Chapter Two

      Axel stifled an oath as he watched the white SUV roar out of the school parking lot. He looked up at the pale winter sky and blew out a breath that made rings around his head.

      No matter what Tara had said, he doubted that she’d be back for the dance that evening. What had he expected? That she’d welcome him back with open arms?

      He’d had plenty of female encounters in his life; all with women who had played by exactly the same rules as he had. That weekend in Braden with Tara, though, had been different. She was different. She always had been. Right from the first time he’d met her, five years earlier.

      His pocket buzzed slightly, and he pulled out his vibrating cell phone, flipping it open. “Axel here.”

      “Have you talked to her?” His uncle’s voice greeted him.

      Axel stared after her but the SUV was already out of sight. “Not exactly.”

      “This situation isn’t open for inexactly. Sloan McCray is a valuable contact for us and I’ve given him my word that we’ll continue taking care of his sister. I want daily reports.”

      Tristan Clay wasn’t only Axel’s uncle. He was his boss and he’d made his points plain already. Not that Axel could blame him after the mess he’d made of his last assignment for Hollins-Winword.

      The primary concern of the highly secretive agency was security, whether on a personal scale or an international one. At times, they even worked—to use the term loosely—along with governmental agencies, handling matters that couldn’t be handled through normal channels. Such was Axel’s last assignment, which had been a monumental failure.

      He hadn’t kept anyone safe, particularly Sloan McCray’s lover.

      As a result, Tristan had done exactly what he should have done. He’d put Axel on suspension. Which was where Axel had remained until earlier that day when he’d met with his uncle, fully intending to tender the resignation from Hollins-Winword that he’d been holding off on ever since he’d earned that suspension.

      Ironically, Axel hadn’t resigned.

      Instead, he’d found himself nearly begging his uncle for this latest assignment. Not because of his record with Sloan McCray. But because of the assignment, herself.

      Tara Browning.

      The fact that she was McCray’s sister only made the situation that much more complicated for Axel.

      Considering everything, it was a wonder that Tristan had agreed. After all, Sloan must have discovered that Tristan had sent Axel to the Suds-n-Grill that night four months ago and kept right on moving, despite the fact that he’d arranged to meet his sister there, too. But Tristan had agreed to give Axel the assignment and though McCray had pitched a mighty fit about it, he wasn’t in a position to demand someone else.

      “Daily reports,” Axel assured him, disconnecting before Tristan could decide to change his mind.

      He strode through the crowded parking lot until he reached his truck, parked blatantly in a No Parking zone.

      The parking ticket tucked beneath his windshield wiper waved gaily in the biting breeze.

      He yanked the paper out and climbed in the truck. He shoved the ticket into the glove box where it joined a couple dozen others, a tire gauge and his holstered GLOCK.

      He’d barely gotten his key in the ignition when the phone buzzed again. “Yeah?”

      “Is that how you always answer your phone?”

      He grimaced at his mother’s familiar voice and started up the truck. “I guess you’ve heard.” There was nothing like the Weaver grapevine when it came to spreading news, whether you wanted it spread or not.

      “That you’re back in town?” Emily Clay’s voice was tart, but beneath it he could still hear the love that had always been a constant. “Imagine my pleasure hearing it from someone other than you. I’ve gotten three different calls from people reporting that they’ve seen your truck driving down Main Street.”

      “Sorry. I had some business to take care of.”

      “With Evan, I imagine,” Emily concluded, making Axel feel that much guiltier.

      “I haven’t talked to Evan, yet,” he admitted, knowing perfectly well that she was probably already aware of that fact. Evan Taggart was the local vet and his brother-in-law, but they’d thrown in together to breed horses even before Evan had married Axel’s sister, Leandra.

      The business partnership was real and increasingly profitable. It also provided a highly convenient cover for Axel’s other activities. Activities of which Evan had always been aware, even before Axel’s own immediate family had been.

      “Hmm,” Emily was saying. “And when will you be making your way out to the farm?”

      The “farm” was Clay Farm, the larger and considerably more significant horse farm owned by his parents outside of town. It was where he’d grown up and where he always returned. Never before, however, had he returned with the weight on his conscience that he had now, and there was no denying his reluctance.

      It was the same reluctance that had dogged him when it came to returning to Weaver at all.

      “Soon,” he said. “I still have things to take care of in town.”

      “There’s a Valentine’s dance at the high school tonight. Your father and I will be there.”

      “I stopped at the gym already. Looked in.”

      “Did you see Courtney, then? She’s doing the kissing booth this year, if you can believe it.”

      The last time he’d seen his cousin Courtney, she’d been inconsolable at the memorial service that her parents, Rebecca and Sawyer, had finally held for their missing son, Ryan.

      “She had a line stretching around the gym,” Axel said. “I