“Let me know if you need help,” Steve said as he walked away, his limp barely noticeable. Mick hadn’t been in Iraq when Steve’s bird had been shot down, but he’d had a few close calls and been forced to make an emergency landing in Afghanistan when a rocket-propelled grenade hit his Apache. The landing hadn’t been pretty, but he’d survived.

He’d loved flying and it was one of the things he missed most about his former life. But he didn’t miss the sand and dust and the politics of army life. He’d take getting fired at over the tedium of sitting around waiting for orders, only to gear up and have the mission scrubbed at the last moment.

These days he lived in a small town where nothing much happened, but he was never bored. Especially lately.

Mick looked out at the empty dance floor at the other end of the bar. On the weekends, he usually hired a band and the floor was packed. Tonight a few people stood around talking, others sat at tables and at the bar. By nine on Hump Nights the bar usually cleared out except for a few stragglers. Growing up, his dad had brought him and Meg to the bar occasionally and let them pour root beer into mugs. He taught them how to pour the perfect head. Looking back, that hadn’t been the best thing to teach your kids, but he and Meg had loved it.

Your father may have been a cheater, Maddie had said, but did he deserve to be shot three times and bleed to death on a barroom floor while your mother watched?

He’d thought more about his father in the past two days than he had in the past five years. If Maddie was right, his mother watched his father die, and he just couldn’t get that image out of his head.

He sat on the edge of the pool table and crossed one booted foot over the other as he watched Steve grab a Heineken from the refrigerator and twist off the top. Mick knew that the waitress, Alice Jones, had been killed behind the bar, while his mother and father had both died in front of the bar. He’d never seen photos or read the reports, but throughout the years he’d certainly heard enough talk about the night his mother had killed his father and Alice that he thought he’d heard it all. Now he guessed he hadn’t.

Over the past thirty-five years, he’d been in this bar thousands of time. Meg had a photograph of him at the age of three sitting on a barstool with his father. Generations of Hennessys had worked their asses off in the bar, and after his parents’ deaths, the place had been completely renovated and any trace of what had happened that night had long since been removed. When he walked through the back door, he never thought about what his mother had done to his father and Alice Jones.

Until now.

So your mother was perfectly justified in shooting her in the face, Maddie had said. For some reason, he couldn’t get Maddie Dupree and her damn crime book out of his mind. The last thing in the world he wanted to occupy his thoughts was the deaths of his parents. His past was best left buried, and the last person he wanted stuck in his head was the woman responsible for digging it all up again. She was a one-woman backhoe, uncovering things that were best left covered. But short of tying her up and shoving her in a closet, there wasn’t anything he could do to stop her. Although tying her up did have a certain appeal that had nothing to do with stopping her from writing.

My God, you’re like a tornado. Sucking up everything around you, she’d said, and it didn’t seem to matter that she was the last person in the world that he should want. The memory of her lips beneath his, and the sight of her looking thoroughly kissed and gasping for breath, were trapped in the center of his brain.

Mick rose from the table and moved past the dance floor toward the bar. Reuben Sawyer sat on his regular stool, looking old and pickled. Reuben had lost his wife thirty years ago, and for the last three decades, he’d sat on the same stool almost every night drowning his sorrows. Mick didn’t believe in soul mates and didn’t understand that kind of sorrow. As far as he was concerned, if you’re that lonely for a woman, do something about it that doesn’t involve a bottle of Jack Daniel’s.

Several people called out to Mick as he passed, but he didn’t stop. He didn’t feel like shooting the shit. Not tonight. As he moved down the hall toward the back door, an old high school girlfriend stopped him.

“Hey, Mick,” Pam Puckett said as she stepped out of the ladies’ room.

He supposed pushing past her would have been rude. “Hey, Pam.” He stopped and she took it as an invitation to wrap her arms around his neck and give him a friendly hug that lingered a few seconds beyond friendly.

“How’re you doing?” she asked next to his ear.

“Good.” Since high school, Pam had been married and divorced three times. Mick could have predicted divorce in her future. He pulled back and looked into her face. “How about yourself?”

“Not bad.” She dropped onto her heels, but kept one hand on his chest. “I haven’t seen you in here for a while.”

“I’ve been spending a lot of time at the other bar.” Pam was still attractive, and he knew that all he had to do was take her by the hand and he could take her home. He kept his palm on her waist, waiting to feel the first pull of interest behind his fly. “Are you still working in the sheriff ’s office?”

“Yeah. Still dispatching calls. I threaten to quit every other day.” Her palm slid up and down his chest.

He had three hours before closing. It wasn’t like he had to haul ass to Mort’s. He’d been with Pam before and they both knew that it was just sex. Just two adults getting together and having a good time. “You here by yourself?” he asked.

Her hand slid to his waist and she hooked a finger through his belt loop. He should have felt a spark of interest, but he didn’t. “With a few girlfriends.”

Tell me, Mick, do all the women you sleep with know about each other? Sex was probably just what he needed to get Maddie out of his head. It had been a month since he’d gotten laid, and all he had to do was take Pam’s hand and pull her behind him out the back door. “You know I don’t ever plan on getting married. Right?”

Her brows lowered. “I think everyone knows that, Mick.”

“So I’ve never lied to you about that.”

“No.”

Once he got Pam naked, he’d let her take his mind off other things. Pam didn’t like sex long and drawn out. She liked it quick and as many times as a man could get it up, and Mick was in the mood to accommodate her. He brushed his thumb up her ribs and felt a little spark of interest.

“I heard about that writer talking to everyone in town,” she said and snuffed out his spark.

He really wished she hadn’t said that. “See ya around.” He dropped his hand and took a step back toward the door.

“You’re leaving?” What she meant was:

You’re leaving without me?

“Gotta work.”

It was still light out when he stepped from the bar and drove toward Mort’s. He shoved his glasses on the bridge of his nose as a dull ache settled between his eyes. Maddie Dupree was messing with his past, talking to the town about his family, and affecting his sex life. With each passing moment, he felt the growing appeal of tying her up and stashing her someplace.

His stomach growled as he pulled his truck to a stop behind Mort’s, and instead of walking into the back of his bar, he walked a few doors down to the Willow Creek Brewpub and Restaurant. It was a little after nine and he hadn’t eaten since lunch. Small wonder that he had a headache.

The place was practically empty, and the scent of pub wings made him even hungrier as he made his way from the back. He walked to the hostess stand and placed his order to go with a young waitress. The restaurant made the best pastrami on marbled rye and kettle chips in three states. If Mick’d had the time, he would have ordered a summer ale. The brewpub made a damn good summer ale.

The inside of the restaurant was decorated with beer posters from around the world, and sitting in a booth beneath a Thirsty Dog Wheat poster was the one woman he’d been fantasizing about tying up and tossing in a closet.

A big salad and an open folder sat on the table in front of Maddie Dupree. She’d pulled her hair back from her face and painted her lips a deep red. Her brown eyes looked up as he sat on the bench seat across from her. “You’ve been busy,” he said.

“Hello, Mick.” She waved a fork toward him. “Have a seat.”

Her orange sweater was left unbuttoned up the front and she wore it over a white T-shirt. A tight white T-shirt. “I hear you’ve been talking to Bill Potter.”

“News travels fast.” She speared some lettuce and cheese and opened her mouth. Her red lips closed over the tines of the fork and she slowly pulled it back out of her mouth.

Mick pointed to the open folder. “Is that my rap sheet?”

She watched him as she chewed. “No,” she said after she swallowed. “The sheriff mentioned that you were a pain in the ass, but he didn’t mention a rap sheet.” She closed the folder and put it on the seat beside her. “What did he arrest you for? Vandalism? Urinating in public? Window-peeking?”

Smart-ass. “Fighting, mostly.”

“He mentioned a fire. You wouldn’t know about that, would you?” She took a bite of her salad and washed it down with iced tea.

He smiled. “I don’t know anything about any fires.”

“Of course not.” She set her fork on her plate, then sat back and folded her arms beneath her large breasts. Her T-shirt was so thin he could clearly see the white outline of her bra.