Page 9

She looked scandalized. “You want to put me in the system?”

“It’s easiest for taxes—”

“Taxes?”She looked scandalized.

“Taxes are actually how my job is funded,” he pointed out.

“Yeah,” she said, dryly. “Exactly. You’re the System, dude. I don’t want to be in the system.”

“I imagine you’re in the system to some capacity.”

“Well. Yes.” She looked around, her expression shifty.

“Do you have some stuff you want to grab?”

She looked momentarily defeated. “Yeah. I just... If I can get my backpack. And to let you know, there’s a big hunting knife in it. If you try to touch me, I will gut you.”

Thathe believed. It was the first thing that had come out of her mouth that he thought was a pretty solid truth.

“Noted.”

She led the way back to the cabin. She hopped down the way like a rabbit on a trail, and it was difficult to keep up with her. She pushed open the door to the cabin, the one he had searched yesterday.

“You were here,” he said. “Yesterday when I came in to search.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I was hiding.”

“Where were you hiding?”

“If you don’t know the hiding spots on your own fucking property, it’s not up to me to tell you.”

She had attitude. She grabbed a knapsack and a fishing pole from the corner and hefted it up over her shoulder. “Right. Let’s go then. Let’s do this dinner-and-shower thing. Do I have to listen to you preach the gospel before I can have a hot meal?”

“Ask my brother Denver to share the good news with you. See what he says.”

She looked vaguely intrigued by that. “Mister, I have heard every form of good news you can possibly imagine.”

“How’s your soul?”

“Don’t know. Had to sell it for parts a long time ago.”

That hit him square in the chest and resonated a little further than it ought to have.

He cleared his throat.

“Well. Let’s head on back to the homestead, Bix.”

Chapter Three

Bix didn’t know if she was doing the right thing or not. Normally, she had a pretty fair sense of what to do, based on gut reactions. Shealwaystrusted her gut. Hell, a woman in her position had to. But this guy was a giant red flag. Wrapped in a uniform. He was everything she didn’t like. He was a big strong man who wasalso a cop.

She wanted nothing to do with him, and yet he was offering her something she wanted very badly.

She wanted to be warm. She wanted to be clean. She wanted to be full. And the idea of work. A real job that paid an hourly wage, that maybe would get her a little bit further than trying to get the moonshine made and sold before she headed south...

Well, the problem was he’d found the still. So, her plan to get some product made and sold to finance her trip was fucked anyway. She wasn’t sure about taking the work, but she knew she might as well have the dinner.

She knew a moment of feeling quite miserable as she followed him through the forest. They came out the edge, and there was his cop car.