addie stood with her hands sticking straight out from her shoulders as Nan, the seamstress, pinned peach satin beneath her armpits. The other two bridesmaids stood on either side of her in various degrees of undress while being pinned and poked.

“You owe me,” she said to her friend Clare, the blushing bride-to-be. She’d driven down from Truly that morning and planned to go out with her friends before driving back the next day.

“Look at it this way,” Clare said from her position on the couch inside of Nan’s Bridal. “At least the dresses aren’t all froufrou like the dresses Lucy made us wear for her wedding.”

“Hey. Those were beautiful,” Lucy protested, defending her choice of froufrou while a second seamstress pinned her hem.

“We looked like prom escapees,” Adele argued. Adele held up her thick curly hair as a woman pinned the back of her dress. “But I’ve seen worse. My cousin Jolene made her bridesmaids wear purple and white toile de Jouy.”

Clare, the arbiter of exquisite taste, gasped.

“Toile like the pastoral prints you see on chairs and wallpaper?” Maddie asked.

“Yep. They looked like sofas. Especially Jolene’s friend who was a little roomier than the other girls.”

“That’s sad.” Lucy turned so the seamstress could work on the back of the hem.

“Criminal,” Adele added. “Some things should just be against the law. Or if not, there should be some reparation for putting a person through emotional stress.”

“What did Dwayne do now?” Clare asked, referring to Adele’s old boyfriend.

For two years Adele had dated Dwayne Larkin and had thought she just might end up as Mrs. Larkin. She’d overlooked his more undesirable habits, like smelling the armpits of his shirts before he put them on because he’d been buff and very hot. She’d put up with his beer-swilling, Star Wars–obsessed ways, because not everyone was perfect. But the moment he’d told her she was getting a “fat ass” like her mother, she’d kicked him out of her life. No one used the f-word in relation to her behind or insulted her deceased mama. But Dwayne wouldn’t go completely. Every few weeks, Adele would find on her porch one or two of the presents she’d given to him or things she’d left at his house. The stuff would just be lying there. No note. No Dwayne. Just random-as-hell items.

“For his birthday, I gave him a limited-edition Darth Vader.” Adele dropped her hands and her thick blond hair fell down her back. “I found it on my porch with the head cut off.”

Maddie could understand Dwayne’s issue with the gift, but for different reasons. If she opened a birthday present and found a Darth Vader, limited edition or not, she’d get fairly pissed off. But still, any sort of violence should never be taken lightly. “You need to get an alarm system. Do you still have the stun gun I got you?”

Adele held still as the seamstress measured the circumference of her arm. “Somewhere.”

“You need to find it and zap him with it.” Nan moved to Maddie’s bodice and she dropped her arms to her sides. “Or better yet, let me get you a Cobra like I have, and you can Taser his ass with fifty thousand volts.”

Without moving her body, Adele turned her head and looked at Maddie like she was the crazy one. “Won’t that kill him?”

Maddie thought a moment. “Does he have a heart condition?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Then no,” Maddie answered. Nan took a step back to eye her progress. “He’ll convulse like you’re killing him, though.”

Adele’s and Clare’s mouths fell open in shock, as if she’d lost what little mind she had left, but Lucy nodded. She’d fought for her life against a serial killer and knew firsthand the importance of personal safety devices. “And when you have him on the ground, douse him with pepper spray.”

“Dwayne is an idiot, but he’s not violent,” Adele said. “Although seeing the Darth Vader did remind me of something horrible.”

“What?” If Dwayne had ever hit Adele, Maddie would hunt him down and zap him herself.

“He has my Princess Leia slave costume.”

Clare scooted to the edge of the couch. “You have a slave costume?”

Maddie only had one question. “Are you shitting me?”

Lucy had two. “What’s that?” And, “Do you mean a metal bikini?”

As if a metal slave bikini were a normal part of a woman’s wardroom, Adele nodded. “Yeah. And I’d really like to have it back in one piece.” She thought a moment, then added, “Well, the two pieces…and the armbands and collar.” She must have noticed her friends’ expressions, ranging from appalled to worried, because she added, “Hey, I spent a lot of money on that costume and I want it back.” The seamstress stepped away to write down a measurement and Adele folded her arms under her breasts. “Don’t tell me you girls have never role-played.”

Lucy shook her head. “No, but I used to pretend that an old boyfriend was Jude Law. He didn’t know it, though, so I don’t think that counts.”

Clare, who always tried to make everyone feel better, said, “Well, I told Sebastian once that I had costumes and handcuffs.” She sat back on the sofa. “But I lied. Sorry.”

Maddie glanced at the three seamstresses to see their reactions. They looked as poker-faced as Sunday school teachers. They’d probably heard worse. She turned her gaze to Adele, who’d tilted her head to one side as if she were waiting for something.

“What?” Maddie asked.

“I know you’ve done kinky stuff.”

Mostly Maddie was just talk. “I’ve never dressed up.” She thought a moment and in an effort to sooth Adele she confessed, “But if it makes you feel better, I’ve been tied up.”

“Me too.”

“Of course.”

“Big deal.” Adele didn’t look placated. “Everyone’s been tied up.”

“That’s true,” Nan the seamstress added. She plucked a pin from the cushion on her wrist and glanced over at Adele. “And if it makes you feel better, every now and again I dress up as Little Red Riding Hood.”

“Thank you, Nan.”

“You’re welcome.” She made a spinning motion with her finger. “Turn, please.”

After the bridesmaids were done with their fittings, the four friends drove to their favorite place to meet for lunch. Café Olé didn’t have the best Mexican food in town, but it did have the best pitchers of margaritas. They were shown to one of their favorite booths, and over piped-in mariachi Muzak, they caught up. They talked about Clare’s wedding and Lucy’s plans to start a family with her hunk of a husband Quinn. And they wanted to hear all about Maddie’s life, one hundred miles north in Truly.

“It’s actually not as bad as I’d thought,” she said as she raised her drink to her lips. “It’s very beautiful and quiet—well, except on the Fourth. Half the women in town have really bad hair, and the other half look great. I’m trying to figure out if it’s a native vs. snowbird thing, but so far I can’t tell.” She shrugged. “I thought spending so much time cooped up in my house would drive me insane, but it hasn’t.”

“You know I love you,” Lucy said, which was always followed by a but. “But you are already totally insane.”

Probably that was true.

“How’s the book?” Clare asked as a waitress brought their food.

“Slow.” She’d ordered a chicken tostada salad and picked up her fork as soon as the waitress left. She’d only told her friends about her plans to write about her mother’s death a few weeks ago, long after she’d found the diaries and bought her house in Truly. She didn’t know why she’d waited. She usually wasn’t shy about sharing the details of her personal life with her friends, sometimes to their shock and horror, but reading her mother’s diaries had left her so raw, she’d needed time to adjust and take it all in before she talked about it with anyone.

“Have you met the Hennessys?” Adele asked as she dug into an enchilada oozing with cheese and topped with sour cream. Adele worked out every day, and as a result could eat whatever she wanted. Maddie, on the other hand, hated exercise.

“I’ve met Mick and his nephew Travis.”

“What was Mick’s reaction to your writing the book?”

“Well, he doesn’t know.” She took a bite of her salad, then added, “The time just hasn’t been right to talk to him about it.”

“So.” Lucy’s brows drew together. “What have you talked to him about?”

That neither of them could see themselves married and that he liked her butt and the way she smelled. “Mice, mostly.” Which was kind of the truth.

“Wait.” Adele held up one hand. “He knows who you are, who your mother was, and he just wants to chat about mice?”

“I haven’t told him who I am.” All three friends paused in the act of eating to stare at her. “While he’s working in his bar, or when everyone’s standing around a barbeque, isn’t the place to walk up to him and say, ‘My name is Maddie Jones and your mother killed mine.’” Her friends nodded in agreement and went back to their meals. “And yesterday was just bad timing all around. I’d had a crappy day. He was nice and brought me the Mouse Motel and then he kissed me.” She speared a piece of chicken and avocado. “After that, I just forgot.”

All three friends paused once again.

“To borrow your favorite phrase,” Lucy said, “are you shitting me?”

Maddie shook her head. Maybe she should have kept that one to herself. Too late now.

Now it was Clare’s turn to hold up one hand. “Wait. Clear something up for me.”

“Yes.” Maddie answered what she thought was the next logical question. The one she would have asked. “He’s really hot and he’s good. My thighs about went up in flames.”

“That wasn’t the question.” Clare glanced around, as she always tended to do when she thought Maddie was being inappropriate in a public place. “You made out with Mick Hennessy and he has no idea who you are? What do you think is going to happen when he finds out?”

“I imagine he’s going to be really pissed off.”

Clare leaned forward. “You imagine?”

“I don’t know him well enough to predict how he’ll feel.” But she did. She knew he was going to be angry, and she knew she sort of deserved it. Although, to be fair to herself, there really hadn’t been a good time to tell him. And she hadn’t come to his house and kissed him breathless. He’d done that to her.

“When you do tell him, make sure you have your Cobra,” Lucy advised.

“He’s not a violent guy. I won’t need to Taser him.”

“You don’t know him.” Adele pointed her fork at Maddie and pointed out the obvious. “His mother killed yours.”

“And as you are always pointing out to us, it’s the sane-looking ones you have to watch out for,” Clare reminded Maddie.

“And that without personal safety devices, we’re all sitting ducks.” Lucy laughed and lifted her drink. “‘And the next thing you know, some guy is wearing your head for a hat.’”

“Remind me again why I’m friends with you three?” Maybe because they were the only people alive who cared about her. “I’ll tell him. I’m just picking my moment.”

Clare sat back against the seat. “Oh, my God.”

“What?”

“You’re afraid.”

Maddie picked up her margarita and took a long drink until the backs of her eyeballs froze. “I call it being a little apprehensive.” She placed a warm palm on her brow. “I’m not afraid of anything.”

The black metal frame on a pair of Revo high-resolution sunglasses sat on the bridge of Mick’s nose while the blue mirrored lenses shaded his eyes from the scorching six o’clock sun. As he walked across the school parking lot, his gaze was intent on player number twelve in the blue Hennessy’s T-shirt and the red batter’s helmet. He’d been busy going over the books and ordering beer from the distributor and he’d missed the first inning.

“Come on, Travis,” he called out and sat on the bottom row of bleacher seats. He leaned forward to place his forearms on the tops of his thighs.

Travis rested the bat on one shoulder as he approached the black rubber T. He took several practice swings like his coach had shown him as the opposing team, Brooks Insurance, stood in the field, mitts at the ready. Travis got into the perfect batter’s stance, swung, and completely missed.

“That’s okay, buddy,” Mick called out to him.

“You’ll get it this time, Travis,” Meg yelled down from where she sat in the top row next to her friends and fellow T-ball moms.

Mick glanced up at his sister before returning his gaze to the plate. Last night’s dinner at her house had been perfectly fine. She’d made steak and baked potatoes and had been the fun-loving Meg most people knew. And the whole time, he hadn’t wanted to be there. He’d wanted to be across town. In a house on the lake with a woman he knew nothing about. Talking about mice and burying his nose in the side of her neck.

There was something about Maddie Dupree. Something besides the beautiful face, the hot body, and the smell of her skin. Something that made him think about her when he should be thinking about other things. Distracted while he looked over his accounting system for errors.

Travis once again got into stance and took a swing. This time he connected and sent the ball hurling between second and third base. He dropped the bat and took off for first and his helmet slid back and forth on his head as he ran. The ball bounced and rolled past the outfielder, who took off after it. The first base coach urged Travis to keep going and he made it all the way to third before the outfielder picked up the ball and threw it a few feet. Travis took off again and did a beauty of a slider into home while the outfielder and second baseman fought over the ball.

Mick hollered and gave Travis the thumbs-up. Extremely proud as if he were the boy’s daddy instead of his uncle. For the time being, he was the male in Travis’s life. Travis hadn’t seen his father in five years, and Meg didn’t know where he was. Or, more likely, she didn’t want to know where the deadbeat was. Mick had met Gavin Black one time, at Meg’s wedding. He’d summed him up in one glance as a loser, and he’d been right.

Travis brushed off his pants and handed his coach the helmet. He high-fived his teammates, then took a seat on the team bench. He looked over at Mick and grinned, his one missing tooth a black shadow in his small mouth. If Gavin Black had been standing in front of Mick, he would have kicked his ass all over the schoolyard. How could any man run out on his son? Especially after raising him for two years. And how could his sister have married such a loser?

Mick placed his hands on his knees as the next batter struck out and Travis’s team took the field. The best thing for Travis and Meg would be for her to find a nice dependable man. Someone who would be good to her and Travis. Someone stable.

He loved Travis and would always look out for him. Just as he’d looked out for Meg when they’d been kids. But he was tired now. It seemed to him that the more time he gave her, the more she took. In some ways, she’d become their grandmother, and he’d stayed away for twelve years to get away from Loraine. If he let Meg, he was afraid she’d become too dependent on him. He didn’t want that. After a life of turmoil, whether as a child or living in war zones, he wanted some peace and calm. Well, as peaceful and calming as could be expected owning two bars.

Meg was the sort of woman who needed a man in her life, someone to balance her out, but it couldn’t be him. He thought of Maddie and her assertion that she wasn’t looking for a husband. He’d heard that claim before, but with her, he believed it. He didn’t know what she did for a living, if anything, but she obviously didn’t need a man to support her.

Mick rose and moved to the batter’s cage to get a better look at Travis standing out in center field with his mitt held up in the air as if he expected a ball from heaven to land inside.

He hadn’t planned to kiss Maddie yesterday. He’d brought her Ernie’s card and the Mouse Motel, and he’d planned to leave. But the second she’d opened the door, his plans got shot all to hell. The black dress had clung to her sexy curves and all he’d been able to think about was untying it. Pulling the strings and unwrapping her like a birthday gift. Touching and tasting her all over.

He raised his hands and grasped the chain link in front of him. Yesterday his timing had been bad, but there wasn’t a doubt in his mind. He was going to kiss Maddie again.

“Hi, Mick.”

He looked across his shoulder as Jewel Finley walked toward him. Jewel had been one of his mother’s friends. She had two obnoxious twin boys, Scoot and Wes, and a whiny crybaby girl named Belinda whom everyone called Boo. Growing up, Mick had hit Boo with a Nerf ball and she’d acted like she’d been mortally injured. According to Meg, Belinda wasn’t quite the crybaby these days, but the twins were obnoxious as ever.

“Hello, Mrs. Finley. Do you have a grandkid playing tonight?”

Jewel pointed toward the opposing bench. “My daughter’s son, Frankie, is playin’ outfield for Brooks Insurance.”

Ah. The boy who threw like a girl. Figured.

“What are Scoot and Wes up to these days?” he asked to be polite. Not that he gave a shit.

“Well, after their fish farm failed, they both got their commercial driver’s licenses and now they drive big rigs for a movin’ company.”

He turned his attention to the field and Travis, who was now tossing his mitt in the air and catching it. “Which company?” If he had to move, he wanted to know who not to call.

“York Transfer and Storage. But they’re gettin’ tired of the long haul. So as soon as they save up enough money, they’re thinkin’ about starting one of those house-flippin’ businesses. Like on TV.”

Mick figured it would take the twins less than a year of working for themselves before they filed for bankruptcy. To say the boys weren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer was an understatement.

“There’s good money in flippin’ houses.”

“Uh-huh.” He was going to have to talk to Travis about paying attention to the game.

“As much as fifty grand a month. That’s what Scooter says.”

“Uh-huh.” Geez-us. Now the kid was turned completely around and watching cars drive by in the street.

“Have you talked to that writer yet?”

He probably shouldn’t yell at Travis to watch the game, but he wanted to. “What writer?”

“The one who’s writin’ a book about your parents and that waitress, Alice Jones.”