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“For the third time,” I grind out through gritted teeth, wishing like hell that I had the ability to incinerate someone with the sheer force of a glare. “I was asleep. I heard a noise. I—”

“What kind of noise?”

Eyeing the pencil poised against a tiny, stupid notebook, I wonder just how much trouble I’d get into for jamming it into my sister’s ex-boyfriend’s eye. A lot, probably. The uniformed entourage questioning my friends and stringing up caution tape would probably be on my ass in a hot second

“Footsteps.” I choose to oblige the ceaseless, repetitive questioning in favor of copping another charge. “Banging. An engine.”

Mark Monroe makes the same noise he made when he arrived on scene and discovered I was the victim of the reported crime he was here to investigate.

The same noise I made when I realized that not only was I going to have to put up with some small town, big-booted deputy itching to throw their weight around via their badge, it had to be the deadbeat dickhead who dumped my pregnant sister.

The same noise he made again the first time I recounted what I witnessed of the break-in.

And the second time. The third time too, and probably the fourth, and the fifth, and the hundredth until finally, maybe , my words will penetrate that thick skull of his. “And you saw how many people?”

“I didn’t exactly have time to count them.” You know, on account of the brick that almost smashed my head in.

Funnily enough, Deputy Monroe likes to skip over that portion of the story.

At my attitude, his lips thin. “Guess.”

“I don’t know.”

“Five?” he presses, tight with irritation. “Ten? More than that?”

“I don’t know,” I repeat. “Five, I think.”

That noise again. Fucking hell.

Slipping his pen into the pocket of his khaki button-down, Mark tucks away the notebook he’s been scribbling a whole lot of nothing into.

“I gotta say, Lottie.” He braces his hands on his hips, scanning the scene with a twisted expression—twisted in the sense that he looks a little too fucking pleased by the carnage. “This looks mighty suspicious.”

My eyes narrow. “How’s that?”

“The liquor store in town was robbed on New Year’s Eve.”

“What’s that got to do with me?”

He looks at me like I should know exactly what it’s got to do with me.

“The day after Christmas, the McGees reported a break-in at their ranch,” he continues. “Know anything about that?”

“No.”

“No?” he repeats, and it’s clear as fucking day that he doesn’t believe me. “Heard you had some friends in town last month. Heard you were over in Ponderosa getting real cozy with them.”

My stomach twists and rolls. “I had a few drinks with some people I used to know, and then I came home.”

“Quite the coincidence, Charlotte.”

I laugh loud enough to draw the attention of the people lurking on the front porch. “ Right . You caught me. I trashed my house and then I threw a brick through my own window.” Slow and sarcastic, I clap. “ Outstanding detective work, Marcus .”

Mark’s jaw clenches. Too fast for me to dodge, he locks a hand around my bicep and yanks me towards his squad car. “Let’s go, mouth .”

As a tiny tendril of anxiety blossoms in synchronicity with what’s sure to be a couple of fingertip bruises, I try to shake him off. “Let go of me, asshole.”

“ Hey. ” Descending the porch with a single, long-legged leap, Finn strides towards us. “What the hell are you doing?”

Trying to rip my fucking arm out of its socket, apparently.

“We’re gonna see if a ride down to the station makes her a little more co-operative.”

“I told you what happened!” I protest over the panic blocking my throat. Fuck, I can’t get arrested again, fuck . “Someone call my brother.”

There’s no need.

Literally the second I mention him, Jackson’s voice suddenly rings out, a furious yell that I swear the next ranch over can probably hear. “Get your hands off of her right fucking now, Monroe.”

Mark releases me so quickly, I’d laugh if I wasn’t so pissed. He doesn’t let go of me gently either, and I teeter a little until I’m steadied by a much gentler replacement grip.

A warm torso settles flush against my back, lips hovering near my ear. “Are you okay?”

I nod—in response to Finn, and to my brother and older sister who bark the same question. Only after my reassurement do the latter pair set their sights on Mark, and fucking hell. Even I shiver a little at the looks on their almost identical faces.

Mama and papa bear mode, activated .

“Relax,” Mark titters nervously, all his bravado gone in the blink of an eye, leaving a wimp in a wrinkled uniform behind. “I’m just bringing her in for questioning.”

As Lux stations herself beside me, Jackson plants himself in front of both of us, demanding, “Are you arresting her?”

Mark practically pouts— I wish , I see written clearly across his bitchy little face. “No. But if she refuses to cooperate—”

“She’s a victim ,” Jackson hisses. “She could’ve been seriously hurt.”

“Yet she wasn’t. How miraculous.”

I think I actually see steam pour from my brother’s ears. “Whatever you’re implying, don’t. ”

“Listen, man, I’m just trying to do my job.”

“Then do it instead of harassing my family.”

“Oscar,” he dares to address my brother by the first name he loathes. “We both know that’s exactly what I’m doing. The girl’s got a record. This isn’t personal.”

“I take you attacking my sisters pretty personally.”

Like he’s just now remembered that more than one of us Jackson women are present, Mark’s gaze slips to his ex. To the mother of his goddamn child, not that he’d ever admit that.

In perfect unison, Jackson and I bark, “Don’t look at her.”

Mark drops his gaze to the ground real fucking quick.

“Lottie’s given you her statement,” Jackson continues. “If you wanna arrange additional questioning, then the officer assigned to our case can contact our lawyer.”

“I’m the officer assigned to your case.”

A booming, mocking laugh leaves my brother. “I’ll be calling the Sheriff and fixing that. And if you don’t want me to file an excessive force complaint too, then I’d get the fuck off my land.”

Like the spineless little toad he is, Mark backs off. He casts another glance at Lux, and I resist the urge to snap my teeth at him like a wild animal—maybe I don’t actually resist it all that well because as he scuttles away, he eyes me like I’m one rabid move away from chasing him down.

Finn’s grip tightens like he fears the same.

Only after Mark gathers his cronies, ducks into his squad car, and starts driving back to whatever hellhole he crawled out of does Jackson tear his gaze away.

“Are you hurt?” he asks me.

I shake my head.

“Okay.” He rakes his hands through his hair, sighing. “Grab some stuff. Lottie, you can stay in your old room until we get this sorted out. The rest of you,” he calls out to the other ranch hands lingering a few feet away, “can use the guesthouses.”

The warm hands cupping my outer arms drift down to my hips, squeezing gently. “I’ll stay at the main house.”

Eyeing Finn, Jackson pulls a face.

“Respectfully,” my boyfriend says, that Southern twang shining through a little more brightly than usual. “I’m staying with Lottie.”

Jackson opens his mouth—to refuse, I’m sure, but all that comes out is a pained puff of air as an elbow finds his ribs. Rubbing his side, he drops his gaze to Lux, sighing as she mouths something I can’t quite make out, but I swear I recognize the words helicopter and parent .

“Fine,” he relents, looking none too happy about it, and slashes a dismissive hand through the air. “Go pack. I’m gonna make a phone call.”

With mumbled variations of yessir and aye aye captain , we disperse, picking our way through the wreckage that is our home.

Leaving the others on the first floor, Finn follows me up to the attic, hissing through his teeth when glass crunches beneath our booted feet.

When his gaze lands on the brick resting leisurely on my pillow, he makes an entirely un-human noise. “Jesus, Lottie.”

I shrug. What am I supposed to say? I’ve already reassured him a hundred times that I’m fine. We both know it could’ve been a whole lot worse; there’s no use dwelling on it. “Bet it’s that lucky tattoo.”

The look he pins me with is utterly unamused.

To be fair, I’m not all that amused either. I’m irritated by this entire situation—deeply, murderously so.

I want to kill Ricky for doing this.

For daring to. I want to rip him apart with my goddamn bare hands, and it’s killing me that I can’t, it’s killing me that I kept my suspicions—no, not suspicions , I know it was him, I fucking know it —to myself because I knew giving up his name would douse mine with a little more fuel.

It’s my burden, my problem to fix, and it’s frustrating , and in my experience, that’s a gateway emotion.

A prerequisite for anger, and Angry Lottie is Snappy Lottie, and she lashes out, she’s cruel , she is not fit for public consumption.

Which is why, as I’m rifling through my underwear drawer, I say, “You don’t have to stay with me.”

“Won’t sleep otherwise.” Coming up beside me, Finn picks through the toiletries littering the top of my dresser, collecting what I use daily and dropping them into a tote bag.

Clutching a handful of thongs, I watch the simple act with way too much…

I don’t know. Interest. Awe . Like something that takes him five seconds is more than just that . “I’ll sleep on the floor.”

I blink at him as he opens a drawer and fishes out a couple pairs of pajamas. The soft, worn ones I like. “That’s a little dramatic.”

“I’d probably end up there anyway.” He stoops to kiss my cheek, and then he moves to my bed, bending over to grab the duffel bag tucked beneath it. Flipping it open, he drops my things inside. “You sleep wild.”

I throw a pair of panties at him—a poorly thought-out retribution for his teasing, considering how intensely he stares at the scrap of pink fabric before tucking it in his pocket. “You’re not getting these back.”

My lower stomach tightens as I think of all kinds of reasons why he might want to keep a pair of my fucking panties. “Not sure they’re your size.”

A wicked smirk curls his mouth. “They’ll work just fine, baby.”