Three

      Faith was not hugely conversant in the whole girls’-night-out thing. Mia, her best friend from school, was not big on going out, and never had been, and usually, that had suited Faith just fine.

      Faith had been a scholarship student at a boarding school that would have been entirely out of her family’s reach if the school hadn’t been interested in her artistic talents. And she’d been so invested in making the most of those talents, and then making the most of her scholarships in college, that she’d never really made time to go out.

      And Mia had always been much the same, so there had been no one to encourage the other one to go out.

      After school it had been work. Work and more work, and riding the massive wave Faith had somehow managed to catch that had buoyed her career to nearly absurd levels as soon as she’d graduated.

      But since coming to Copper Ridge, things had somehow managed to pick up and slow down at the same time. There was something about living in a small town, with its slower pace, clean streets and wide-open spaces all around, that seemed to create more time.

      Not having to commute through Seattle traffic helped, and it might actually be the sum total of where she had found all that extra time, if she was honest.

      She had also begun to make friends with Hayley Bear, formerly Thompson, now wife of Jonathan. When Faith and her brothers had moved their headquarters to Copper Ridge, closer to their parents, Joshua had decided it would be a good idea to find a local builder to partner with, and that was how they’d met Jonathan and merged their businesses.

      And tonight, Faith and Hayley were out for drinks.

      Of course, Hayley didn’t really drink, and Faith was a lightweight at best, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t have fun.

      They were also in Hayley’s brother’s bar.

      They couldn’t have been supervised any better if they’d tried. Though, the protectiveness was going to be directed more at Hayley than Faith.

      Faith stuck her straw down deep into her rum and Coke and fished out a cherry, lifting it up and chewing it thoughtfully as she surveyed the room.

      The revelers were out in force, whole groups of cheering friends standing by Ferdinand, the mechanical bull, and watching as people stepped up to the plate—both drunk and sober—to get thrown off his back and onto the mats below.

      It looked entirely objectionable to Faith. She couldn’t imagine submitting herself to something like that. A ride you couldn’t control, couldn’t anticipate. Where the only way off was to weather the bucking or get thrown to the mats below.

      No, thanks.

      “You seem quiet,” Hayley pointed out.

      “Do I?” Faith mused.

      “Yes,” Hayley said. “You seem like you have something on your mind.”

      Faith gnawed the inside of her cheek. “I’m starting a new design project. And it’s really important that I get everything right. I mean, I’m going to be collaborating with the guy, so I’m sure he’ll have his own input, and all of that, but...” She didn’t know how to explain it without giving herself away, then she gave up. “If I told you something...could you keep it a secret?”

      Hayley blinked her wide brown eyes. “Yes. Though... I don’t keep anything from Jonathan. Ever. He’s my husband and...”

      “Can Jonathan keep a secret?”

      “Jonathan doesn’t really do...friends. So, I’m not sure who he would tell. I think I might be the only person he talks to.”

      “He works with my brothers,” Faith pointed out.

      “To the same degree he works with you.”

      “Not really. A lot more of the stuff filters through Joshua and Isaiah than it does me. I’m just kind of around. That’s our agreement. They handle all of the...business stuff. And I do the drawing. The designing. I’m an expert at buildings and building materials, aesthetics and design. Not so much anything else.”

      “Point taken. But, yes, if I asked Jonathan not to say something, he wouldn’t. He’s totally loyal to me.” Hayley looked a little bit smug about that.

      It was hard to have friends who were so happily...relationshipped, when Faith knew so little about how that worked.

      Though at least Hayley wasn’t with Faith’s brother.

      Yes, that made Faith and Mia family, which was nice in its way, but it really limited their ability to talk about boys. They had always promised to share personal things, like first times. While Faith had been happy for her friend, and for her brother, she also had wanted details about as much as she wanted to be stripped naked, have a string tied around her toe and be dragged through the small town’s main street by her brother Devlin’s Harley.

      As in: not at all.

      “I took a job that Joshua and Isaiah are going to be really mad about...”

      Just then, the door to the bar opened, and Faith’s mouth dropped open. Because there he was. Speaking of.

      Hayley looked over her shoulder, not bothering to be subtle. “Who’s that?” she hissed.

      “The devil,” Faith said softly.

      Hayley blinked. “You had better start at the beginning.”

      “I was about to,” Faith said.

      The two of them watched as Levi went up to the counter, leaned over and placed an order with Ace, the bartender and owner of the bar, and Hayley’s older brother.

      “That’s Levi Tucker,” Faith said.

      Hayley narrowed her eyes. “Why do I know that name?”

      “Because he’s kind of famous. Like, a famous murderer.”

      “Oh, my gosh,” Hayley said, slapping the table with her open palm, “he’s that guy. That guy accused of murdering his wife! But she wasn’t really dead.”

      “Yes,” Faith confirmed.

      “You’re working with him?”

      “I’m designing a house for him. But he’s not a murderer. Yes, he was in prison for a while, but he didn’t actually do anything. His wife disappeared. That’s not exactly his fault.”

      Hayley looked at Faith skeptically. “If I ran away from my husband it would have to be for a pretty extreme reason.”

      “Well, no one’s ever proven that he did anything. And, anyway, I’m just working with him in a professional capacity. I’m not scared of him.”

      “Should you be?”

      Faith took in the long, hard lines of his body, the dark tattoos on his arms, that dark cowboy hat pulled low over his eyes and his sculpted jaw, which she imagined a woman could cut her hand on if she caressed it...

      “No,” she said quickly. “Why would I need to be scared of him? I’m designing a house