eli. You and Kate have work outside this place, but I don’t, because someone has to run it full-time.”

“I know that, but you didn’t think about telling me you were going to lease out a house on our property?”

“I did think about it. I decided against it. Because I thought, at the end of the day, it was my damned decision.”

“Dammit, Connor, I say this with love, please get drunk and pass out. You’re impossible when you’re like this.”

“I’m always like this,” Connor said.

“Yeah, and you’re always impossible.”

“Why are you all growling in here?” Kate, the youngest of the Garrett clan, walked into the kitchen, her dark hair in a low ponytail. She looked like she’d been working hard all day, and it was probably because she had been.

“Because Connor’s in the room,” Eli told her.

Kate smiled and crossed to Connor, planting a kiss on his cheek. Connor grunted.

“I love you, too,” she said. “Did anyone make dinner?”

“No one made dinner,” Eli said. “We all have jobs. But I did bring a pizza, just in case.” Eli turned and put the box of pizza on the granite countertop. Kate started getting plates out of the cupboard.

This was Connor’s house, the main house on the property, which he’d shared with Jessie during their years as a married couple. He stayed because this was the family ranch, going back generations. Because he was the one who worked the land, and the one least likely to leave. This was his rightful place.

But Eli often got the feeling he hated it.

“I will take a beer now,” Connor said.

“Get it yourself,” Kate suggested. “I’m already dishing up your dinner, and I am not a waitress.”

“You wouldn’t get a tip if you were one,” Connor grumbled, getting up from his spot at the table and wandering to the fridge, jerking it open.

Eli noticed that there wasn’t much in it beyond beer and cheese. He wasn’t sure he liked what that said about his brother’s mental state. Or maybe it was just that Connor hadn’t had time to go shopping recently. That could be it.

“You should get a housekeeper,” Eli said.

Connor grunted, which was something he seemed to do a lot lately. “I don’t want a stranger rifling around in my stuff.”

“Then hire someone you know.”

“No.”

Eli took a piece of pizza out of the box and set it on a plate, doing his best to ignore Kate, who wasn’t using her plate, but was standing, arched over the bar, dripping sauce onto the otherwise clean surface.

Eli didn’t like that. He liked things in their place. He liked things clean. He’d spent too many years putting things in order to let them slide now.

When they’d been kids, cleanliness hadn’t just been a preference, it had been survival. Connor keeping things going on the ranch and Eli making it appear that there was a functional adult managing the household had been the only way to keep Child Protective Services away.

Order had been the only thing keeping them all together.

“So, Connor was just telling me about our new tenant.”

“We have a tenant?” Kate asked, her mouth full.

“Yes, we do.”

“Get me a beer, Connor,” Kate said.

“Do I look like a damned waitress, Katie? Do I?” he growled, while he stalked back to the fridge and got out two beers, handing one to each of his siblings.

“Guess so,” Kate said, taking the bottle and popping the top on the counter.

Sometimes Eli wondered if Kate had suffered a bit for having nothing but men in her life. But if he mentioned that to Kate she would probably spit on him. Which just proved his point.

“So,” Eli said, leaning against the counter. “The tenant.”

Anything to get his mind off the events from earlier today. Sadie Miller. He remembered her as a little blonde ball of trouble. Dressed in all black, ripped jeans, she’d been a stereotype of social rebellion. His least favorite kind of brat to deal with. She’d also been feisty as hell. Resisting arrest was putting it mildly. It had been his first summer with the sheriff’s department, and they’d broken up a big party in an empty barn. Drunk, freaked-out teenagers had made the whole thing a nightmare. Basically, all hell had broken loose.

And he had ended up handcuffing and booking seventeen-year-old Sadie, making her the first person he’d ever arrested. Though ultimately she wasn’t charged, as he’d said, with ill-advised word choices today, you never forgot your first.

“I drew up a long-term lease so that the Catalog House could be used as a bed-and-breakfast,” Connor said.

“A what?” he and Kate asked the question in unison.

“You heard me. With the renovation of Old Town, and the fireworks show on the ocean getting bigger every year, tourism is a big deal. And I want in on that industry.”

“How is your going behind our backs us being ‘in on the industry’?”

“Income from the lease, and a small percentage of profits. And like I already told you,” he said, directing his words at Eli, “some of us only get money from the ranch, so the more profitable I can make it, the better.”

“And you’re sure that your lessee isn’t going to destroy the place?”

“She’s a local. Or at least, she was.”

The hair on the back of Eli’s neck stood on end. “Is she?”

“Yeah. Younger than us, older than Kate, so I don’t think any of us would have known her in school.”

He would have laughed if there were anything remotely funny about it. “I have a good guess about who it might be,” he said, setting his beer on the counter. “Sadie Miller?”

“Yeah. How do you know her?”

“I arrested her once.”

Connor’s eyebrows shot up.

“Well, damn, I didn’t know she was a criminal.”

Eli let out an exasperated breath. “She’s not a criminal. At least, I don’t think she’s a career criminal. Granted, she committed a crime, that’s why I arrested her, but she’s not going to make a skin suit out of anyone.”

“Bleah.” Kate stuck out her tongue.

“I’m just saying. I arrested her for being drunk and disorderly about ten years ago. It wasn’t exactly organized crime. And before that she was the kind of kid you’d see wearing too much eyeliner, smoking cigarettes and looking angry at the world. A bigger danger to healthy lungs than to society at large.”

“Well, that’s comforting,” Connor said.

“I take it you didn’t do a background check?” Eli asked.

“I did. But apparently not a thorough one. Credit check, though. Because her rental history reads like an epic novel. I needed to make sure she wasn’t dodging. But she wasn’t. She just likes to move.”

“Well, I can’t have any of this interfering with my campaign,” Eli said.

He’d thrown his hat in the ring to run for the position, with the blessing of the current sheriff, who was now retiring. And since he’d decided to do it, it had become more and more important daily. Especially after he’d won a top two spot in the primary, his lead over the other man running substantial enough that a win in November looked almost certain. But that didn’t mean he was resting on his laurels. No.

There were spreadsheets. Lots of spreadsheets. Because he couldn’t help himself. Anything worth doing was absolutely worth doing right.

“It’s not going to mess with your campaign. She’s going to run her business, and you’ll take care of your business. While I increase some of my profits.”

“So how long do you think she’ll stay here?” Eli asked, hoping the answer was “not long.” She disturbed his sense of order. All of this did, but the fact that Sadie Miller was involved only made it more disturbing. And he did not need disturbing. Not right now. Not ever, really.

“She signed for five years.”

“Five years?” he and Kate spoke together again.

“Will you stop repeating my answers back to me in question form? Yes, five years. It’s going to take time to get a business going. There’s some updating that needs to be done on the house. She’s agreed to pay for it, and orchestrate it all.”

“You’re crazy. You’re going to let someone else, a stranger, live on our property for five years without even...meeting her first?” Eli asked.

“It’s over. It’s signed. I’m not discussing it any further,” Connor said.

Eli leaned back against the counter and took a long drink of his beer.

Kate shrugged. “It might be nice to have a woman around again.”

“She’s not going to be around,” Eli said. “She’s running a bed-and-breakfast, apparently. There’s a difference between that and her being around. This is a big property.”

“I was just saying. And maybe I’ll go visit her,” Kate mused.

“Eli’s right, Katie,” Connor said. “Everything is going to be kept separate.”

“That’s fine.” Kate picked at the top of her pizza. “But I do think it would be nice to bring her something. A housewarming something. Foodstuffs. Small-town hospitality in action and all.”

“Feel free to deliver foodstuffs,” Connor told her. “I don’t give a sh—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Kate said. “You don’t. About anything. I get it. You’re a grumpy codger and you aren’t going to be sociable. Ever. Again. I won’t make you.”

“Good,” he said.

Kate turned to Eli, her brown eyes wide.

Eli put his hands up. “Don’t look at me,” he said. “I’m not joining your small-town welcoming committee.”

“Fine. I’ll be the representative for this family. And try to prove we weren’t—” she took a bite of her pizza and spoke around a mouthful of cheese “—raised by fucking wolves.”

“Well, we’ll leave that up to you,” Eli said. “I have faith in you.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“I’m going to head home,” Eli said. “I’ll leave the pizza.”

That earned him a thanks from Kate and a grunt—no surprise—from Connor.

“I’ve got the afternoon off tomorrow,” Eli added, “so that means I’ll be by to help out. Do you have anything big going?”

“Not a lot. We have to tag the calves this weekend, though. Are you free?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll be around for that.”

He was in law enforcement by choice, but he was a rancher by blood. He, Connor and Kate all did some local rodeo events now and then, too, though Kate was by far the most successful and was looking to turn pro when she got the chance.

Of course, the fact that he was either working for the county or working on the ranch was a big part of why he had no social life. But he didn’t really miss it. Unless he was horny. Then he kind of missed it.

“Great,” Connor said. “See you tomorrow, then.”

“See ya.” He turned and walked out of the kitchen, through the entryway and onto the porch. He stood for a minute and looked out at the property, and at the light in the distance. The light that was coming from the Catalog House.

Sadie Miller was in there. On a five-year lease. Damn it all, it didn’t get much more disrupting to his sense of order than that. Of course, the past couple of years had been one big, giant disruption for their family.

They all felt the loss of Jessie. And they all felt the hole that her death had carved into Connor. He wasn’t the same. He never would be.

But then, that was the way this place was. Or at least, that seemed to be the way love was for their family. You got it, you lost it.

It had started with the first generation of Garretts on this land. His great-great-grandfather had ordered that house and had it built. His great-great-grandmother had lived in it for only two years before getting pneumonia and dying.

Then there were his great-grandparents. His great-grandmother had died in childbirth, leaving her husband a shell of a man, barely capable of keeping the land going, and not entirely managing to keep track of his children. His grandfather had run off with a woman from town, leaving his grandmother to raise her kids alone. And then there were his parents.

Their mother had gone when Kate was a toddler. Off to God knew where. Somewhere warmer and sunnier. Somewhere with men in suits instead of spurs.

A place without needy kids and the smell of cows.

But it had left her husband to sink into a mire of alcoholism and despair.

It had left Connor to grow up at fifteen. And for Eli to follow right along with him.

And all that pain had started in the house that now sheltered Sadie Miller. It seemed fitting in some ways. Since she was a pain in his butt.

He walked down the steps to the driveway, then headed down the path that took him the back way to his house.

Sadie Miller wouldn’t be a problem, because he wouldn’t let her become one.

He was the law around here, after all.

CHAPTER THREE

SADIE WOULD VENTURE down into town today at some point. Grab some supplies. After she’d taken inventory, of course. She knew there were some tools in the shed, per the typed-up—and very brief—note Connor had left on the kitchen counter.

But until she had some clue about what sort of work she might need to do, the tools were fairly useless. She had some basic information on the minor flaws in the house, but there were other things she wanted to tackle.

Most of the place had the original wood paneling. Wainscoting that went halfway up the walls, which were painted a deep cream. The wooden detail was echoed on the ceiling, crossbeams forming a checkerboard over the plaster ceiling.

It looked like the crown molding in a few of the rooms had been replaced at some point, and it didn’t match. Which meant she was going to need to take it down, and then mount some new stuff.

That wasn’t a part of her original plan, but she had a little cushion for some surprises. And money set aside for some major projects, like the addition of a back deck. And since structural issues were Connor’s problem, she didn’t anticipate running into anything that would absolutely kill her budget.

Some people might call her a flake, but she was a well-educated flake with a basic understanding of money management.

She walked into the kitchen, and to the walk-in pantry that was larger than some bedrooms she’d had in her years of apartments. The solid wood shelves had a fine layer of dust over them. A mop and broom standing in the corner were the only residents, except for a few daddy longlegs hanging on the ceiling.

She made a mental note to take care of those guys later and walked back out into the kitchen, opening up cabinets that were mainly empty. There was one cabinet filled with mismatched teacups, and she counted that as a good find.

A quirky touch to add to the place. As inspiration went, it was a good place to start.

She wandered back through the dining room, which was nearly dominated by a large wooden table that was scarred from years of use. Refinishing that would go on her list of to-dos, but not for a while. She’d throw a tablecloth on it for now.

Out in the hall, the old wooden floor squeaked under her feet. Weirdly, she liked the sound. Liked the reminder of the age of the house.

The boards on the stairs were the same, her fingertips leaving a light trail on the banister as they cut through the thin film of dust. The house had obviously been cleaned when the previous tenant had left; it had just been a couple of years since anyone had been back inside.

She walked down the hall and pushed open the doors to each of the four bedrooms. They all had gorgeous four-poster beds. They would need all-new linens and drapes, but she’d been expecting that. The two bedrooms on the backside of the house faced the thick, undeveloped forest, and the other two provided views of a bright green field, dotted with cows.

All the rooms needed blinds to block the light so guests could sleep as late as they liked, and do whatever they wanted with no privacy concerns.

Two rooms had private bathrooms, while two others had to share one in the hall—not ideal, but given the age of the house, that it was as well-appointed as it was was sort of a miracle.

All it would take was a bit of scrubbing, polishing and the addition of matching molding. Also, some knickknacks, new furniture and a carload of linens.

The shopping would be the fun part. She would try to keep it local so that the finished product reflected Copper Ridge. She was really getting into this whole concept of community.

For now, she was going to go and hunt for those tools Connor said were in the shed. What she would do with them was up for debate, but she had a kind of driving need to do whatever she could.

Sadie tromped down the steps and into the yard, the bark-laden ground soft beneath her tennis shoes, dew from the weeds flinging up onto her pant legs and sending a chill through her.

It wasn’t warm yet this morning, but the wind was still, the trees around her seeming to close in tight, sheltering her and her new house from the outside world.

She whistled, the sound echoing off the canopy of trees, adding to the feeling of isolation. She liked it. And even more than that, her guests would like it.

Well, they’d better, anyway, since she was committed to five years here. Claustrophobia’s icy fingers wound their way around her neck when the thought hit. Five years. In one place. In Copper Ridge, no less, the keeper of her hang-ups and other issues.

You’re confronting your past. It’s what you’d tell a patient to do.

Her inner voice was right. But her inner voice could go to hell. She wasn’t in the mood to confront things. She was just...trying to feel a little less wrong. A little less restless.

A little less like she was a rolling tumbleweed. Or a running-at-full-tilt tumbleweed.

She’d given so much advice that she’d never once followed. Facing fears, facing the old things that held power over a person. Going back to a point of trauma and seeing that it held no magical properties.

Well, she was following it now.

She zipped up her hoodie, fortifying herself against the general dampness that clung to the air, and walked down the path that should lead her to the shed.

An engine roar disturbed her silence, and she turned to see a black truck barreling down the long, secluded drive that led to her house.

She stopped and watched, trying to catch a glimpse of the driver. She failed, but she figured it was too grand an entrance for someone who wanted to Freddy Krueger her, so she was probably good.

She shoved her hands into the pockets of her hoodie and headed back to where the truck had parked. “Hello?”

“Hi.”

The feminine voice that greeted her wasn’t what she’d been expecting. Neither was the petite brunette who dropped down from the driver’s side, wearing a flannel shirt and a pair of Carhartts. Her braid flipped down over her shoulder as her boots hit the ground, and she looked up and smiled.

Sadie vaguely remembered that there was a female Garrett, but she’d never known her. Unsurprising, really, since this girl looked wholesome and shiny, and all the things Sadie had never been.

“Kate,” she said, extending her hand. “Kate Garrett. The sister.”

“Nice to meet you,” Sadie said, shaking the other woman’s hand.

“I didn’t want to drop by last night because I thought it would be rude, but I thought I’d stop in today just to say hi. And to ask what all your plans are.”

There was something wide-eyed and sweet about Kate, something that stood in contrast to her firm handshake and confident manner. She was strength, and openness, and for a moment, Sadie envied that. The bravery it must take.

“Well, I have plans to turn the house into a B and B that will hopefully be ready for guests in about a month and a half.” She put her hands on her hips and let out a long breath. “Enough time to get things arranged, and to settle in, hopefully.”

“If you need any help, or anything, I’m happy to give it. I work at the Farm and Garden, and I know a lot about plants, animals, general repair stuff.”

It stunned her, yet again, how nice people had been to her—exception being Eli—since she’d shown up. She’d imagined...she didn’t know. She’d turned Copper Ridge into such a dark place in her mind that she’d been sure people would all but greet her with torches and pitchforks. And yet, no one had.

Facing your demons, and finding out there aren’t quite as many as you thought?

“That’s really nice, but I don’t want to take any of your time,” Sadie said.

“Really, I don’t have a whole lot happening right now. Just work. And it’s very male around here, so it’s nice to have a more feminine influence.”

It occurred to her then that it was time to stop resisting connections. Five years, remember?

“If I need something, I’ll take you up on that,” she said. “You’ll be better company than a random hired hand.”

Kate laughed. “I try. What are you after today?”

“Trim. Light fixtures. I might look at new hardware for the cabinets.”

Kate wrinkled her nose, then looked at the house, and at Sadie’s car. “If you have renovation stuff to buy, you aren’t fitting it in there. Ten pounds of potatoes, five-pound sack. But if you want, you can come in with me and use my truck to make deliveries back to the property. You just need to be able to pick me up at closing time.”

Sadie hadn’t had a firm plan for the day, but she couldn’t deny that the use of a truck had a very high chance of coming in handy.

Her immediate gut response was to say no. Because accepting help meant the possibility of needing to pay someone back. Sadie was fine giving help, and expecting nothing in return. But she’d always been afraid of leaving town owing a debt.

But you’re staying here. At least for a while.

“Thank you, Kate,” she said. “That’s so nice of you. I would really appreciate your help.”

* * *

“WELL, SHIT,” CONNOR SAID, looking around the field. “I think we missed a calf.”

Eli straightened and wiped the sweat off his forehead. It hadn’t seemed too hot earlier, but now the sun was high in the sky, beating down on them. The middle of the field provided no shade, and the work they’d been doing wasn’t easy.

“You think?” he asked, looking around the field and spotting a red angus, one of the few reds who had ever popped up in their herd, who he knew full well had been ready to birth a while back. “Oh, yeah. She calved already.”

“And I don’t see baby. Which means she’s got him hidden somewhere, or he’s dead.”

“Dammit.” Eli tugged his T-shirt up over his head and mopped the sweat off his chest before chucking the shirt on the ground and getting up onto his horse. “Let’s go find him.”

Eli spurred his horse on. “Got her number?” he asked, meaning the identification number on the mother cow’s ear.

“Yeah, I know it.”

“I’m going to guess he’s under the trees somewhere.” Eli gestured to the back of the field that led toward the houses. It was still heavily wooded, providing the herd with a place to escape the weather.

Connor followed him, the horses’ hoofbeats the only sound as they galloped across the field. Eli kept an eye out for a carcass in the grass, but the absence of crows and buzzards had him feeling optimistic.

Death was a part of ranch life, but it wasn’t one he enjoyed.

Sure, they raised cattle for beef, but they took care of them. They had value to his family that ran deep. It was hard to explain to someone outside of the ranching community, but those in it understood the connection without him having to voice it.

Hell, with a job this demanding, you had to love all the elements of it, or you’d never choose to do it. It was really why he chose to do it only part-time. Maybe that made him a fair-weather cowboy, but he was okay with that.

He still got his job done. Both his jobs, in fact.

He tugged his horse’s reins and slowed her down when they got to the edge of the trees and Connor dismounted.

“Oh, great,” he said, looking back. “We got mama’s attention. But then, I guess that means we’re close.”

But the last thing they wanted was to be on a twelve-hundred-pound mother cow’s radar while they tried to run down her three-day-old calf and give him a piercing.

Eli got off his own horse and followed Connor under the trees. “Okay, Con,” he said, “make this fast because I don’t want to deal with mom cow’s attitude, all right?”

Then he saw it, spindly and wobbly, under the trees. Black as night, obviously not inheriting his mother’s coloring.

“Okay...” Eli said. “Let’s do this thing.”

Connor crossed his arms over his broad chest. “Get in there, part-time cowboy. You’re on shift.” He handed Eli the applicator, which was already clean and ready.

Eli took it, then flipped Connor his middle finger before wading into the foliage.

He looked over his shoulder. The mother cow was jogging now, heading toward them, not happy to see them getting closer to her baby. And they couldn’t blame her. But he needed to get the baby’s tag on so they could match him up with his mother later. Easy enough to figure it out now, but harder later in a field of black calves.

“Hurry up, man!” Connor called.

“Right,” Eli said, tossing the word over his shoulder as he battled through the brush, sticks breaking beneath his boots as he headed toward the calf, who was attempting a getaway. “I’ll just speed this along.”

“I don’t want you to get your ass trampled.”

“Well, neither do I,” Eli growled.

Eli lunged for the calf, and as he did, the mother started to charge in their direction.

“Hell!” Connor dodged to the side and the mom nudged at him with her head, bellowing and generally trying to intimidate him. He sidestepped her next attempt at butting him.

Eli turned his focus back to the calf and grabbed him, fitting the applicator to his ear and punching as hard and secure as he could, holding the animal’s neck and head still with one arm while he finished the job with the other.

“Got him!” He released the little black calf, who now had a yellow tag on his ear and seemed none the worse for wear.

“Then haul ass,” Connor said, moving through the trees and back to his horse. Eli did the same, and fortunately the cow was now just focused on her baby, who was making a low bawling sound.

“He’s playing it up now.” Connor wiped his forearm over his brow. “Trying to make his mom even madder.”

“I don’t think she could possibly get much madder,” Eli said, trying to catch his breath.

“Probably not. I’m going to ride back out for a minute,” Connor told him. “Just to check everything over. You want to meet me back at the barn?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Eli mounted his horse again and rode back toward the barn. One of the ranch hands, a high school kid Connor had hired to help with menial stuff, looked up from mucking stalls as he entered.

“Hey, Mike,” Eli said. “Mind taking care of Sable for me?” He got off the horse and patted her neck.

“Got her,” Mike said.

“Great, thanks.” Eli walked around the barn, Connor’s most prized acquisition. They’d poured all the money from their father’s life insurance settlement into it.

Eli braced one hand on the solid wood wall, arching backward. Damn. He had a hitch in his back. He was too young to get old.

And he had to work a shift for the force in the morning, which meant he didn’t have time to be sore. Double duty was a bitch. But he couldn’t ever give up either job.

Connor lived and breathed the ranch, but Eli appreciated the break.

Because, when it came right down to it, he’d rather chase bad guys than be chased by a damned cow.

Though, being sheriff potentially meant doing a lot more paper pushing, and a bit less bad-guy chasing. But it also meant the chance to effect some good change in the county. Sure, some of it was down to the fact that he was a control freak, and the chance to take total control of the filing system was almost irresistible, and some of it was even ambition, but mainly he wanted to be sheriff because he loved Copper Ridge and the surrounding areas. And serving in law enforcement was the best way he could think of to show that love.

He heard a loud crash, followed by several more crashes and a shrill curse word. He started toward the noise without even thinking, because that was what he did. If there was something wrong, he went toward it, not away from it.

He walked down the path toward the din. Toward the Catalog House. And he already knew that whatever he was going to find there was going to make him very, very grumpy.

When he came through the trees he saw her, across the driveway in front of Kate’s truck. Sadie was standing at the end of it, holding a bundle of crown molding or trim of some kind that had to be ten feet long at least. And in front of the tailgate, down by her feet, were various pieces of hardware and what had probably been a light fixture before it had met an untimely demise on the gravel driveway.

And here was the distraction he just didn’t need.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Oh.” Her head whipped up, her blue eyes wide for a moment, before they narrowed, her expression turning into a scowl. “You have to stop sneaking up on me. I’ve been in town less than twenty-four hours and I think you’ve scared a grand total of twenty-five minutes off my life.”

“Somehow I think you’ll be fine without them.”

“Says you. That’s an entire sitcom’s worth of life you just cost me. Now my plans of watching one final episode of Friends before I go to meet my maker are completely dashed.”

“Do you need help?” he asked patiently.

“Do you ever laugh? Because that was funny.”

“Rarely. Not as rarely as my brother. But rarely.”

“Maybe it’s a male Garrett thing. Your sister is more fun than you are.”

“So much fun that you stole her truck? Are you already adding to your list of felonies?” Eli asked, making his way over to the truck and surveying the small disaster around Sadie’s feet.

“You of all people should know I was never charged with a felony, Deputy Pedantic, so let’s not be dramatic.”

“Just looking out for my sister.” And he meant it. Because Kate was too sweet. Too trusting. And Sadie was someone he couldn’t predict. The combination made him nervous.

“Kate stopped by and offered her pickup truck. Because she’s very, very nice.”

“Too nice,” he said, still looking over the items that had spilled out onto the ground. “And you figured you’d unload this all by yourself?”

“Well, the trim isn’t heavy. It’s just unwieldy. But I didn’t realize the guys had packed my bags up against the gate, and they had one tangled in the trim and... Anyway, I had a momentary disaster, and I have a broken pendant light. But it will be okay.”

“I could help.”

“Helping me wouldn’t make you burst into flame?” she asked.

“Depends. Are you planning on lighting something else on fire?”

She let out a growl. “I told you. I did not light anything on fire. I knocked a lantern over. There is a difference.”

“You started a fire. It was an accident, but you did, in fact, light an entire barn on fire.”

“I feel like intent should matter here.”

“All right, then, I intend to help you. Maybe you could stop trying to make everything so difficult and let me get to it.”

* * *

SADIE WATCHED, AND TRIED not to let her mouth hang open, as Eli came closer, shirtless and muscular and just im-damned-possible not to stare at. He had dirt on his chest. His hairy, masculine, muscular chest.

He’d looked so clean in that uniform of his. Like he ironed it directly onto his body so that it would form straight to his physique and never wrinkle. And he looked good in it.

But never had she imagined that there was something so raw and manly underneath it all. He was downright...rough and uncivilized beneath all that law and order.

She suddenly realized she was staring. Pretty much at his nipples. It didn’t get more horrifying than that.

She cleared her throat and looked back up at him. Met his brown eyes, which was the socially acceptable thing to do.

“Thank you,” she said.

And all her good intentions fell like a Jenga tower when he grabbed the middle of the trim and crown molding bundle she was holding and lifted it up, out of her hands, to hoist it over his shoulder.

“Where do you want it?” he asked.

Her brain was taking in too much stimulus to compute the exact question. He was standing there, every muscle outlined to perfection by the stance and the weight of the items he was holding. He just looked so damned capable. Standing there and holding things that had been almost impossible for her to manage, like they weren’t anything at all.

Actually, that part was really freaking annoying.

But it looked great. And she couldn’t refrain from letting herself have a little moment. One where she admired the strength in his chest, the sharp, defined lines in his stomach. And down beneath those abs, a perfectly flat plane with deep grooves on either side of it that disappeared beneath the low-slung waistband of his jeans.

She almost had to bite her own fist to keep from whimpering.

What the hell was wrong with her? She didn’t lust after guys she didn’t like. Anymore. Sure, she’d lusted after him—mildly, until he’d arrested her. But she’d grown up since then.

She liked it simple, she liked it happy. She liked nice men who wanted a sweet, easy relationship, and when that wasn’t easily available, she did without.

She’d been without for a while, so she was clearly just having a weak moment on the physical desire front. And hey, that happened. But that didn’t mean she was going to do anything about it. Most especially not with Eli Garrett. No, thank you.

She wasn’t a fling girl anyway. Mainly because the idea of getting naked with a total stranger was not at all appealing. She always got to know a guy before she hopped into bed with him. And getting to know the guy made it not a fling, but a relationship.

And if relationships were not, at present, a happening thing, flings weren’t a happening thing ever. Ergo, sex was not a happening thing for her.

Ergo his abs had just killed 65 percent of her brain cells.

“Just...the porch is good,” she said, walking backward, her eyes still trained on him. She grabbed one of the plastic bags, which was lying, tipped and spilled, on the tailgate, and bent, her eyes still on Eli as he turned and started walking toward the house.

His butt.

Oh, my.

Yep. She’d just crossed over into shameless ogling and she didn’t even care. Didn’t mind even a little bit that she didn’t even like the guy.

Why not look at him for a minute? The fact was, thrills were few and far between for her. Connor might be just as hot. She might ogle him next.

But he wasn’t here. So for now she would just take a moment to note the way the denim cupped Eli’s muscular, rounded...

“So...you gonna nail this up or what?”

It took her a full second to realize “nail this up” wasn’t a euphemism for a sex act.

“The molding?”

“Yes,” he said, setting it down across the porch.

She scrambled to pick everything up, avoiding the broken pendant light and gathering the rest of her odds and ends. “That was the plan. There’s a nail gun in the shed. At least, I think Connor had that on the list. He left me a list.”

“Decent of him.”

“He’s been sort of the invisible man since I arrived. He left instructions, but I haven’t seen him.”

“Yeah, well, he’s like that. Actually—” he bent down to straighten up one of the trim pieces and she cocked her head to the side and watched the muscles on his back shift and bunch “—he didn’t tell me anyone was coming to rent the place.” He straightened. “Let alone signing a long-term lease and spending the next five years running a bed-and-breakfast on my damn property.”

“It’s sort of a shared property. If you want to be technical.” She scurried up toward the porch, her bag in hand.

“Right. So how is it you’re going to install all this? And why are you installing all this?”

“I want the trim to match. Obviously over the years some things were replaced at different times and some of it doesn’t match. The wood in here is beautiful and I don’t want anything detracting from it.”

“But even the replacement molding is older than...we are. It might as well be original.”

“Well, no, it might as well not be, because if it were, it would match. It gets accolades for age but I’m still replacing it.”

“So you’re going to put this cheap-ass stuff in there?”

“It is not cheap-ass! Look at how much of my budget is devoted to this and you will see just how not cheap-ass it is. It’s very nice, actually. And if all you’re going to do is insult my molding, then...get off my porch.”

He crossed his arms and leaned against the railing. “I don’t think I will. It’s my porch. You’re just leasing it.”

“I have rights!”

“It’s a bed-and-breakfast. What if I want to make a reservation?”

“It’s not open yet.”

“It could open faster if you didn’t want to replace perfectly good molding.”

She sputtered, her comebacks all jumbled around because...biceps. And forearms. And things. Why was he so distracting even while he was annoying? Why did it seem like the annoying only made it all more interesting?

She had no idea what was wrong with her. She needed some wine. A bottle of wine. And for him to go away. She was done with her thrills. She was on thrill overload. She was clearly giddy with the thrills and had crossed over into crazy town.

“What else do you have in the bag?” he asked.

“Things,” she said.

His dark eyes narrowed. “What kinds of things?”

“Things of a home-improvement nature. Which I will use to improve this home.”

“What the hell does it need improving for?”

She huffed and stalked to the front door, fishing the key out of her purse before pushing the door open. “Come in and see for yourself.”

She walked in ahead of him, trying not to be overly conscious of just how big and masculine and there he was.

“Look,” she said. “And by that I mean really look, like someone who’s never seen this place before, and not like someone who loves it because it’s sentimental.”

“Who said it was sentimental?”

“Obviously it’s sentimental. You’re attached to molding.”

“I just don’t like change,” he said, the words coming out stilted.

“Oh, really?”

“There’s an order to things,” he muttered. “It’s easier to keep track of them that way.”

She waved a hand. “Well, I love change. It’s what makes life interesting.”

“Which begs the question why you’re back here. Committed to five long years...”

“Because there’s no place like home. I’ve been all over the country and I’ve never been anywhere that felt like Copper Ridge.”

He paused, studying her far too intently for her liking. “How long did it take you to get that response down so perfectly?”

Anger sparked through her. Because he had her number. “Are you saying my response seems rehearsed?”

“Yes. Very. Why are you really here?”

Oh, damn him. “Because. It was time. Because...I was tired of feeling like I was running away.”

“From?”

She lifted a shoulder. “Things.”

“Same things you got in that bag?”

“Yep. Nuts, bolts and other assorted crap.”

Toby chose that moment to come padding down the stairs and into the kitchen.

“You have a cat,” he said, “in the house.”

“Yes,” she said. “Where else am I going to keep my cat?”

“The barn.”

“You don’t keep a friend in the barn. Well, maybe you keep your friends in the barn. That could be why you don’t have any friends.”

“I have friends.”

“I haven’t seen any.”

“You’ve seen me at work and at home.”

“And I’ve seen nary a friend. Are they in the barn now?” She made her eyes round and looked at him in mock horror.

“None of my friends shed. And they don’t leave dead animals on your carpet.”

“Neither does Toby. I don’t think he’d kill a mouse. He’s too civilized for that.”

“A cat that won’t kill mice? That just sounds worthless to me.”

She shot him a dirty look and scooped Toby up from his position by the table. “You can’t have it two ways. Either it’s bad for him to leave dead animals lying around, or it’s bad for him to not kill things.”

“I like it when cats kill things. Outside.”

“Then have your cats the way you want them. I’ll have mine the way I want him. And I will have matching molding. We’re just going to have to disagree on the fundamentals of life. Big surprise there, right?”

“Good point.”

“Well. Good. Glad we’ve come to that...conclusion.” She set Toby on the table. “So...now I need to get back to work.”

“You honestly think you’re going to do all this alone?”

“Yes. I am. I’m a hard worker and I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty.”

“I thought you were a therapist.”

“Was.”

“Didn’t you listen to people for a living?”

She blew out an exasperated breath. “Listening is hard work, I’ll have you know. It’s why so few people do it. And anyway, I have the desire to finish all this work, and one thing you should know about me is that when I set out to do something, I get it done, okay?”

“Well, I’ll look forward to seeing you get this done.”

“Yeah, well, I look forward to you putting a shirt on,” she said.

The words hung between them and she tried not to pull a face and reveal just how embarrassing they were to her. Because, damn it all, she was trying to pretend that she hadn’t noticed. And she was pretty sure she’d been managing to hide the whole I’m-helplessly-checking-you-out thing from him, too. Except now she’d gone and shown she was disturbed by it.

Bah.

He cocked his head to the side. “This bothers you?”

“No.”

“Then why did you say...?”

“Because. Because this is a place of business.”

“I thought you weren’t open.”

“I’m not, but...still.”

He leaned in and she caught his scent—sweat and skin. Man. And the want, the need, grabbed her around the throat and shook hard, unwilling to let her go. She should move. She should stop breathing him in.

But she couldn’t think about what might come next. Because her brain was totally blank.

All she could do was stare. At his lips. At the square cut of his jaw. It was dusted with stubble now, not clean like it had been yesterday. Yes, today he looked more out of order in every way, and she had to admit, it was interesting. Fascinating. Dangerous.

Something crackled between them, and he seemed to feel it, too. Because his expression wasn’t granite like usual. There was heat there. Even fire. It flickered, quick and hot, in his dark eyes, and then it was gone.

“I think I’ve imposed on you a little too long,” he said. “I have my own work to do.”

“Right,” she said. “Go on, then.”

“If you need anything...”

“I’ll call Kate.”

“Call Kate.” His words came at the same time hers did.

“Right,” she said. “I’ll do that. I’m picking her up...soon, actually. So. Okay, then.”

He ran his hand over his hair, and she felt a little zip of attraction hit her low as the motion highlighted his biceps. Yet again. There was something wrong with her. It must be all this fresh air.

“I think we’ll be okay, Sadie,” he said, his voice rougher than it had been a moment ago.

“You...do?”

“Just stay out of my way, and I’ll stay out of yours. And try not to change too many things.”

CHAPTER FOUR

SADIE MILLER, IT TURNED OUT, was incapable of following orders. She’d done nothing but change things in the two days since she’d breezed onto the Garrett family ranch, and she showed no sign at all of stopping.

First of all, she’d had a crew there reconditioning the wood, stripping paint. Then she’d followed behind, repainting trim. She was like a little blonde windup toy, and every time Eli drove on the road to Connor’s house or the main part of the ranch, he caught glimpses of her working outside the house. He could always resolve to hole up on his end of the property. The road to his own house ran the opposite direction, but that would mean no visiting with his family, and no ranch work. And he wasn’t that desperate to avoid her.

Still, he didn’t want to catch glimpses of her. He didn’t want her there. And dammit, even he knew that verged on curmudgeonly. But he couldn’t be bothered to care. He had things happening in his life. Important things. And he didn’t need her wandering around the place like a breeze-blown hippie.

Shit, he was uptight. But even so, he hated the feeling of an interloper on Garrett land, and yeah, dammit, he was totally a curmudgeon. There was no denying it. But it just felt...invasive.

He didn’t like change. He didn’t like people crowding. It was a habit from childhood. They didn’t have friends over, well, friends other than Jack Monaghan, and they didn’t invite company in past the front porch. They didn’t let them see what was inside. They didn’t let anyone know the extent to which things had fallen apart.

It was a habit that died hard. Or not at all.

Eli pulled his car past the Catalog House, determined not to look again. Determined not to care. He’d promised Connor and Jack an evening of poker and beer and he planned to deliver. Connor would probably be happy as hell if they canceled, which was one reason he was determined not to.

He parked in front of the porch and looked up at the house. When Jessie had lived there, it had looked nicer than it ever had in Eli’s memory. And everything had slipped since losing her.

Connor’s muddy boots and other random castaways from a day’s work were spread out on the wooden deck, which was in bad need of staining. The windows, vast and prominent, were spotted with water drops and splattered with dirt. Even the door had dirty handprints. Like a very large child lived here. A man child who’d crawled down into a bottle of whiskey the day his wife had been put in the ground.

A man who echoed their father a little too much. Not that Eli had a right to judge, considering that he’d never loved anyone. Not the way Connor had loved Jessie.

He’d never lost like that as a result, either, and he planned to keep it that way.

He got out of the car and noticed Jack’s F-150 was already parked in the muddy driveway—which badly needed to be graveled, Eli would handle that—and he walked up the steps, knocking his boots against the top stair to get some of the mud off before pushing the front door open.

He could hear Jack’s voice already—animated, loud, the same as he’d been since they were a bunch of skinny preteen boys. Jack was a year younger than Eli, but had always been close to both Connor and himself. If Eli had gotten in trouble as a kid, Jack was the reason. As much as Eli liked order, Jack liked disrupting it. Eli couldn’t help but foster a strange admiration for Jack’s total disregard for rules.

He couldn’t partake, but he could admire. From a distance.

“The police are here,” Eli said drily, walking through the entryway and into the dining room, where Connor and Jack were already seated, a stack of cards and poker chips in the middle of the table.

“Sadly,” Jack said, “we haven’t had the chance to do anything illegal yet.”

Connor just sat there looking long-suffering. It was painfully obvious they were trying to pull him out of the pit he was in, and as always, he was so damned aware of it that he’d dug his heels in and was clinging to rock bottom for all he was worth. Stubborn ass.

“And now you won’t get a chance. Are we ready to play? And drink? Thankfully, I’m within walking distance so sobriety is not a necessity.”

“Public drunkenness?” Jack asked.

“Private property.”

“Fair enough.”

“Liss is coming,” Connor said.

“Then why isn’t she here?” Eli asked.

“I invited her,” he ground out. “But she’s not off work yet.”

“So now we have to wait, I take it?”

“She’s bringing the good alcohol,” Connor said.

“Well, in that case,” Jack said, relenting.

“Where’s Kate?” Eli asked.

“Home, I expect,” Connor told him.

Kate lived in another house on the property. It was small, and designed for two people at most, but it was perfect for her.

“Does she know Liss is coming? She might want to see her.” Liss was one of Connor’s best friends, and had been a very close friend of his and Jessie’s, both before and during their marriage. And Kate seemed starved for female companionship, as evidenced by her obvious desire to wrap Sadie Miller up in a blanket like a little stray kitten. But he was not having that. There would be no adopting of Sadie Miller.

He grabbed a beer from the center of the table, out of the bucket of ice emblazoned with the Oregon Ducks O on the side, and popped the top off.

“We don’t really need Katie hanging out and listening to us talk,” Jack said.

“Don’t call her Katie,” Connor said. “She hates that.”

“You call her that exclusively,” Eli reminded him.

“Yeah. I’m her older brother. I can.” He jabbed a finger in Jack’s direction. “He can’t, though.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Connor. Isn’t it hard work being this unpleasant all the time?” Jack asked.

“You’re still here,” Connor said. “The door is open. There are plenty of other men for you to play cards and drink with. Though they’ll never satisfy you the way I do.”

Eli almost choked on his beer. “You have to warn people before you break out random acts of humor, Connor. It’s unexpected.”

“I hate to be predictable.”

“Yeah,” Jack said. “You also hate puppies, rainbows, and I’m pretty sure if compound bow season ever opened on unicorns you’d be first in line.”

Eli heard the front door open, and the sound of feminine shoes on the hardwood floor. Which meant it wasn’t Kate, because she wore boots, just like the rest of them.

“I’m here!”

It was Liss. She breezed into the room, tugging her auburn hair from its bun and shaking her head. “Gah. Nightmare of a day. Going through financial records for...a place. Confidentiality, sorry.”

“Yeah, I know something about that,” Eli said.

“I’m sure you do. But accountant work doesn’t show up on a police scanner.” She set a brown bag on the table. “I come bearing Jack. Daniel’s, that is.”

“Then you can sit down,” Connor said, already reaching for the bag.

Liss frowned.

“Stop it,” he said. “Don’t give me the sad eyes.” He looked around. “This isn’t an intervention, is it?”

“Does it need to be?” Eli asked.

“No. I’m fine. Let’s play cards.”

“Strip poker,” Jack said. “Because Liss is here.”

Liss looked him over, then looked at Connor and Eli. “I’d win that game, Jack. No matter how you cut it.”

“No strip poker,” Eli said.

“You’re just still mad because the last time I talked you into taking your clothes off, when we were about twelve, I think, we ended up getting caught skinny-dipping by that group of high school girls,” Jack said.

“And that was the day I quit listening to you.”

“Less talking. More betting,” Liss said, pounding the table.

“Fine. Fine.”

There was a knock at the door that sounded borderline frantic. And Eli knew that Kate wouldn’t knock.

Connor got up. “Just a sec.”

He walked out of the room and they all watched after him, listening. “Oh! Thank God you’re home.” A woman’s voice.

“I’m always home,” Connor said, his flat tone carrying into the dining room.

Connor. Full of charm as always.

“I’m having a slight disaster.” Oh, no.

“Come in.” Damn.

More footsteps, then Sadie Miller walked into his brother’s dining room.

She was a mess. Her hair was wet and hanging in twisted, yarn-like strands over her face and down her shoulders. She wore a baggy gray sweatshirt that had damp spots spreading wherever her hair touched the fabric. “I’m having a problem,” she said a little bit sheepishly, looking around the table at everyone.

Jack and Liss both looked confused.

“This is Sadie Miller,” Eli said. “Our new tenant in the Catalog House.”

Liss’s eyes darted from Connor back to Sadie. “Oh. Hi. You’re the one doing the B and B?” For some reason, her friendliness sounded forced. And of course Liss knew about the bed-and-breakfast. In fact, Eli had a feeling she’d been involved somehow.

“Yes,” Sadie said. “That would be me. Though, right now the B and B is doing me. So to speak.”

“What happened?” Connor asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Pipes. Burst. And I was trying to—” she brushed wet hair out of her face “—stop it. To a degree. But I couldn’t. So I...uh...wrapped the pipes as best I could and changed and came here. I’m not sure where this falls under our tenant agreement. Technically this had nothing to do with my renovation and everything to do with me trying to shower in the upstairs bathroom.”

Connor’s brows locked together. “Well...hell if I know. I didn’t really anticipate having to be involved.”

Sadie blinked. “Well, we signed a whole...agreement. And there are certain things...as the...the landlord...and...”

Eli sighed. “Would you like me to go and take a look, Connor?”

Connor nodded once. “If you don’t mind.”

I mind. I mothereffing mind. “Nope,” Eli said, sliding his beer toward the center of the table and pushing his chair back to stand.

Sadie was eyeing him warily. “Thank you,” she said, and he could tell she minded about as much as he did. But she had no place to be irked in all this. She was the one who’d chosen to rent a place on his family property.

She was the one with really quite nice breasts, thank you very much, that were causing him some problems currently.

Getting laid in a small town was problematic. Which made breasts that were actually probably no better than average more noticeable than they should be.

She didn’t look hot right now. She looked like a wet hen. He should remember that. He sent a meaningful message below his belt, but he had a feeling it was going to get lost in translation.

Mainly because his body never seemed to want to translate those kinds of messages. But then, what guy’s did?

Especially not when the only company said body had enjoyed for the past six months was that of his right hand.

“All right,” he said, “let’s go check out your disaster. I’ll sit this round out,” he told Jack.

Jack swept the deck of cards to the edge of the table and leaned back, shuffling expertly. “All right, kids, get ready to lose your hard-earned money.”

“Sorry,” Sadie said, as they walked out of the room. “Obviously I’m interrupting.”

“It’s not a big deal. It’s a thing that happens a lot. Poker. I’m not going to miss one game. And the sad fact is, Jack’s right. We’re all going to lose our hard-earned money to him. And he’ll continue the grand tradition of having non...hard-earned money.”

“I bet there’s a story there,” she said.

“Isn’t there always?” he asked.

She nodded. “Yeah, in my experience, there is. Speaking of—” she pushed the front door open and he followed her onto the porch “—what’s Connor’s story?” The end of the sentence was hushed.

He closed the door, feeling a little uncomfortable having a stranger digging for information. Mainly because he was so used to family junk staying in the family. Because it was still ingrained in him. To keep the exterior looking shiny, no matter how bad the inside was.

But Connor’s deal wasn’t really a secret. A cursory visit to Copper Ridge’s cemetery would tell his story in full.

“I don’t know if you remember Jessie Collins.”

“Vaguely. I might. Did she work at the Crow’s Nest?”

“I think so,” he said, trying not to picture his sister-in-law too clearly. Because it was too sad, even for him.

“Well, she was Jessie Garrett for about eight years. But, uh...she was killed in an accident.”

It was a night Eli would rather forget. He could remember the scene clearly. A dark two-lane highway, and a car wrapped around a tree. He’d known it was too late for whoever was inside. That it had been from the moment of impact. He’d seen too many accidents like that, and not enough miracles.

The car had been so messed up he hadn’t recognized the make or model. Hadn’t realized it was Jessie’s until one of the volunteer firefighters, who’d been first on the scene, had come charging back from the car yelling at him not to come closer.

They’d been trying to spare him because of who it was. But in the end, he’d looked. Because he had to be sure.

And then he’d been the one to officially notify his brother. And nothing in all of his life, in all of his training, had prepared him to stand on the front porch in his uniform and tell his older brother that his beautiful wife wasn’t coming home. Not that night, not any night after.

Damn trees. Damn road. Two people they’d loved lost that way.

Though in their dad’s case, he’d been at clear fault. Alcohol had caused his crash. Jessie had probably swerved to miss a deer, but they’d never know for sure.

“Oh,” Sadie said, her voice muted.

“So he comes by his attitude honestly,” Eli said, walking down the stairs to the driveway. “You want to ride in the patrol car?”

She looked at him, a brow raised. “It’s a short walk. Anyway, I don’t want to have any flashbacks.”

“Emotionally traumatized?”

“Completely.”

“Good. I probably kept your ass out of trouble.”

“Ugh,” she said. “Do not act like you did me any favors. What helped was getting the hell out of this town.”

“Is that what helped?”

“Yeah. There’s not enough options here. And there’s way too much free time. I badly needed to escape.”

“So why are you back?”

She sighed loudly. “Can I get away with repeating what I told you earlier?”

“No.”

“Well, fine. That is just a damn good question.” She took a big step and her foot landed in a pile of sticks that crunched loudly beneath her boot, before she shifted, her other foot making contact with soft dirt as she continued on toward the Catalog House.

“And you don’t have the answer?”

“You know...you have to live somewhere. And I’ve had a hard time finding a place that didn’t...suck. So I’m back here. Because—” she turned partway and offered him a shrug and a sheepish smile, the setting sun igniting a pink halo around her pale hair “—well, I am. And currently, all I’ve achieved is drowned-rat status.”

“Don’t go near the barn. Connor has rat traps.”

“And cats, I hear,” she said, tromping through the tree line and into the driveway of her...his...house. He followed, frowning involuntarily as he caught a glimpse of the bare flower beds. Sure, all that had been in them before was overgrown weeds, but she had them completely stripped now.

“Those are the rat traps I was talking about.”

“Don’t talk about cats that way in front of Toby. He’s sensitive.”

“He’s probably been talking to you about his feelings too much.”

“Was that a therapist joke?” she asked, moving ahead of him and up the stairs to open the front door.

“Yeah, it was. Excuse me, I’m out of practice with jokes.”

“Obviously.”

Her cat was there, on the kitchen table, looking at him pointedly. As if he sensed that Eli had absolutely no use for him, and he was greatly offended by it. Except Eli knew that wasn’t it because it was a cat, and cats had no higher consciousness, as evidenced by their reaction to string.

He stared back at the cat.

“He is unimpressed with you,” she said.

“The feeling is mutual. Now hang on a second while I try to figure out where the water shutoff is.”

“That would be helpful,” she said. “Water shutoff valves would be helpful.”

“Connor should have left you a list of that stuff. Where it all is. Fuse boxes and water mains. Though I’m betting he doesn’t even know where it is here.”

“How long has it been since anyone’s lived here?”

“A couple of years. An older lady rented it for about ten years, until she died.”

“This place is kind of full of sad history,” Sadie said.

“Yeah. Welcome to the Garrett Ranch, where the motto is, if it doesn’t kill you...just wait.”

“That is distasteful. I’m sure.”

“Completely, but also the story of our lives. Now, I’m willing to bet your shutoff is somewhere inconvenient, like...maybe the shed outside?”

“I haven’t looked.”

“All right, come on. If we find it, I can show you how to shut it off.”

“Maybe I know how to shut it off,” she said, following him back out the door and down the stairs. “Maybe I’m a water-valve expert.”

“But you aren’t,” he said, opening the door to the shed.

“Fine. I’m not. But I usually have nearby landlords who...do this for me. Which is sort of what’s happening now, except you’re involving me. Although, I have to say, I have never had a pipe just...explode all over me before. Not a euphemism.”

“How could that be...?”

Her eyes widened and she looked at him meaningfully. “Pipes...burst...liquid all over the... Oh, wow. Think about it. Please don’t make me say it. And I’m going to stop talking now. Please shut my water off.”

Suddenly, he got it. Heat shot from his face down to his groin. This was what happened when he spent six—okay, honestly, it was closer to seven—months without sex. His mind was completely void of anything that went beyond boobs and the innuendo that had just popped up. So to speak. It was enough to...well, as she’d put it, explode his pipe.

He did not have time for this. He didn’t have the patience for it, either.

“Fine,” he growled, stalking to the pipe that was sticking out of the ground in the back of the old building, wrapped in a thick swath of insulation. He reached down and pushed the valve up. “So now your water’s off. Direct me to your flood and I can see if there’s a quick fix that won’t require you to go without water all night.”

“It’s in the upstairs bathroom. So...back to the house. And I hope you’re enjoying this tour of...things that are not finished in the yard,” she said, leading them both back to the house.

“What are you doing with the flower bed?” he asked, looking at the bare dirt.

“I don’t know... Something. I was hoping someone could tell me which plants you...plant here this time of year. I don’t know anything about flowers or grass or... I’m going to do some investigating tomorrow.”

“Haven’t you planted flowers before?”

She shrugged. “There’s never been any point. I leave before anything grows. Or...when I was in San Diego I had an apartment and I had, like, a little pineapple plant in a pot. But some asshole stole it off the balcony. So I figured unless I wanted chains on my potted plants I’d just forget it. This is nice. I don’t have to chain things to the porch.” She opened the front door and walked in, then paused at the base of the stairs. “Up that way. The one off the master bedroom.”

He sighed and walked upward, toward his watery doom. Or something like that.

He could hear her following behind, her footsteps softer and off rhythm to his own.

He walked into the bedroom and saw a few damp footprints on the wood floor, then he looked into the bathroom, where there was a sizable puddle by the sink.

He sighed heavily and got down on his knees, the water seeping through his uniform pants, then he opened the cabinet doors. “What the...hell?”

“I had to improvise,” she said, her voice small.

He leaned in and examined the makeshift stopper she’d wrapped around the pipes. A shirt, a pair of sweatpants and...a black lace bra winding it all together.

“I was about to get in the shower, so I was already naked, and then there was water and so I had to stop it, and then I had to...tie it off. With something. I think that bra is toast.”

He cleared his throat. “Probably.” He reached out and started unwinding the bra, and tried not to think about how this was the first time he’d touched a woman’s underwear in seven—okay, maybe it was more like eight—months.

It was Sadie Miller’s bra. He should focus on that. On the fact that he remembered what a gangly, hissing little miscreant she’d been back when she was a teenager. All long limbs and blond shaggy hair, smelling like booze and cigarette smoke as she kicked at him while he’d tried to put her in handcuffs without breaking her slender wrists.

Sadie Miller’s bra should hold no interest for him. And neither should her breasts. Or her innuendos.

* * *

ELI UNWOUND THE STRAP a little bit more and the rest sprang free, spraying his face with water.

Sadie bit her fist to keep from whimpering as she watched Eli Garrett, on his hands and knees, fiddling with her bra. She was so mortified she wanted to flush herself down the toilet. It would be preferable to this nightmare.

She was just one giant explosion of embarrassment after the other tonight. The whole pipe euphemism? What was her problem? Why did she say things like that around him? Good gravy.

She was good at talking to people. She did it for a living. Spoke with calm authority and with self-control, and with carefully chosen words.

And here she was pointing out every innuendo and dying a million tiny deaths—not in the good French way—like some extra awkward high school geek she’d never been.

What was it about Eli that caused regression? It was a mystery to her. He made her feel flaily. And kind of...horny. And that was just stupid. Cracking lady-wood over a cop said nothing good about her deep emotional issues. She was a therapist. She really should have a better handle on this.

Though she wasn’t really a therapist at the moment. She was a bed-and-breakfast owner who was sinking her life savings into a place with leaky pipes, populated by grumpy, muscular men. Who said she didn’t make good life choices?

He unwound all of her clothing—thank God she hadn’t used her panties. She was just really, really thankful. Then he stood up, the sodden garments in his very large hand, his dark brows drawn together. “This isn’t a quick fix. You will need a plumber. Which my brother will pay for.”

“He said he wasn’t sure where all that fell in the agreement.” She reached out and took the ball of clothes, water dripping onto the floor.

“But I am,” he said, his voice hard. “It’s BS to act like he won’t pay for a burst pipe. Obviously that had nothing to do with your improvements. My brother is just being a lame landlord. Trust me, he’s not doing it on purpose. He’s just...nonfunctional right now.”

Sadie’s heart squeezed tight. “I’m sorry about his wife. I... If he ever needs to talk...”

“He would rather shove barbed wire under his fingernails. And I’m being literal.”

“Okay, then, so maybe vouchers for my services wouldn’t go over well in exchange for this debacle.”

“Connor isn’t a talker,” Eli said.

“Well, big surprise,” she retorted, dumping the wet clothes into the sink and walking out of the space that really was way too small to be sharing with a man of his stature.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It just seems like it runs in the family, that’s all.”

“Meaning?” he asked.

“You’re a little uptight,” she said, walking near the bed and feeling a sudden surge of heat and self-consciousness. Dear Lord, it was like she wasn’t even an adult anymore. Internally jittering because she was standing near both a man and a bed and they were alone.

“If by uptight you mean responsible for a shit-ton of stuff, sure,” he bit out, “I’m uptight. Do you need water?”

“I have some,” she said. “All over my floor.”

“That isn’t what I meant,” he said, his civility clearly almost at an end. “You’re going to need...coffee in the morning at least, I assume, and you need to shower.”

She lifted a shoulder. “It wouldn’t hurt.”

“Either Connor will get his ass in gear and try to fix this tomorrow, or we’ll want to call out a plumber. Either way you don’t have water tonight, because the main has to stay shut off since the pipes are so old. And it means you don’t have water until midmorning tomorrow. So, would you like to come to my place and shower and get a couple gallons of water?”

She blinked. “I...uh...”

“It’s a simple question.”

“I just didn’t expect you to extend me hospitality,” she said.

“I’m not a complete asshole.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“You say that like you don’t believe me.”

She shrugged. “I don’t know, Eli, but whenever you’re around I get a tension headache. Or I end up in handcuffs. So, suffice it to say, I’m not entirely convinced that you aren’t a total asshole. Sorry.”

And she also wasn’t convinced she wanted to go to his house and get naked when he was in a nearby room. And run her hands all over her wet, slick skin, which would inevitably feel really good. And with his image so very large in her mind...

Yeah, well, again, she regressed in the company of this man. What grown woman worried about this stuff? It was...prurient. And juvenile. And things.

She needed both a shower and some water and the man was offering. So she should stop sweating, and stop insulting him, and just go with it.

“That would be great, actually,” she said. “And I’m sorry about the asshole thing.”

He put his hands on his lean hips and she took a moment to admire him. His uniform conformed to every muscle in his body; the tan shirt and dark brown tie, along with the gold-star-shaped badge honest-to-coffee did things to her insides that were unseemly.

Obviously she needed to buy batteries for her long-neglected vibrator. Dammit, how sad was it that her vibrator was neglected. A sex life, sure. People had crap to do. Who had time to go around hooking up and sweating and making walks of shame? She certainly didn’t.

But she barely took the time to orgasm anymore. And when she did, she had to kick Toby out of the room, because it was awkward, and then it sort of felt like she was announcing her masturbatory intentions to her cat, which felt even weirder. There was something unspeakably sad about the whole thing.

But that was the reason Eli’s presence had her so shaken. That was her story, and she was sticking to it.

“Whatever,” he said. “Come with me.”

He certainly didn’t make a big song and dance about graciousness. He almost seemed burdened by inescapable chivalry, which was sort of hilarious, or would be if she wasn’t so busy marinating in her embarrassment.

“Let me get some clothes,” she said. “You can wait downstairs.” Because she would probably fizzle into an ash ball and blow away in the wind if he watched her pull a new bra out of a drawer.

“Fine,” he said, walking out of the bedroom and swinging the door partway closed. She waited until she heard his footsteps on the stairs before rummaging for new clothes. She pulled out a long-sleeved thermal shirt and a pair of black yoga pants, and a new bra and panties. And then she got a duffel bag to conceal it all in.

She stuffed the clothes inside and walked downstairs to where Eli was waiting, standing there staring at Toby, who was still on the table, looking defiant.

“I’m ready,” she said. “Do you have jugs at your place?”

“Yes,” he said. “We always save a bunch for target practice, so that won’t be a problem.”

Holy hell, she really wasn’t in San Diego anymore. She was in Oregon, no question at all. “I should have guessed.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, holding the door for her.

“Nothing. I just forgot the kinds of things you good ol’ boys get up to in your spare time. I’ve been living in a city, if you recall.”

“You’ve been gone for how long?” he asked, walking down the front porch steps. She followed him closely, clutching her bag to her chest. Looking at his dark brown pants, which seemed to be giving his butt a hug while shouting, “Look at it! Look at it!”

“Ten years.”

“And where have you been in those ten years?”

“Polite conversation?” she asked.

“Why don’t we try it?”

“I’m game if you are. Okay, I went to three different schools in four years. I started in Tampa, because, parties and the beach. Which is nothing like the beach here. Turns out, I hate college parties and breathing in Florida is like inhaling soup. So I lasted a year there. I basically toured the South.” She increased her pace to keep up with Eli’s long strides, following him down the darkened driveway. He pulled a flashlight off his belt and used it to light up the bark-laden ground. “Louisiana, North Carolina, and after I graduated I went to Texas, which you really don’t want to mess with, just ask the locals.”

“After that you went to California?” he asked.

“Nope. After that there was New York, Chicago and Branson.”

“Branson?”

“Missouri. It’s Las Vegas for families, Eli. Incidentally, I also lived in Vegas, but not for long. Then I went to the Bay Area and quickly discovered I couldn’t afford to live there unless I wanted to donate a kidney to science, and then I went to San Diego. And now I’m back...here.”

He stopped walking, the flashlight beam still directed at the ground. “I can’t imagine picking up and moving that much.”

“No?”

“I’ve got too much to pack up and bring with me. You know, Connor, Kate, all their stuff. The cows. Plus, there’s this land. Our family land.”

“Yeah, well, it’s just me and Toby. We travel light.”

He started walking again, continuing on straight down the drive. “I’ll regret asking this, because...I shouldn’t care. But what the hell did you expect to find moving from place to place?”

She lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know. Everywhere is so different. I managed to trick myself into thinking that I’d find a place that made me different. And to a degree, it’s true. Every place changes you a little. When I was doing therapy, I was a crisis counselor, so I always dealt with people going through the worst things possible. Every patient I spoke to changed me in some way. Every home I lived in, every restaurant I ate at... But...the one thing I’ve never done is go back to a place. I’ve only ever gone somewhere new. I thought I would see what it was like.”

“And?”

“No magic yet. But I do think I’ve finally realized that it doesn’t really matter where I live. I’m not going to find a perfect place that makes me perfect. So I figured I’d come back here and wrestle demons.”

“What kind of demons are you wrestling?” he asked.

It was said drily. Insincere. And yet she found she wanted to answer. She found she wanted to talk to him about the demon she’d met head-on the night he’d arrested her. The night she’d nearly been killed.

She didn’t blame him for that. Not really. She knew dimly that some people might. But she’d never put her father’s actions onto Eli Garrett’s shoulders. Because it had started long before then. Because she had a feeling that night was inevitable. Regardless of what date it fell on, regardless of what triggered it.

And it had been the reason she’d gotten into her car and driven away. And never once looked back. Until now.

“This way,” Eli said, pointing his light toward a cluster of pine trees off to the left. “We can cut through here. It’s faster.”

She followed him through the trees and into a clearing. There was a house up the hill, surrounded by trees, the porch light on as if someone inside the two-story wooden cabin was waiting for them. Wide steps led up to a wraparound deck with a glass door, and large windows dominated the front of the place, making the most of the location, set deep into the trees and far away from any roads.

“No wonder you’ve never left,” she said.

“Well,” he said, “not much point when you have a house ready and waiting for you, is there?”

“Sure there is,” she said. “If my parents had given me their house I still would have run. Happily for me, they never offered. I think the house ended up with the bank when they went to Coos Bay.” She felt like the statement was a little more revealing than she might have liked, but oh well.

“Well,” he said, obviously uncomfortable. And obviously unwilling to say more, even though the well held a wealth of meaning. He was really, at his heart, a decent man, even if he was reluctant in his decency.

“Well,” she said, matching his tone, “my parents’ house was essentially the crap cherry on top of a landfill, so for that reason alone I wouldn’t want it. Thank you for being too nice to say that.” She hopped over a tire rut that was filled with muddy water and continued following him down the road.

“I wasn’t thinking it.”

“Bull, and ten points if you can guess the word that follows.”

“I wasn’t, Sadie. I’ve been to a lot of houses like that. I’ve seen a lot of things. People have hard circumstances. And I don’t like to think of their living situations that way.”

“Why not?” she asked. “They do. Trust me. I mean...we do. We know.”

“I don’t judge people based on where they live.”

“Is that honestly how you feel? Or are you just throwing out some...good-guy line?” she asked, as they came to the end of the road, where it narrowed and led up to his house.

“Honestly?” he asked, turning to face her. “I care about this place. I care about Copper Ridge. And I care about Logan County. This is my home. And the people here are my responsibility. It’s not my job to look down my nose at anyone. It’s my job to protect the people here.” He continued walking, turning away from her again, his broad back filling her vision.

Her heart jammed up against her sternum. Anger mixed with a strange kind of longing that she didn’t want to apply to him. That she didn’t want to apply to anything or anyone, really.

“And you do a damn fine job, I’m sure,” she said, following him up the steps and waiting for him to unlock his door. The man locked his door. In Copper Ridge. Dear Lord.

“I know,” he said. “I haven’t exactly been hanging out for the past ten years so my first arrest could tell me that, but now that you have, it’s sort of nice and circular. I could use it for my campaign.”

“Hold up,” she said. “Campaign?”

“Yes. I’m running for sheriff.” He bit the words out as if sharing them with her was a monumental task.

“Oh, really?” she said, eyes widening. She couldn’t help but be...intrigued by that. Maybe intrigued was the right word. Because Eli Garrett seemed to be a few things to her, and none of them were overly diplomatic. And it seemed to her, not that she was an expert, that a person running for any sort of elected position needed to behave, at least some of the time, like he didn’t have a stick lodged in his rear.

But that was just her take on it.

“Yes,” he said. “Really.”

“Well, color me intrigued. What all does this entail?”

“Right now? I was the top finisher in the primary, and the final election is in November. My lead was pretty strong, but I still need to keep campaigning. Make more signs. I have a few months to prepare for a community Q & A,” he said, pushing the door open. “This is the house.” He swept his hand in a broad gesture across the living space. It was open, and neat, very different from his brother’s place, which had an air of sad neglect about it, every bit of dust and dirt a fingerprint of grief. Eli’s home had no fingerprints at all. Which, in and of itself, she found fascinating.

“Wow. Connor should hire you,” she said.

“Because I’m not at all busy,” he said. “I mean, obviously I’m not. I’m here getting water for you and letting you use my shower.”

“Because you care for the members of the community,” she said. “Which I am, at this moment, grateful for. Much more so than that time you cared for the community by handcuffing me and putting me in the back of your patrol car.”

“That seems to come up a lot.”

“It’s our cute meet, meet cute, whatever they call it. It’s part of our story,” she said, watching the tension between his brows intensify with each word. There was no doubt, she disturbed him. And he was growing even more disturbed having her in his house.

“Right. So, the bathroom is upstairs. Feel free to take as long as you need in the shower. I’ll get the water ready for you to take back.”

She cleared her throat, annoyed with herself for finding sincerity so hard. She was a basket case. Why anyone took her advice on anything was a mystery to her, particularly when she acted like this. “Thank you. Honestly. I know that I’ve sort of crashed into your life sans finesse here, and I appreciate you...well, I’m glad you haven’t found a reason to arrest me again and I’m very grateful for the chance to shower.”

He nodded slowly. “You’re welcome.”

“I’m going to go and...shower now.” And she was going to hope that she could do it without thinking too much about his proximity. Or without thinking about him at all. Yes, not thinking about Eli Garrett at all—in the shower or out—would be the ideal thing.

If only she could manage it.

CHAPTER FIVE

ELI GRITTED HIS TEETH and hunched his shoulders, trying to ignore the sound of the running water. Trying to ignore any and all thoughts of Sadie in the shower.

It was hard, no pun intended, because there hadn’t been a woman in his house, in his shower, in...possibly ever. It had been so long since he’d had an actual relationship, he couldn’t remember. Longer still since a relationship had mattered, since every actual girlfriend he’d had sort of faded into the distant past like a soft hazy dream.

The kind he had no desire to revisit. Because girlfriends were a whole level of responsibility he didn’t want or need. At this point, with Kate still unsettled and Connor deep in his grief, Eli couldn’t fathom taking on much more.

Which is why it’s obviously the best time to increase your workload.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath, before dropping his hands back to his sides and stalking to the fridge. He was going to drink a beer. And he wasn’t even going to bother to go back for the poker game. They’d all do fine without him.

He pulled a cold bottle out from the back and popped the top off with the magnet opener he kept stuck to the freezer.

Yeah, it was a terrible time to take on more. Connor needed help on the ranch, and he always would. It was their legacy, and Eli had to take part in it. Then there was the emotional aspect of dealing with his family.

On top of that, Sadie being in residence was adding another layer to his to-do list that he did not need. Because for all Connor said he was going to handle it, here Eli was, freaking handling it.

Not a huge surprise and not much he could do about it, either. Five years. Five years of Sadie and foibles that would undoubtedly be similar in nature to this. Sometimes he wondered if he’d been an ax murderer in a past life and he was destined to spend this one atoning.

But then he remembered reincarnation was bullshit and took another drink of his beer.

And reincarnation was not the only thing that was bullshit. That there was a naked, wet woman in his house whom he could not and would not touch was also bullshit.

He’d had a permanent frown etched into his face since Sadie had shown up. He didn’t even feel like trying to fix his attitude. It was just one more thing to add to his list of things to worry about. One more thing that he had to add to an increasing, unwieldy pile of Things For Eli to Manage.

Things he knew without a doubt wouldn’t get taken care of if he didn’t do it. Because that was life. It was his life.

Which he was normally not so bitter about. But something about the addition of a woman whom he wasn’t allowed to touch, a woman he shouldn’t even want to touch, naked in his house was like jamming an injured thumb into the center of a lemon. Grabbing two empty gallon jugs from under the sink, he began to fill them for the woman he was trying not to picture naked.

He heard soft footsteps on the stairs and turned to see bare feet come into view. Bare feet with shocking pink nails. Followed by baggy black pants and a very soft-looking shirt, molded to breasts that he should not stare at—but did anyway—and then the rest of Sadie appeared.

Her blond hair was wet and piled on top of her head, tendrils falling down the sides of her face, her cheeks flushed from the hot water. Her makeup was gone. Lashes that had looked dark and heavy were now spiky and pale.

She looked damp and warm and he had no business wondering about her body temperature, or her level of dryness.

“Thank you,” she said, her feet hitting the floor. She walked to the kitchen counter and slung her bag, and her shoes, onto the granite surface. “I feel more like a human and less like a mole person, so that’s always good.” She was smiling now, effortless, friendly.

As if she hadn’t been pissy and sulky with him only a few minutes ago. As if they had no history between them whatsoever.

Fine, it didn’t matter to him. She was just a problem to check off his list. He was not going to waste time overthinking her. He didn’t have the time to waste.

“Shoes,” he said, the muscles in his back tensing from his belt line to his shoulders.

“What?”

“Take your shoes off my counter, please.”

“Sorry,” she said, pulling them from the surface that would now have to be disinfected.

“Yep,” he said. “I’ll grab your jugs for you.”

Her blue eyes rounded. “Oh, really?”

“What?”

“You’re going to...grab my jugs for me... I don’t... You’ve had sex before, right?”

Heat assaulted him, starting in his face and burning a line straight down his chest to his cock. “Yes. What does that have to do with anything?”

“You seem to be operating on a frequency wherein sexual innuendo doesn’t exist.”

Jugs. Suddenly an image of him putting his hands over her breasts and, well...grabbing them...flashed through his mind. “Because I’m not a fourteen-year-old boy,” he shot back. “And I don’t call women’s breasts jugs.” He said the last part through gritted teeth, trying to figure out how in the hell he’d gotten into a conversation about breasts with the woman whose breasts had been tormenting him from the moment she’d crashed back into town like a blonde tornado.

“Well, that’s mature of you. I don’t typically call them jugs, either. I prefer ‘the girls’ or ‘sweater bunnies,’ but even I went there.”

He about choked on the sip of beer he was trying to take. “Don’t you have work to do back at your place?”

“Nothing pressing,” she said.

He gritted his teeth. “Do you want a beer?” He didn’t want her to stay for a beer. Why was he so compulsively appropriate? Especially when she was standing there talking about sweater bunnies.

“Thank you,” she said, “that would be good.”

He laughed, even though he found nothing about any of this funny, and turned back to the fridge, tugging another bottle out, and opening it before sliding it across the counter toward her.

In spite of himself, he found he was curious about her plans for the Catalog House. Because maybe if he knew about the changes, they wouldn’t feel quite so invasive. A long shot, but worth a try.

And anything was better than talking about her breasts.

“What’s next on your list for the place?” he asked.

“I have to make the downstairs back bedroom livable. That’s going to be my room. It’s small, and part of an addition. So it’s a little damp and chilly, but with caulking and some oil heaters I won’t die. And since we’re headed into summer it won’t be bad at all. Then obviously I need to make sure the plumbing is better than it is. Flower beds are a priority, and linens and blinds. And after that, barring menu creation, I should be good to start advertising and getting special events scheduled.”

“Wait...special events?”

“Yes! I thought it would be fun. Ranch tours. Picnics. And I’m thinking on Independence Day a community party would be great.”

“People. Here?”

“Yes, people. I’m opening a bed-and-breakfast, for people and not, despite what you may have thought, cats. And if I want to attract people, it seems like bringing visibility to the place is the way to do it.”

“What’s the point of attracting locals?”

“Uh, locals go away on romantic weekend getaways to local places. And also, their family members come and visit. And people from surrounding areas might come to the parties and think of me. And honestly, maybe they’ll think of Garrett specifically when they go to buy beef.”

“How do you know about what we do on the ranch?”

“I Googled it. Because I am interested in helping you. And me. It’s all...symbiotic helpfulness. And what’s wrong with that?”

He felt like he was losing control. Like she had come along, grabbed his control and was running around holding it over her head, laughing maniacally as he tried to reclaim it.

“What’s wrong with that is you’re proposing to turn this place—my place—into a fun fair. We live here. We work here. This isn’t a carnival.”

“I never said it was! But what’s wrong with a few special events? It’s not like I have to take over the barns. I mean, I would, but I can keep it contained.”

“Have you run any of this past Connor?”

She shrugged. “Not...specifically, but he did agree to let me bring a certain amount of the public onto the property when I initially sent over my business plan, so I didn’t see why this would be a problem.”

“You didn’t see why it would be a problem?” he asked.

“No. I didn’t.” She took a drink of her beer. “I’m running a business, and it benefits Connor, benefits Kate and you. I have a five-year lease agreement, and it seems to me that we should all be into ideas that will make things more successful. Right?”

“Not ideas that include my ranch crawling with a bunch of random people. I don’t like that kind of disorder.”

“You are the singularly most frustrating, uptight, obtuse... No one makes me mad, Eli. No one. I am not an angry person. I like to smile. And every time I’m around you, no matter how cheerful I determine to be, I end up irritated.”

“That’s funny, Sadie, because I feel like I end up irritated every time I’m around you.”

“I just think your irritation is contagious,” she said.

“Maybe you’re so irritating you irritate yourself.”

“Oh! Bah! What are you, twelve?”

“I thought you were the one acting like an adolescent boy, not me.”

“No, I am the one acting like I have a sense of humor. Because I do. And you,” she said, drawing her beer against her chest, “are ridiculous. And humorless.”

“If you think that barb is going to wound me, you obviously don’t know me very well.”

“I don’t know you very well. And I’m content with that. I think I will spend the next five years not knowing you very well.” She grabbed her shoes from the stool and plopped onto it, bending over and fidgeting while she put them on her feet. She straightened, a clump of wet hair falling out of her bun. “I’m going to go now. And I’m taking the beer. And the water. Thank you. Again. I’ll try not to bother you anymore.”

He snorted. “Good luck.”

“Oh, I don’t need it. I don’t mind bothering you. You are clearly the one who is bothered by being bothered. So...you’re the one who needs the luck, not me.”

She stood up, collected her bag and managed to grab the water jugs as well, then turned on her heel and stormed out toward the entryway, out the front door, slamming it shut with her foot and rattling the windows.

She had no right to be angry. He was the one who had every righteous reason to be pissed. She was a tenant, not a part owner. She had no right to be making decisions that affected his life and his business.

Tomorrow, he was going to talk to Connor about her. And very definitive boundaries. After he was done with work anyway. He groaned and shoved his beer back. It was officially getting too late for him to stay up and drink. Sadie Miller had ruined his entire evening, and now he was going to have to go shower in a shower still wet with water that had been on her body. And then he was going to have to sleep with visions of sweater bunnies and strangers doing the hoedown on his porch dancing in his head.

Which meant he was better served getting on the computer and working on campaign plans. At least planning would help make him feel like he had some control.

Yes, tomorrow, he would talk to Connor about what needed to be done.

And tonight? Tonight he would just have to deal with his annoyance. At least annoyance was better than sexual frustration.

* * *

ELI TOOK A SIP of his coffee and walked out of Copper Ridge’s coffee shop, The Grind, and onto the main street. Connor gave him endless grief about the fact that he cut his coffee with steamed milk. And that he ordered lattes. But he wasn’t a fan of the black sludge his brother poured down his throat all day.

Eli needed caffeine, and he would get it in the way he found most palatable, even if his older brother called it Bitch Coffee.

Besides, he needed his coffee extra bad today because of his encounter with Sadie last night.

He’d been so annoyed that he’d barely been able to sleep, thanks to the images of his property being overrun with civilians. And he knew that it shouldn’t bother him. But he also knew that if it really did happen, he would be putting caution tape all around his portion of the property and shouting, “Get off my lawn!” to anyone who got too close.

Old habits died hard, and things like that.

Anyway, that kind of behavior wouldn’t be good for his campaign. And he had to think about that kind of thing now.

He let out a breath and headed toward the crosswalk. He waited for the signal to change, then started to cross, heading back toward his patrol car. A breeze came in off the waves. Salt, brine and moisture filled his lungs.

He needed to get his head on straight and stop worrying about Sadie. Though if there was a magic way for him to just stop worrying he would have found it a long time ago. But it seemed like the day his mother had walked out the door, she’d taken his stability and shoved a knot of anxiety straight into his chest that he’d never been able to get rid of.

He put his uniform on every morning and took it off at night, and the worry didn’t go on and off with it. It was in him. Part of him. He’d more or less accepted it. And accepted that the only way to really deal with it was to make sure things were taken care of.

“Deputy Garrett!”

He looked to his left and saw Lydia Carpenter signaling him. He really didn’t have time to field any issues from the Chamber of Commerce today. Lydia always had something to talk to him about. From obtaining proper licensing for an event, to dealing with complaints from home owners about “noise pollution” during one of her carefully planned summer concerts.

Everything in him screamed, Not my problem, but on the outside he just smiled and nodded. Because, most especially, when someone was hoping to gain the good favor of the voting public, one had to be pleasant.

“Ms. Carpenter,” he said, “nice to see you. I’m on patrol so this has to be quick.”

“Oh, fine, fine, fine,” she said, tucking a strand of dark hair behind her ear, spitting the words out rapid-fire. “It will be. I just wanted to tell you I had a chance to meet with Sadie Miller today.”

“You what?” he asked.

“Sadie came by the Chamber with a list of ideas for community events hosted on the ranch.”

“She did what?” he asked, the words coming out a bit terse.

Lydia didn’t shrink under his terseness. She didn’t react at all. Her petite frame was unshaken, her smile firmly in place. She was young to be in the position she was in, possibly a bit younger than he was. And when he thought about it, he had to concede that the woman must be almost entirely composed of efficiency and stubbornness to achieve what she had, even in a town so small.

Her smile broadened, which he would have thought was impossible. And he had to admit that she was actually very pretty. But it didn’t make this less annoying.

“She stopped by and we had a lovely chat, Eli.” Suddenly he was Eli and not Deputy Garrett. “Her ideas for the Independence Day community barbecue are so good. She’s talking about canvassing all of Logan County with flyers. I suggested we get it listed on the nightly news Community Chalkboard and on the Chamber’s website. I think it’s the kind of thing that could really benefit Copper Ridge. The coastal fireworks on the Fourth are already such a big draw, adding events that extend tourists’ stays will only be good for everyone.”

He was afraid, honest to God, that a blood vessel in his eye was going to burst. Sadie’d circumvented him and Connor, and now he was effectively roped around the balls by the president of the Chamber of Commerce.

If he tugged too far the other way, he could find himself neutered. And if not anything half that dramatic, he could at least find himself out of the running for sheriff.