The Last One You Loved

by LJ Evans

Genres: Romance; Contemporary Romance; Police & Law Enforcement Romance; Small-town Romance; Friends to lovers; Second Chance Romance; friends to lovers; forced proximity; cowboy romance; small town romance; Second Chance Romance; Single Dad romance; medical romance; slow burn romance

Synopsis

Maddox

Between my badge, my daughter, and my hometown, I’ve got a busy life. It’s a mostly happy one. But late at night, when the house is quiet, I still see her face. McKenna may have left me and this town behind a decade ago, but a century wouldn’t be long enough to get over her.

 

There’s only one thing worse than never seeing her again. If she came back, the secret I’ve been keeping would destroy lives. Mine included. As long as she stays gone, everyone is safe.

 

McKenna

When my world catches fire, destroying the dreams I’ve sacrificed so much for, there’s only one place I can think to go. One man I can run to. But going back is no homecoming. Sheriff Maddox Hatley hasn’t forgotten me. And he sure hasn’t forgiven me either.

 

He’s hiding something beneath all that anger. I think I’ll stick around until I find out what it is.

 

Inspired by Jon Pardi’s “Ain’t Always the Cowboy” and Lee Brice’s “Memory I Don’t Mess With,” this second-chance, single-dad, forced-proximity love story will tug at your soul, make you laugh and cry, and leave you with a smile on your face.

Release date: September 14, 2022

Publisher: LJ Evans Books

Print pages: 404

Reader says this book is...: emotionally riveting (1) happily ever after (1) heartwarming (1) realistic characters (1) satisfying ending (1) strong chemistry (1) strong heroine (1) swoon-worthy (1) terrific writing (1) unputdownable (1)

Sample

Prologue

Maddox

 

AIN’T ALWAYS THE COWBOY

“That restless runnin’

Searchin’ for somethin’

Leavin’ love in the dust of a midnight Chevrolet.”

 

Performed by Jon Pardi

Written by Kinney / Thompson

 

The lake shimmered in the moonlight. The warm breeze stirred up tiny waves, sending white sprinkles shifting across the surface as it drifted toward the shore where we were parked.

We were on the tailgate of my beat-up Bronco with our hands and limbs joined. McKenna’s jean-clad legs were flung over my lap, and her head rested on my shoulder. Her cowboy boots were off, lost somewhere behind me in the chaos of blankets and food wrappers. I ran the fingers of my free hand over the gentle arch of her foot, and she jerked it away, laughing.

“Don’t you dare tickle me unless you want to end up with a busted nose,” she teased, her soft voice washing over me.

It wasn’t like I hadn’t known she’d pull away. Ten years of knowing her meant I knew just how ticklish her feet were, but I'd done it anyway in an attempt to lighten the mood. But the sound and scent and feel of her made it almost impossible to feel anything but sorrow. It might be the last time I would hold her like this, and my heart screamed as if it could change what was happening by merely twisting inside my chest.

“Wanna go for a swim?” I asked.

It was still humid outside, even though the sun had set hours ago. Long enough that the twilight sounds of the bugs and wild animals had almost disappeared. Instead, a quiet had taken over the space, a preview of what would happen once she drove down the road tomorrow and my life was forever changed.

In answer to my question, she slid off of me and started discarding clothes. She was wearing a string bikini under her jeans and floaty blouse, as if she’d known I’d ask for this―us in the water. I swallowed hard at the gentle curves I’d spent years getting to know as well as my own. I glanced down at my sinewy body toughened from years of working on the ranch. She’d always said my muscles were the very best kind—built from hard work. Would anyone else ever care about them the way she had?

I hadn’t been as prepared as she’d been for a swim, so my boxer briefs were going to have to do. Once I’d stripped down, I recaptured her hand, determined to touch her for as long as possible, and led us toward the water, picking our way through the twigs and rocks as we went.

As soon as we hit the cool water, I shivered. It was a soothing relief to the heat and heaviness of the day. If only it could lift the weight inside me as easily as it chilled my skin.

We swam toward the makeshift dock someone had fastened to the middle of the lake decades ago. We didn’t pull ourselves up on top. Instead, we hid in the shadows. She wrapped her long limbs around my waist, and I looped an arm through one of the ropes hanging off the wooden slats to hold us steady while my hands continued to touch her.

She kissed me. Wet and wild. Slow and torturous. Love and goodbyes blended into the movements as we rejoined our bodies in the way we’d been doing over the last couple of months. Like a flame on the wick of a firecracker, burning, burning, burning until it finally ignited into a shower of light and sound.

Until it became nothing but us.

She moaned into my mouth when my fingers slid under her bikini, touching pieces of her that were aching for me. I wanted to cry out as well, but with a different ache. I wanted to let my tears wash into the lake.

But it would be selfish because I wouldn’t be crying for her. I’d only be crying for me, and that didn’t seem fair. McKenna deserved the future she was heading toward―her dream of becoming a doctor finally starting. But her desire to escape this town and her mother hurt because it meant she was escaping me and my family as well—the people who’d loved and sheltered her.

Knowing it was coming hadn’t eased the pain of its arrival. As much as I wanted to follow her, I couldn’t. My life was here with my family, and the ranch, and my own dreams of serving my community. Even if everything at home had been perfectly fine, I wasn’t sure I’d want to leave our small town for a place where you couldn’t see the stars. Here, they were so bright it seemed like you could grab them, put them in your pocket, and take them with you. If I was forced to live in a city, I’d burn out just like those faraway suns. If you forced her to stay, she’d wither like the roses I’d given her last week. Dust into dust.

We loved each other more than I’d ever thought was possible, especially considering we were just two kids, barely legal. I knew her smiles and looks and moods better than she knew them herself, and vice versa. But this was where the road we were on finally divided after a decade of running side by side. A bitter taste rose inside me because I wasn’t sure our roads would ever cross again.

“I’ll come visit,” I told her, breaking my mouth from hers. “Thanksgiving or spring break. Whichever works.”

Could I get through to spring without seeing her? Touching her? Loving her? How would I even come up with the money for the trip?

She rested her forehead on my shoulder, placed a gentle kiss there, and then looked up at me with sad, tormented eyes.

“Maddox…between college, medical school, and a residency, it’ll be at least eleven years before I’m done. I’ll always be your friend. I’ll always love you…but…I just…” A choked sob broke free from her, and my throat bobbed, eyes watering.

“You want to break up. You don’t even want to try?” I asked, that bitterness coating my tongue and my mouth growing. She had choices. She could have applied to Tennessee State. She could have kept us closer, but even as I said it, I knew she couldn’t. McKenna needed to put her childhood behind her…even if that meant giving me up along with it.

She put her hands on my cheeks, cupping them and kissing my lips sweetly.

“You’re my favorite thing. My favorite memory. My favorite gift. My favorite person,” she said quietly.

I could no longer hold the tears back. I didn’t know how to let her go. But I’d have to because it wasn’t always the cowboy who ran away.

Sometimes, it was the golden-haloed woman with a future so bright the gods had to be jealous.

That was my McKenna.

And tomorrow, she’d be gone.

No longer mine, but the world’s instead.

 

Chapter One

McKenna

 

YOU ALL OVER ME

“Now every breath of air I breathe reminds me of then.”

 

Performed by Taylor Swift with Maren Morris

Written by Carusoe / Swift

 

TEN YEARS LATER

Bouncing on my bed woke me. I forced my eyes open and then slammed them shut upon seeing Sally’s glowing face. It was too early for this kind of over-the-top happiness.

“Happy birthday, McKenna!” she practically screamed, forcing me to look at her again.

I groaned and tried to bury my head under the covers, but my roommate wouldn’t let me. Instead, she ripped the blankets back with surprisingly strong hands and shoved a heavy present at me. Her large, mahogany eyes twinkled in her light-brown face as her pink-tipped waves swung around her sharply defined cheeks and chin.

I hated birthdays, while Sally was from a family who celebrated them like they were a bigger deal than Christmas. In the three years I’d been living with her, she’d made sure I had cake, presents, and whatever I wanted for dinner. Last year, she’d even thrown a surprise party for me in the doctors’ lounge. I’d wanted to run as soon as I’d opened the door, and I’d made her promise never to do it again.

Growing up, my birthdays had been a painful reminder of what had gone wrong in Mama’s life, and she’d done everything to make sure her worst day would also be mine. Only one person besides Sally had ever tried to make this day something different.

I pushed aside the memories that threatened to weigh me down and groused without any real heat, “It’s too early for presents and celebrations, Sal.”

“Shut up and open it!” she said, ignoring my grumpiness and shoving the box at me with her wide smile fixed permanently in place.

I sat up, and my naturally blonde hair tumbled around me in knots. I’d regret going to bed with it wet, but I’d been exhausted after my twelve-hour shift at the hospital had turned into a sixteen-hour one. I’d barely been able to shower, let alone worry about my hair.

I pulled the bulky gift onto my lap and shot Sally a frown. “I hope you didn’t do something stupid, like spend some of your car money on me. I don’t want to be the reason you can’t get it in January!”

She flicked my shoulder. “Just open it and stop being ridiculous.”

I slowly undid the ribbon and pulled off the lid. Inside was a DVD collection of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Every season. I swallowed hard. The DVDs weren’t new, but they still had to have cost her a pretty penny to get the entire set. With both of us barely scraping by due to the enormous college debt resting on our shoulders, this wasn’t a little gift.

Tears hit my eyes for real, but I refused to let them out, like I’d learned to do early in life by biting my cheek and clenching my nails into my palms. But my voice was still clogged with emotions when I choked out, “Dang it, Sal.”

She hugged me to her, and I did my best not to stiffen, letting my head land briefly on her shoulder.

“Now, you’ll always have Buffy when you need her,” she said softly.

“I need her less these days because I have you,” I responded. She was the best female friend I’d ever had. I’d say she was my best friend ever, but there was a teeny-tiny place inside my heart that knew it would be a lie. But I wouldn’t hear from him today. I’d shoved him out of my life for a dream―a mirage―that had disappeared in the shimmer of the hot sun.

My gut twisted.

I couldn’t think of that today. Of him. Of my mistakes.

I had to get my head on straight, put on my white jacket, and head to the ER—to the real dream I was mere months away from finalizing.

Once my residency was over, I’d be one-hundred-percent official. I’d not only be a doctor, but I’d also be able to call the shots. Goosebumps covered my arms. Ten-year-old me would hardly be able to believe it. That I’d actually escaped and made it happen.

“Get dressed. Your birthday breakfast awaits,” Sally said and basically pushed me out of the bed. I stumbled, barely catching myself on the dresser.

“Geez, if this is how you treat a friend on her birthday, I don’t want to see how you treat your enemies,” I teased.

She headed for the door. “If you’re not out in five minutes, I’m going to shove your pancakes—whipped cream and all—in your face. Dickwad Gregory is in charge today, so neither of us can afford to be late.”

My stomach knotted thinking of the head of the ER department. He was obnoxious, and egotistical, and thought everyone should swoon over his fifty-year-old, married self. Worse, some people did. Made me pukey even thinking about it.

“McK, I’m not kidding. Five minutes,” Sally said, bringing me out of my thoughts.

“Okay, okay.”

I slipped into the bathroom, washed up, and pulled on my scrubs. As I fought to drag my messy hair into a high ponytail, the shadows under my hazel eyes caught my attention. They’d pretty much become a permanent feature since starting my residency and were almost as black as my heavy brows. My hand stalled as it hit me suddenly―I looked like Mama.

That scared me. My tired expression wasn’t from drugs and alcohol, but it was from running fast and furious for too many years.

“McK!” Sally hollered.

I shoved my phone, water bottle, and keys into a small backpack and hurried out of the room before coming to a complete stop, mouth dropping open.

The entire apartment was full of balloons and streamers.

I bit my cheek hard, tasting blood, and blinked rapidly to hold back the waterworks. Sally was all but dancing around me, excitement on her face from the pure joy of doing this for me.

I didn’t care about my birthday. But I thanked the universe for the day Sally had found me on the bench outside the hospital, in a rare fit of tears, and befriended me. It was almost as important as the day Maddox Hatley had found me cowering in a shed behind his uncle’s bar when I was eight.

Too bad I didn’t have Maddox anymore.

It made this, what I had with Sally, that much more important. So, I’d celebrate today because she wanted me to. Because she was literally the only soul left on this planet who would care if I disappeared tomorrow.

 

Chapter Two

Maddox

 

SLOW BURN

“It’s a song, it’s a face, it’s a time,

It’s a place in your life that belongs to her.

Sometimes a memory like that is a slow burn.”

 

Performed by Zac Brown Band

Written by Hayslip / Simonetti / Brown

 

I pulled back just in time, letting the fist barely graze my chin. The movement was enough to send my Stetson flying, landing amongst the straw where it was going to get trampled. It was the sight of my hat on the ground that pissed me off more than the fist or Willy Tate’s drunken, angry snarl as he lunged for me again.

I ducked the second shot and shoved my shoulder into his gut, taking him down to the ground with me. The music had stopped, the customers in the bar quiet as they watched two burly men wrestle. Several chairs were tipped over, tables were bumped, and drinks were spilled as we rolled around. It took me one too many moves before I finally had him pinned facedown with his hands behind his back and my knee holding him in place.

“Damn it, Willy, you owe me a new hat!” I growled.

Clapping filled the air along with hoots and hollers that made my eyes roll.

“Thanks for the show!” someone in the back yelled as someone else shouted out, “Brings me back to my sheep-tying days!”

“Thanks for the help, y’all,” I said sarcastically, eyeing my brother sitting calmly on a stool at the bar with a crooked grin.

“Why, Sheriff Maddox, no one would ever presume to think you needed help.” Ryder’s grin grew, and then he had the audacity to wink at me as he raised a beer in my direction. I barely resisted flipping him the bird as laughter erupted from him, causing his blue eyes that matched mine to crinkle at the corners. He brushed a hand over his perfectly tousled dark-brown hair that should have been smashed flat after wearing a hat all day but instead looked like he’d stepped off the page of a damn magazine.

I was not anywhere near picture-perfect. My dark-blond hair was standing up in places, and the stubble on my chin—a day past trendy—was dripping and sticky from the whiskey Willy had thrown at me. The alcohol had stained my tan shirt, and our scuffle had snagged the ends of my olive-green tie, almost ripping it from my neck.

“She left me, Maddox. For a goddamn suit from Knoxville.” Willy was crying now, and it almost looked ridiculous on the six-foot-three mechanic with the hair and beard of someone who’d been lost in the wild for one too many years.

“Taking it out on everyone here isn’t going to make the pain go away, shithead,” I grumbled. “You gonna start swinging again if I get up?”

Willy shook his head. I stood and then helped the man to his feet. His sad, puppy-dog eyes were full of tears that tumbled down his cheeks.

“You going to arrest him for hitting a lawman?” Gemma asked, trying not to giggle. My sister was sitting next to Ryder at the bar. Her long hair was the same color as mine, but her hazel eyes were full of our brother’s laughter. Ryder tapped her elbow with his in appreciation of the taunt she’d thrown my way.

Willy hunched his enormous shoulders. “Fuck. I forgot you’re the sheriff now.”

“I’ve been an officer of the law for damn near six years, Willy. Hitting me before or after I’d been elected wouldn’t change a damn thing.” I leaned down and picked up my hat, brushing it against my thigh and shoving him toward the door of McFlannigan’s. It was the only bar in town and normally looked as Irish as my uncle who owned the place, but on Thursdays, they had two-dollar beers, line dancing, and a live band. Uncle Phil brought hay in from the ranch to make it more Tennessee barnyard than Dublin dive.

I’d told him more than once the hay was a hazard, but as he was friends with the county health inspector, who just happened to be in one of the booths tonight with his wife, my uncle clearly didn’t have to worry about being fined. That was the way everything in this town worked, and while I’d been able to turn a blind eye to some of it as a deputy, since I’d been elected, it had been harder to do.

The people of Winter County had put their trust in me. Maybe it was because Sheriff Haskett had thrown his hat in my direction when he’d stepped down, or maybe it was because the Hatley family had been in Willow Creek since its inception. Regardless, they’d taken a chance on a green twenty-seven-year-old last year, and I’d spent twelve months proving to them it had been the right choice.

Willy and I were at the door when Ryder called out, “Going to come back and have a beer with us after you get him home?”

I shook my head.

“Come on, Maddox, one drink!” Gemma called.

I had no desire to sit at the bar, shooting the shit with my siblings, after the long day I’d had. If the bar hadn’t been mere blocks from my house when the call had come in as I walked out the station door, I would’ve let one of my deputies handle the call. Now that I’d done my civic duty for the night, I had only one goal, and that was getting home to my girl.

I directed Willy into the passenger seat of my ancient green and rust-covered Bronco, wishing I’d driven my sheriff truck instead. But the Bronco had called to me this morning―the date dragging at me as it did every year.

The date I tried to ignore and failed miserably to do.

I got Willy tucked into the small apartment above the garage his family had owned almost as long as mine had owned the ranch and then headed to my 1950s-style bungalow two streets over. After three years of hard work, the house was pretty much how I wanted it. The wood siding had a fresh coat of pale-yellow paint, new black shutters edged the multi-paned windows, and a burnt-orange custom door invited you in, just like the swing tucked in the corner of the front porch.

An antique lamp on the hall table cast a gentle light onto the dark plank floors as I let myself in, and the murmur of the television in the open-space living area greeted me. Rianne looked up from the cushy, leather couch I’d spent a small fortune on as I hung my destroyed hat on the rack by the door.

Her bright-red lips curved upward in greeting, and her dark-brown face was just starting to show signs of wrinkles even though she was as old as my grandparents. Her black-and-white corkscrew hair was tucked beneath a vivid-blue scarf littered with pictures of baby ducks. She had so many head wraps I thought she could wear a different one every day of the year and still have more.

“How is she?” I asked.

“Like always. Pretending to sleep but really waiting for you,” she said, turning off the TV and rising. She was wearing soft jeans and a long tunic top, looking far more casual than she ever had as my third-grade teacher. When I’d been a rowdy eight-year-old, I’d adored her, and now that she’d turned in her teacher badge and taken on helping me, I loved her almost as much as I loved my mama.

“You smell like a liquor cabinet.” Rianne’s nose squished up, but there was a smile on her lips.

I sighed, ran my hand over my half-assed, alcohol-soaked beard, and grimaced.

“Had to pull Willy out of McFlannigan’s before he tore it apart.”

Rianne’s face fell. “Aw, he’s taking the loss of his woman pretty hard.”

I nodded. It was why I’d tucked him at home instead of locking him up in a cell at the station. I knew what it felt like to watch your woman drive away. The agony I’d felt didn’t make me want to bleed out on the floor anymore, but the reminder on this day, more than any other, made the hurt tumble through me as if it had happened yesterday instead of a decade ago.

Rianne gathered her things, and I walked her to the door.

“Try to get some rest tomorrow, and I’ll see you on Sunday,” she said before leaving.

I was technically off the clock for a whole day, but that never meant much when you were one of only twelve people holding down the only law enforcement agency in the county. We didn’t have a lot of crime in Willow Creek, but we did have a lot of work. On any given day, I might be helping round up stray chickens one moment and taking beer from underage kids at the lake the next. The biggest pain in my ass was the motorcycle club, The West Gears, who used their headquarters up in the mountains right at the county line to deal drugs and store stolen merchandise. The Gears were the reason I was dead on my feet tonight after a day of hunting them down.

I headed down the hall, feet stalling as I passed Mila’s door. She’d expect me to crawl into bed with her, and I didn’t want to do that smelling like whiskey, so I continued on to the one room I hadn’t let Mama or my sisters help decorate. Instead, the main bedroom reflected me like almost no other part of the house. It was full of dark woods, navy linens, and black-and-white photographs of the lake and the ranch.

I locked my weapon away in the gun safe, showered in the bathroom filled with teak woods and blue linens, and then changed into sweats and a long-sleeve T-shirt before padding on bare feet back to Mila’s room. I turned the knob as quietly as possible in a vain hope that she might actually be asleep but chuckled to myself when I saw her dart her head under the covers.

Her room looked like a rainbow had thrown up in it. She was obsessed with them. She’d even convinced me to paint her white headboard in rainbow stripes. Between that, her four pastel-colored nightlights, and the pile of stuffed unicorns that filled an armchair in the corner, it felt like walking into a cartoon world. I crossed the faux-fur white rug and stood looking down at the rainbow comforter that shed glitter like it was a cat changing seasons.

“Oh good, Mila is asleep. I don’t have to read The Day the Unicorns Saved the World for the one-thousandth time,” I said softly.

The covers were thrown back, and beautiful wheat-colored eyes stared at me under thick brows that were almost black and contrasted with the honey-blonde hair spiraling in waves around her round face. “I’m not sleeping, Daddy! You have to read it, or I’ll be up all night.”

There was a little whine to her sweet voice and a pout to her lips that made my mouth twitch. I sighed dramatically, looked up at the ceiling, and pretended to contemplate the fate of my life before pulling the book from her nightstand.

“Scootch over,” I said as if this wasn’t our nightly routine.

She pulled back her covers and moved to the side as I slid in with her. Her tiny, five-year-old body curled up against me, and I put one arm around her, holding her tight. She smelled like the berry shampoo Mama had bought for her birthday, and she had on a pair of fuzzy, pink-striped pajamas that had been from my sister. Her body was warm and her tiny hand soft as she placed it on my arm. My heart filled to near bursting just by having her there.

“How was your day?” I asked.

“I learned that the letter L says lllll like in lion, and that five and two more is seven. Seven is my birthday number, so Mrs. Randall let me use the butterfly pointer and lead the class in the alphabet song.”

Kindergarten. My baby had started kindergarten at the end of August. I hadn’t expected it to be as hard as it had been to drop her off at school and walk away. I mean, I’d been leaving her every day for the four years of her life that she’d been mine. But there was something different about leaving her with Rianne versus taking her into a classroom full of kids who I couldn’t guarantee would be nice and adults who were strangers. I’d run the name of the principal and every teacher at the school to make sure there weren’t any scumbags hiding in the system, even when I knew the state wouldn’t have given certificates to criminals. I’d sort of gone off my rocker for a day or two. The only thing that made it easier was knowing Mila liked being there.

“That sounds like a really good day,” I told her.

“Yeah. But Missy wouldn’t give me a turn with the hula hoop.” She pouted, and every vein in my body tightened. The need to protect her, even from other five-year-olds, was a strange sensation. There was a time in my life when I hadn’t wanted to be a dad, when I’d promised another blonde-haired girl that we wouldn’t have kids because she was adamantly opposed to having them.

“I’ll buy you your own damn hula hoop tomorrow,” I told her, voice gruff with emotions. She giggled.

“You cussed again, Daddy. You owe me another dollar for the cuss jar.”

I smiled with my lips against her hair. She’d have enough money in that jar to go to college if I wasn’t careful. The thought of her being grown up and going away to college threatened to rip some more at the scars that had already cracked open today.

I pushed the pain away, opened the book, and started reading as my girl snuggled deeper into my chest. My heart expanded until it was quadruple the size it should have been. This was perfect. I didn’t need anything else in my life but this.

 

Chapter Three

McKenna

 

BETTER THAN WE FOUND IT

“When time turns this moment to dust,

I just hope that I’m proud of the woman I was.”

 

Performed by Luke Bryan

Written by Dillon / Robbins / Veltz / Morris

 

My eyes were blurry from another twelve-hour shift as I headed toward the doctors’ lounge with nothing but my bed and sleep in mind. As I came around the corner, I almost ran into a lanky, red-haired teen. I put out a hand to stop us from colliding, and it hit his chest. He groaned, almost doubling over on himself, and my eyes grew wide. I’d barely touched him, definitely not enough to cause pure agony.

My heart pounded viciously as I recognized Dr. Gregory’s son. Concern swept away my tiredness, and I asked, “Layton, what’s wrong?”

He pulled back, wrapping an arm around his middle and trying to straighten to his full height, which easily met my five-foot-ten. Layton leaned against the wall for a moment, breathing heavily.

“Nothing. I’m fine,” he said, grunting through the pain.

“You’re not fine. At all. Shall I call your father?” I whipped out my phone, and his eyes grew rounder until they took over his whole face with sheer panic.

“For fuck’s sake, don’t call him,” he hissed.

I hesitated, and when he saw it, he looked down and away, throat bobbing as he swallowed hard.

“Dad knows,” he said quietly, still avoiding looking at me. All my senses went haywire. A shiver went down my spine for no reason that I could name except a gut instinct and a well of memories that threatened to overtake me if I didn’t push them away.

“Do you mind me asking what happened?” I asked softly, keeping my tone as neutral as possible in an attempt to be soothing without raising Layton’s red flags.

He still wouldn’t meet my gaze and was running the toe of his shoe over the lines in the tile flooring.

“Got hurt climbing,” he said. “It’s just a bruise.”

But as he talked, his breathing remained shallow in an attempt to keep the pain at bay.

“Your dad looked you over?” I pushed, warring with myself. It wasn’t my business. He was a minor. His dad was my boss and a well-respected man at the hospital and in the community. My stomach clenched, unsubstantiated thoughts based on nothing more than instinct filled me, and I knew―with a panicked sense of certainty―that this was exactly what I’d spent the last ten years of my life working and waiting for. And yet, now that it was here, I was terrified because it came in a form I couldn’t be sure would end well for me.

“It’s just a bruise,” Layton insisted, and this time, he raised his chin defiantly at me, as if daring me—or begging me—to say something different.

Half of me was screaming to just let it go―to walk away. The other half of me, the girl from nowhere who’d promised herself she’d be a shield for those who needed it, was yelling at me to push him into one of the ER beds and demand an X-ray.

He pushed off the wall, took two steps away from me, and then listed sideways as his knees started to crumble. I caught him under the arm with my shoulder so he wouldn’t hit the ground, and he yelped.

We darted looks in both directions down the hall, and I knew I was right. I hated that I was. I hated that I was going to have to do this, but I didn’t have another choice.

“Let’s get you into a bed so I can take a look,” I said quietly.

He didn’t argue. He could barely stand, breathing so erratically I thought he might actually pass out, and I’d have to call for a gurney. If I did that, his father would be called, and this kid wouldn’t stand a chance.

I opened the door of the closest hospital room, breathing a sigh of relief when I saw it was empty. I got him over to the bed, and he sat down, whimpering again as I helped him lie back. When I went to move away, he grabbed my hand, clutching it so tightly his nails almost broke the skin before he dropped it.

“Please, don’t call my dad.”

I swallowed hard, pulled the rolling stool from the corner, and sat next to him.

“Did you really get hurt climbing?” I asked, but I already knew he hadn’t.

He closed his eyes. “Don’t ask me that.”

“How old are you?”

“Fifteen.”

Crap on a cupcake. I debated one last second before saying, “Normally, I can’t conduct an exam or provide any medical care without getting permission from one of your parents, but there are certain circumstances that allow me to sidestep that rule,” I said gently, wanting to reassure him I could look at him if I suspected there was abuse without actually saying the words and scaring him off.

If I found what I thought I’d find, I’d also have to report it. I’d have to report the head of my department, and I already knew that would bring hell down on me. Roy Gregory was a narcissistic ass who I’d already gone toe to toe with several times after I’d wounded his pride by discouraging his sexual overtures.

Layton’s mouth turned grim, jaw clenching.

“Do you want me to call your mom?” I asked, tightening my ponytail and pushing my toes up and down like a ballerina, which sent my knees into a seesaw motion. Both moves were old tells. Ones I’d thought I’d gotten past. Ones that had irritated my mother. But then, any movement I’d made had irritated her.

He shook his head and bit his lip. “She knows.”

My heart fell. Having one parent who filled your life with fear was bad enough. Being afraid to tell the other parent was a different kind of torture that I knew acutely. But I couldn’t even imagine having the second parent find out and do nothing.

My dad, Trap, had turned vicious when he’d found out about Mama. But it hadn’t been his fists he’d used, even when he was known in three counties for doing just that―for being a violent man you didn’t want to cross. It had still been too little, too late.

Painful memories threatened to overwhelm me in a day full of them as I scooted the stool over to the room’s computer. I typed in my ID and password and then asked Layton for his social security number. I was officially crossing the line—the right line, but still one that wasn’t easy to step over.

I eyeballed his file, my stomach growing tauter with each entry I read. Fractured wrist from a tee-ball injury. Displaced shoulder from a climbing accident. Bruised cheekbone from a fall off a skateboard. I wondered how many of those sports Layton actually participated in. I’d heard Dr. Gregory bragging about his extreme-sports addict of a son, but maybe it was all a ploy to cover the abuse.

I donned gloves from the box by the door and took Layton’s temp and blood pressure when normally a nurse would have done it for me. I could have called Sally. She was still on duty in the ER. But there was no way I was bringing her into this.

I gently probed Layton’s chest and ribs, and his eyes rolled back.

“Stay with me, Layton. Tell me about your favorite sport.”

He drew his gaze back to me, brows furrowing as he concentrated on his motocross escapades. After the exam, I placed an order for an in-room X-ray. I didn’t want to wheel him about the hospital. Hopefully, the name on the file wouldn’t send someone scurrying to ask Dr. Gregory about it, but it couldn’t be helped. I had to have a name to log the request under, and I wasn’t prepared to make one up. I had to keep as many of the I’s dotted and the T’s crossed as I could if I wasn’t going to lose my residency over this.

It was at least an hour later before the tech had come and gone and I’d received the results—cracks to ribs seven and eight, but nothing that would endanger his heart or lungs. It would hurt like hell for weeks, but he’d recover. I explained what I saw to Layton and what he needed to do to take care of himself. Then, I sat at his side on the rolling stool, moving silently back and forth as I pushed my toes against the ground, first one and then the other.

“Want to tell me what really happened?” I asked.

He looked toward the window. “I already told you.”

“Bullshit.” I pulled the sleeve of my white coat up to reveal my forearm. “These were from boiling water,” I told him, showing off a dozen faded-brown scars that were perfectly round. I could still feel the butt of the cigarette as it singed and the smell of burning flesh. I dragged up the other sleeve to reveal a jagged scar running from my elbow almost to the wrist. “This time, I fell out of a treehouse we didn’t have.”

His eyes grew wider, but he still didn’t say anything.

I pointed under my chin, lifting it so he could see the faded-pink line. “This one was the last one. I supposedly fell skateboarding. At seventeen. When I didn’t own a skateboard and never had. That was the one that finally allowed them to pull me away. I was lucky. I had a…friend…whose family took me in until I graduated.”

My throat clogged with emotions and memories, recalling Maddox and his anger that day. My body relived the utter despondency I’d felt and the pure joy when he’d said he’d never let me go back.

 

The screech of tires and the roar of Maddox’s 1972 Ford Bronco filled the street outside my house, and I did the only thing I could. I ran for it.

The screen door crashed shut behind me as Mama screamed my name followed by curse words that were all slurred together from the drink in her hand. My heart was slamming against my rib cage, a violent struggle going on inside me, but I didn’t stop until I was pulling myself into the passenger seat.

“Go!” I screamed.

Maddox obliged, hitting the pedal so hard my head flew back against the vinyl seat as the wind swirled around me. He had the hardtop off, and my long hair whipped into my face, sticking to the blood on my chin, as we drove away at a speed that was sure to get him a ticket if he wasn’t careful.

We were halfway to the lake before he finally spoke, drawing my eyes to his newly muscled body, dark-caramel tousled hair, and bright-blue eyes that glimmered in the fading sunlight. What he saw made his hands jerk the wheel, and we almost went off the road before he corrected, straightening the tires back onto the pavement.

“You’re bleeding!” he growled.

My stomach churned, acid burning. I hated that Maddox knew about this part of my life—the drunken mother who hated me enough to strike out when I breathed the wrong way. But he’d been the first to know. The only one I’d ever risked telling the truth to since the day he’d found me hiding as my mother screamed obscenities from the door of our shitty duplex.

“Do I need to take you to the ER, McK?” His voice cracked, worry and heartache in every syllable.

“No,” I told him, pushing a kitchen towel that I’d grabbed against my chin. Another thing for her to hate me for. Another thing I’d cost her.

We were quiet the rest of the way. The lake was where we’d spent most of our free time since he’d gotten his license. Maddox four-wheeled out to the edge of the water, and I climbed into the back of the Bronco. The insides of the vehicle were still a mess with torn seats and rusted sides, but the engine was strong and steady. Maddox had spent every last dime he’d earned schlepping hay and horse manure and bussing tables at Tillie’s to save money for a paint job and new seats. The entire thing would be redone soon.

I reached for a fuzzy blanket Maddox kept in the back, and it revealed a small cooler. I stretched the blanket out as Maddox joined me. He turned on our favorite radio station, using the ancient boombox he’d found in the shed at his uncle’s that was stuffed with memorabilia from his great-grandmother’s time on sets in Hollywood.

When Maddox opened the cooler, it held two beers he’d likely swiped from his older brother’s refrigerator. He opened them both and handed me one.

Was it a problem to be drinking when my mama was an alcoholic? Probably. Did I care at the moment? No. I needed to relax. I needed to escape her violent words. I needed to pretend I didn’t have to go back there when the night was done.

Maddox lay down, reaching for me and tugging me up against him.

My body tingled at every single touch, the heat of him pushing away the cold and heartache. My body yearned to feel more than just these sweet touches. I wanted to feel his lips on mine. I wanted his hands sliding over my skin, making me feel alive.

But he was my best friend, and I didn’t dare risk his friendship for a chance at something more. I didn’t know what I’d do if I lost the one beautiful light in my world. We’d been Maddox and McKenna, M&M, to everyone who knew us since we’d been in the third grade. There hadn’t been a day since then that I hadn’t talked to him, even when he’d had to sneak over and throw rocks at my window to do it. He was the one stable, good, perfect thing in my life.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.

The feel of Mama’s hand shoving my face into the sink, and the splintering pain rushing through my jaw hit me all over again as if it had just happened, and I closed my eyes against it. I’d made the mistake of asking her for grocery money. That was all, but it had been enough to remind her I was there. That she wasn’t the free-spirited, no-responsibilities thirty-two-year-old she wanted to be.

I shook my head, opening my eyes to stare up at the sky as the colors faded from it. The hazy pink and orange slowly blended into gray and then finally black as we drank our beers and comforted each other by just being together.

A trail of light shot across the sky―a shooting star. Of course, it wasn’t really a falling star, but rather bits of dust and rock colliding with the Earth's atmosphere and burning up. Still, I liked thinking of them the way I had when I was a child and hadn’t known better. I liked pretending I could wish on them and that those wishes might just come true. I sent my two secret desires out into the universe and hoped with all my heart that one of them would become a reality.

When I looked over at Maddox, he’d moved so his body hovered slightly over mine, and his eyes were scouring my face.

“What did you wish for?” he asked in a deep gravely tone that had become his in the last few years. The tone that made my stomach quiver with want and need.

“You know I can’t tell you. It won’t come true, then.”

“I wished…” he started and then shook his head. “Why don’t I just show you.”

And before I could even think about it, he laid his lips on mine. A soft kiss that wasn’t weak as much as it was hesitant, as if he thought I might shove him away. Instead, I wrapped my arms around his neck and tugged so his body collided with mine like the meteor had with the earth. Light and fire and burning particles. Every warning skipped from my head as his tongue slid along my mouth, and I opened it, letting him in, forgetting everything but the all-consuming need to be closer to Maddox than we’d ever been before. He groaned, and my body seemed to think it was a call, because it arched into him automatically. Too many days of wanting this had the simple kiss turning ragged and raw in mere seconds.

Lost in the moment, the bottle I still held tilted and sent a stream of beer over his neck and back, causing us to jerk apart.

“Oops,” I said, smiling up at him as he chuckled. He pulled the bottle from my hand, setting it with his on top of the cooler, and then turned back to me.

“Tell me you wished for it, too,” he said.

There was a beg in his voice that I responded to by pulling him back to me, placing my mouth on his and mumbling, “I’ve been wishing for years.”

His eyes crinkled at the corners as an enormous smile took over his face, transforming him from a bright star to a supernova. We lost ourselves to kisses and hands and skin. Beautiful touches that turned breaths into pants that trailed up to the sky and the stars. We spent hours exploring the last parts of each other that we hadn’t yet learned. Bodies we’d only partly seen in swimsuits at the lake. Bodies that had filled out in muscles and curves.

Hours later, we were still touching. Eventually, the batteries on the boombox died, the moon crossed above us, the crickets went to sleep, and an owl hooted somewhere in the dark.

He pulled his lips from mine with a sigh but didn’t let me go. His arm was wrapped firmly about my waist, holding me against him. I placed my head on his chest.

“It’s late. We should probably head back,” he said reluctantly, and for the first time in hours, my stomach clenched, the burning acid returning.

“One more minute,” I begged. I didn’t want to let him go. I didn’t want to lose the love I felt flowing between us to walk into a cold house filled with hatred.

“Okay, one more minute, but then you’re coming home with me,” he grunted.

Tears hit my eyes. It wasn’t possible, and he knew it. I shook my head.

“I’m not taking you back there, McK. Not ever.”

For the next few minutes, I let myself believe that both my wishes had come true. I let joy overtake the fear and worry. I let us both stay in the bubble world we’d created where nothing but stars and kisses existed.

 

Lost in my memories, I didn’t hear the hospital-room door open or the curtain being yanked aside until it was too late.

“What in the hell do you think you’re doing?” a deep, angry voice boomed.

All I could do was wish, as I had a decade ago, that Layton and I had one more minute. One more wish to keep our worlds from tumbling down around us.

 

Chapter Four

Maddox

 

MEMORY I DON’T MESS WITH

“Moonlight on the back seat

Breeze through the wires

Springsteen on the speakers

Girl, I'm on fire.”

 

Performed by Lee Brice

Written by Montana / Davis / Brice

 

Mila fell asleep when I was only halfway through the book. It was too late for her to have been up anyway, but as tomorrow was Saturday, it would be fine. We’d sleep in, make pancakes, and go find her a damn hula hoop.

I eased out of her bed, pulled the blankets up, tucked them tight around her little body, and then just stared. She was a small miracle. Not only because she’d survived the first year of her life in horrifying conditions, but because she’d changed my life. Made me a better person. Given me an even bigger purpose.

I placed a kiss on her forehead and left the room with her rainbow of nightlights casting a million shimmers along the walls.

I made my way to the kitchen and blessed Rianne silently one more time when I found a plate of meatloaf and mashed potatoes in the microwave. I heated it up and then sat down on the sofa with my plate and a beer I rarely drank to watch a hockey game that couldn’t keep my attention.

My phone buzzed with a message from Ryder in a group text that included our two sisters.

DIPSHIT: You should have come back. Mary Beth almost stripped on the dance floor, and Chuck had to toss her over his shoulder to get her to leave.

I chuckled, imagining the scene. Mary Beth and Chuck owned the feedstore everyone in the county used to place their orders. She was renowned for her antics when she let loose, and Chuck was renowned for reeling her in and keeping her safe.

ME: Thank God I missed it. I don’t want to see someone as old as Mama getting naked.

Sadie came back the fastest. Our little sister was in her last year at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville getting a pre-law degree I didn’t think she’d ever use. Instead, I was ninety-nine percent sure she’d end up making waves on the professional dart circuit.

SASSY PANTS: There’s our little monk.

Gemma came to my rescue.

GEM MINE: I kind of have to agree with Mads here. I don’t want to see Mama, Daddy, or anyone their age naked.

SASSY PANTS: You just don’t want to see anyone naked. You’re as bad as Mads. Thank God Ryder and I are around to balance you out by rejoicing in the human flesh.

DIPSHIT: Damn it, Sadie. Do not make me drive to UTK and beat the hell out of someone. You are not allowed to have sex, think about having sex, or even look at the other sex.

SASSY PANTS: Too late, big brother.

I groaned.

ME: Can we stop talking about sex and family at all? I just ate Rianne’s magnificent meatloaf, and I don’t want to toss it back up.

SASSY PANTS: Have you even had sex, Maddox? Besides with your hand?

GEM MINE: ***puke GIF*** Please STOP TALKING. I’m changing the subject. How are you doing today, Mads?

I glanced over to the side table Mama and my sisters had loaded with picture frames. They contained years of childhood memories as well as ones of Mila and me since we’d become a family. My eyes settled on the photo of sixteen-year-old me with the Bronco when I’d first bought it in worse shape than it was now. Tucked against my side, grinning like she’d been the one to buy the vehicle, was McKenna Lloyd. Her skin was golden from the days we’d spent at the lake. Her honey-blonde hair glowed with natural highlights the sun had been responsible for, and her wheat-colored eyes were sparkling. The tip of her slim nose turned up just the tiniest bit, and her full lips were spread wide.

Pain, ragged and sharp, drew down the middle of me, taking my breath for a second.

It seemed impossible that, even a decade later, it could still hurt so much—barely having her and then losing her.

I shook my head. I’d had her for ten years. We’d pretty much become inseparable from the time I’d found her hiding from her mama’s hateful words. We’d been side by side, playing at school or escaping her mama to run wild in town, and, whenever my family could convince her mama to let her come, exploring the ranch.

All my best memories had McKenna tangled and twined in them, like vines growing through a magnolia tree. Memories I didn’t mess with. Memories I kept locked up deep inside me and took out to relive and cherish whenever I was feeling strong enough. That wasn’t today―her birthday and also the day I’d lost her for good.

The day she’d told me she was engaged and to stop calling.

I hadn’t even known she’d been dating anyone.

We’d communicated solely by texts and video chats since my one and only ill-advised trip to California. Even though she’d told me not to come back, not to wait, I’d stupidly gone on doing just that.

But I shouldn’t have waited, because I’d known she’d never come back to Willow Creek, just like she’d known I’d never leave. Our friendship that had flared, briefly, into something more had been forced back into what it had started as―two people who simply wanted the best for each other.

DIPSHIT: Do we need to stage an intervention, Sheriff Hatley?

The text loosened the hold the memories had on me. They might hurt, but I’d never regret my past, because if I hadn’t had McKenna, I never would have had Mila, and she was the best thing in my life.

ME: No, asshole. I’m just exhausted. Arrested a bunch of the West Gears and wrestled with Willy. I’m going to bed.

DIPSHIT: Wah-wah-wah. I worked all day, gutting the cabins. Do you see me whining?

ME: Did you have a gun pulled on you and fight off a knife attack? Come talk to me when it was your life on the line, and I’ll show you a whine.

GEM MINE: Maddox! You did not almost get shot and stabbed, did you? Mama’s going to shit a brick.

ME: Don’t tell her, Gems. You know she’ll just worry. I shouldn’t have said anything to any of you, but Dipshit pissed me off, as usual.

SASSY PANTS: This is double the proof you need to get laid, Maddox. Life is too short. You could be gone tomorrow. You want to hand your V card over at some point.

I choked on the beer as I read it.

ME: Jesus, Sadie. I’m not a fucking virgin.

SASSY PANTS: Years ago, one time, with one person, doesn’t exactly mean you’ve lost it, monk.

ME: I’m not talking about my sex life with any of you. I’ll just say that I’m completely happy and satisfied, sexually and otherwise.

GEM MINE: This conversation is making me uncomfortable. BTW, I’m leaving Ryder at the bar with a redhead who can’t take her eyes off him. I don’t know her. I think she’s new in town.

My protective instinct jerked back to life.

ME: What’s her name?

DIPSHIT: Even if I knew, I wouldn’t tell you. I don’t need you running my sexual partners through the system.

ME: But you’re okay with me running Gemma’s and Sadie’s?

DIPSHIT: Absolutely.

SASSY PANTS: You’re both male chauvinist pigs. Gems, we need a nefarious and irreversible plan to get even with them.

When there was no response from Gemma in five minutes, I assumed she’d left the bar and was driving herself back to our parents’ house where she still lived after finishing her degree online. Her life goals were all tied up around a screenplay she never let anyone read while passing the days working at the jewelry store in town.

I put my home phone on vibrate, threw the empty beer bottle away, cleaned the kitchen, and headed to bed. I placed my work phone on the nightstand, with the volume up to make sure it woke me if the dispatcher called, and stripped down to my briefs before climbing into the king-size bed—a bed I’d never had a woman in, regardless of the texts with my siblings.

I’d had sex beyond McKenna, beyond the fumbling but emotional moments we’d shared before she’d left for good or the heat-seared weekend we’d shared in her dorm room. But since Mila had come into my life, I hadn’t brought anyone into the house. Instead, I’d gone to their place. In truth, I’d kept the dates and women down to a minimum, not only because of my daughter but because of my career. Running for sheriff so young meant I’d needed a squeaky-clean reputation.

What I barely admitted to myself—and would never admit to my nosey siblings—was that the time I’d spent with other women had been forgettable. Interchangeable events that had given pleasure and release but had never carved a spot on my soul. Probably because I’d lost the piece of my heart that could love a woman. It had been cut out the day McKenna had told me to stop calling, fading away just like the five-percent chance I’d ridiculously held on to of her coming back to me.

I closed my eyes, pushed beyond the tortured phone call she’d placed on her birthday five years ago, and gave in to the sweet memories that laid beyond it.

 

The moonlight on the water shifted, breaking apart and then reassembling itself as the wind kicked up and sent waves across the lake. The sound of the trees rustled outside the Bronco. Spring had finally kicked in, sending away the long days of snow we’d had that year and filling the air with the scent of new growth.

McKenna lay below me in a white summer dress with gold strands woven through it.

The taste of her skin was on my tongue. Like RC Cola and MoonPies.

My fingers found their way over her curves and valleys.

The feel of her peaked nipples on the pad of my finger.

My aching hard-on pressed into her cotton underwear.

Her breathy gasps.

Her palm as it skimmed my tip.

The torturous pleasure of slowly sliding into her tight wetness.

 

I was snatched out of the memory when my work phone clanged softly, breaking the silence of my room. My dick was hard, pushing against the fabric of my boxers just like in my memories. I fought to get it under control before I answered.

“Hatley.”

“Sorry to wake you, Sheriff, but Deputy Adams picked up Sybil Lloyd again, and you know she won’t calm down until you see her.”

I sighed. The last thing I needed tonight was more memories. More pained moments.

Every time Sybil blew back through town, my chest was a bundle of knots until she breezed out again.

“Let me get someone here for Mila, and then I’ll be over.”

I hung up, dragging a hand down my face. Rianne had just left mere hours ago, and I knew she’d come right back if I called, but I didn’t want her to have to. These were the times when being a single dad with a job like mine were the hardest.

I hated not being there when Mila bounced out of her room in the morning.

So many smiles I’d missed.

But I’d go because Sybil held a rock over my head that would crash down and wreck my world if I didn’t. I might have lost McKenna because of Sybil, but I sure as hell was never going to lose my daughter because of her.

 

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