My worst nightmare had just shown up at my front door. Well, the front door of RBW Landscaping, to be precise. Miss Dorie had brought it in with the morning mail.

I wasn’t alone, but I was the only employee present. While RBW Landscaping now had six employees, everyone else was out working. Besides me, the person who spent the most time in the office was Rose. She was technically my boss, but if you ranked the complexities of our relationship, it would be:

1. Best friends
2. Housemates
3. Boss/employee
4. Co-investigators (although I suspect she wouldn’t include this one)

Rose was out this morning, but my brother Joe, the chief deputy sheriff of Fenton County, had stopped by on his day off to bring over my current favorite drink (vanilla caramel latte with almond milk, sprinkled with nutmeg), using the drink delivery as a pretense for a chat. He’d been doing that a lot lately, ever since we found out the truth about my soon-to-be ex-husband. That he wasn’t dead. That he’d turned tail and run off with some other woman.

But Joe knew me better than to up and mention that. He’d settled in on the edge of my desk, sipping his coffee while talking about his plans for his kitchen. He’d been remodeling a rental farmhouse, exchanging labor for rent. I’d seen Joe’s work; his landlord was getting the better deal, but the more I got to know my newly discovered half brother, the more I realized the work he was doing was helping him with his demons.

I had plenty of my own demons, most of which Joe had no inkling of, and as soon as I saw the look on my mail lady’s face, I knew one of them was about to claw to the surface.

The bell on the door chimed as Miss Dorie came in, carrying a stack of envelopes, but her eyes were wide with excitement. “Neely Kate, I have another one of your mystery envelopes.”

Crap. Sometimes I hated being right.

Miss Dorie saw Joe on my desk and did a double take. “Deputy Simmons. I heard you were taking a day off.”

I had to hand it to observant postal workers. Sometimes they knew more about what was going on in Henryetta than I did, and I made it my business to know things.

“It is,” he said in his easy, laid-back tone, offering no other information.

Miss Dorie approached, handing me the stack of mail as she took stock of Joe’s jeans and T-shirt, realizing he was lazing around my office, draped on my desk in a casual manner while we drank our coffees together. Alone. Her eyes flew wide open. “Are you two secretly married?”

Oh, my stars and garters. It would have been funny if it weren’t so disturbing.

Joe spat out his coffee and started to cough.

I dropped the stack on my desk, jumping out of my chair to pat his back.

I wasn’t surprised by her question. Now that Joe had decided to be part of my life, he’d taken to it with gusto. I suspected he only hung around so much because he was lonely, but I latched onto his attention like a woman dying of thirst, leaving her open mouth under a slow dripping faucet to catch every drop. I couldn’t imagine why he’d be so interested in me otherwise.

Joe Simmons had grown up in a fancy house with servants and more money in his allowance than I’d earned in a year at my old job at the county courthouse. I’d grown up in trailer parks. I was trailer trash and I knew it, no matter how hard I tried to prove otherwise. Sometimes I watched Joe, prepared for the moment when he’d finally let me in on the joke, pointing and shouting, “Gotcha!” I didn’t want to be caught off guard.

But now I was watching him closely for another reason. While I was whacking him on the back, he was eyeing the mail—more specifically, the white legal-sized envelope with the jack-o’-lantern stamp. It was addressed to Neely Kate Simmons with no return address.

Legally, my name was still Neely Kate Colson. I wanted to start using my maiden name of Rivers, but since no one could track down my renegade husband to serve him divorce papers, I was stuck. Not from any lack of trying on Joe’s part. He’d tracked Ronnie down in New Orleans two weeks ago, only to watch my ex board a bus to Memphis.

And that’s where his trail had run cold.

While we’d found out I was Joe’s sister back in February, hardly anyone else knew about our new family dynamics. Who could blame Miss Dorie for jumping to conclusions?

Joe leaned forward and picked up the envelope.

“My word,” Miss Dorie exclaimed, growing more and more excited over her scoop. “At first I thought the name was a mistake. Remember me asking if it was a mistake?” she continued, starting to dance in place. “I sure as Pete never put it together.”

“We’re not married, Miss Dorie,” I said, trying to sound grumpy and not breathless from nerves. Joe could not see what was in that envelope, and if he figured out I was anxious, he’d insist on taking a peek.

“Then why do you keep gettin’ mail delivered to Neely Kate Simmons?” she asked with a hand on her hip. “And the same dang stamp every time too. Who sends a Halloween stamp in the summer?”

Joe turned the envelope over to examine the back. Sure enough, there was nothing on there. Just like the last four. He stared at me, waiting for an explanation, while I debated my best course of action: should I refuse to discuss it or flat-out lie?

The look on his face told me he’d never let it go.

Lie it was.

I snatched it out of his hand. “It’s my cousin’s bad idea of a joke,” I said with a grimace. “I think she’s not-so-secretly jealous.”

“Jealous of what?” Miss Dorie asked.

I opened my mouth to tell her the truth, but Joe said, “A Rivers family inside joke.” He shot Miss Dorie a sympathetic grin. “Neely Kate tried to explain it to me, but I never got it.”

“Huh,” Miss Dorie said with narrowed eyes.

Huh, indeed.

“Have you had any more trouble with those teenagers egging your house?” Joe asked her.

“Nope,” she said. “You seemed to put the fear of God into ’em.”

“If you have any more trouble, you be sure to let me know.”

“I will, Deputy Simmons.” She headed out the door, none the wiser that Joe had hijacked some grade A gossip from her.

As soon as she left, Joe crossed his arms over his chest. “Who are the letters really from?”

I gave him a look that suggested his question was ridiculous. “I told you. My cousin.”

“And since when did you have cousins in Little Rock?”

How did he know where it was from? The dang postmark.

I tried to hide my reaction by scrunching up my mouth in irritation. “Who said I didn’t? You don’t know everything about my family, just like I don’t know everything about yours.”

“That’s for your own protection, Neely Kate.”

“Like you lied to Miss Dorie about me being your sister?”

His face paled.

“Are you ashamed of me, Joe?”

His mouth flopped open like a hinge. “How can you ask me that?”

“Because you went to great lengths to make sure Miss Dorie didn’t find out we’re related.”

His face softened. “It’s better this way,” Joe said. “And we’ve never gone out of our way to tell people.”

“But we haven’t hidden it either.”

He paused and seemed to weigh his words before he said them. “Maybe we should.”

He couldn’t have hurt me more if he’d shot an arrow into my heart. “So you are ashamed of me.”

“Neely Kate,” he soothed as he stood and reached for my upper arms. “Don’t take it like that.”

I noticed he didn’t deny it. “How am I supposed to take it, Joe?”

“Can’t you see I’m trying to protect you?”

“You keep saying that, but you never explain what you mean. Protect me from what?”

He dropped his hold and took a step back, running his hand through his short hair. “My father isn’t the only dangerous Simmons.”

As if he needed to tell me that . . .

“Maybe you’re confusing me with Rose because we’re best friends, but I’m not as naïve as her.” Even as I said the words, I felt like a traitor. While I had plenty of experience with lowlifes and two-bit criminals—unbeknownst to anyone around here—Rose had experience with the upper elite of the Fenton County crime world. I wasn’t sure either of us would want to list that sort of thing on our résumés, but Rose wasn’t one bit naïve. Not anymore.

“I know you’re more worldly than Rose. Hell, most kids are more worldly than the woman I met a year ago.”

“She’s changed,” I said, getting frustrated that I’d headed the conversation down this path. “But that’s beside the point. The point is that I’ve lived with a lot of crap in my life, Joe. You know that. So why are you shielding me from this?”

He cupped the side of my face and gave me a pained smile. “Maybe I want to protect you because of everything you have been through.”

It was a pretty story, but I wasn’t about to fall for it. If I had a nickel for every pretty story I’d been told, I’d be living in a mansion. No, people told me pretty stories for a host of reasons, none of which ever seemed to benefit me. “Is this about Kate?”

His body froze; then he dropped his hand. “Why do you ask?”

Because she keeps sending me letters. There’s one in my hand right now.

I set it down like it had burned me.

“You’ve babied me ever since we went to visit her.”

“How could I not?” he said in exasperation. “I willingly took you to see our psycho sister, then sat there while she tormented you by withholding information about your mother. She was purposely cruel, and she hurt you. I felt responsible, Neely Kate.” A smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “I’ve missed out on a lot of years of watching over you. Just makin’ up for lost time.”

“Well, quit. I’m a grown woman. I face my problems head-on.” Which was an outright lie. Otherwise, I would have done something about the letters. Rose had practically begged me to tell Joe about them, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I’d spent five years trying to bury the misdeeds of my past. Now they were rearing their ugly heads, and I was starting to panic. I’d finally gotten everything I’d ever wanted—a family who loved me and a pastime that fascinated me, no matter how many times Rose told me we weren’t real detectives—and I was close to having it all snatched away because of my half sister’s schemes.

Joe grabbed my shoulders and stooped to look me in the eyes. “I’m not ashamed of you. You’re the least reprehensible of the three Simmons siblings. Hell, you’d be canonized as a saint if people held us up side by side.”

No, there’d be no chance of that happening. Not if people found out what I’d done.

My cell phone rang on my desk, and I broke from Joe’s hold to check the number. Rose.

“I have to take this. She’s probably calling about an order mixup we’re dealing with.”

“Okay . . .” He looked reluctant to leave. “You’re right. I’m trying to protect you from Kate. I have no proof that she’s up to something, but I can just feel it.” He shook his head. “I didn’t want to tell you because it sounds paranoid. Kate is locked up tight for years, yet I’m scared to death she’s going to find a way to hurt you,” he said. “I know it sounds crazy, and like I’m being overprotective, but I’ve learned to trust my gut, and my gut tells me she’s going to hurt you.”

His gut was right.

I wrapped my arms around his neck and hugged him, burying my face into his chest. I had no idea how long it would be before he turned away from me, so I was going to savor every moment I could.

“Hey,” he said gently, leaning back to study my face. “This is exactly why I didn’t want to tell you. Now you’re scared.”

I swatted his chest. “That’s not why I’m hugging you, you idiot. I’m hugging you because I’m overwhelmed by how sweet you are.”

The phone stopped ringing, but neither of us commented on it.

A huge grin spread across his face. “So now would probably be a bad time to tell you the real reason I stopped by.”

I playfully lifted an eyebrow. “And what’s that?”

“I need to run to Magnolia to look for kitchen cabinets. I wanted you to come.”

“But I’m working.”

“After you get off. We can grab dinner too.”

“Just you and me?”

He hesitated. “Were you wanting Rose to come too?”

“No, she has plans,” I said before I thought about it. She used to have standing Tuesday night plans, but she’d missed them the past three weeks.

“Just the two of us.” He looked relieved, not that I could blame him. It had to be hard on him that his newly discovered half sister was so close with the woman he’d claimed to be the love of his life, even months after their breakup. “I’ll pick you up from the office at five.”

“See you then.”