Chapter Thirty-Two
Amara was finishing up morning chores when her phone buzzed. She gazed over just as she was rinsing the soap off her hands—just after scrubbing the trough outside the barn.
Lainey.
Hey girl. Sick as a damn dog. Can you cover my shift? Just the afternoon. Please.
Amara stared at the message a long while.
Her thumb hovered. She could say no. She could stay on the farm. She could hide.
But it wasn’t Lainey’s fault her life was circling the drain.
Yeah. I got you.
She sighed. Shut off the tap. Dried her hands on her jeans. She felt like dust.
Like she hadn’t been real for days.
She showered slow, barely washed her hair, then threw on the oldest pair of jeans that still fit. A black tank. A looser blue shirt over top, left open. No makeup. She didn’t care.
In the mirror, her eyes were dull.
She tied her hair back and left it at that.
The drive into town felt longer than usual. Maybe because the sky was low, the air heavy. Or maybe because the bar sat on the same corner where everything had started to unravel.
Her house—burned.
Her mama—drugged.
Ethan—gone.
Again.
Just like always.
Gone.
And she? She was right back where she’d started.
Pulling into the back lot of The Copper Still, walking up the same stairs she used to take two years ago, slinging drinks while her father withered and her mama prayed and she tried—tried so damn hard—to pretend she wasn’t drowning.
Only this time she didn’t even have the pretending left in her.
Inside, the bar was dim and familiar. Lainey had left the lights low. Only a few customers. Just past lunch rush.
She tied on an apron, clocked in, and started wiping down the counter like a ghost in her own life.
By twelve-thirty, she was pouring bourbon for a contractor from out of town and pretending she hadn’t just had a moment in the walk-in fridge where she’d leaned her head against the stacked cases and cried silently until her throat had burned.
What was left?
Her land was poisoned with secrets.
Her dream home—a pile of char.
Her mother—barely recovering.
And the man she loved?
Gone.
No word. No call. No text.
Just vanished.
Again.
And maybe that was the truth of it.
Maybe this was her life.
A sad little farmhouse. A ghost of a bar job. A love story that would never be told—because she was forever in love with a man who was forever missing.
She felt it settle in her bones like the end of something.
She wouldn’t marry.
She wouldn’t have kids.
She wouldn’t build that life with the porch swing and the muddy boots and the bourbon kisses on a rainy night.
That was for other women.
Women with safety.
Women who were enough.
Women who had someone who showed the hell up.
She cracked open a beer for an old farmer and smiled like she wasn’t dying.
Because that’s what it meant to survive in Calhoun.
You smiled through the ruin.
The door swung open with a chime she’d heard a thousand times, but this time it dragged a shadow in with it.
Everything in the bar stilled. A breath held. A hush dropped like fog.
Thetus Hollis.
Tall. Regal. Dressed like he’d stepped out of a Southern Gothic fever dream—dark suit, open collar, boots polished like sin. Blue eyes that cut straight through flesh and down into marrow. Thick black hair, slicked back with just enough curl to make it cruel.
He was handsome.
If the devil wore bourbon.
Amara’s chest cinched. Every cell in her body told her to move, run, fight.
But her feet stayed planted.
He walked like he owned the floor. The building. The town. Hell, maybe the whole goddamn county. And in truth—he probably did.
The man didn’t look left or right. Just straight to the bar.
To her.
His grin curled like smoke. Like he’d known exactly where she’d be. Like he’d planned this.
Lainey.
Was she forced? Was she scared?
Or was this whole thing a setup?
Thetus slipped onto the stool like royalty taking court. The rest of the bar shifted, rustling with quiet reverence. No one interrupted.
She felt muscle enter too—two men by the door, another by the jukebox pretending to read the playlist. Black button-ups. Quiet. Coiled.
Organized crime in the flesh.
“Miss James,” Thetus said, voice smooth as his liquor. “Sorry to hear about your daddy. He was a man of strong conviction.”
She stared at him.
He smiled wider.
She poured him the best whiskey they had without asking. Hollis, of course. Always Hollis.
“I was hoping we might have a word. Private, if you’d allow it.”
She didn’t move. But she poured herself a glass too.
If he noticed her hand shaking, he said nothing.
“I always liked you,” he went on, easy as a breeze through magnolias. “Smart. Beautiful. Brave. That fire you got in you? It’s a shame the world keeps tryin’ to snuff it.”
Her skin crawled. She said nothing.
“But I’m a practical man, Miss James. I didn’t want it to come to this, but here we are.”
He reached into his coat, slow, deliberate, and pulled out a checkbook. Old school. He wrote with a pen that probably cost more than her truck. He slid the check toward her like it was a love letter. There was no amount filled in. But the zeros burned anyway.
“I’d like to buy your property,” he said simply. “The whole thing. As-is.”
She blinked.
He continued, soft, “Put your mama somewhere nice. Buy yourself a house in town. Or hell, head out west, start over. This here’s enough to get clean. Comfortable. Free.”
Amara looked down at the check. Then back up.
“I just need your answer now.”
The smile didn’t reach his eyes. Not really. Not where the snake coiled behind them.
She studied him. That perfect skin. That movie-star smile. The black hair. The impossible blue eyes.
Goddamn it.
She could see it. All the Hollis kids. Grant. Juniper. Nate. They were cut from the same marble. Beautiful, dangerous creatures all.
But Thetus? He was the poison in the bloodline.
Amara took her glass. Knocked it back. The whiskey burned hot down her throat.
Her eyes never left his.
The room was still.
The check stayed on the bar.
So did her silence.
And for one long, awful moment…
She really thought about it.
She sipped the whiskey. Thought hard. Real hard.
She stared at the check. Picked it up. Felt its weight—thicker paper, premium ink. She ran her thumb over the embossed logo, the signature line. The blank space for her name. For her price.
Nashville.
Texas.
Out west.
Anywhere but here.
Her mama on a porch swing with sweet tea and a decent doctor. No farm debts. No rot crawling up her foundation. No more town whispers, no more trauma.
Hell, maybe even someone new. Someone who didn’t disappear when things got dark. Someone who didn’t kiss her like salvation and leave her to drown in silence.
Thetus grinned across the bar like he knew her thoughts. Like he’d already won.
Then the door creaked.
Her head snapped up. Tension rippled across her skin like static. She clenched the check.
But it was just a man in overalls, nodding politely as he passed to a corner table. She exhaled. Realized she’d been holding her breath.
She forced a smile. Nodded to the newcomer, then nodded to Thetus. “One minute.”
She stumbled back through the swinging staff door. Past the rail of clean glasses, through the curtain of bottles and racks, into the dim little office with the cheap desk and half-lit lamp.
And then—
Arms.
Hard. Hot. Familiar.
Wrapped her like iron.
Pulled her in tight, flush against a tall, muscled body that smelled like pine and sweat and the Appalachian wind.
Ethan.
He said nothing at first. Just held her. One big hand at her belly. The other around her ribs. Like if he let go she’d vanish.
Then his mouth brushed her neck—featherlight, heat-slick, a sin she’d crave in hell.
“So,” he whispered, low and deadly, “what’s your answer gonna be to him?”
She didn’t jump. Didn’t scream. Didn’t cry. She just stood there, trembling, whispering his name. “Ethan.”
“Answer me.”
The command landed against her skin like heat from a match. His voice—low, raw, dangerous—wasn’t a question. It was hunger wearing skin.
Her heart pounded so loud it thudded in her ears. She could feel it in her fingertips. In the press of her thighs. In the ache that had never left her body since the moment he disappeared.
“Y-you—” she tried, voice catching, lashes fluttering against tears and fury and the flood of him. “You were gone. You didn’t call. You— Ethan, what the hell happened to you?”
He didn’t answer. He was breathing too hard, his chest hammering into hers.
Her back met the wall of the tiny liquor room with a soft thud, the cheap wood panels groaning behind her. His arms never let her go. Just flattened her to him. Pressed her full-length against muscle and grit and everything she’d ever wanted and couldn’t fucking trust.
She was trembling. So was he.
She gripped his shirt, the collar damp with sweat, maybe rain, maybe blood, she didn’t care.
“You think you can just walk in here,” she whispered, breathless now, eyes locked on the wild green-gold of his, “and demand to know if I’m selling my soul to the devil, when you—when you vanished without a word? ”
“I didn’t have a fucking choice,” he bit out, dragging his knuckles up her jaw, tilting her face to his. “You think I wanted to go dark? You think I didn’t try? I nearly died getting back to you.”
Her mouth opened but there was no sound.
He groaned and pressed his forehead to hers. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you. Every step. Every night. Every fucking second I was gone.”
“You hurt me,” she whispered.
His eyes snapped open—so close, so bright they burned. “I know. And I’m not asking forgiveness, I’m asking for this—” His hands slid down, fisted at her hips. “For you. Right now. Don’t give yourself to him. Don’t even think about it.”
Her legs nearly buckled. She hated him. Loved him. Needed him like air and couldn’t survive another silence.
“Why should I believe you won’t run again?” she breathed.
He kissed her.
Not sweet.
Claiming.