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“WELL, somebody made love with the toilet last night,” Andie said, watching Zac Mars lazily stumble into Sullivan’s Adventure Tours forty minutes before the Bushwhack Endurance Bike Race was set to embark on a hundred-mile cycling competition.
Zac was the sheriff of Bushwhack, their small mountain community in New Mexico, and easily the most eligible bachelor east of the Grand Canyon, though he claimed to have hung the title up last spring. Andie owned Sullivan’s Adventures Tours, where her duties were guiding tourists down the rivers on rafts, hiking, mountain biking, and poking around Zac’s cases. Lately, they’d been seeing each other on a slightly less platonic level, and she figured if Zac had any skeletons in his closet, she knew them by now. Last night was the roadblock to such an epiphany.
He pulled down his shades, producing a pair of punch-drunk eyes, and scratched his chin. “I shouldn’t have had that last beer. You should have stopped me.”
They could both agree on that affirmation. And she had tried. More than once.
“I think I remember a local sheriff telling me to remove the branch from my you-know-what and let him live a little because it’s not every day his police academy buddies show up in town.” Andie leaned over the countertop, banging her funny bone on the cash register drawer as she eyed Zac down. “Sixth beer Zac sort of becomes a jackass.”
He rubbed his forehead with two fingers, not denying her spot-on assumption. “What about fourth beer Zac?”
She wiggled her hand side to side. “Hmm…he’s sort of flirtatious.”
Zac mock groaned, then placed his hand over his heart, playfully saying, “Whatever I said, I meant it. You believe me, right, Andie?”
“Oh, I’m sure Lidia Trapper thought so, too.”
His eyes bugged out. “What? You’re lying.”
Lidia Trapper owned the Brewhouse. She was twenty years Zac’s senior, and on most nights, she found nothing amusing about the town’s local sheriff. He was, after all, the boy who used to skateboard through her vegetable garden. Last night proved to be no different. Arm wrestling competition in her bar didn’t follow the no-fighting rule, but Andie was certain Zac didn’t remember any such reprimand since Slade-I-am-his-police-academy-roommate funneled them both with car bomb shots before shouting, “Shuffleboard!” And that was when Andie bowed out after phoning an Uber to rescue Zac from bar life.
Andie smiled up at Zac, remembering exactly the flirtatious banter they’d exchanged, and in no part of it had Lidia Trapper been a third wheel. She had no intention of bringing it back up, especially not today. She had a bike race to get off the ground. “Maybe, but in all seriousness, are you capable of starting the race today? If not, I can ask Kyle to be your replacement.”
“I won’t let you down. The sheriff always starts the Bushwhack Endurance Bike Race.” Zac moaned his final words.
“Hey! Last night you mentioned the drug sting and Patrick Murdock being involved. Then you started drinking, and we never got back to the discussion.” Andie changed the subject, hoping Zac would fill her in more about his most recent case. Her interest had been piqued, and she thought that since she had to witness Zac down the bottom of the bottle last night, he could scratch her sleuthing itch for her.
Last Thursday, Zac canceled their Thursday night pizza dinner because he was upset he had to arrest Pastor Dale Murdock’s son. When his badge crossed paths with a teenager looking at juvie, Zac always took it hard. He knew the job he’d signed up for, but he wasn’t capable of not allowing it to beat him up. She’d heard enough stories over pizza night to know that.
Zac pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s an active case, which means I can’t tell you anything.”
“You were Chatty Cathy last night.”
“I was drinking.”
“Maybe I should buy you a six-pack of IPA after the bike race,” she said.
His forehead wrinkled. “I don’t want to talk in circles right now. My head hurts.”
Before Andie could offer Zac a glass of water and ibuprofen, the shop door jangled, and the man of the hour from last night walked inside. Slade Roundrock had missed the memo that Miami Vice went south with Hypercolor shirts four decades ago. His bleached-blond mullet swished against the backside of his thick neck. He had emerald-jeweled eyes that slithered in random blinking mode quicker than a snake. And then there were his rockets as he casually nicknamed his biceps like twenty-five times in two hours last night at the bar.
He wore his narcissistic qualities like a neon blinking bar sign announcing cold beer. Andie couldn’t stand him. Slade Roundrock made her twitchy. She really couldn’t understand how Zac roomed with the guy at the academy. Both men mixed as well as orange juice and toothpaste.
“Howdy-ho, Sheriff Mars,” Slade announced, lifting his hand in the air and rounding on she and Zac. “Give it to me there.” He smacked his own high-five, not allowing Zac to “give-it-to-me-there” any way plausible, then Slade ever so the sly devil slung his steroid-amped-up arm across Andie’s shoulders. “Eat something sour this morning, adventure guide?”
Andie realized quickly her nose was scrunched up. She adjusted her unpleasant facial expression, then wiggled herself out from underneath Slade’s arm, managing to trip over her left hiking boot as she did so, something her keen sense of awareness wasn’t used to doing. Pressing her lips into a smile, she said, “The coffee was bitter.”
Zac snorted. His dark eyes darted toward her, searing her open like freshly caught fish with their intensely slow stare down. “Try not to get on Andie’s bad side. She’ll put you on the crappy bike at the back of the race starting line.”
“Zac has me confused with one of his one-night stand grudge holders.”
“My what?” Zac’s eyebrows arched, and his sexy, I’m-very-good-at-playing-strip-poker mouth went slack. “Now listen, I don’t do one-night stands anymore.”
“You two aren’t together?” Slade asked, finally sounding as confused as his four-foot-six muscly body appeared in biker shorts and mesh tank tops.
“Yes,” Zac said.
“No,” she countered.
And then they both stated, “We’ve known each other for a long time.”
“Whew. Had me worried there for a sec, buddy.” Slade puffed out air as his gaze lingered on her. “I was hoping to ask Andie out after I win the bike race. Pizza and beer work for you? You’ll need your own pizza because Slade can eat a whole large by himself.”
Oh, sweet Jesus, he was a third-person bragger. If her ex-husband wasn’t praising the big mountain god in the sky, she’d swear he’d come back reincarnated as Slade Roundrock.
“I’ll have to pass on the pizza, Slade.” Her gaze bounced to Zac. His chin jutted up in surprise. “You roomed with a Bucky. Starting to scare me, Mars.”
A vein bulged in Zac’s forehead. His jaw was clamped tight, except he hadn’t taken his eyes off Slade. She didn’t need a rumble and tumble, not inside Sullivan’s, not today, at least. Besides, her virginal honor wasn’t even at stake. That chastity belt had snapped open on her eighteenth birthday. Zac was suspect for his fifteenth.
“Heel, Cujo.” She barked out a laugh.
Zac only answered, “Huh?”
“What your girl here is saying is you’re acting like a dog in heat,” Slade countered.
“Actually, Cujo had rabies and murdered people,” Zac said, scratching his chin as he smiled at his old police academy buddy. “I used to ask Andie to watch it with me every time she babysat me.”
A burst of heat settled in her chest. She couldn’t deny Zac’s witty banter didn’t do a number on her, twisting her inside out into tiny knots which he could only fuse back together after making her question this tightrope they choose to walk on daily together.
“I’m guessing you’re the woman he had a crush on,” Slade said, staring at her as if she was a mirage in the desert. “We hadn’t even been into an hour of our first week of room matting before Zac started talking about this girl back home, and she was older than him, and he had more in common with her than anybody else because she was his babysitter. He said he didn’t need a babysitter, but didn’t want to lose the connection with you, so he told his parents he was scared to stay home alone.” Slade’s gaze wandered from Zac to her, then his mouth opened in a big wide oval. “Oh, man. You didn’t say she was so hot. I can see why you’re so hung up on her. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me Andie was the Andie last night over drinks.”
Zac tilted his head, the muscle in his jaw jumping. “Slade’s not accurately stating the conversation.”
“Damn accurate, I say.” Slade glanced her way. “Except for the part where Zac was horny.”
Andie laughed. “He’s always been a hyperactive horny.”
“Hyperactive horny,” Zac said, looking at her. “Seriously?”
“Seriously,” she parroted.
“I think that’s my cue to sign up for the bike race,” Slade told them both. “Ryan Oats should be coming to ride too.”
Zac had his brows raised at her in the same arch he used to investigative an overly suspicious crime. “Ryan Oats? I can’t put a face to the name.”
Slade’s puzzled look said it all. They weren’t talking about “a Ryan Oats.” Slade cocked a grin. “Dude. Ryan said he’s your old frat brother. He’ll find it hilarious that you don’t remember him.”
“Sorry, Slade. Name doesn’t ring a bell,” Zac supplied, rubbing the overcast shadow lining his strong jawline from not picking up the razor for a couple of days.
The name rang a bell to Andie. Ryan Oats, Zac’s old fraternity president, whom she watched hauled off in handcuffs during a party gone sideways. It’d been the one and only time she hadn’t dug deep for clues to find the truth. Instead, she’d flown out of Florida quicker than a bat out of hell.
She leaned into Zac, inhaling scents of pine, outdoors, and cinnamon. She lowered her voice to a barely audible whisper. “I thought you didn’t talk to Ryan anymore. How did he find out about the bike race?”
“I don’t know,” he mouthed back in a whisper.
“Everyone okay?” Slade asked. ...
