Page 1

Chapter 1

Georgia

The plastic vampire hanging in Case’s front window tapped the glass whenever the wind kicked up, giving my last round of packing a soundtrack I hadn’t asked for.

I tucked my makeup bag beside two folded sweaters and reached for the scarf draped over the armchair. For the past few weeks, I’d existed in small pieces around Case’s apartment—boots beside his, shampoo in the shower, phone charger tucked behind the couch. When I’d decided to give up my apartment during the restaurant sale, he hadn’t turned the offer of his couch into a rescue mission. He’d handed me a key and warned me that the left side of the bathroom counter was sacred territory.

Considering the collection of hair products required to keep his highlighted dirty-blond waves looking casually perfect, I’d respected the boundary.

Case appeared from the hallway carrying my hairbrush. At about thirty, he was six feet tall, lean and naturally athletic, with light-medium olive-toned skin. He could make dark jeans and a wine-colored patterned shirt look intentional at one in the afternoon. His green eyes swept over the open bag before settling on me.

“You missed this.”

“Thank you.” I took the brush and slipped it into the side pocket. “I’d hate to meet Rex McCord looking unemployed.”

Yesterday, that word would have been technically inaccurate. Today, after the new owners had officially eliminated my general-manager position, it was unfortunately precise.

Case’s expression softened for half a second before he reached up and straightened one of my gold earrings instead. He knew better than to offer pity. We’d worked too many restaurant shifts together, survived too many disasters, and compared too many terrible dates with men to start lying to each other now.

I pulled on my coat over the burnt-orange wrap top I’d chosen because confidence occasionally benefited from good tailoring.

Cold air slipped in around the window frame, carrying the smell of damp leaves and wood smoke. Across the street, jack-o’-lanterns crowded a porch already strung with orange lights.

Case handed me my bag.

I took it, then looked up at my best friend. “Okay. Wish me luck.”

He bent and kissed my cheek.

When he straightened, he kept both hands on my shoulders. Case and I had gone from restaurant coworkers to inseparable friends years ago, which meant my gay best friend had witnessed enough of my professional disasters, family complications, and regrettable heterosexual choices to know when a joke would help and when I needed the truth.

“You know the couch is still yours tonight,” he said. “Whatever happens with McCord, you come back if you want to. No dramatic speeches required.”

“I’m planning to return triumphantly employed, but I appreciate having a contingency plan.”

His expression brightened. “Then employment is the treat. If McCord says no, that’s the trick.”

I adjusted the strap of my bag and considered him. “I’m the one being tricked in that version.”

Case reached for the coffee he had abandoned on the end table. “You come home, I open the good wine, and we criticize his judgment until bedtime. Win-win.”

That made me laugh, which was probably his entire objective.

I hugged him before I could turn the goodbye sentimental. He squeezed me hard enough to wrinkle my coat, then let go without another attempt to reassure me. I appreciated that almost as much as the couch.

The narrow mirror beside his door caught me before I left. My chestnut hair had already begun escaping around my face in soft waves, but the burnt-orange wrap top still fit the way I wanted it to, following my waist and curves without making me look as though I had dressed for anything except a professional conversation. With dark jeans, boots, gold earrings, and my scarf, I looked like a woman going to propose a practical solution to a business problem.

That was exactly what I intended to do.

Outside, Whispering Pines had committed itself fully to Halloween. A skeleton wearing a fishing vest occupied a bench outside the sporting-goods store. Paper bats crowded the bakery windows, and pumpkins ringed the downtown lampposts beneath strands of orange lights waiting for dusk. Wind sent damp red and gold leaves skittering along the curb while low gray clouds hid the upper slopes beyond Main Street.

The storefronts thinned within minutes. Pines closed in along the road, and I turned onto the quieter stretch leading toward Rex’s property.

A small North Fork Bail Bonds sign marked the drive. Nothing else announced the business. The converted outbuilding sat apart from a larger house farther back among the trees, its dark siding and metal roof blending easily into the property. Two vehicles were parked beside it, including a black pickup built on the scale of something that expected bad roads.

The place looked restrained and functional.

So did the man who opened the office door before I reached it.