“Shooting you won’t be an accident. Now explain who you are and what you’re doing here.”
He hesitated. “Jaxon Hennessy. And since the owner of this property was my mama, I now own this . . .” He glanced over his shoulder. “Toasted piece of shit.”
Tully couldn’t have been more surprised if he’d claimed to be the devil himself.
Of course, Jaxon Hennessy was about as close to the devil as you could get. As were his three younger siblings.
The Hennessy kids had been hell raisers since birth. If there was a fight at school, a cuss word spray-painted on the side of the church, a missing tractor found in a ditch, or a broken window on a car in town, the Hennessys’ monstrosity of a house, just a stone’s throw down the road, was the first place her daddy would head.
More nights than not, the Hennessy Hooligans’ antics were the subject of dinner conversations at Tully’s house. Before they all grew up and moved away, they had been as much the bane of her daddy’s existence as Honky Tonk Heaven.
Mama had only felt pity for the kids whose parents had allowed them to run wild. She had often reminded her husband that they were just children looking for love and attention.
Not that the Hennessy boys lacked for that.
Every girl in town had been half in love with the three brothers and followed them around like love-struck groupies. It was hard not to fall for their bad boy personas and devilish good looks. The two younger brothers, Dawson and Huck, had been quite the ladies’ men.
But not Jaxon.
Jaxon had never had a girlfriend.
Tully knew.
Like Honky Tonk Heaven, she’d had a major infatuation with him.
Maybe it was his midnight hair that shone in the sunlight like a wellspring of rich Texas oil. Or his piercing eyes the color of browned butter. Or the protective way he watched out for his siblings—holding their hands when they crossed the street, wiping their snotty noses with the bandana he always carried in his back pocket, giving them his ice cream when they’d eaten all theirs.
And every time her daddy came calling at the Hennessys, it was Jaxon who had always taken the blame for his siblings’ pranks and antics.
In her teenage hormone-soaked brain, Tully put Jaxon in the category of misunderstood hero and she spent most of her freshman year in high school fantasizing about him . . . until the night her daddy had caught him robbing Mickey’s Gas Station. Then she realized how stupid she’d been.
Jaxon was no hero to idealize. He was a bad boy through and through.
Still, he wasn’t doing anything wrong tonight. His family did own Honky Tonk Heaven.
She started to lower her gun when something fell from the tree and hit her arm. The loud shot that rang out had her ears ringing. When her confusion cleared, she stared in stunned horror at Jaxon face down on the ground.
“Oh my God!” She holstered her gun and raced to him. “Please be okay . . . please be okay,” she pleaded as she leaned over him. One second, she was checking for a pulse with two fingers pressed beneath his stubbled neck, and the next second, she was lying flat on her back with her hands pinned over her head.
Angry golden eyes glared at her.
“What the fuck! Have you lost your mind?”
She tried to take in the breath he’d knocked out of her, but the weight of his muscled body made that impossible. She felt like a solid brick wall had fallen on her. All she could get out was a squeaky wheeze.
He rolled his eyes and released a breath that smelled like mint Tic Tacs. “Je-sus.”
He got to his feet, effortlessly pulling her up with him. She wobbled like a drunken sailor for a second before she bent at her waist and tried to catch her breath. A hand settled on her back. A large hand that rubbed in a soothing circle.
“Don’t try to force the air in. Just let it come naturally.”
She followed his instructions, and a few seconds later, blessed oxygen filled her lungs. After inhaling and exhaling two deep breaths, she was able to straighten. Her gaze quickly ran over Jaxon. His hat had been knocked off and there was dirt on his white T-shirt and faded blue jeans, but no blood.
“So you’re okay?” she asked. “I didn’t shoot you?”
“Only because I was smart enough to drop to the ground when I saw the raccoon fall from the tree and hit your arm.”
“A raccoon?” She glanced around, then looked back to find him staring at her nametag.
