“Girl!He was a total dud. What kind of man asks a woman out to dinner and then doesn’t pick up the check?” Wren, my best friend, fumed.
I glanced over at her and frowned as we stepped into the smaller barn on my property. “It sounds like you dodged a bullet.”
Wren nodded hard, her blonde swoop bang falling over her eyes. “Right! I’m gonna die alone with a house full of freaking cats. It’s rough out here, Harm. Freaking rough.”
“What’s wrong with cats?” Cats were great.
Her face softened, pity creasing her brow. “You realize there’s a whole big world out there besides this farm, right?”
I looked away. There was no reason for her to worry about me. I was happy in my bubble. It was safe there. “I’m good,” I assured her.
Wren sighed.
Ignoring the tension, I reached into the nesting boxes to collect the eggs. “I am. I promise,” I said, setting the warm eggs gently into the basket.
I had enough eggs to take to Rebel’s Diner, plus a couple dozen for regular customers in town.
It wasn’t glamorous, but eggs, goat milk soap, and produce from my little farm helped keep the lights on.
Without Reggie’s money, I needed every dollar.
Granted, I still had the life insurance money my Aunt Reba had left me, but I didn’t want to touch it. It felt wrong accepting money from a woman I’d never even met.
One day I was scraping by, trying to figure out how to start over after my divorce, and the next, a lawyer was standing on my porch with paperwork, a check, and keys to a farm.
My life had changed in a single afternoon.
“Are you listening to me?”
I blinked and looked at Wren. “Sorry. What?”
“I asked if you’ve seen the new bikers in town.”
My brows shot up. “New bikers?”
“Yep,” she said, popping the p. “And they’re hot.”
“Just great.” As if Moody and his motley crew weren’t bad enough, now we had more.
My lip curled.
Every time I stepped foot into Rebel’s Diner to make a delivery, Moody and his trio had been there, leering and making lewd comments. And the thing was, you couldn’t ignore them. They were literally everywhere because they owned just about everything in town. The diner, the garage, the bar.
Wren leaned against the stall door. “They came into the grocery store a few days ago.” She waggled her brows. “They’re hot. All of them.”
Wren worked at the market in town.
“And,” she stressed, “nobody’s seen Moody in days.”
That got my attention. “What do you mean nobody’s seen him?”
She shrugged. “Just what I said. Rumor is these new guys showed up, and now Moody and his entourage are gone.”
“Gone where?”
Wren shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe they skipped town.”
I doubted that. Moody thought he was the king of Devils Cove. Men like him don’t give up that kind of power.
