Chasing Bliss

Chapter Three

Cade watched from his place at the grill. Jesse had started his whole herding thing. It was the way he handled a woman he was really interested in.

Damn, was Jesse going to fall for Gemma Wells and finally leave him behind? He wasn’t an idiot. Jesse had been ready for something serious for the last few years. Cade was the one holding them back.

Jesse would never understand why Cade wouldn’t, couldn’t do the whole relationship thing.

“He seems interested in the new girl.” Zane Hollister flipped over the steak he was grilling, his eyes trailing back to where Jesse was hugging Gemma. Really hugging her. Like rubbing himself all over the girl.

“Looks like it.” Cade looked around. Shouldn’t there be some beer around here somewhere?

“Hmmm.”

He didn’t like the sound of that. “What does that mean?”

Zane shrugged. “I thought you two were, well, partners.”

They were, but Jesse didn’t blindly follow him. It would be easier if he did. Jesse tended to prefer to take a backseat, allowing Cade to make most of the day-to-day decisions because he didn’t really care, but when he put his foot down, the man didn’t move.

What the hell was Cade going to do if Jesse put his foot down over Gemma Wells? Would Cade be forced to make the decision he’d dreaded for the last couple of years? Would he leave and not look back? Would he finally be alone—like he’d always known he should be?

“We’re best friends. We’ve shared a woman before, but that doesn’t mean we always will.” He’d never expected to share a family. He’d kind of expected to be that sort of sad-sack best friend who hung around way too much and creeped out Jesse’s wife. And then they’d come to Bliss and Jesse had started talking about a real family, a shared wife, and kids they both raised. Fuck. He loved Bliss, and it terrified him, too.

“You don’t like her?”

Cade stared back her way. She clutched the package in her hand as Jesse walked away. It was the softest he’d seen her, her blonde hair nearly glowing in the light from her porch. She was a little thin, but she had curves in all the right places. If she did belong to him and Jesse, he would cook for her, make sure she filled out those sweet curves. He couldn’t think that way.

He was terrified of her. She was just his type—the type to rip his heart out when things went bad. “I don’t know her. I don’t just throw myself in the way Jesse does.”

Jesse was walking toward him with a grin on his face. Gemma turned and disappeared inside her house.

Zane tested the steak, cutting slightly in the middle. “You’ve been here for a couple of months, and you haven’t even tried dating anyone.”

“Oh, I’ve tried. I don’t think you’ve noticed, but there’s a distinctly low available-female-to-male ratio in this town.” He and Jesse had actually been very interested in a couple of women. They’d hit town and it had seemed like they were kids in a candy store. The town was full of attractive, sweet women who looked like they could use a man or two to take care of them.

The trouble was every woman they got interested in was unavailable for one reason or another. Lucy Carson reminded him of his sister who’d died in the same car accident as his parents. Hope McLean had flipped his switch, but she was married to James Glen and Noah Bennett. He’d been really attracted to Holly Lang, one of the waitresses at Stella’s, but he’d decided to keep his head on his body after a single, deeply confusing conversation with Alexei Markov where he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to keep the balls of his eyes off the Russian’s girl or his grill. Either way, the dude sounded serious, so he was giving both a wide berth. And he’d heard some horror stories about how thorough the doc could be during a physical when he was pissed off. Yeah. Holly was safe from his roving eye.

Then the new girl comes into town with her honey-blonde hair and swaying ass, and she turned out to be such a hot mess. Fuck. She moved him in a way the others didn’t. He really kind of liked them with just the right amount of psycho chick.

Things with a woman like Gemma Wells would go one of two ways. Either she would view them as nothing but a hot fling or she would want way more than Cade was willing to give. The first would please Cade but hurt Jesse, and the second would hurt them all. Why her? He loved really intelligent, ambitious, creative women, and they tended to see him as a Neanderthal.

Bare-Chested Ape Man. Yep, that was him.

The fact that he came with a built-in partner, ready set for a permanent ménage, had really aided in his quest to find a little sex. He could see the personal ad. Bare-Chested Ape Man seeks incredibly intelligent mate to share with his over-the-top Dom partner. Must like being topped in the bedroom and small spaces since neither makes a decent paycheck.

Yes, he would get a ton of hits on that one.

“You look morose again.” Jesse stared at him, a frown on his face.

Great. Now he was Morose Bare-Chested Ape Man.

“He’s waffling,” Zane said. “I’ve seen it a hundred times. Done a bit of it myself.”

Zane Hollister was one of the happiest men Cade had ever met. He was also one of the most sarcastic bastards, but he seemed like a guy who had it all together. “You waffled about marrying Callie?”

The big guy’s eyes went a little soft as he looked over to where Callie and Nate were playing with their twins as they talked to a couple of women Cade didn’t know. “She’s just about perfect, you know. The first time I met her, I was in a bad place. I was a stupid asshole and chose my career over her. I chose my friend over her. The second time, I was in an even worse place, and I was practically certain I was bad for her.”

Cade felt himself smile a little. Not because he was happy that Zane and Callie had trouble in the past, but because it was easy to be shocked by it. They all seemed so happy. The Harpers, Stef and Jen, all of them. But every family had its own problems. The strong ones came through it. His family never had the chance. Cade had made sure of it. His family had died. All of them. “What made you realize you could be good for her?”

He was merely curious. He wasn’t good for anyone, but he was interested in how Hollister had known.

A wide grin crossed Hollister’s scarred face. “Who said I am? But I know one thing. She’s the best thing that ever happened to me. I might not be good enough for her, but I try my best every day to be the best husband I can be. Now I have the twins and I have to be the best dad, too. I didn’t even have a dad, but I have to step up to the plate, you know. It didn’t scare me the way it should have because I knew I could learn. And I had Nate. Nate did have a dad. We talk it over. We figure out what Nate’s dad would have done and do the exact opposite.”

Jesse laughed. “I think I learned that lesson young. My dad walked out. The most important thing about being a father is just being around.”

Cade felt the pit of his stomach roll. His father hadn’t walked out. His father had fought. His father had tried so hard before the water had taken him, before his eyes had gone a glossy blank.

He forced the image down. Jesse was thinking about kids? Cade thought about them, but in a vague, undefined way. Kids were something that might happen in the distant future.

But he was almost thirty. The distant future wasn’t that far off.

He didn’t like to think about the future. Today was what he had. He’d learned that a long time ago. Parents, even when they loved a kid, didn’t always show up for baseball games and school plays. Sometimes, parents walked out the door and they didn’t come back. Sometimes kids walked out the door only to discover the ones they loved and left behind were gone forever.

He wasn’t ready. He didn’t want to give Gemma a chance, no matter how pretty she was or how much she moved him. He had to acknowledge for the first time that he might never be ready. There might be something inside him that was simply broken. He’d used Jesse as a crutch. If Jesse wanted to move on, then good for him. It wouldn’t have really worked long term anyway.

He was surrounded by working ménages, but he didn’t think it would work for him. He might have some issues. And damn Gemma Wells for making him see them.

He’d been just fine. He’d been happy. He’d been settling in, but no, now Gemma was forcing him to think.

“What’s wrong with him?” Zane asked.

Jesse had found where the beers were stashed. He took a short sip, keeping the shit-eating grin securely on his face. “That’s his thinking face. Don’t worry about it. It won’t last too long. Cade prefers to shove his problems as far under the surface as possible. Every now and then he’s forced to confront them, and that’s the look he gets.”

Cade shot his best friend the bird and decided he’d had just about enough of this damn party. He stalked off toward the car.

He heard Jesse groan and begin to follow. “I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not.” He wasn’t sorry, and he wasn’t wrong, either.

“I am sorry about putting it out there like that. It just felt like we were among friends, and I was teasing you a little. Okay, a lot.”

He rounded on Jesse. Cade might be avoiding his past, but Jesse was sorely overestimating their future. “You think I didn’t see you with her? What are you doing? She’s not a good-time girl. She’s going to get serious, and she’ll do it fast. What the hell is going to happen when she figures out what you make for a living?”

Jesse’s eyes rolled. “Not every woman in the world thinks a man is nothing more than a dick and a paycheck. Besides, she’s not exactly a catch herself. She doesn’t have some great job.”

And that wouldn’t last forever. She wouldn’t let that degree go to waste. Not for any real length of time. She’d spend the winter here in Bliss with her mother, but by the time spring rolled around, she would be in a big city somewhere with a high-powered career. She wouldn’t go to her company’s parties with two mechanics on her arm. “She will. She’s going to leave.”

“Maybe we can make her want to stay.”

“God, that is so naïve. It’s not going to happen.” He hated to bring it up. Hated that he had to be the asshole who tore down his friend’s hopes. “She won’t stay here because of us. What is that woman going to think when she finds out you spent a good portion of your teen years in prison?”

A hint of a smile showed up on Jesse’s face. “She’ll think I should have had a better lawyer. She was quite mad about it, but not because she looked down on me. She thought the sentence was overkill. I kind of think so, too.”

“You told her?” He’d just freaking met her.

Jesse took a step forward. “I did. I like her. I would rather get all the crap out of the way, Cade. It’s better to be honest up front. Go knock on her door and talk to her. Ask her flat out what she thinks about blue-collar guys. Tell her that you’ve been hurt before and would prefer to avoid it. Just talk to her. No bullshit. And when she tries to avoid questions, top her.”

Holy shit. “You got into the discipline stuff with her? Damn it, Jesse, you haven’t even asked her out. Or did you? The way you’re going the engagement should happen sometime next week.”

Jesse’s whole body stiffened. “I was honest with her. I didn’t ask her to marry me. I have no idea if we’re even really compatible, but I would like to try. I’m tired, Cade. I’m tired of constantly being on the move. Since we turned eighteen, we’ve been like gypsies.”

“We had a job to do.”

“No. I get that. I’m talking about before. Always moving on to find something new. The next town, the next party, the next woman. I want to settle down.”

That was Jesse, brutally honest, even when it fucking hurt like hell. “And she’s the one?”

Jesse’s frustration rolled off him in waves. “How will we know if we never fucking try? I’m not saying anything except that I want to try.”

And Cade didn’t. He just didn’t. She was beautiful and kind of crazy, and she scared the fuck out of him. “Then you should try. You should ask her out.”

It had been years since they’d dated a woman separately, but maybe the time had come. Who the hell was he to hold his friend back?

“I don’t want to date her without you,” Jesse said evenly, obviously holding on to his emotional state. “But I will. You have a week to think it over. I’m going to get to know her a little. Nothing formal. You can work with me or you can just think about it. If you can’t even try, then I’ll ask her out myself.”

The idea of watching Jesse settle in with a woman stirred an odd jealousy. He would be jealous of Jesse for finding something that might work. He would be jealous of Gemma for taking his friend.

God, he really did need to think. His first impulse had been to tell Jesse to ask her out right away, but maybe he owed Jesse the courtesy of a little time. “All right. One week.”

But he still turned and walked away from the party. If he was going to think, he’d better start now.

Gemma watched them. She couldn’t help it. She had been reduced to peeper status.

Jesse and Bare-Chested Ape…Cade…seemed to be having some sort of argument. Over her almost certainly. Cade wasn’t interested. That much was obvious. He couldn’t stand her. She had that effect on some men, a lot of men. She just wished she knew why he’d decided she was trouble. What sort of rumors were already going around?

The door to her cabin opened after a single brisk knock. Naomi walked in, peeking around the door. “You have been holding out on me. Who was the sexy cowboy you were hugging?”

Gemma didn’t look back. She’d gotten used to Naomi’s nosiness. She found it almost comforting. “He’s not a cowboy. He’s a kinky mechanic. And he’s an ex-con. Sort of.”

Naomi sidled up to her, their shoulders touching as she looked out at the place where Jesse and Cade stood talking. Jesse had a beer in his hand. They were so gorgeous. Cade looked like a male model, all perfection and cheekbones and classic good looks. Jesse was the embodiment of a bad boy. She would bet he had a few tattoos. She would really like to see them.

Zane Hollister stood between them, watching the two like he was observing a tennis match.

“How is someone a ‘sort of’ ex-con?” Naomi asked.

Cade was frowning, that lean body of his taut with obvious tension. Jesse’s shoulders moved up and down. She wished she could see his face. “Juvie.”

Naomi snorted. “Baby con. If he didn’t go back, it doesn’t count. Those are two beautiful men. What do you think they’re saying?”

Gemma could guess. “Well, Cade is saying, why do you want to date that crazy city girl? And then Jesse says, because she’s pretty and I’d like to spank her ass when she spits bile. Then Cade’s all let’s find a nice girl to spank. And Jesse says, all the nice girls are taken. We’re stuck with the beyotch. I don’t know. He might not say beyotch.”

Naomi laughed. “Spank you? Are you kidding me?”

“Nope. He said he would spank me when I was rude.” And her whole body had gone on full-scale alert, praying he would start right then and there. Damn it. She’d read one too many erotic romances. It was her only guilty pleasure. She was crazy about over-the-top alpha males, but she knew they were just fantasies. She’d been ready to try some role playing with Patrick in an attempt to amp up their sex life, but that had gone spectacularly wrong.

Naomi bumped Gemma’s hip with her own. “Hmmm. That explains it. If he’s into slapping a girl’s ass for violating courtesy, you’re going to be his dream girl. He might never have to stop smacking your ass.”

Gemma growled a little Naomi’s way. “Like you would know. Oh, shit. That’s not good.”

Cade strode away from Jesse, his face a mask of irritation. Yep, he wasn’t happy. Not at all. He was damn pissed. What had put that look on his face? Jesse followed, clutching his beer. She would have to remember he liked beer. Maybe she should buy some so she would have it if he came over.

Damn it. She didn’t need to remember anything because she wasn’t falling for his line of crap. It was all an act. No one was that honest. And she wasn’t going to even start thinking about pleasing another man. She’d done everything she could to make Patrick’s life next to perfect, and he’d taken advantage of her. She wasn’t going to do it again.

Naomi turned from the window. “I don’t know what’s going on with those two. It doesn’t look good. So why was the hot one with the scruff hugging you?”

Gemma forced herself to turn away. She didn’t want to. She probably would have watched them until she couldn’t see them anymore. But it was for the best. She didn’t need to get involved with anyone. Even if she really wanted to.

He’d talked about spanking her. He hadn’t said the words, but he basically meant he wanted to top her. She’d read about it. Thought about it. Dreamed a little about it. She didn’t really want it. It was just a fantasy, and fantasies weren’t meant to really be lived out. She would only be disappointed.

But he’d really seemed sure of himself. It had been a truly shocking moment. When he’d said he would spank her if she got out of line, her whole damn body had responded and not in a bad way. She’d wondered, just for a minute, what the relationship would mean. Could she depend on him? Could she tell him all the problems she had and expect him to help figure out how to solve them? Her brain went a million miles a minute. Sometimes it was hard to concentrate on just one thing. She struggled, but she persevered. And it would be so much easier if someone was checking up on her. It was like the gym. She needed accountability. But no one cared enough to put up with her shit.

And they shouldn’t. She knew she was hard to handle. She just needed to focus. “That would be Jesse McCann, and he’s a little bit of a pervert. The one who’s running away is the man formerly known as Bare-Chested Ape Man. His real name is Cade. Sinclair, I think. Apparently he likes to be naked. Like a lot. This place is weird.”

Naomi grinned. “This place is awesome. So you’re being pursued by a nudist and a Dom?”

“I don’t know if he’s a Dom. We didn’t actually go over that.”

“Oh, if it looks like a Dom and quacks like a Dom, it’s a Dom, and that man would look good naked. Both of them, actually.” Naomi sighed. “Are you still not over your ex?”

She laughed at the thought. She’d been over Patrick about two seconds after she’d caught him with Christina. She still hadn’t gotten over the loss of her career. That was hard to let go of. “Not at all. I can’t believe I even wanted to marry him.”

“Why did you?” Naomi’s gorgeous brown eyes went from laughing to calculating in a single instant, and Gemma was reminded of just how intelligent the nurse was.

And she was spurred on by Jesse’s honesty. Of all the things that had happened to her today, his flat honesty was the most affecting thing of all. “He was a safe bet.”

Naomi sighed and crossed to her small table, looking down at the box there. “That doesn’t sound romantic.”

It wasn’t. “Think of it more like a merger. Patrick and I wanted the same things. We understood the same world. We didn’t hate each other.” And the sex had been bland, but she wasn’t absolutely sure that wasn’t her fault. Christina hadn’t had the same problem. Another reason to stay away from Jesse and Cade and their ridiculously hot sexuality. “It was an easy relationship. Well, except for the part where he was a cheating, job-stealing weasel. Other than that, I was almost completely in control.”

Naomi shuddered, her chocolate-brown skin shivering. “That sounds horrible. Why would you do that?”

She’d asked herself the question about a million times and could only come up with one answer. “Because the love thing isn’t real.”

“Your momma would disagree.”

She would. Her mother would tell her how much she’d loved her father, but now all Gemma could see was how much she’d grieved. “I was young when he died. I mostly remembered how horrible it was. We didn’t know he had cancer until he went into the hospital. We thought it was a cold. Pneumonia, maybe. And then they told us it was stage-four lung cancer. I watched him die. I watched her watch him die. I don’t see anything great about love.”

Naomi’s eyes filled with tears, and she walked to Gemma. “Then you weren’t looking hard enough, hon. I’m glad you didn’t marry that man. It would have been a mistake.”

Damn straight. “Especially since he was fucking Christina Big Tits at the time.” Gemma got out a letter opener. She should at least look. Jesse had brought it for her. What if it was actually from him? Her heart rate sped up just a little. A good reason to stay away. She was serious about the love thing. She really didn’t want it. But he was too tempting. And Bare-Chested Ape Man was, too. Damn him. “Patrick and I lived in the same world.”

Naomi sat down. “Your world is very narrow from what I can tell. And not particularly pleasant. Why aren’t you joining the party?”

Because those people scared the crap out of her with their babies and happy lives and small-town world. Everyone knew everyone else. Everyone seemed to accept everyone else. It was a façade. She wasn’t a dumbass. If she scratched the surface, she would probably find out that Callie hated Rachel Harper and had affairs with half the town, and sweet-faced Nell was really a horrible person. At least Max Harper was honest about his assholiness. “I don’t have anything in common with them.”

“Did they give you a class in self-delusion at Harvard?” It was obviously a rhetorical question since she didn’t wait for an answer. Naomi held up the package. “Who knows you’re here?”

“I left a forwarding address, but that was to our place in Chicago.” She looked at the package. She wanted to go back to the window and watch those two men, but they had been leaving. And it wasn’t like she could go after them. The package looked to be tightly taped down. Gemma started to hack into it. “It’s probably from someone at my old firm. They could find me pretty easily. I didn’t exactly get a chance to clean out my desk. After Christina Big Tits pressed charges, they fired me and wouldn’t let me back in the building.”

A single eyebrow arched. Naomi wasn’t past thirty-five, but she had the motherly attitude down. “Really? I suspect that is not her real last name.”

Someone had been damn serious about taping that package down. The whole thing was wrapped in thick tape. “It might have been Fake Tits. Not sure.”

Naomi leaned forward, her dark eyes sympathetic. “You know this wall you’ve built around yourself is going to have to come down someday.”

“I don’t see why.” She freed one side and went to work on the other. She’d worked hard to build those walls. Taking them down would be a poor use of her time.

“Because you’re never going to find happiness if you don’t.”

“Happiness is overrated. Ask my mom.” Her mom was the reason she didn’t believe in happily ever after. Her mom had done everything right when it came to picking her husband. And he’d died anyway. No forever. No joy. Just an aching sadness and a hole that couldn’t be filled.

“Honey, you should ask your mom. I think you would find she wouldn’t have changed a thing about her life. She’s worried about you. I am, too.”

Gemma finally pried the box open only to be met with a layer of plastic. What had she left behind at the office? No pictures. She hadn’t had any. They’d sent on her expensively framed degrees to Chicago and they now sat in a box on the kitchen counter. Would they really send her all the office supplies she’d kept? “Don’t be worried about my love life. Worry about my career. I haven’t gotten a single callback.”

Naomi was like a dog with a bone. She just wouldn’t let go. “That Jesse seemed like a nice man. Why didn’t you stay and talk to him?”

“Because I don’t want to get my heart ripped out.” She pulled back the plastic and gagged a little. Fuck. She hadn’t left that in her desk. “Looks like someone else had their heart ripped out.”

Tension prickled along her spine. There was no blood in the box, just an organ that had been surgically removed, if the neatness of the incisions was any indication. Someone had sent her a message. A heart. Dead and unmoving. A useless thing, a little like her own.

Naomi put a hand over her nose and looked inside the box where the brownish-gray heart lay. Nothing else. Just a heart. “Okay, gross. I’ll be right back.”

“Don’t get my mom.” She followed Naomi to the door. “You don’t need to get anyone. It’s a prank.”

Naomi shook her head. “It’s a threat. Calm down. I’ll be discreet.”

Naomi strode off the porch and made a beeline for Nate Wright. He waved a hello to her as he cuddled his baby close. Gemma frowned as Naomi discreetly whispered something to the sheriff that caused him to hand off his son and start walking her way. As though he had sonar hearing, Cam Briggs perked up and started following, too. The rest of the party continued, but the two lawmen strode her way.

Nate had a fierce scowl on his face as he climbed her steps. “Seriously? You’ve been on the job for less than twenty-four hours and you’ve picked up a crazy?”

Gemma shrugged. She hated to admit it, but she actually would feel better if Nate knew about it. It was a heart. A freaking heart. She buried the fear deep. It wouldn’t help to show it. “You know how to pick ’em, boss.”

Cam smiled, the buttons of his shirt open and showing off tanned skin. “I’m excited. It’s been boring around here since Hope killed her ex. What have we got? Creepy letter? Voice mail threats?”

Nate looked into the box. “Heart in a box.”

Cam, the asshole, actually fist pumped. “Awesome. Who’d you piss off, Gemma?”

Honesty. It was the word of the day. “Pretty much everyone who’s ever met me.”

Nate turned to Naomi. “You’re a nurse, right? I’ll have Caleb take a look, but I would appreciate your input. Is that thing human?”

Naomi took another look at Gemma’s present. “It’s too small to be human. I think we’re probably looking at a canine heart.”

“Someone killed a dog?” Gemma asked. That was horrible. Someone’s sweet puppy had been murdered so some asshole could scare the crap out of her?

“You were okay when it was human?” Cam asked.

“No. I’m not okay with any of it, but I like dogs more than most people.” Dogs didn’t sleep around on her and take credit for her work. Maybe she should get a dog. She’d never been able to have one in New York.

Naomi shook her head. “It’s a cadaver heart most likely. It might be a swine heart. You can buy them pretty easily. Or sneak one out of most teaching hospitals. It’s been preserved. Formaldehyde. Ick. This is why I didn’t go into research. I hate the smell. Who would send you a heart in a box?”

“I don’t know.” She suddenly felt weary. She’d been forced to walk away from her job, but it looked like it had followed her to Bliss. She turned away. She meant to keep up the tough-girl attitude, but she didn’t have to stare at it. “I’ll make a list of the cases I’ve worked on. There are a few where I was either lead or secondary counsel, but I almost always had face time with the clients or the opponents. Some of them were really pissed off.” She hated to beg, but she felt the need. “Could we please keep this quiet? I would prefer to just be the bitch, not the bitch who gets hearts in the mail. Just the four of us, okay?”

“I have to talk to Caleb, but he won’t mention it.” Nate pulled a set of latex gloves out of his pocket. Gemma could only imagine how much he must love his job. “Who gave this to you?”

Fuck. She did not want to bring him into this.

“McCann. I saw him walk up with it.” Cameron Briggs was way too observant.

“He said the mail carrier was asking Long-Haired Roger about it.” Had she really just called the man Long-Haired Roger?

A long look passed between Nate and Cam.

“He didn’t do this,” Gemma insisted. “Did you check and see where it was posted from?”

“It looks like it came out of St. Louis. But that doesn’t mean a thing,” Nate replied as he started to tape the box back up, carefully making sure he had every bit of packing material. “And I didn’t say Jesse McCann had anything to do with it.”

“But you thought it.”

Cam took over. “He’s new in town. And he’s had a run-in with the law.”

Gemma felt her fists clench. “That was stricken from his record the moment he turned eighteen. It is absolutely unacceptable for you to use that charge against him.”

“Whoa, counselor.” Cam’s hands came up in self-defense. “I didn’t say I was charging him with anything. I merely stated that he has a record, and he brought the box to you. I have to look into it. And as far as the legal records are concerned, his charges are gone. I just happen to be more thorough than simply checking what’s easily available.”

“You’re a hacker?”

The big blond deputy gave her a thumbs-up. “Hacker, profiler, former FBI agent, now small-town deputy.”

She wouldn’t have pegged him as FBI. He was too laid-back, too, well, happy. “I still don’t think it was him.”

Nate started toward the door. “I don’t think so, either, but I’ll look into it. And you seem damn ready to defend him. You two got something going on?”

Nope. Just a whole lot of hot thoughts that she had no intention of acting on. “No.”

Nate’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Because if you do have something going on, I think you should tell him about this before he finds out on his own. I’ll keep it quiet for now, but these things have a way of coming out. Men around here don’t like it when their women hide things.”

Gemma rolled her eyes. “I am not his woman. Come on, Sheriff. What century do you think we’re in? Even if we were dating, this would be my problem and I would want to keep it private.”

“Have it your way. I’ll ask him about it, but I won’t let on.” Nate turned, gesturing for Cam to come with him. “Night, ma’am.”

Cam slapped his boss on the back. “That girl is going to get spanked. I heard Jesse was the type.”

Naomi shook her head. “Damn, the men here are fine. And you just might get spanked, lucky girl. But seriously, think about this. You don’t know that man. Jesse McCann might look nice, but looks aren’t everything. The sweetest-faced man can turn on you in a heartbeat. Just be careful, okay? I’m going to go back out there or your momma is going to start asking questions. Lock your doors. Better yet, come stay with us.”

She wasn’t going to be run out of her rented, temporary home. “I’ll be fine, Na. I don’t have my gun back, but I have a whole purse full of other weapons. This isn’t the first time someone’s tried to scare me. It won’t be the last. Now go on. My cell is charged, and the sheriff and the deputy live right down the road. I’m fine.”

Naomi hugged her and left.

And she wasn’t fine. She was scared, but she was also alone so she had to hold it together.

She fell asleep wondering if Jesse had a dark side. Or if Cade was the type of man to send a woman a message to stay away.