Page 4

Four

You want a piece of the pie, but I want the recipe. We’re not the same.

— Posy’s secret thoughts

POSY

“Doc,” Cutter gushed as he clapped me on the shoulder. “Thanks for lunch and the entertainment.”

We’d thought that Elisha had left, but she hadn’t exactly left as much as moved locations.

She’d been back at my place when we’d arrived there after lunch.

I’d told her to leave, and she promised she would, if only I’d meet up with her and talk to ‘figure this out.’

I’d agreed, because at this point, all the text messaging that we were doing obviously wasn’t working.

There were only so many times that I could text ‘it’s over’ without thinking maybe she couldn’t read. Saying it in person was likely the best way to go about it.

I had to run into town and pick my dog up from the vet, anyway.

Today was his monthly grooming day.

Funny enough, I hadn’t intended to ever have a dog that required monthly grooming appointments. But I also hadn’t expected to inherit a dog, a little sister, and a falling down around my ears farm, either.

Yet, there I was.

And, since I was in town, I would plan on heading to the diner again for dinner, hoping to get a glance at the woman that I couldn’t get out of my head.

Her abrupt departure had annoyed the hell out of me.

I’d wanted more of her.

Plus, if I met Elisha at the diner, it would ensure that she wouldn’t hang around long.

She would probably take a head to toe bath after being up close and personal with the food inside the place.

“No problem,” I said. “Come over any time to help, and I’ll always feed you.”

Cutter’s face got serious then, and his eyes held mine as he pulled me into his chest and said, “You know, you’re not alone here. We’re always there to help, no matter what you need.”

I smiled and slapped him hard on the back before he pulled away.

Hagrid walked past, gave me a fist bump, and said, “Kinda sad I didn’t get to see that crazy nut today.”

“The bull or my sister?” I laughed.

Hagrid’s eyes sparkled as he returned, “The bull. But your sister’s a crazy nut, too, now that I think about it. We’ll see her at her graduation this weekend, though.”

I gave him a chin jerk and watched them leave before I turned around and surveyed the ol’ place.

The fence behind my back and to the right of where I was standing was the only thing about the entire area that looked solid.

The house’s sagging front porch made my stomach clench—yet another dangerous thing I needed to fix. But, at least after today, the barn doors would hold the animals that I wanted to stay in, in.

A loud moo from my side had me turning to look at my sister’s bottle-fed cow she’d raised for show last year.

She’d won first place at the state show, and had sold the heifer for thousands and thousands of dollars that would go toward her education.

Then the motherfucker had given her back.

Though, that wasn’t super unusual. A lot of the people that bought at the FFA livestock auctions gave the animal back.

And Scottie had been super fucking excited to get to take her back home.

Ol’ Trixie would live the rest of her years here, on the farm she was raised on, giving us healthy, show-worthy babies and begging for sugar cubes every chance she got.

“I don’t have any today,” I said as I headed toward my old truck.

I didn’t use the truck often in the summer months, preferring to ride my bike.

However, there was no fuckin’ way on God’s green Earth that I was going to put that monster on my bike.

I would be laughed out of town.

My phone rang, and I picked it up without checking the ID.

“Yeah?” I asked.

“You Posy Hicks?” the female voice—one achingly familiar—asked.

“Yes,” I answered, trying to place why it was so familiar, and coming up blank.

“You need to get down to the high school,” the female said. “There’s been an incident involving your sister.”

Then she hung up without giving me any more information.

I, of course, tried to call the person back, but it went unanswered, which only had my heart beating all the harder.

I drove my old truck as fast as I could, barreling through the small town like I didn’t expect to see the asshole cops that usually patrolled the streets like they were guarding Fort Knox.

The city of Decatur was small compared to the DFW area with only about twenty-five thousand people. And the eight cops, four of which were on a volunteer basis, that manned the streets were all a bunch of assholes.

As the crow flies, Decatur is only miles away from Dallas. However, if you had to drive it, it was well over fifty minutes on a good day.

When I was growing up, I loved the small-town life, with the opportunity of big-city things to do within easy driving distance—driving anywhere in Dallas takes you at least thirty minutes to get where you’re going, no matter where you’re headed. Forty-five is a walk in the park, considering.

The only problem was, Decatur acted like they were Dallas when they weren’t.

I always got a kick out of the pushback the town would give when the city tried to enact some city law that they didn’t agree with.

Taking one last turn into the driveway of the school, I came to a stop near the only car that was parked in the lot—an older Buick that was made in the nineties.

I got out and rounded the car to see my sister sitting on the curb, glaring hard at a young girl that was being restrained by Diner Girl.

Ahhh.

That was why she sounded so familiar on the phone.

“What’s going on?” I asked, my eyes sweeping over Scottie to make sure that she was okay.

Other than her hair being slightly askew, there wasn’t much of an issue with her.

Now the other girl looked like she was about to lose her shit.

The sister doing the holding, she looked bored, as if she did this every day.

“Had to break up a fight between these two,” she said. “Was walking back to the diner and caught sight of all this red hair.” She shook her sister. “And knew that she wasn’t going to be doing anything good. Came over here to see her fighting with this girl.”

“Fighting how?” I asked.

“Verbally, with my sister doing the shoving,” Searcy answered. “I’d offer to just leave, but if I let her go, they’re going to go after each other again.”

I turned to my sister and pulled her up off the curb.

She stared at me with anger in her eyes and said, “I swear to you, I wasn’t going to fight her. I was just so mad.”

“What happened?” I repeated.

“I was headed home,” she said. “Bridge was going to give me a ride, and this one came barreling out of the school, so damn mad that I was talking to her boyfriend.”

I frowned, then turned to the other girl. “I pay Bridge fifty bucks to give Scottie a ride home.”

The struggling girl bared her teeth at me. “I don’t fucking care.”

“Well, you should,” I countered. “Because if y’all are actually dating, that’s the only money he has to take you out.”

She scoffed. “He can get money other ways.”

“Not and keep his grades up, which is what he wants to do,” I pointed out.

“His brother works with me on the ranch, and I know all about Bridge’s school load.

He has one more year, and then he gets to get the hell out of Decatur.

But he can’t do that with shit grades, which he said are suffering because of his girlfriend.

” I leveled her with a look. “You could study with him and make his life easier.”

She rolled her eyes, but she’d finally stopped struggling.

“Like I could get anywhere with my past.” She yanked her hand out of her sister’s hold. “We’re all fucking stuck here.”

I didn’t bother debating with her.

Instead, I said, “After today’s graduation practice, and this weekend’s graduation, likely you won’t even see my sister again. But if you do, I’d appreciate it if you kept your distance. My sister’s a good girl with a huge heart. You could’ve probably made a friend, but you chose not to.”

“Whatever.” The redhead picked her purse up off the ground and started to walk away.

I watched her go for a few seconds before I said, “Get in the truck, Scottie.”

Scottie left without another word, leaving me alone with the woman.

“Thank you,” I said. “My sister’s not a fighter.”

“No,” Searcy agreed, likely remembering the earlier fight. “She’s sure not.”

The thunder overhead rumbled, breaking the spell that she had on me, and I looked up to see a bunch of darkening clouds swirling overhead.

“Can I offer you a ride to the diner?” I asked.

“Only if it’s on your way.” She narrowed her hypnotic hazel eyes at me. “If it’s not, it’s only a ten-minute walk. You don’t get legs like these without putting in some work.”

I glanced at her legs.

Yeah, they still looked just as fucking good now as they did earlier.

“It’s on my way,” I lied.

She studied me for a long moment, then glanced up at the clouds.

“Wish I was going home,” she sighed as she looked across the road to where her sister had started walking.

We were both staring at the redhead when she marched up to a house that was right across the street from the school and kicked open the door. The door slammed closed behind her, and I said, “You wouldn’t have that far of a walk.”

“No,” she agreed. “I wouldn’t.”

I jerked my head to the truck when I felt the first drop of rain hit the bridge of my nose. “Come on.”

She got into the back seat, and Scottie turned to look at her.

“Thank you for helping today,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“I’d like to say that my sister means well, but she doesn’t.

” Searcy accepted her thanks. “Where the rest of us grew up to appreciate everything, because we got so little, my little sister grew up to resent everything. The whole world is against her, and you would do best to learn to stay as far away from her as you can. Probably, you should find a different ride if you need one, too, because my sister’s a vindictive bitch. ”

“She sounds like a great person,” I lied.