For my mom.

       Who still makes it possible to live my dreams.

Chapter One

      The tinkle of the bell attached to the front door of Duncan’s Hardware heralded the arrival of a new customer, though on this frigid March day in the Texas Panhandle, the gust of icy wind blowing through the entryway would have been plenty of warning by itself.

      In the fasteners aisle, John Blake winced as the cold seeped under the collar of his jacket and seemed to attach itself to his mending collarbone. The gnawing pain stole his breath for a moment before settling into a bearable ache.

      The new arrival was a woman. Tall and rangy, with hair the rusty color of Georgia clay and worn in a simple ponytail, she had alert eyes the color of the gunmetal sky outside. Her rawboned features, free of makeup, were more interesting than beautiful.

      She nodded at Gil Duncan, the proprietor, and scanned the shop with those sharp gray eyes, her gaze settling on John and narrowing.

      He looked away, feigning a lack of interest, though every nerve in his body tingled to attention.

      He felt more than saw her approaching him, but he didn’t look away from the boxes of screws he was studying.

      “You’re new in town.”

      John looked up at her, finding himself the object of those smoky eyes. Close up, her gaze was sharp, her expression intelligent and curious. She also gave off an air of authority, and he thought the word cop even before she flipped open her jacket to reveal the six-pointed star badge of the Barstow County Sheriff’s Department.

      “Yes, I am,” he answered with a mild smile. He was barely an inch taller than she was, and in his current condition, he was fairly sure she could take him down without much trouble. Cooperation was by far the smarter option for him, especially since he wasn’t looking to draw much attention to himself during his hopefully brief stay in Cold Creek, Texas.

      “You’re that fellow who’s renting the Merriwether place on Route 7?”

      “Yes, ma’am.”

      Her lips twitched a bit at his polite response. “You’re from...North Carolina?”

      Not a bad guess, he thought. “Tennessee.”

      She gave a nod. “How do you like Cold Creek so far?”

      “It’s quiet. Been chilly since I got here.”

      “That won’t last,” she warned with a friendly smile that displayed a set of straight, white teeth. She was prettier when she smiled, he decided. “If you’re plannin’ on stayin’ long, that is.”

      Was that her way of asking whether he was going to stick around? “So I hear. Hopefully it’s a little less humid than where I’m from.”

      The musical tone of her laugh caught him by surprise. “You can bank on that. But it’s windy