While Shane had a blanket under his arm, Tuck carried the picnic basket as they walked into the local park adjacent to the little league baseball field. The town had sprung for one of those huge, inflatable screens and a movie projector and held movie nights twice a month during the late spring through early fall, when the weather was nice. Every other Friday night alternated between G-rated movies for the whole family and PG-13 for the older crowd. Tonight was the latter and for the first time in a long while, Tuck was looking forward to the show. It was guaranteed to be the talk of the town for weeks to come.

“Paige! Over here!”

The trio headed toward where Nicole was waving them over. There was an empty spot next to her and Hank. On the other side of the couple sat Lila and the guy she’d just started dating. Gavin Zeller had been a year ahead of Tucker in high school, which made him four years older than Lila, who’d been in the same class as Gavin’s sister, Gabby. Lila had run into the sister and brother at the Rodeo Bonanza two weeks earlier, and Gabby had introduced Lila to Gavin. He’d never met her before since he’d graduated the year before Lila was a freshman. The divorced father of two, who lived about a half hour away from Hazard Falls, and the single teacher had hit it off and had gone on a few dates since then. Tuck thought Gavin was a nice guy—just as he’d been in high school—and he didn’t mind his sister hooking up with him.

There were hugs and handshakes when the threesome joined the other two couples. Shane spread out their blanket then held Paige’s hand as she lowered herself to the ground. The two men sat on either side of her. Within a few minutes, drinks and sandwiches had been handed out.

Tuck glanced around. The park’s lawn was filled with the usual who’s who of the town and surrounding county, and, as expected, the mayor and his family were in attendance. Over the years, movie nights had become social events. Some people brought lounge chairs, while others preferred blankets. Wine and beer were allowed, but no hard liquor. People could bring their own food or purchase popcorn, hot dogs, hamburgers, and other snacks from a concession stand that was also open during little league games.

Tonight’s feature was supposed to be The Princess Bride, but Tuck and Shane knew the town was in for a little surprise. After the Rodeo Bonanza, Shane had come up with the idea of hiring a private detective from Garden City to delve into Bridget Kline’s past. What the man had uncovered was going to be sweet revenge. With the help of Jack Mueller, an electrician who ran the projector for each event, the scheduled movie had been swapped out for one that was a little more risqué, starring the mayor’s daughter.

Apparently, Bridget had been a very, naughty girl while vacationing with friends a few years ago in Corpus Christi, Texas. After a few martinis and shots of tequila, she and two of her girlfriends had ended up at a “gentlemen’s” club where they’d proceeded to do a bit of pole and lap dancing, among other things. Two guys they’d hooked up with earlier in the evening had somehow managed to film some of the show. How the private detective had gotten his hands on it, Tucker had no idea, but it didn’t matter. With Jack’s computer knowledge, they’d blurred out a few faces and private parts, but there would be no mistaking who the blonde was and what she was doing.

No one else in the crowd, including Paige, knew what was about to happen. Just in case, the disc had been wiped clean of fingerprints, and Jack had conveniently been away from his setup for about twenty minutes to run home and grab something he’d “forgotten.” Any number of people, who’d arrived early to get a good spot, could have swapped out the disc in his equipment after he’d left it out in the open. Small town residents tended to be too trusting at times. Tsk. Tsk.

Shane reached around Paige and nudged Tuck, who looked in the direction his husband indicated with a tilt of his head. The guest of dishonor had arrived just in time to see the start of the show. Bridget and some rich-looking dude Tuck had never seen before were making their way toward her parents, who’d set up their usual, elaborate table and chairs in the center of the field. Yup, this was going to be good.

From the looks of things, there were about 150 people in the audience from throughout the county. It would be a long time, if ever, before Bridget’s high-brow reputation recovered from tonight’s humiliation, but Tuck and Shane didn’t regret it one bit. Nobody fucked with their woman.

At nine o’clock on the dot, the park lights dimmed, and the oversized screen came to life. Instead of The Princess Bride’s opening credits, the inside of the strip club appeared with pulsating music and catcalls filling the air. Tuck tried to look as confused as everyone else, but it was damned hard not to laugh out loud.

The picture jumped around for a moment, then zoomed in on a blonde who’d already removed her top and was gyrating against a stripper pole in only her bra and miniskirt. Murmurs began to spread throughout the crowd until some guy shouted, “Holy shit! That’s Bridget Kline!”

Laughter and whistles were a plenty, but they didn’t cover the shriek of humiliated outrage that came from Bridget. “Turn that off! Jack! Oh, my God! Turn it off!”

The stunned mayor somehow got to his feet and rushed over to where Jack was cackling his ass off while the video continued to play. Richard Kline yelled at the man to shut it off, but Jack was bent at the waist, trying to breathe. The scene had shifted, and Bridget could be seen grinding against some guy in a drunken lap dance, while her skirt was up over her hips, showing off her black thong underwear.

The crowd roared. And in the middle of it, a red-faced Bridget scanned the area until she spotted Tuck, Paige, and Shane. At least now, Tuck didn’t need to hold in his laughter. In fact, his sides hurt and tears were rolling down his cheeks. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d howled that hard. Again, there were no regrets.

Bridget stormed toward them. Her hands were clenched, and her lips were curled back in a snarl. “You bastards! I know you did this!”

Shane jumped to his feet, but Tuck was a little slower since he was holding his sides and rolling around on the picnic blanket. He couldn’t look at Bridget because it just made him laugh harder, but he did manage to get himself between her and Paige who was also gasping for air. Beside them, Nicole, Hank, Lila, and Gavin were not faring any better.

“You fucking bastards! How dare you!” She poked a shaking finger in Paige’s direction. “That cunt put you up to it, didn’t she?”

That stopped both men cold. Shane took a threatening step forward and growled before dropping his voice several octaves. “You refer to Paige one more time using anything else but her name or a pronoun, tonight will look like a Sunday-school lesson. She had nothing to do with this. Clearly you pissed off someone else. I don’t know where that porn video of you came from . . .” Technically that was the truth. “. . . but I’d like to shake the hand of whoever found it. Looks like your elite status dropped a few pegs and you’re down here with the rest of us human peons. Now, you might want to go help your mother since it looks like she fainted, and, by the way, your date is heading for his car.”

Bridget spun around, then with a backward glare, she ran after her date. Nice to know where her priorities lay.

The mayor had finally gotten Jack to turn off the video. An off-duty EMT was helping Alice Kline who hadn’t fainted but probably wished she had. Richard hurried back to his wife as the correct movie began to play. The crowd was still chuckling and talking, but they began to settle down to watch the scheduled show.

A hand on Tuck’s arm had him turning around. As she eyed both Tuck and Shane, who was standing next to him, Paige’s face was filled with mirth. “Thank you.”

“For what, sweetheart?” Shane managed to ask with a straight face.

“You did this, didn’t you?”

“Nope.”

Tuck shook his head and glanced at his husband before looking back at Paige. “We have no idea what you’re talking about, darlin’.”

Her eyes narrowed—clearly she didn’t believe them. “Uh-huh.” After a moment of them not confessing, she placed one hand on Tuck’s chest and the other on Shane’s, as a saucy grin appeared on her pretty face. “Well, then, if you happen to find out who did do it, tell them I owe them one. You know, in case they ever want to collect.”

She went up on her tiptoes and kissed Tuck then Shane on the lips with a little swipe of her tongue. Suddenly, all Tuck wanted to do was take her and his husband home and spend the rest of the night completely naked in bed with them.

After double-checking the first graders all had their seatbelts on, Paige sat next to Nicole in the front row behind the driver of the school bus. Across the aisle was the students’ teacher, Melanie Dwyer, who was about twenty years older than the two other women. Her salt-and-pepper hair was styled in a short pixie cut, and she was super sweet. Her students clearly loved her.

Their driver, Clem, who just happened to be Melanie’s husband, shut the hinged door before putting the yellow vehicle in drive and pulling away from the curb in front of the school. The fifteen first-grade students, with Joey, Arianna, and Brooke among them, were cheerfully chatting away, excited about the field trip, which was getting them out of the classroom for most of the day. Paige remembered how that felt—it was the best feeling in the world for kids that age, aside from the last day of school and Christmas.

“So, have Shane and Tucker confessed to the video yet?” Nicole asked, keeping her voice low to not be overheard by the multiple ears around them.

Paige shrugged. “Nope. Tight-lipped bastards that they are. But I will say their eyes sparkle every time I ask about it.” She’d been trying to get them to admit it for the past two weeks, but she couldn’t get a straight answer out of them.

“All Jack will say is he had the correct CD in the player before he ran back to his house.”

“Which, put that way, could mean the correct CD was The Princess Bride or the amateur porn video. And women think they’re the sneakier sex when it comes to revenge.”

Nicole snorted. “True that.”

They’d been on the road not even ten minutes, when Arianna called Paige’s name from a few seats back on the other side of the aisle. She glanced over her shoulder and answered some questions she and Joey had. The bus rounded a curve on the two-lane backroad they were on. It was the fastest route to the Native American Village where the kids would learn what it was like in Kansas before white men came and took over.

Paige felt the bus begin to slow.

“Uh-oh,” Clem said. “Looks like someone drove into the ditch. Better stop and make sure they’re okay.”

Leaning to the right, Paige looked out the windshield and saw a beat-up Cadillac partially blocking their lane. The right front tire was off the road and the vehicle was tilted a bit as the tire had started to go into the ditch. No one was in sight, and she couldn’t see through the Cadi’s dirty windows with the sun glare.

The bus came to a stop and Nicole stood with Clem. “I’ll go with you. Hopefully they’re not hurt and just need a tow truck.

Clem opened the door and stepped down. Nicole was right behind him, but before she got out, she froze on the bottom step. Paige looked at her friend in confusion, but then Melanie’s gasp and “Oh, my Lord,” caught her attention. Paige turned her head and what she saw had the blood draining from her face.

Nicole backed up the stairs slowly and into the aisle, her eyes wide in terror and her hands up in the air. Following Clem back into the bus were two men pointing big, black, ugly handguns at him and Nicole. Paige had never seen the first guy before—he was about eighteen or nineteen, with dark, greasy hair, and wearing a nose ring and brow stud. But the other one, Paige recognized right away—Brenna Kline’s scuzzy boyfriend, whatever his name was. Both punks were dressed in black shirts, jeans, and construction boots. What scared Paige the most, beside the guns, was the fact neither were hiding their faces. That never boded well for witnesses in movies and TV shows.

The greasy-haired guy shoved Clem into the driver’s seat, while Ty—somehow his name popped into Paige’s head—pointed his gun at Nicole. Her hands started to shake. “I don’t know what—”

“Sit down and shut up!” When she hesitated, he barked, “Move! Now!”

Nicole had moved back enough in the aisle that she ended up taking the seat behind Paige.

The door to the bus slammed shut and Clem was ordered to follow the Cadi, which was back on the road heading in the direction of the Native American Village, but Paige doubted that was their destination now. Behind her, the children were eerily quiet, and she glanced back. Their eyes were wide with fear and a few had tears rolling down their cheeks. Arianna’s petrified gaze met hers, and Paige tried to smile and mouthed the words, “It’s going to be okay.”

The bus jerked forward, and Paige had to throw her hand out in front of her, against the back of the driver’s seat, for support. She’d taken her seatbelt off when the bus had initially stopped and, for now, she left it that way. If she had to react quickly, she wouldn’t be able to do it with the restraint. Across the aisle, Melanie was pale, and her hands trembled, but from her expression, Paige knew the woman would do anything to protect her students. The four adults in charge would have to wait to find out what was going on and how they were all going to get themselves and the children out of it.

“Where are we going? What do you want?” Nicole asked, fear and loathing combined in her tone.

“Shut! Up!” Ty growled. “You’ll know soon enough.”

God, Paige hoped she’d told Ari the truth when she’d said everything would be okay. Tucker and Shane would both shatter if they lost their little girl. The whole town would be devastated if anything happened to any of the children. Paige didn’t know why, but suddenly she found herself praying—not to God, but to Sarah. Please don’t let them take her from Shane and Tucker. She needs to stay here with them because you couldn’t. Watch over her, and while you’re at it, please watch over the rest of us too.