I miss you so much, Gran.

  The lights are off in the front of Etta’s house, but I’m not surprised. I know where Aunt Etta is. The barn behind her home is her sanctuary, and where she spends all her time if she’s not at Puss N Boots. I slide open the door as quietly as I can and make my way down the center aisle to Nala’s stall. Lester hops off to explore on his own, and probably hunt down one of the horse’s oat cookies to snatch.

  “How’s she doing?” I ask softly, scanning the sorrel quarter horse, who’s watching me with interest.

  Aunt Etta doesn’t move from her place, sitting in the soft hay and leaning back against the wooden wall. She’s wearing well-worn jeans, a snap-front plaid shirt, and boots covered in various shades of brown staining. Her dark hair hangs in one long braid over her right shoulder, and her eyes never stray from Nala, who might as well be her child.

  “Better. Another day or two and she’ll be good as new.” She says it as though declaring it will make it so. Actually, she might be able to—I bet even God wouldn’t risk pissing off Aunt Etta. “Chiropractor came by earlier and did an alignment. Made a big difference.”

  Nala snorts as though she’s agreeing with Aunt Etta.

  “Good. I brought you some grub, and some wine.” I slow step toward her and Aunt Etta reaches up to take the offered bag and cup. Hands now free, I sit down next to her in the hay.

  “Bless you, girl. I need this.” Aunt Etta pops the lid off the cup first and takes a sip. She smacks her lips. “Yep, needed that. What’s in the bag?” she asks, already opening it and thrusting a hand inside. “Ooh, is this one of Tay’s famous fried-catfish po’boys? You are too good to me, Hazel.”

  She takes a second bite before swallowing the first, obviously hungry but unwilling to leave Nala alone for even a moment.

  “I’ll stay with her if you want to walk around a bit to stretch your legs or go to the bathroom.” I make the offer even though I already know the answer. Nala’s her baby; she isn’t going anywhere.

  Aunt Etta snorts her reply, sounding vaguely like her beloved horse did a moment ago, and then adds a fry to the mouthful of sandwich she’s working on. We fall quiet, both of us watching Nala while Etta eats. After a few minutes, she says, “You gonna tell me about tonight or not?”

  I huff out a wry laugh, not surprised that she’s already heard about the fiasco with Roddy. This town gets bigger every day, but not so fast that the small-town grapevine can’t keep pace. For folks like us, Cold Springs natives, that grapevine works faster than Twitter. “Roddy finally decided to man up and play me. I won, of course, which made him totally forget himself. Tried to stiff me on the bet, but he paid up in the end and stomped his way out like a pissed-off possum, hissing and snapping his teeth.”

  Aunt Etta takes another drink. “Not what I meant. Everyone knew you were gonna wipe the floor with that boy. Only question was how big the margin was going to be. You’ve been a better player than him since you were twelve years old.” I preen at the praise from the woman who taught me how to play pool, although I will admit that I did have a bit of “home table advantage,” considering how well I know every square inch of that surface. “I mean, you gonna tell me about after that?”

  She leans my way a bit, pinning me with her dark eyes, which are hard as marbles right now.

  Play dumb, my brain shouts, though I’m not sure why exactly. I didn’t do anything wrong.

  “After?” Aunt Etta’s glare somehow gets harder and icier. “Oh, you mean aaafter. Well, there was a guy that butted in to the deal with Roddy, and I played him. Said his name was Wyatt, and then I found out what he should’ve said was his name’s William Wyatt Ford III.”

  I leave out my body’s reaction to him and all the filthy thoughts I was fighting. Etta doesn’t need to know any of that for damn sure.

  “Bill’s oldest. That’s what I heard.” Etta nods emphatically as her lips turn down. “You’d best watch out for that boy. He’s got that Ford blood, and he’s a runner. Double whammy.”

  I don’t understand why, but my gut reaction is to defend Wyatt. I know next to nothing about him. Name? Definitely in the negative column. Stepping in between Roddy and me? Annoying and unneeded, but maybe a bit sweet. All the banter? As much as I hate to admit it, I enjoyed it. I don’t often meet people who can go toe to toe with me. My rough edges are a little too abrasive for most folks.

  “Oh no. He’s already seduced you, hasn’t he?” Aunt Etta scoffs, her eyes not missing a moment of whatever expressions crossed my face. “Figures.”

  “No. He has not,” I argue petulantly. But a second later, I quietly ask, “Do you know anything about him specifically, though? Or just the Fords in general.”

  “Knew it.” She shakes her head but sighs as her attention returns to Nala. “Not a lot. He left town a while back and doesn’t visit, but nobody knows what that’s all about. Could be that Daddy told him no about a flashy car or could be because he thinks his dad’s a horse’s behind. No telling. But he’s fruit of the poisonous tree, so he can’t be all that great.”

  She’s got a point, but . . . “Winston’s great. He interrupted my game with Wyatt because he wanted to drop off dinner for Avery and Grandpa Joe.”

  Etta snorts again. “Winston wasn’t always great. The love of a good woman can help a man see a different path. If his eyes are open and his heart’s willing.” She sounds like a wise old hippie more than the country woman she is. “I think we’d both agree that Avery’s about the best woman any of us know.”

  The implication that I’m not isn’t some big shocker of a revelation. Avery is truly one of a kind, and we definitely follow the friendship rule—one is nice and boring; one is crude and crazy. She says I keep her life interesting, and she makes me think before reacting.

  Sometimes.

  “Avery had her work cut out with Winston. I think it was worth it, though. The wedding is going to be beautiful.”

  “As long as the marriage is too,” Aunt Etta adds thoughtfully. “Too many people thinking all about one day, when you’ve got to think about thousands of others.”

  Relationships are a touchy subject for her. She was once a soon-to-be bride, innocently thinking her fiancé was as impatient and excited for their wedding and marriage as she was. She was floating on cloud nine.

  But walking in on him balls deep in her best friend was the shock of her lifetime and altered the trajectory of everything she thought her future would be. It doesn’t help Aunt Etta’s opinion of Winston and Wyatt that her fiancé was the one and only Jed Ford.

  “You think it won’t be?” I question, concerned that she sees an issue with Avery and Winston that I don’t.

  She jolts as if coming out of a trance and pats my hand reassuringly. “I’m sure it’ll be fine, just fine. You’re right, Avery has changed that man.”

  I wish she sounded as sure as those words would make it seem. Then again, Aunt Etta lets Winston into her bar, so she’s got to have some confidence in him. Though that was a process in itself, requiring Winston to prove himself through a labyrinth of hazing and insults before being officially welcomed at Puss N Boots.

  Lester flies into Nala’s stall, landing high on one of the wooden walls dividing it from the next. “Bawk! Lester good bird. Want cookie.”

  Aunt Etta points a finger at the bird. “You’ve been in the tack room eating cookies this whole time and we both know it. Greedy bird, you’re going to be so fat, you won’t be able to fly.”

  I hiss, “Don’t tell him that! You’ll give him a complex.” I hold out my hand and Lester hops down to me, settling in my lap. I pet his feathers gently. “You’re perfect just the way you are.”

  “Lester know. Perfect bird.” Apparently, he doesn’t have a complex, unless it’s a superiority one.

  I let out a dramatic sigh and look over to Aunt Etta, who looks back at me with approximately zero sympathy. She’s not always Lester’s biggest fan, often calling him “the devil bird from the deepest pits of hell.” But that’s a leftover from the time Lester pooped in her freshly done hair. It was an accident—he’s fully paper trained—but Etta doesn’t forgive or forget easily. She does sneak him cookies, though, so I know she’s not too hate-filled.

  “I think I know a bird who needs to go to bed,” I tell him. I get up from the hay, dusting off my butt. “You need anything else?” I ask Aunt Etta, knowing she’ll be out here all night, probably sleeping here so she can keep an eye on Nala.

  “No, I’m okay, honey. Thank you again,” she says, holding up the Styrofoam cup.

  As I walk out of the stall, she calls, “Hazel . . .” I look back and she glances down before meeting my eyes deliberately. “Be careful. I don’t know Wyatt, but I know what he comes from. It’s not about whether you’re enough to change him like Avery did Winston. It’s about . . .” She licks her lips, thinking. “Just be careful. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  I hate that one man hurt her bad enough to sour her on them all, but touched at her care, I dip my chin, placing a hand on my heart. “I will be, Aunt Etta. I promise.”

  She nods once, accepting my words. “Good, because if he hurts you, I’ll kill him. And then I’ll go to jail. It’ll be a whole messy thing.” She waves a hand around like there’s mess all over the freshly cleaned stall. “And who’d take care of Nala then?”

  “They’d never catch you anyway,” I tease, but I understand what she’s telling me.

  Lester and I head back home. I know his sleep habits like the back of my hand, and he needs at least ten hours a night of sleep and darkness. So after changing out his paper and his water, I pet the feathers on top of his head, making little calming sounds until Lester steps onto his perch in his cage. “Bedtime, Lester.”

  “Bawk!” Lester agrees. I give him a smile and slowly close the blinds on his cage, drawing them around and doing the Velcro so he can relax in the darkness.

  I retreat to the doorway and click the light. “Good night, Lester.”

  “Lester sleepy bird!” He begins making fake snoring sounds that do sound vaguely like Gran sleeping in the living room recliner she used to love. It’s long gone now, but I can still see her laid out on it like it was her favorite place to be.

  I retreat to my room and start my own night routine, showering and scrubbing my face with Noxzema before using cocoa butter to prevent wrinkles. After that I lie in bed, but instead of a Netflix show or two, my thoughts return to tonight . . . and Wyatt.

  What was it about him that set me on edge so readily? I mean, yeah, he’s hotter than a jalapeño-flavored lollipop, but that’s usually not enough to catch my attention the way he did. But there’s no denying it—I wanted him. I’m just smart enough to not let that happen. At least not in real life.

  There’s no harm in fantasies, I tell myself with a sly smile in the dark. They’re what makes life interesting . . . or tolerable.

  I take a deep breath, feeling my chest scrape along the weight of the blankets on top of me. My nipples perk up, remembering how close Wyatt was and how good he smelled. I clench my hands, trying to fight it, but heat is already pooling down low in my belly.

  Aunt Etta’s voice echoes in my head: Be careful with a Ford. I heard it tonight, I’ve heard it before, and the whole town knows it. The Fords are power here in Cold Springs. But power can run your toaster . . . or stop your heart.

  “No,” I chide myself, “Hazel Ann Sullivan, you are not jilling off to some guy who was possibly sharking you at pool, and definitely lied by omission by not telling you his last name. Which is fucking Ford.”

  Saying his name aloud is enough to mostly dash my fantasies. With a growl, I flip over to my side, curling in on myself and willing my body to fall asleep. Now.

  Chapter 5

  WYATT

  Why did I agree to put up with this?

  It’s a good question. I have a perfectly good black suit that fits like a glove and is completely appropriate for a garden wedding. I’ve worn it maybe a dozen times since I got it, all for formal occasions.

  But for some reason beyond my comprehension, “appropriate” isn’t good enough, and Mom says I need a dove-gray suit to fit the theme of the wedding. I’m annoyed but doing my best to hide it.

  “Quit fidgeting and be still,” the woman kneeling in front of me hisses, and I look down at the seamstress. I’m pretty sure her last job was sewing suits for funerals, the way she handles adjustments.

  “I’m trying,” I growl.

  She glares up at me from behind half glasses that are perched low on her nose, and dryly orders, “Try. Harder.”

  I clear my throat and straighten my spine.

  “That’a boy, Wyatt. Let the poor woman work, for fuck’s sake,” Wren says with a vacant smile as she carelessly flips through the same magazine she’s been looking at for thirty minutes. But I’m quite certain she isn’t reading the articles about upcoming car prototypes and synthetic oil brand comparisons.

  I consider lunging her way threateningly because if it’d been only Mom guilting me into this, I could’ve gotten out of it, but Wren took her side, and the two of them together wore me down. I’m out of practice, I guess, but Wren was the extra push that got me here.

  I’ve had dozens of suit fittings over my life, but this one is by far the most unusual. Mrs. Hinsley—or as Wren calls her, “the Duchess”—has a no-nonsense attitude and a silver-streaked bun, and every time I shift in the slightest, she stabs me with a pin. I suspect she rather enjoys that part of her job. But for all her harsh seriousness, she is humming off-key theme songs from children’s movies. It took me a while to recognize “Pure Imagination” from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory because her version is somehow slowed down and off beat.

  Mrs. Hinsley wraps her red tape measure around my right thigh . . . again. She’s measured me all over, checking and double-checking her numbers and scribbling them in a notebook in sharp, old-school cursive.

  “I know I’m a big guy, but are we almost done?” I ask.

  She stops her humming in an instant and rises to her full height, which puts her at my chest level. Ripping her glasses off, she pins me with a glowering sneer. “It will take however long it takes. Normally, I’d be done already,” she says acidly, “but most of my clients are not as large as you are, nor do they fidget like an eight-year-old child hyped up on sugar.”

  I’m going to ignore the comparison to a squirmy child, and typically, a woman calling me “large” would be a compliment, but I can tell by her tone that it most definitely isn’t. Especially since she’s talking about my thigh and not my other “leg.”

  Wren snorts but covers her mouth and turns it into a cough. When both me and Mrs. Hinsley turn fiery eyes her way, she says, “I think I’ll step out for a minute. Let you two wrap this up.”

  She twirls a delicate finger through the air at Mrs. Hinsley and me, and for the first time, I feel more than frustration. I feel desperation. “No! Don’t—”

  It’s too late. Wren steps out of the large private dressing room, closing the door behind her and leaving me alone with the female version of Edward Stabbyhands.

  Realizing that pissing off the woman who could easily stab me in the balls and sell it as an accident isn’t my smartest move, I try to backpedal. Slightly. “I appreciate you helping on such short notice. I want everything to be perfect for my brother.”

  Her sigh is one of long-term suffering. Maybe it is. She probably does shit like this all the time. “I understand. Let’s cut to the chase here: I need accurate measurements so I can begin making your suit, and you want to be done with me.” She pauses and I nod agreeably. “Good, then strip.”

  “What?” I exclaim.

  “Oh, pishposh, boy. Don’t act so scandalized. You don’t have anything I haven’t seen before. Not like I’m asking to see your pecker anyway. Just to your skivvies, so I can get the best measurements with minimum of fuss,” she explains as though it’s no big deal and completely normal. She glances at her watch and taps the dial. “Strip and let’s get this over with.”

  Her gesture toward her watch is the only thing that makes me do it. I want to be done so I can follow up with Winston about what the hell’s been going on around here while I’ve been gone. I need more than the cursory version he shared at the bar. I want the details.

  And Mrs. Hinsley’s right—I’m sure she’s seen and done worse as a custom seamstress.

  I sigh, resigned but still grumbling. “This is madness, you know?” I pull my T-shirt over my head, tossing it to the chair in the corner. My hands go to my belt and freeze for a moment, but I ultimately make quick work of losing my pants too. Standing in my boxer briefs and my sock feet, I tell Mrs. Hinsley, “Let’s get on with it.”

  Her face stays neutral as she bows her chin deferentially, but I swear I see the smallest uptilt of her lips as she steps behind me to climb back onto her step stool. Stretching her tape measure across my shoulders once more, she triple-checks her numbers and makes more notes.

  She does the same down my right arm and then left, before encircling each bicep.

  “No tattoos?” she asks conversationally. “That’s unusual these days.”

  I grunt, not wanting to make half-naked small talk.

  She follows the same progression she did earlier, ending up kneeling in front of me again. The tape measure stretching from my ankle up my inseam feels especially invasive. Thankfully, nothing “moves.”

  “Ah, a leftie,” she says, and yup . . . she got the lay of my land.

  At that exact moment, the door opens again and Wren shouts, “Wyatt!”

  Looking in the mirror’s reflection, I see behind me, and a pit of horrified shock slices through my gut, leaving me wide open. Wren stands in the doorway, her hand still on the knob, which wouldn’t be so bad except that with her are two other women.

  One is a middle-aged blonde wearing a pastel print pantsuit, a chunky necklace, and large round pink frames over heavy eye makeup that makes her lashes look a mile long. At first, she’s looking at the tablet in her hand, but when she looks up to see me, her eyes go wide. The other woman is Avery. I recognize her from the pictures Winston showed me, telling me how gorgeous she is, but also how kind and smart. Her mouth drops open before she covers her eyes politely.