Chapter 1
Chapter One
EDEN
The sun was shining brightly up above, but autumn had officially fallen on Hope Valley, making the temperatures mild and pleasant, comfortable enough to spend the whole day working outside to turn over my flower beds for the new season.
I’d spent the first half of the day at the garden store, learning all the plants that were best for the colder months coming up.
Thanks to the kindly old man who worked there and his infinite knowledge, I now had trays and trays of camellias to plant so my yard would still have pops of color during the winter.
I never had a yard growing up, and I’d always dreamed about one day finding myself a little house of my own with a big yard I could spend hours and hours toiling away in.
Lucky for me, I’d found just that. My small two-bedroom cottage was not only adorable and perfect, something out of a storybook, but it sat on a large plot of land a way back from the road, giving me a huge front lawn to work in.
The backyard wasn’t bad either, fenced on both sides with the back open to the thick, lush woods behind my house.
It was a landscaper’s dream, and I turned out to have a pretty deft hand when it came to gardening.
In the past months I’d discovered that there was no peace on this earth like getting your hands dirty to create something beautiful. It was just one of the hundreds of reasons I’d come to love Hope Valley so damn much.
“Yoo-hoo! Hey there, neighbor!”
I looked over my shoulder to see Wynona crossing the street and heading in my direction, carrying what looked like a glass of lemonade in each hand.
Smiling brightly, I pulled the gardening gloves from my hands and rubbed my palms on the ratty jeans I wore while doing yard work. “Hey there, Wynona,” I greeted as I climbed to my feet.
Her face scrunched up like she’d just bitten into week-old pizza. “Oh God, please. Just Nona. No one calls me Wynona.”
“Why not?”
“Well, on account of I don’t like my name at all. I curse the day my mama fell in love with those damn Judd singers. Why couldn’t she have loved Fleetwood Mac or something? I’d prefer the name Stevie over Wynona any day. Plus, Fleetwood’s music is hands down far more superior.”
I let out a soft giggle at her rambling. “I can’t disagree with you there, but if it’s any consolation, I think your name’s pretty.”
“Thanks. You’re sweet.”
“So how are you?”
Nona was nice and had taken a liking to me as soon as I moved onto Rosewood Lane three and a half months ago. With our different schedules, we hadn’t had a chance to sit down and really get to know each other, but I liked what I knew so far.
She was roughly around my age, a mother of two, one twelve-year-old boy and a fourteen-year-old girl, and had—according to her—finally put her worthless waste-of-space husband out before filing for divorce a few months ago.
She was a sweet, petite redhead a few inches taller than me with a tiny waist and an abundance of boobs and booty.
She was like a shorter, rounder version of the women Lincoln brought home, and I probably would have disliked her on principle alone if she hadn’t been so damn sweet.
“I’m good, doll. Just saw you puttering around out here all day long and thought you might be thirsty. I brought you this.”
I grabbed the glass she extended and took a sip. I was right, it was lemonade, but with a little—okay, a lot—something extra.
“Gah!” I coughed violently as my esophagus caught fire. “What is that?”
She took the glass back and held it to her nose.
“Oh damn. Sorry, honey. That one’s mine.
” She quickly handed me the other one. “I’m the mother of two kids going through puberty, one of them being a boy.
Vodka’s a necessary part of life,” she said before slugging back a huge gulp as I burst into laughter.
“Thanks,” I said, taking a cautious sip of the second glass, discovering it wasn’t spiked and was actually really good. “I kinda have a one-track mind when it comes to gardening. I get in the zone and everything else tends to disappear, so I appreciate you looking out.”
“Girl, what are friends for?”
We moved to the stairs that led up to my covered wraparound porch and sat on the second step, looking out toward the shady tree-lined street as we drank and chatted.
“So, you’ve been here over three months now, and I think it’s high time I got the full skinny on you. Who is Eden Brenner?”
I turned to face her and asked, “What do you mean?” with a curious tilt of my head. “I’m just me. Nothing really special.”
“Nothing special, my inflated behind,” she scoffed. “A beauty like you comes waltzing into town and everyone’s all aflutter about the new girl.”
My cheeks heated as her flattering compliment warmed me from the inside out. I didn’t believe it for a minute. She was the beauty. I was a plain Jane through and through, but it was still nice to hear.
“Seriously, there’s nothing exciting. I work from home doing freelance editing on romance novels.
I grocery shop every Thursday evening because that’s when it’s the quietest. Sundays are designated for laundry and house cleaning, and I’m too nice to telemarketers and door-to-door salesmen, so I always get stuck talking to them for at least half an hour.
” That was all I was willing to give up.
If I let her in on the messed-up drama that was my family, she’d probably never speak to me again.
White trash didn’t live in pretty little cottages with huge, beautiful yards.
They lived in ratty trailers that stank of beer and stale cigarettes.
I’d left that Eden Brenner behind and created one worthy of this house and this town.
Her head fell back on a husky, attractive laugh. “So what you’re saying is you’re responsible and nice.”
“Well, when you put it like that…” I shrugged. “Makes me sound pretty great.”
She smiled brightly. “I was just thinking the same thing.”
The loud roar of a huge truck driving down Rosewood Lane pulled our attention to the street.
I’d know that sound anywhere. My entire body had spent the past three and a half months reacting to that deep rumble.
Every time Lincoln left or returned home, my skin tightened and my nipples pebbled in an embarrassing Pavlovian response to the sound.
I all but salivated whenever his truck growled up the lane.
“Mm-mm,” Nona hummed wantonly, drawing my gaze her way. “Now that’s one fine specimen right there.”
My focus shifted back to the big black truck just as it came to a stop right in front of my house.
The driver side door swung open and Lincoln hopped down with a natural grace that was born to him, a real-life wet dream in worn-in jeans and an olive-green thermal Henley.
He rounded his hood at a quick jog, and Nona and I both leaned sideways to get a better view.
We’d been too busy talking and laughing to notice that Mrs. Bea, the sweet elderly lady on the block, was trying to navigate her front walk with three grocery bags and her cane.
Lincoln divested her of the bags, then held out his arm so she could hook hers in the crook of his elbow.
Dear Lord! He helps elderly ladies carry in their groceries too? Could this guy get any more perfect?
“Hot damn,” Nona murmured. “Who’d have thought a big badass alpha such as him would be so damn chivalrous? Been living down the road from him for years now and the guy still surprises me.”
My head jerked in her direction. “Badass alpha?”
“Oh yeah. You didn’t know?”
“Know what?”
“Linc there owns his own private investigations and security firm. Opened it up when he left the Marines and moved here about ten years ago. He was a badass in times of war, and now he’s a badass who bosses around a whole bunch of other badasses.
Word is each and every one of them have these super secret badass skills, but no one really knows exactly what it is they do other than lumber around exuding their alpha-ness all over the damn place. ”
I looked back at Lincoln as he jogged down Mrs. Bea’s front walk to his truck. “Wow. That’s just… wow.”
“Yep. No other word to describe him and his men. Just a whole lotta wow.”
He was coming back around the truck when Nona’s voice grew louder. “Lookin’ good, Linc. And such a gentleman.”
Crap, crap, crap, crap, shit! He was coming over.
“Nona,” he said in a rich, deep voice, his sunglasses aimed right at us and his lips tilted in a small smirk. “Stirrin’ up trouble?”
My mouth went dry, my heart threatening to burst from my chest. The only saving grace was that I could blame the bright sunlight for the furious blush on my cheeks.
“Me?” she asked, faking offense. “Stir up trouble? Never.”
“Uh-huh.” He chuckled, and I might have had a spontaneous mini-orgasm.
“I’m just getting to know the new girl in the hood better. This is Eden Brenner. Eden, meet Lincoln Sheppard.”
“Eden.” The way my name rolled off his tongue sent a delicious shiver up my spine. “Pretty name. Nice to meet you, darlin’.”
I stared at the hand he’d offered to me with my lips parted. God, even his hand was sexy.
“Eden? Yo, Earth to Eden.”
At the sound of Nona’s voice, I was yanked out of my stupor. “Oh, uh… sorry.” I placed my hand in his and his long, thick, callused fingers engulfed mine completely. “Yeah, uh… it’s, um, nice to meet you too.”
My entire body quivered at his touch.
“Hope Valley treatin’ you well?”
“Oh, y-yeah. I mean, I love it here. Best place I’ve ever lived.”
“You lived a lot of places?”
Holy crap! I was having a conversation with Lincoln Sheppard. It was more exciting and nerve-racking than a chance meeting with a celebrity.
“Yeah. You could say that.”
His lips quirked, and it was just as gorgeous as his full-on smirk. I only wished I could see those jewel-green eyes. “Well, I’m glad you’re enjoyin’ it. I gotta get home, but it was good talkin’ with you ladies.”
“Y-yeah, uh, you too.”
He continued to stand on my front stoop, looking down at me with a bewildered grin. “I’ll be needin’ my hand back, darlin’.”
I hadn’t realized I was still holding it—embarrassingly tight—until he said that. “Oh! Shit. I’m sorry. So sorry.” I quickly dropped my hand, wishing the ground would open up and swallow me.
“It’s all good, buttercup. Don’t sweat it.”
He called me buttercup! The teenage girl in my head was squealing and dancing like a maniac, but I maintained my composure—as best I could, anyway—while he sauntered down my walkway and pulled himself up into his truck.
“Oh my god,” Nona whispered before singsonging, “Someone’s got a crush. Oh, girl! You’ve got damn good taste.”
“Shut up,” I mumbled under my breath, dropping my head into my hands. “On a scale from one to ten, how bad was that?”
When she didn’t answer right away, I lifted my head to find her making that familiar eek face. Her response wasn’t any more comforting. “Nothing you can’t come back from, doll. Don’t you worry.”
Son of a bitch.