Page 4
Present day …
The sparkling string lights offended her. Deeply. Together with the syrupy sweet music blasting through the loudspeaker, they fostered the illusion of love, happiness, and forevers.
But Felicity knew better.
Standing on the edge of the glow, a paper cup of spiked cider in one hand, the other shoved into the front pocket of her worn jeans, she watched the dance floor the way a soldier watches a kill zone. Same tension in the jaw. Same bone-deep exhaustion. The only difference was nobody here knew there were landmines buried under all that laughter.
There was too much pretending in happiness. Too many lies tucked into slow dances and breathless glances … like love wasn’t a loaded gun pointed at your chest. They all looked so damned hopeful. It made her teeth hurt.
Kids ran between hay bales, laughter trailing like smoke. Someone tossed an apple up into the air and caught it, grinning like life hadn’t already carved its initials into their skin.
What was it like to believe nothing bad would ever happen?
She couldn’t remember a time when the world hadn’t been something to survive. Childhood taught her that monsters didn’t live under the bed — they sat at the head of the table.
Behind her, a man laughed too loudly. The kind of sound that used to trigger her hand toward her duty weapon back when she wore full blue and walked downtown Denver’s piss-stained alleyways.
Now she was a small-town deputy with scar tissue no one saw and a reputation for flirting too freely with men she’d never actually touch.
It was armor. The glances, the smirks, the skin she let show.
All distraction.
Keep them looking where you wanted. Keep them away from the cracks.
She’d arrived in Clearbrook twenty-one months ago. If it weren’t for the promise she made to the woman who once saved her life, she’d have bailed twenty months ago.
The town felt like a vice. Tight, airless, pressing in.
They watched her. Always.
The lady at the diner smiled too tightly. The men at the feed store stopped talking when she walked in. The owners of Books ’n Bakes took her money like it burned their fingers. Even the pastor’s wife offered pie and scripture with the same cautious look, like Felicity was something feral. Something dangerous.
No one said it out loud, but she wasn’t one of them.
Too sharp. Too quiet. Too … something else.
And that made her a threat.
She downed the cider and reached for her smokes, more out of defiance than need. Because in Clearbrook, she couldn’t disappear. Not in the streets, not in the gossip, not even in her own skin.
Her eyes strayed to him. Again.
Tall. Sinewy. Built like he knew exactly what to do with that strength.
And yes, there was no ignoring the delicious view from behind.
The Marine. In town on leave. Staying with his teammate.
She knew all about him.
After all, it was her job to know. Not her official one. The one that took over once her front door shut and the rest of the world fell away. Every unfamiliar face, every out-of-state plate, every stranger who crossed the town line — she logged them, checked them, filed them away.
He’d been filed.
Late thirties. Born in Texas. Married. Wife also a Marine.
Which made it all the more irritating that her attention kept drifting back to him. Married men were out of bounds.
