The key, I’ve learned, to handling sensitive matters that you don’t want or need the entire town to know about, is stealth.

Like a ninja.

You couldn’t just march into the bank and ask for a loan without half the town showing up on your doorstep offering to ‘invest’ in your business. In fact, you couldn’t just walk into any business and flat out tell them what you wanted, unless of course, what you wanted was right in line with what the town wanted for you. Which sounds nosy and manipulative, but somehow the residents of Belle Musique made it seem perfectly natural.

Still, I learned quickly watching the mess that was Trish and Mason’s relationship, that this town was relentless. And since I had neither the time nor the energy to do five rounds with the old ladies, stealth was key.

Which is how I found myself casually lounging outside one of the lawyer’s offices on Main Street, hoping to catch one of them when they were coming or going. A careful, non-committal, accidental encounter that wouldn’t say “I’m in desperate need of a divorce, help me please!”

Because that might draw the wrong kind of attention, and I might end up just like my friends.

With a husband.

The thought produced a shiver, not because I was opposed to marriage, but I was opposed to marriages destined to fail. Of course, most people didn’t realize they were destined to fail until the failing part had already begun, but foresight was my gift. I could take a look at two people and lay down odds of success or failure, and Davis and I had always been headed toward disaster, rather than happily ever after.

We were too different, and unlike most couples, we did want the same things in life. When I met Davis that was likely the draw, that my heart had seen the wanderer within him and connected with that, because it was nice to be with a guy who didn’t rag on me about staying in one place. Settling down. For three straight days we’d stayed in one place, together, sightseeing, laughing, eating and having sex. Lots and lots of hot sex. Which I wouldn’t be opposed to, again. But it wasn’t smart. Not for an uncomplicated life, and not for my heart.

And it looked like the town might have beat me to the punch, which was, let’s face it, inevitable. I’d given Davis explicit instructions not to say anything to anyone about our ‘marriage’ or need for a quickie divorce to ensure that the papers were signed before Aunt Mae and crew got wind of our delicate situation.

“Dammit.” The offices of both McInnis lawyers were suspiciously dark, and I knew it was time to give up the mission for today.

“It won’t work.” I knew the voice, but its proximity startled me, and I looked up to find Aunt Mae in a zebra striped muumuu rimmed with hot pink fringe smiling benignly at me.

“What won’t work?”

“Nothing,” she said a little too quickly, looking guilty as hell. “I just wanted you to know that whatever you’re up to, it’s not gonna work.” Then she walked away, no she sauntered away, joining a group of five older women waiting at the corner, no doubt to go take over the diner and scare all the singles and other gossip magnets.

But then I saw it again in my mind’s eye, that flash of guilt in Aunt Mae’s eyes. She knew. She knew, and there was only one other person in town who could have let the news slip.

“I’m gonna kill him, and then a divorce won’t be necessary.” A little dramatic I know, but as my legs carried me to the newly erected red brick fire station, I could only see that Davis was the wrench in my plans. “Where is he?”

Four big handsome men wearing new Belle Musique Fire Department t-shirts stared at me with mouths open as wide as their eyes. Slowly four big muscle-y biceps raised and pointed to where the two shiny trucks were parked.

“Thank you,” I bit out and continued to search out Davis, my wayward husband. “You! What part of don’t say a word was unclear?”

He looked up, looking delicious as hell in his blue t-shirt with red lettering that hugged his chest, his arms and his abs in a way designed to give a girl dirty dreams for a week. And sweet baby Jesus, the way he wore a pair of jeans should be illegal, all long thick legs, narrow waist and ass perfectly pinch-able. Imminently biteable. He slowly crossed his arms and I took advantage of every silent second to look my fill of his masculine beauty.

“Care to elaborate?”

Ugh, why did his voice have to be so low and seductive as if he were telling me to strip out of my panties and climb on for a ride? “I asked you for one thing, Davis. One thing! And somehow you have totally screwed me. Screwed us. And not in a good way.”

His lips twitched, and his eyes sparkled with the kind of joy of someone on the right side of an inside joke, but as the person on the wrong side, I continued to glare. “I’ve screwed us in a bad way. How?”

“How?” Yeah, my voice was reaching the level that only dogs could hear, but I didn’t care. “By doing the one damn thing I asked you not to do.”

“Talk to a lawyer?”

“Yes! Did you forget to take your vitamins this morning or something? You’re pretty slow on the uptake today.”

Davis unleashed another one of those panty scorching grins, but I ignored the way my core clenched and my nipples hardened, determined to stay angry dammit. “What’s the big deal? A lawyer is a necessary tool for a divorce, Mags.”

No. Nope. Absolutely not. I would not let him sway me by using my nickname in that same seductive voice. “But I told you that I would take care of it, damn you!” How was it that I explained to this man, in great detail, what had happened to Vivi and Nash, Maddie and Zeke, and then Trish and Mason, and still the man didn’t listen? “What were you thinking?”

The sound of his boots on the hard floor drew my attention first, but it was too late, Davis was already in my personal space, invading my nostrils and heating my skin like he was touching me. “It’ll be okay, Magenta. Calm down.”

“Don’t tell me to calm down!” It was a known fact that telling a person to calm down was guaranteed to make them lose their shit just a little more. “You messed up everything.”

Davis set his hands on my shoulders, gently caressing them in slow, hypnotic circles that did calm me, but only a little. “I’ll fix it. We’ll fix it together.”

I sighed long and hard, trying to get my frustration under control, because even though he did exactly what I told him not to do, this wasn’t entirely Davis’ fault.

“That’s the part you don’t seem to understand, Davis, there is no fixing this. Not now, and not without leaving town. Hell, I’m not even sure that would help anymore.” The attempts at sabotage somehow ran far and wide, and since I didn’t grow up in Belle Musique, I had no idea just how far their influence ran, and honestly I’d be terrified to find out.

He laughed and pulled me in for a hug, resting his chin on my head, his deep voice vibrating my whole body when he spoke. “You’re making a big deal out of nothing, Mags.”

“I’m not. The town is at it again, and you’re too new to see what’s happening.” I told him all about my run-in with Aunt Mae outside the McInnis law firm and he laughed. Again. “Don’t you see it Davis, they’re playing matchmaker, so that we end up like Trish and Mason.”

“Oh no,” he deadpanned. “Happily married. Oh, the horror!”

I looked up at him, and took a step back. “Wait, what?” His blue eyes were soft and squishy, affectionate even, and my heart began to beat a tattoo to get the hell out of my chest. “You’re not suggesting-,” His mouth cut off my words with a slow burning kiss that seemed to go on forever, taking me from general overheated to a raging, boiling inferno inside my veins. One degree at a time, his kiss heated my skin, my body until every inch of me was set aflame, grinding against him and straining to get closer, to get a deeper taste of his mouth.

And when I was so addicted to his taste, so eager for more than that one taste, he pulled back with a lazy grin. “What I’m suggesting is that we see what happens. We’re in the same town now, for the foreseeable future, so that excuse is out the window.”

“It wasn’t an excuse.” The words came instinctively, just as they had back in Vegas. “It was the truth and you know it. You didn’t know where you would be from one month to the next, and neither did I, how were we going to build anything from that?” It was just one of many in a long list of perfectly legitimate reasons why our impromptu marriage had ended after three days. Well that, and the fact that it had been a mistake from the beginning.

“And now,” he challenged with his arms crossed and that skeptical, almost daring look in his eyes.

“And now I’m leaving, and you’re staying.” It sounded weak even to my ears, but it had the benefit of being the truth.

“Bullshit. You don’t have to go, and as of right now you have nowhere to go.” His big arms rested against the wall on either side of my head, big body pressing mine into the wall and making it impossible for me to move. To get away and put some distance between us.

“And you’re all right with being a fallback plan?” I closed my eyes at the sound of the deep chuckle as it rumbled in his broad chest.

“Oh, but I’m not, Mags. I’m your first choice, and the sooner you admit it, the easier this will all be.”

I barked out a harsh laugh, meant to show my amusement rather than the shock that shot through me at his confident words. “Cocky much? I’ll tell you this, Davis. I’m leaving this town and you, and it’s happening. Soon. Wrap your pretty little head around that.” Each word was punctuated with a finger to his chest, which annoyingly, didn’t seem to phase him at all.

“Game on, Magenta.” Davis took one step backwards and then another and another until he was nearly on the other side of the room.

“Come back here,” I yelled irrationally. “What do you mean, game on? Is that supposed to be some kind of threat?”

Davis only smiled, and it wasn’t a panty scorcher, nope it was that ‘aw shucks, I’m a naïve country boy’ grin that was ten times deadlier than any of the others in his arsenal. “You’ll see. Wife.”

Wife? Did he seriously just call me wife?

“Yeah we’ll see about that, won’t we?” I turned on my boot heels, unwilling to stay one moment longer on his turf where he left me feeling out of sorts. Off-kilter. Two things I hated feeling above all else.

I damn near ran back to Mason’s house, not my home, and sent out more emails, duplicate emails. Anything to get the hell out of dodge before this place sucked me in and kept me. Forever.