Which only made me more confused because before this particular visit when I saw Pepper and him in the same area so close together, I would’ve thought he felt nothing for her.

  Was I wrong?

  Was the reason he was coming here not because of the owner, but because of the employee?

  I wasn’t the most experienced person in the world, but I could see that there was something between them. Something intense.

  What little I knew about Pepper—what she allowed me to know about her—was that she was very, very independent. She worked multiple jobs, and she didn’t get along with her sister.

  A sister who Atlas just so happened to save from a serial killer a few years ago.

  Sage, the woman he’d saved, was Pepper’s little sister. According to Sage—who now worked at DPD—she didn’t talk to any of her family. They were all assholes.

  Yet, Pepper never gave me that feeling. She was in a perpetual bad mood, yes. But from what I could see, she was a hard worker—always showing up on time for Maven. Not to mention her second job at a fancy smancy hotel off the interstate meant I saw her quite a bit due to the location of it and the calls that came out of it being in my particular beat.

  Just because a hotel was labeled as five stars didn’t mean that it didn’t come with plenty of issues. From calls about vagrants, to guests who were no longer wanted, I was there quite a bit.

  I also saw Pepper there, every single time.

  Anyway, the things we’d heard about Pepper from Sage never fit, and I wondered if Atlas was aware of that. He and Sage were pretty damn close considering.

  “You can have it all,” she grumbled. “But you have to get it out of my car in the next ten seconds, because I’m about to go down to the police station and murder my father in cold blood.” Maven fumed.

  There was a moment of silence and then I said, “You should probably not announce your plan when it comes to committing murder. Especially in front of two police officers obligated to share that kind of information.”

  She scoffed. “I don’t care what you have to say, or what you do. All I care about is how my father is ruining my life because I want nothing to do with him. And he’s all butt hurt about it and trying to force his hand. Like freakin’ always.”

  I frowned. “What else is he trying to do?”

  I’m going to dress how I want this summer. If you think I’m fat, well so do I.

  —Maven’s secret thoughts

  MAVEN

  I was fuming.

  I’d come in to work this morning and started my day like any other day.

  I’d gotten all my pastries baked and out in the cases, my hand on the door sign poised to flip it to open, when a man wearing a Dallas Health Department embroidered shirt showed.

  He had a look on his face that let me know clearly that my day was about to be fucked.

  Why?

  Because my dad hated me, and he knew everyone in the city.

  And that wasn’t an understatement.

  My dad was the chief of police for the Dallas Police Department.

  If he didn’t know them, he would get to know them.

  And he intimidated them all.

  The health official had stood at the door to my business and pasted a sign on the glass stating that my business was officially closed due to health violations.

  Which was a fucking lie, because my place was as clean as a whistle.

  It had to be because my dad sent the health inspector out every single week to get me closed down.

  I’d managed to avoid actually closing down until this morning, when they’d forced my hand.

  Now I had thousands of dollars’ worth of bakery items that would go to waste, and no way to recoup it since I wasn’t allowed to sell anything until I was reinstated to work.

  I also knew that if I tried to sell anyway, I’d be arrested.

  There was likely some douchebag cop who was loyal to my father somewhere keeping watch, just in case.

  Pepper had arrived in time to see the health inspector leave, and she’d waited with me until well past nine in the morning—four hours after I was supposed to open and six since I’d gotten there this morning—to call the health inspector’s office to file an official complaint.

  Though, I’d been able to get ahold of my lawyer much faster than that, and she’d promised to have a suit filed by Monday morning.

  Needless to say, after hanging up the phone, the last people I wanted to deal with were a couple more cops.

  Though, the Carters seemed to be better than most.

  I especially liked the two who were here.

  Atlas was the sweetest man I’d ever met.

  Meanwhile, his polar-opposite twin, Auden, was the one that always caught my eye and held it.

  Where Atlas was welcoming and always smiling—at least with me—Auden was standoffish and scowling.

  Auden’s chocolate brown eyes weren’t exactly welcoming, but they were still my obsession.

  Chocolate, from a very young age, had become one of my favorite things in the world.

  And the deep, melty chocolate color of Auden’s had been the first thing I noticed about him.

  Then had come the blond hair, cropped close to his head but still long enough to curl. It had been so much like my own that I’d been entranced.

  And his skin.

  It was smooth and tan, in stark contrast against the blond of his hair.

  The tattoos down his muscular arms caught my attention and held it.

  He had a gold star on his right forearm that looked a lot like a badge, with dark red and black ink swirling out around it.

  “What’s going on?” Auden asked, avoiding my gaze.

  Pepper, my one and only employee, who’d been with me for about six weeks now, said, “She already told y’all. Her dad is being a giant douchebag, and he’s been trying to get this place shut down since she opened. He’s finally succeeded, at least for today.”

  That was the truth.

  It was only for today.

  I could do this.

  I could, right?

  “What is he trying to do?” I laughed at Auden’s earlier question.

  God, the man was beautiful.

  Right now, he looked like he was about to fight a bear just for me—that bear being my dad.

  And he hadn’t cared that I was literally threatening the chief of police with murder.

  “Yeah,” Auden said. “What else is he doing? I hate to admit this, but we were aware he had something against this place. He fuckin’ hates when we bring in food from your shop. He doesn’t outright say it or anything, but the man makes it clear that he doesn’t like when those pretty pink boxes arrive. We can’t prove it, but we’re fairly sure he throws it all in the trash if we leave it in the break room and he goes in there. We’ve taken to keeping all the food at our desks.”

  The prick.

  I hated him so much.

  “The better question would be what hasn’t he done?” I fumed. “Other than making me hate living with him for most of my childhood. So much so that I stayed with my grandparents every chance I got. I even started calling myself by my grandparents’ last name since I couldn’t change it legally. He never supported me in any way. I wanted to do gymnastics? He refused. I wanted to go to a church camp and spend time with friends? Refused. I wanted to go to college in Michigan? Refused. I wanted to move out, refused.

  “I have literally had to climb uphill to pull myself from under his thumbs. I mean, I tried to ask for my birth certificate once, and he all but threw a fuckin’ fit. I don’t have it, by the way. I can’t get a passport without it, either. So I’ve yet to go on my vacation of a lifetime.”

  “He hates your best friend, too,” Pepper added softly. “When he heard they were friends—something she had to keep secret from her dad because he didn’t like her having friends—I thought he was going to tear the bakery down around us. He came in, told her that she would never speak to Athena again, and scared the absolute shit out of both of us.”

  I sighed, running my hands over my face for a few long seconds before I pulled them away.

  “You interested in going fishing?” Auden asked in that velvety smooth voice. “That’s where we’re headed. Maybe it’ll give your lawyer time to work, and you enough time to calm down.”

  “I think that’s an excellent idea,” Pepper pushed. “She needs to get out of here.”

  “You’re coming, too.” Atlas narrowed his eyes at her. “Can’t have you out here following through with her threats. Don’t think I didn’t notice you eyeing your car, ready to head to the station yourself.”

  Pepper would do it, too.

  She was a spitfire, and took no shit from anyone, even my father.

  Pepper shrugged. “You have no clue the stuff she has to put up with when it comes to that man.”

  I could feel Auden and Atlas staring at me, but I looked away, trying to control the anger.

  I had no clue why my father was the way he was.

  I had no clue why I couldn’t hang out with friends.

  I didn’t know why I was never able to attend prom, have social media, or date.

  Hell, the last man I’d dated my father had threatened with deportation—and he was an American citizen! I had a feeling he could make it happen, too.

  The man had left without a fight, and I’d realized that I would never be able to have a boyfriend in this state.

  Hell, I should’ve gone with my first instinct to move away and start this business.

  But Athena was here and had no intentions of ever leaving. And after her brother had died a few years ago in a line of duty accident, I hadn’t wanted to let her be here alone—couldn’t, really. She was the one constant in my life after everything my dad had put me through, and my mom had stood by and allowed.

  Consequently, I’d stayed.

  And now I was paying the price.

  “Then it’s settled,” Atlas said, clapping his hands together. “Let’s go. Bring the food. We’ll see how much we can get through.”

  I snorted. “I don’t think you have any understanding how much food is currently in the back of my car.”

  Movement caused my gaze to shift from the good twin to the evil twin.

  A shit-eating grin came over Auden’s face once he saw he now had my attention. “How bad do you want to piss him off?”

  I studied the man, taking in his clothes, his five o’clock shadow, and the chocolate swirl of his eyes.

  “If it makes him want to shoot himself, I’m down,” I grumbled darkly.

  Amusement danced in Auden’s eyes, and I realized then that he wasn’t too upset about my threat to shoot the chief of police.

  In fact, he was looking at me with an intensity that had my belly fluttering.

  “I can have one of my brothers come over here and take this all to the station,” he said. “It’s been a pretty bad week there. Today marks a year since we lost a police officer in the line of duty. The pall at the office is kind of sad. You could take that all in, be their hero.”

  I thought about that for a long second before saying, “How about we just stop there first? I’ll leave my car there. You can tell your brothers to meet us, then they won’t have to bring the van. But make sure to move over whatever you don’t want them to take.”

  “Deal,” Auden said.

  Don’t be fooled by the fake smile and professional body language. I’d punch you in the throat if I knew I wouldn’t go to jail.

  —Maven’s secret thoughts

  MAVEN

  “I can’t believe we’re going fishing,” I muttered mostly to myself as we walked into the gas station to buy bait.

  Well, I wasn’t buying bait. Auden and Atlas were buying bait.

  But since it was hella hot outside—ninety-nine degrees at eight-thirty in the morning—I wasn’t interested in staying in the truck if I didn’t have to. Plus, I could use a good Dr. Pepper. That and a bag of Takis might be the only two things to turn this morning around for me.

  And since I was there, I might as well use the facilities.

  When we walked in, Atlas was there, heading toward the back room. I stopped at the counter and smiled at the haggard looking old lady.

  “Hey, good morning.” I smiled, putting on my best nice face. “Where is your restroom?”

  She pointed in the same direction the two men had disappeared.

  Apparently, it just so happened that both the restroom and the fish bait were in the same large room at this particular establishment.

  I walked around the corner and stared at the two men who were waiting beside a curtained off area toward the corner of the room. There were feet facing outward from behind the curtain. And in the middle of the large room was a massive black container filled with water.

  And bait fish.

  I walked to the line and stood behind the tallest guy I’d ever seen before in my life.

  He had to be at least seven feet tall, if not more.

  Pepper, who fell into place behind me, gave me wide eyes as she mouthed, ‘holy shit!’

  I agreed.

  I came up to the middle of the man’s spine.

  At five-foot-six, I didn’t think that I was small, per se.

  But wow, compared to the man in front of me, I was.

  A toilet flushed, and the line moved forward.

  I glanced beside me when a large, muscular body appeared in my peripheral vision.

  Auden came up with a net in one hand, and a bucket in the other.

  He leaned both of his arms on the side of the water trough, then glanced over at me with a sparkle in his eyes.

  “I bet fifty bucks you won’t touch it.” Auden’s eyes gleamed, jerking his head toward the fish in his net.

  I rolled my eyes. “You think that just because I am a girly girl, I won’t touch a fish?”

  “I know you won’t,” he taunted me.

  He was right.

  I hated fish.

  Well, I didn’t so much hate them as I hated how they felt.

  The line moved again, and Pepper side-stepped me to take my spot in line.

  I allowed this because my heart was beating a mile a minute at the nearness of the hottest man alive.

  “Okay, so I don’t like fish.” I scrunched up my nose.

  “Are you going to put that fish in the bucket and get some more, or do you need me to do it?” Atlas asked as he came up on my other side.

  I’d never been a huge fan of why choose in the romance world.

  I could never see how a man could share the love of his wife with another man.

  However, with two dead sexy men on either side of me, I could see the appeal.

  “Here,” Auden reached over me to hand Atlas the net. The bucket came next. “I’m gonna go grab us some drinks.” He leaned forward so that his mouth was near my ear when he said, “Want anything?”

  I shivered as I said, “Um, yeah. Takis. Dr. Pepper.”

  He hummed something low and deep, and then was gone.

  The toilet flushed again just as Atlas finished up his fish gathering.

  I looked up as the curtain swung open, revealing Pepper who was drying her hands on her shorts.

  “No towels.” She grimaced. “I hate wet hands.”

  Agreed.

  I stepped behind the curtain and had to shake my head at the lack of privacy.

  “We’ll be outside, Maven!” I heard Pepper call.

  “Okay,” I called right back, thankful that they wouldn’t be right outside the thin curtained door and hear me.

  I mean, I was only peeing, but still. When a man as hot as Auden or Atlas was right outside the curtain, you tended to not want to do anything embarrassing. And apparently, peeing was embarrassing now.

  It was as I finished up with the bathroom and had to walk back through the room with the fish again, I acted impulsively.

  I reached down, tried not to think about what I was doing, and caught up the dead fish.

  I mean, it wasn’t like they were going to do anything with the dead one, right?

  I walked out of the store, trying not to think about how slimy the fish felt in my hand.

  When I got to the open truck window where Auden was taking up the front passenger seat, I tossed the fish at him.

  It hit his lap with a soft plop.

  He’d paused mid-drink, pulled the Dr. Pepper away from his mouth, and then looked down at his lap where the dead fish was now lying.

  “Um,” Atlas said. “Get that fish out of my new truck.”

  “You have a bucket full of fish between the seats,” Pepper helpfully pointed out.

  Auden looked over his shoulder at me and glared.

  “You owe me fifty bucks,” I said as I took my seat behind him.

  He snorted, caught the fish, and tossed it out the window.

  The first thing we did when we got to the lake was head to a house that was the size of my first four houses combined.

  “Wow,” I said as I took in the large home. “This is massive.”

  “It’s my mom and dad’s dream retirement home,” Auden said as he got out and reached for my door.

  I got out, sliding down in such a way that not one part of my body touched Auden’s.

  He waited for me to hit the ground, also not waiting for me to get out of the way, before he leaned forward, pinning me between the truck and his perfect body. He caught up the fish, then pulled them out.

  A splash of cold water spilling on my toes made me squeak.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  “You don’t look very sorry,” I pointed out.

  With the bucket in his hand, he moved down the side of the truck and reached over into the bed, producing what looked to be a brand new fishing pole.

  “You like pink?” I teased.

  He shrugged. “If it’s a good reel, I could care less whether it’s pink or black. As long as it casts good, I’m happy.”

  I followed him up to the house, surprised to find Pepper and Atlas already disappearing inside.

  “Why so big for a retirement home?” I questioned the man in front of me.

  He bypassed the front door for the side gate, which he held open for me.