Chapter 1
ONE
Libraries were a good start, but we need more places where people can’t talk.
—Magnolia’s secret thoughts
MAGNOLIA
“How do you go about getting away with murder?”
“I think you should probably refrain from that,” a sexy, amused voice said from behind me.
I turned slowly, a little bit wobbly on my feet due to the workout I’d just punished myself with, and said, “And how would you know?”
The man, tall and burly, crossed his arms over his chest.
I admired the way his biceps flexed inside his red and white flannel shirt.
This guy was big, sure. But not too big. Tall, around six-foot-three in height, he had golden-brown hair, somewhere in between dirty blonde and brown. He had a reddish-brown beard covering the lower half of his face, and it looked like it needed to be trimmed weeks ago.
He also had really hairy forearms, which I found incredibly attractive.
I didn’t know what it was about hairy men that did it for me, but this man? He was my dream man.
He was the type of man I always wanted authors to describe their lead heroes as in my favorite romance novels.
They were always too well-kempt.
Just a little too “pretty” in my opinion.
Give me a big, hairy guy any day.
“Because I’m good friends with a couple of cops.” He jerked his chin toward two men who were, indeed, dressed in sheriff’s department uniforms.
They were also riding motorcycles and drinking beer.
Was that even allowed?
Speaking of motorcycles, the man who’d been talking to me for the last thirty seconds picked up a leather vest from his own motorcycle and threw it over his shoulders, threading those sexy arms into the holes.
My eyes settled on the vest—or cut, I guess you could call it thanks to watching seven seasons of Sons of Anarchy—and glazed over. He really knew how to fill out leather.
The name on the man’s “cut” read “Beau.”
I wondered if Beau was short for anything, or if it was just that simple.
Probably that simple.
This man looked like a Beau.
“Are you sure?” I asked as I kicked a tire. “Because, and I’m being really nice here, this man just put these tires on. I drove like half a mile down the road, and now my car is fucked up.”
Thank God I’d left Iris with my best friend while I’d come to meet with a prospective new team owner who would pay me enough money for the season to buy a new place far, far away from Tennessee.
Merrill, my best friend, had decided to come with me.
She’d, thankfully, decided to stay home with Iris while I ran into town and got my tires rotated.
During our road trip, my car had felt like it was pulling hard to the right, and I didn’t want to deal with that the entire drive back to Texas where I played for the Texas Cyclones as their “star defensive man.”
They had no clue that I’d planned on leaving, and I hoped to keep it that way until I knew for sure that Montana would work out for us.
“Pretty sure, but maybe you could just fuck him up a little bit and they’d look the other way. The Hubers aren’t well-liked here.”
“Well, if they do this kind of shitty work, I don’t imagine that they are,” I grumbled.
He gestured toward the trunk, and I reluctantly popped it open for him.
I wasn’t too proud to look a gift horse in the mouth.
If this man wanted to help me put a new tire on, who was I to say no?
His two cop friends came over to help, and within twenty minutes, I had a spare tire on the car.
Unfortunately, my bumper was hanging on by a thread, seeing as the tire had fallen off the right front side and the car had slammed hard into the pavement at thirty miles an hour.
I closed my eyes.
This was exactly what I needed…
“Come on,” he said. “I’ll take you to the real mechanic.”
I followed behind the bikers, who all started their bikes up and led the way a little farther into town.
I left the small stretch of road behind where I’d broken down and was pleasantly surprised as I made my way inside the little town of Sawtooth.
It was quaint.
Flower baskets filled with petunias lined the streetlights at every corner. The storefronts were all perfectly decorated. The people walked and waved, smiled and laughed.
Hell, this was the type of place that you wanted to move to, for sure.
The only problem that I could see was that everyone knew everyone.
That didn’t fit well with my introverted personality.
They’d probably love to talk.
I wasn’t much of a talker.
At least not with people that I barely knew.
They turned into a mechanic shop just outside of the main part of town, and I followed suit.
They parked their bikes off to the left, but I pulled my car right up to the front doors where a man wearing coveralls stained in grease stood.
He was also sexy as hell.
What kind of water did this town serve to its citizens?
Why the hell were all of them so outlandishly attractive?
The mechanic, though, looked incredibly familiar.
I got out of the car, studying the man’s face.
He looked at me and turned around, dismissing me.
What the…
“I’ll go talk to Court,” the older of the cops said. “He’s not a people person.”
No, it didn’t look like he was.
“So,” I said as I was left with the two remaining men. “Do y’all usually day drink in parking lots on the outskirts of town?”
The man who’d come up to me earlier when my car had slid to a grating stop chuckled. “Not usually, no. But that just happened to be where we ended up today.”
“Huh,” I said. “Long day at work?”
“Not particularly,” the younger deputy mused. “I didn’t have to arrest anyone for shoving any meat up their vagina at the grocery store. Nor did I have to arrest our favorite rule breaker, Jessamy. So really, it’s a great day.”
I had no comment to that.
Instead, I focused on the man who made my heart pound in my chest when he looked at me. “And you?”
“The students were well behaved today, and we had no fire calls.”
I blinked. “I’m not sure how those two correlate.”
“I’m a high school teacher and a volunteer firefighter for the county,” he said.
My brows lifted, which was kind of hard to do seeing as I’d just gotten Botox a week ago.
Botox was my guilty cosmetic pleasure.
I didn’t do fake eyelashes. I didn’t paint on my eyebrows. I didn’t do fancy makeup.
I did, however, do Botox.
I didn’t like looking at the lines that my sister’s situation had created.
It was better not to see them, so I wouldn’t be reminded of how shitty of a person Cain McDuff was.
“Are you sure?” I asked. “You don’t, like, toss cabers in the woods at that sawmill I saw driving in?”
His lips curled up at the edges.
“Yes, I’m a high school science teacher.” He laughed. “No caber tossing goes on in my day-to-day life.”
My mouth all but fell open. “You’re a science teacher?”
I was repeating myself, but I couldn’t help it.
“I am, why?” He grinned. “I don’t look like one?”
I scrunched up my nose. “Well, no. Not really. You don’t look like any science—or any subject for that matter—teacher that I’ve ever seen. All of my teachers were old, overweight, and crotchety. You strike me as none of those things.”
“Well, thanks.” He chuckled. “I can’t believe you let them work on your car.”
I shrugged.
He shook his head in response. “That’s where you went wrong. He’s a crook and quite inept at anything automotive related.”
I threw up my hands. “How was I supposed to know that? I checked Google! He had all five stars!”
“Those five stars are from his own family.” He chuckled again. “And I’m sure he finds a way to get the reviews deleted if they don’t go in his favor.” He studied me. “You’re new to town?”
I nodded. “I’m here for a job interview.”
Saying it was a job interview instead of a possible professional soccer tryout was easier.
Saying the latter always invited more questions, and sometimes I just wanted to not talk about that part of my life.
I was proud of becoming a professional soccer player. However, I didn’t make it my whole identity.
Plus, I had a single season left in me.
I’d officially graduated college as a nurse anesthetist, and I was excited to start a new career path.
Not that I didn’t love soccer with my whole heart and soul, but soccer was a young woman’s game now.
As a thirty-two-year-old woman, I couldn’t keep up with sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds anymore.
Not even my infinite wisdom and soccer know-how could out-top a seventeen-year-old’s superior energy and drive.
“For what?”
Before I could answer, the older sheriff stepped out and said, “Court’s gonna get working on it.”
He made some face at me, then at the man I’d been talking to the entire time.
“Did he say about how long?” I asked.
I’d need to find a way to rent a car if it was going to take any longer than a couple of hours.
I could waste some time in town, but I couldn’t leave Iris for too long.
Not that Merrill wouldn’t be able to take superior care of Iris, but Iris had a routine, and it was better not to deviate from it too much.
Having a kid with autism was hard. But routines made it easier.
Plus, Merrill didn’t know enough sign language to understand everything that Iris had to say, which was the only way that Iris communicated.
She was learning, but slowly.
“Can I offer you a ride to Hopps? Or The Mercantile for lunch?”
Sheriff Black, as his nametag noted him as, slapped my rescuer on the shoulder and said, “We’re gonna head home, Beau.”
I watched them leave before I said, “I really appreciate it but…”
He grinned and gestured to his bike. “Come on, what will it hurt?”
I found myself unable to tell that smile no.