Chapter 1
In pursuit of the perfect food selfie, Jamie arranged his dinner plate, investing more effort in its presentation than he did in preparing the dish of spaghetti. He was damn proud of the homemade pasta, crafted from scratch that he tossed with tomatoes and basil from his garden.
”Hmm.”
It still wasn”t quite right.
Pulling the plate across the butcher block kitchen island, he took advantage of a shaft of streaming sunlight and repositioned the shot.
Executing a chef”s kiss, he declared the setting ”Perfecto,” took a half dozen shots, and snickered, ”Take that, Robbie, you bougie fuck.”
His younger brother wasn”t an actual bougie fuck, but this didn”t stop him from condescendingly using the phrase because that”s what siblings living far apart did. They threw long-distance, rude snark bombs at each other.
Opening the family chat, he dropped the best of the spaghetti selfies into a message and added the supporting details.
The Hunter family had a dismal track record with shit like Facebooking and chatty messages about life. It was understandable. The public-facing drama he endured with Darlene and the shitstorm his ex-wife”s betrayal unleashed had impacted everyone. His folks weathered the worst of it by keeping their heads down. Not so much, though, his brother and sister. When the dust settled, he, Robbie, and Nora scattered far and wide.
These days, they kept in touch through group chat, essentially a photo montage of what everyone ate. Was it lame? Maybe, but at least they didn”t waste energy blowing false sunshine nonsense up each other”s shorts. Life wasn”t a cakewalk. Shit happened. Sometimes it wasn”t pretty. Leaving a social media breadcrumb trail of staged fakery was not their style.
On a whim, he looked up the nutrition facts for his homemade meal, knowing Mom would get a laugh out of his diligence, and added them to a second message.
Tossing the phone aside, he went back to eating dinner. First things first – more cheese was imperative. Reaching for the grater, he scraped the wedge of parmesan back and forth until there was an impressive mountain of shreds atop the pasta.
Reaching into the oven, he managed not to burn his fingers on the baking sheet when grabbing a thick slice of garlic toast.
Lastly, he poured a half glass of a cheap and cheerful Zinfandel. The enjoyable red wine paired well with spaghetti.
Holding a napkin in the palm of his hand, he balanced his dish on top with the garlic toast and utensils, picked up the wine glass, and marched past the dining table into the living room, where he placed everything on the coffee table.
He usually ate outside unless it was hot, like today. Lowering his big frame onto the carpet, he sat cross-legged with his back against the sofa and turned the TV on.
Unless it was Dr. Who or his favorite guilty pleasure, The Golden Girls, his viewing habits avoided the news and gravitated more to YouTube oddities such as live streams from the International Space Station or tourist walkabouts in Rome.
Without much consideration, the view from space won out. There was no sound, but the spectacular views were enough to keep him entertained.
”Everyone is good at something,” he chuckled aloud. ”I can hold a dish of spaghetti with one hand and twirl my pasta with the other.”
What it took some people a fork and spoon to achieve, he”d mastered with one hand. Same for chopsticks. There was always one smug asshole in every group asking for chopsticks at the Chinese food restaurant – that would be him.
Jamie plowed through dinner and let his mind wander through the day”s events.
He felt good about expanding the veterinary complex, but there were sobering consequences. More space meant more of everything, especially personnel.
Interviewing the candidates who survived Betty”s careful vetting was not his favorite thing, but he sucked it up and did his part. He had his fingers crossed on a young, highly motivated veterinarian with a background in equine care. Dr. Isaiah Newman would make an excellent addition to the veterinary staff.
His mind lingered for a few moments on the calendar. He liked staying busy—preferred it. But holy hellfire, he couldn”t remember a more hectic and chaotic time than now. Work dominated his life most of the time. Still, just this past week, he”d weathered another explosive wave of Family Justice happiness when Stephanie and Calder Dane welcomed a second child on the same day he quietly celebrated his forty-second birthday.
Because that wasn”t enough, he also survived a staggeringly uncomfortable social event at Whiskey Pete”s that included making a fool of himself at karaoke.
When his life blew up and every friend he thought he had turned into a backstabbing fuck, Jamie concluded he didn”t need any of it. For years, he dragged his feet when it came to a life outside of work. Letting people in was not something he was good at. So, how the hell had he ended up in a place like Bendover where everyone knew each other? What the fuck did he think would happen when he made a sudden about-face and threw his lot in with these people?
Ergh.
Downing the last sip of Zinfandel, he didn”t have to think too hard for an answer. He set his dish and empty wine glass on the coffee table, stretched his legs straight, and took a mental gander at the past.
It was supposed to be simple. All he had to do was politely decline a job offer from the CEO of the Justice Agency—thanks, but no thanks.
And that”s what he’d intended to do until Stephanie Dane showed up at a rodeo, where he was working to plead the Justice case.
He remembered the day in painstaking detail. In a sea of flannel shirts, Stetsons, blue jeans, and boots, a delicate blonde with a wiggle in her walk marched up to him dressed like she was going to the Kentucky Derby. Fully prepared to shoot down the genteel Southern lady”s sales pitch, he was thrown entirely off balance by the presence of a second female.
Stephanie”s new assistant, Rebecca Tate, made his world wobble. The pull of instant attraction he felt for the silent, somewhat prickly woman rattled him—big time.
The next thing he knew, he agreed to move to Bendover and take total control of a new veterinary clinic servicing the Justice Agency canine program, all the animals and livestock at the Marquez Villa, and the pets belonging to Family Justice.
If Rebecca had not distracted him, Jamie was sure he would have walked away from the attractive offer.
Remembering how easily he had caved in, he grumbled, ”Sure, why not? All this socializing is her fault. It makes sense. The woman radiates trouble.”
He could honestly swear that he”d never encountered a more aggravating female. And why was that? Because his presence on the planet seemed to irritate the hell out of her.
Everything about the obstinate female pushed his buttons and made him consider actions he would do well to reconsider.
Rebecca Tate did not know him – she might think she had his number, but the lady had no fucking idea of his true self or what he carried inside. Jamie was sure she”d run in the opposite direction if she had even the slightest awareness of who he was as a man.
Shaking his head to dispel the direction of his thoughts, he hauled his ass off the floor and stood.
Rebecca fucking Tate.
A perturbed glower moved across his face. Just the name was enough to trigger emotions he did not want to feel.
Self-preservation demanded he steer clear of her, but the tactic turned out to be a joke. She was in his face at work – part of his job – one of the people he had to deal with daily.
The obvious answer was to act like a grumpy jerk to remediate her effect on him.
He heard the universe break out in laughter.
Jamie played the part of a grumpy jerk better than most, but his crabby facade did not affect Rebecca. Her loathing for him was more potent than his dickery.
Gathering the dishes for a quick washup, he scanned the greenhouse window above the kitchen sink, checking the rows of raised garden beds in his backyard.
Luck served him a proper with the housing that came with his job. The place he called home had once been a sprawling, three-building complex serving as a home base for the construction company building the Justice Agency compound. After the construction folks cleared out, the property was re-imagined as a dwelling.
In Justice World, groups of tradesmen and apprentices, almost always veterans or first responders working under Draegyn St. John and Ben Morales”s direction, quietly transformed all manner of buildings located in and around Bendover. Some renovations happened on the villa property.
The home Justice offered made Jamie feel like he had hit the jackpot. The three-bedroom floor plan and no-fuss Southwestern style suited him. He liked the clever landscaping that gave him the privacy he needed. And he really fucking liked the backyard situation.
When the property functioned as a construction hub, they cleared, leveled, and encloseda large area behind the building. Ben explained to him that the fenced area served as a project workspace and accounted for why there were electrical stations on every corner post.
After moving in, Jamie had Drae”s people install several impressively large, raised cedar beds. The mini gardens sat on crushed stone, one row against the fence and the others staggered.
Growing things was his latest passion. Nora liked to tease that his farmer side made up for a lot. He was sure her opinion wasn”t a compliment.
The trellises anchored to the fence were heavy with tomatoes, vining cucumbers, sugar snap peas, and pole beans. He also had herbs, several varieties of salad greens, eggplants, and every color of pepper he could find.
Also an avid gardener, Ben showed him how to cultivate root vegetables in modified steel barrels that he placed between the cedar beds. One day, Jamie spray-painted the industrial-looking metal after watching an old guy on YouTube decorate his garden barrels.
Projects filled the free time in his schedule.
Drying his hands on a kitchen towel, he scanned the countertops for wayward dishes. Finding none, he programmed the dishwasher, closed the door, and waited until he heard the wash cycle start.
On his way out of the kitchen, he noticed a print edition of the local newspaper, Bendover Herald. He picked it up and took it with him into the living room.
Ditching the space station views, he turned the TV to a channel showing marathons of The Golden Girls. All it took was a few seconds for Jamie to identify the episode. It was the one where Rose babbled a bunch of St. Olaf nonsense, Dorothy rolled her eyes, Blanche had a date, and Sophia told an exaggerated story.
Planting himself on the sofa, he kicked back, settled in for a quiet evening, and perused the Herald. The main story”s headline read Bendover Goes Glam.
”Jesus,” he muttered.
The Herald devoted all of page one to the many events leading up to Sophia Marquez and Jean-Claude Delacroix”s recent nuptials. The wedding was a society extravaganza. He”d had a front-row seat to most of it, as convention forced him to suit up and make nice for his boss”s sister.
It hadn”t all been a chore, though.
He studied each picture. Rebecca was in several, mostly hiding in the background. Despite body language suggesting she”d rather be on jury duty than socializing with Family Justice, she looked amazing.
Hell, she was downright beautiful. In one picture, it looked like she had a halo.
Angel? No. Not Rebecca – she of the sharp tongue and bossy ”tude.
No.Shemight be divine, butshewas also a class-A bitch.
”Divine Bitch.”
He snorted with laughter.
”Yep. Works for me.”