Faith had just arrived home from work when her doorbell rang. She opened it to find her brother standing there. The fading sunlight limned his powerful figure. He held up a bag with a giant grease stain on the bottom of it. The delicious aroma of savory smoked meats drifted toward her.

“Bob’s BBQ?” he offered, waggling the bag.

She clapped her hands together in delight. “You’re a saint.”

“Remember that the next time you’re mad at me.”

Hale entered her house and dropped the bag on her kitchen table, doubtlessly leaving a giant grease stain on her place mat. He started pulling out foil-wrapped ribs, sausage and brisket from the bag and setting them on the table.

“God. There’s enough for an army here.”

“Leftovers,” he explained. “Dig in.”

She grabbed two plates. They loaded them and ate with gusto. She licked the barbecue sauce from her fingers and talked about work—failing to mention the phone call from earlier today. That would only set him off and she didn’t want to ruin their dinner.

“Still dating Cooper?” he asked before taking a thick bite of brisket and then chasing it down with a bite of pickled jalapeño.

She froze over the rib she was about to bite into. “You heard about that?”

“Small town,” he replied, taking a sip from his glass of tea.

“Didn’t know you listened to gossip.” Wendy alone was probably responsible for spreading that bit of information.

“I’m a small-town sheriff. I listen to everything. Even old Mrs. Carnahan’s complaints that an alien terrorizes her the second Wednesday of every month.”

“Oh my God.”

“That’s right. It’s happens after bingo at her church. The little bastard climbs into her bed and sucks the polish off her toes.”

She held her side, laughing so hard. “Oh my God, that’s disgusting!”

“And a real problem.” Hale looked at her solemnly. “Apparently she’s had to stop getting her usual pedicures.”

Her fit of laughter eventually subsided. “Nothing stays a secret,” she grumbled.

“Was it a secret?” he countered.

“Well, I didn’t see any point on advertising it to the world. It’s still early stages.” She shrugged and sank her teeth into her waiting juicy rib. Chewing, she wiped her mouth with a napkin. She toyed with a slice of pickle and eventually clarified, “We had one date.”

“And? How’d it go?”

“We’re supposed to have a second date next week.”

He nodded as he spooned a pile of creamy coleslaw onto his plate. “Good. He’s a good guy. You could do worse.”

She snorted. “Glad I have your approval.”

“You’re welcome,” he said evenly. He knew her well enough to pick up on her sarcasm, but he clearly didn’t care. As far as he was concerned, his approval was a priority. At least to him.

“What about you?” Faith asked, turning the tables. “Dating anyone?”

“Me?” He looked at her like she had lost her mind. “You think I want to go down that road again? No, thank you. I’m quite content—”

“With your occasional one-night stand?”

He froze, and then frowned. “Now who’s listening to gossip?”

She laughed and shook her head. “Just because you don’t diddle anyone here in Sweet Hill, doesn’t mean I don’t know about your visits to that CPA in Alpine. Or the financial planner in Fort Stockton.”

“Diddle?” he echoed.

She lifted her eyebrows. “You know what I’m talking about.”

He cleared his throat and finished off the rest of his brisket. Watching him, waiting for him to say something, she finished her last rib and then wiped her sticky fingers with her napkin.

“I know better than to get involved with anyone here in town. Too many busybodies ready to get in my business.”

“But Alpine and Fort Stockton are fair game?” She smirked.

“Never claimed I was a monk. I gotta go somewhere if I want . . .” He paused, looking uncomfortable. He shifted his big body in her kitchen-table chair. Her brothers were old-school in that they thought certain subjects were taboo to talk about around their sister. Subjects like sex.

She watched him thoughtfully as he stood and started to clear the table. Her brother was a good guy and deserved more than empty flings in neighboring towns. Unfortunately, she was afraid he had been burned too badly in the past to ever want another relationship again.

He helped her rinse dishes and load them into the dishwasher. She lifted an eyebrow as he started packing up all the food and stowing it in her fridge. “I won’t finish all that—”

“It will be gone in two days,” he assured her with a wink. “I’ve seen you stress eat.”

“Ha.”

He winked at her.

“Well, thanks for dinner,” she said, stepping in to give him a hug.

“Hey, gotta keep my eye out for my lil’ sis.”

“Naturally.” Opening the door, she walked him out. That was when she noticed the sound of a lawnmower. Somehow she hadn’t paid any attention to it before . . . or at least she hadn’t realized how close it was to her house. She had failed to notice the lawnmower was actually mowing right next to her house.

It was North.

“Your neighbor?” Hale asked as he stepped out on her porch. She followed his gaze to a shirtless North pushing his lawnmower. Hale sent a nod of greeting toward him.

She flinched. A normal reaction, she supposed, when her brother came face-to-face with anyone she had made out with. At least that’s what she told herself. It was reason enough. It was the whole they’d-kissed-and-touched thing. Touched. She snorted. There was an understatement.

It wasn’t because this guy had a criminal record that she was desperate to hide from her family. No, not that at all.

She murmured some vague agreement, trying to sound casual.

Hale turned to watch him, following the movement of North as he worked the lawnmower across his front yard in steady rows.

She knew her brother was assessing him, doing that cop thing where he didn’t miss the fact that this guy was young and virile and wore tattoos as naturally as the skin on his body.

Hale shot her an equally assessing glance, no doubt trying to gauge her reaction to this very male, very virile guy living right next door to her. Even a hetero male would know most females’ ovaries would be going into hyperdrive at the sight of him—Faith no exception.

Hopefully he couldn’t detect her sudden increased breathing.

She pasted a bland smile on her face and tried to appear as though she wasn’t like most females. Okay, so she wasn’t immune to the display of virility, but she wanted her brother to think she was. She really wasn’t in the mood to endure the big-brother routine and be forced into denying her interest in her neighbor.

“He looks . . .”

She held her breath, waiting for her brother to say something condemning about him. Criminal. Dangerous.

Working in law enforcement, Hale did have those opinions, after all. He’d seen it all. Sweet Hill might not be the largest community, but it had its share of degenerates. And it would be just her luck for him to make that assessment.

North turned and started mowing another row, facing them now. She felt his brown-black gaze on her—on them. It wasn’t friendly and she felt her brother tense beside her as he recognized this, too.

“Familiar,” Hale finally finished saying. “He looks familiar.”

Familiar? Uh-oh. Whatever she had thought he meant to say hadn’t been that. Had he seen mug shots of North?

“Maybe he’s just got one of those faces,” she said offhandedly and tried to move inside her house, ready to say goodnight and watch Hale drive off in his Bronco.

Hale didn’t take the bait. He shot her a skeptical look, his feet staying firmly planted in place. “I’m going to introduce myself.”

“Hale, no,” she snapped, grabbing his arm as he moved to step forward.

And that, she knew, was her mistake.

Her brother looked down at her hand on his arm, then back to her face, frowning slightly, his gray eyes narrowing.

So much for acting casual.

She dropped her hand, but it was too late. She had overreacted. Being a people person was part of his job—talking to people was no big deal. Her brother introduced himself to people every day in an effort to assess, disarm and acquaint himself with the community. She knew that. Her dad had been the same way. It was no big deal.

Hale squared his shoulders and stepped forward, walking down the driveway at an easy amble that she knew was in direct opposition to his investigative mood.

North saw him coming and shut off the lawnmower. The late-evening sun kissed his glistening skin and made her stomach twist. Would there ever be a time when the sight of him did not hit her hard? A day when she could walk up her driveway after work and not glance to his front door with hope for a glimpse of him humming through her?

He wiped at his brow, revealing the paler, muscled underside of his arm. Her stomach quivered. No, she realized with a flash of anger. That day would never come. A sense of hopelessness swept over her. Was she destined to be one of those women that fell for the wrong kind of man? She’d never thought that of herself. She thought she had more self-respect than that.

North schooled his expression to reveal nothing as her brother approached. Only she sensed the edge to him, the wariness as he assessed her brother back, his brown gaze skimming over her brother’s uniform. Of course he hadn’t missed the fact that her brother was law enforcement.

She followed a few feet behind Hale, dread curling through her as he stuck out his hand.

“Hey, there. Hale Walters.” He inclined his head in her direction. “Faith’s brother.”

Something flashed in his eyes. Relief? Surprise? Whatever she thought she saw vanished almost as instantly as it appeared.

North nodded as he finished shaking Hale’s hand. Dropping his hand back at his side, he stood back.

“I was just telling Faith that you look familiar.” Hale gestured aimlessly in a way that made him appear nonchalant. Except she knew Hale wasn’t nonchalant. He missed nothing.

Hale continued, “I like to think I’m good with names and faces, but I encounter lots of people on the job.” He angled his head, his sharp gray eyes speculative. “For the life of me, I can’t place you.”

“I’m sure my name will ring a bell,” North said in that rumbly voice of his.

She started a little in bewilderment. Had North just confirmed that they did in fact know one another?

“I was a year ahead of you in high school,” North added.

Hale laughed, his body instantly relaxing. “That so?”

Oh. No. No no no. The dread thickened in her veins.

“Yeah.” North looked at her, his grim gaze seeming to convey that there was no avoiding the truth now. “I remember you and your brother . . . he was a year ahead of me.”

Tucker? He knew him, too?

“Didn’t realize you had a sister though.” North looked at her and no mistake about it. There was something accusatory in his stare. As though he should have somehow known this about her. It was unlikely for him to have made the connection on his own. They hadn’t exactly gotten around to swapping family histories.

She lifted her chin in defiance. Why would it have come up? Walters was a common enough name.

“Faithy was a freshman my senior year, so you would have graduated by then,” Hale volunteered. “What was your name again?”

He still hadn’t said his name. Once he did Hale was bound to know . . . bound to remember who he was and what he had done. There weren’t too many murders committed in Sweet Hill. And even less of them committed by guys that attended high school with her brother. North must just look that different . . . that much harder than the teenage boy he once was.

“North Callaghan.”

Hale went still.

She held her breath. Her brother didn’t speak, but she knew he was remembering, putting together all the pieces.

It seemed forever before he said anything at all. “You and your brother killed Mason Leary,” he finally said, his voice flat.

North said nothing, merely held her brother’s unflinching gaze. It was the only agreement needed.

“When did you get out?” Hale continued, all friendliness gone from his voice. Her brother was gone. There was no sight of the mischievous boy who used to leave garden snakes in her backpack or the big brother who popped in with barbecue. Now the steely-eyed sheriff of Sweet Hill stood in his place.

“Two years ago.”

Again, her brother lapsed into silence. The quiet was excruciating. She hoped he was processing what North said and realizing that two years was a positive. He was two years out and leading a clean life. No criminal activity. Two years as a good citizen. That had to mean something. That had to matter.

She shifted uneasily on her feet. He stared at North for so long it was beyond uncomfortable, and she knew. Two years didn’t mean squat to Hale.

Her brother wasn’t looking at North Callaghan and applauding him for turning things around and honoring the terms of his parole. He was looking at him and thinking how much he disliked her living next door to him.

North stared at her then, his gaze probing as though trying to assess her reaction to the news that he was a former convict. She swallowed thickly and lifted her shoulders in a fraction of a shrug. Because she already knew. Only he didn’t know that. He didn’t know she already knew the ugly truth about him.

He probably expected her to be horrified. Maybe even disgusted as any good woman would be when she learned a guy she had made out with had been to prison for murder.

North was waiting, his jaw locked. Watching her for some such reasonable reaction. She couldn’t even pretend. Couldn’t fake it. She had known about his sordid past. She knew he was a murderer.

In her own mind, she had come to terms with his criminal history. Did that mean she wanted to know more about what happened? Naturally she wanted to hear about his past. What he had felt then, when it happened, and how he felt about it all now. But she had already made up her mind that it was not her place to judge North Callaghan.

Her brother, however, was of a different opinion.

Hale snapped his gaze back to her. “You knew about this?”

Looking at North, she nodded slowly, never breaking eye contact, speaking to him even though she was answering her brother. “Yeah. I knew.”

North’s nostrils flared with a sharp breath and she felt that breath like the cut of a strong wind. This was a problem for him. Faith knowing . . . and not letting him know she knew.

“Does Dad know?” Hale asked.

She stared at him. Was he serious? If she hadn’t told him, she sure as hell wasn’t going to tell her father.

“I didn’t think so.” He shook his head at her again and then looked back at North.

“I’m sure you remember our father. He was the sheriff before me. He just retired a couple years back.”

There was the barest flicker of something in North’s eyes that indicated yes. He remembered her father.

Hale continued, “I believe he was the one that made your arrest. Yours and your brother.”

No. Oh no no no. Please don’t let that be true. Her father had not arrested this man.

“Yes,” North said quietly. “He came out to the farmhouse and arrested us both.”

Hale nodded and looked at her, his expression saying it all—saying everything. See? This is fucked up. You’re living next door to a guy our dad locked away for a seriously long time.

And it was fucked up.

“How long?” North bit out, not even looking at her brother anymore. It was like Hale wasn’t even there to him. It was just the two of them. “How long have you known about me, Faith?”

She shrugged uneasily. “A while.”

She didn’t say the rest . . . she didn’t voice the words, but she told him with her eyes.

Since we started texting. Since before I saw you naked outside the house. Before I touched myself in the shower with your image burning a fire through me.

Since you kissed me.

Since I kissed you back.

His chocolate eyes went dark, the pupils almost indistinguishable from the irises. He was not happy. She thought she had seen him unhappy before, but this was true misery. It might even go deeper than that. It was something else . . .

“Guess you weren’t going to mention that to me?” Hale inserted, his entire body one rigid line. She knew this sight of him. She had seen it before in many a childhood squabble when he lost his temper and tried to bulldoze over her.

“Why should I, Hale?” She set her hands on her hips. “It had nothing to do with you.”

He looked at her like he didn’t even know her. “When my sister lives next door to a parolee, I should know about it. Damn straight that’s my business.”

“Hale!” Angry heat flushed over her face, she shot a quick glance at North.

“It’s the truth.” Hale swung around to glare at North again, speaking of him, about him as though he were not even present. “This guy went to prison for murder, Faith.”

“If you know who he is, then you know why,” she hissed. “You know the circumstances.” She wasn’t pretending North didn’t do the crime, but she wasn’t going to pretend either that he was just any criminal. He wasn’t a heartless killer. She knew that. Even as much as they bickered, as much as he drove her crazy, as much as she both longed for and regretted kissing him, she knew he was not without decency.

“And you do,” North interjected quietly. “You know the circumstances.” He waited a beat before adding, “You’ve done your research on me, Faith. Well done.”

That said, North turned and started away from both of them, his long legs eating up the distance separating him from his front door.

“Hey, where are you going?” Hale called. “We’re talking here.”

“I’m certain he did not appreciate the two of us arguing about him as though he wasn’t even standing here.” She punched his arm. “You’re so rude, Hale!”

North turned slightly to call back at them. “I’m going inside my house. I served my time. I’m living my life . . . not hurting anyone. I don’t have to answer to anyone about the past.” It wasn’t in Faith’s imagination that he stared at her as he uttered this.

A horrible hollowness filled her as she looked at him. He only stood across the yard from her, but he felt a million miles away.

He waited a beat, letting both Faith and Hale absorb his words before turning around again and disappearing inside his house.

As soon as the door slammed behind him, she whirled around on her brother. She slapped him on the arm. “Way to go! That was mortifying!”

“Mortifying? What did you expect me to do?” He gestured toward North’s house. “You’re living next door to a killer! And you knew it! You. Knew!” He shook his head and looked at her like she had lost her mind.

With a growl of frustration, she stalked inside her house, knowing he would follow. And that was fine. She wasn’t going to have this argument with him in the driveway.

He was fast on her heels, slamming the door to her house after him. “You’re moving.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and whirled to face him. “No. I’m not.”

“Faith,” he started in.

“No. I’m a grown woman. I’m not in danger.”

He raised an eyebrow as though that were debatable.

She continued, “Now I love you, Hale, and I appreciate your concern, but I’m an adult. I bought this house and I’m not selling it. I put money down. Besides. I like it here. I’m not moving. Weren’t you going home?”

“This conversation isn’t over.”

“I’m not changing my mind.” She opened the front door for him and waved him out. “See you Sunday. I’m making chicken-fried steak.”

“Don’t think you can soften me up by making my favorite dinner.”

“I was planning to make it before you turned into a lunatic on my driveway.”

“I’m the lunatic?” He flattened a hand to his chest, his gray eyes wide with incredulity. “You’re the one living next door to a convicted murderer.”

“Perfectly sane,” she replied easily.

Hale rested his hand against the edge of the door before passing through it. “This isn’t because he’s easy on the eyes, is it? I always thought you were smart when it came to men.”

Because her love life was nonexistent? He thought she was smart because of that?

She pressed her palm against brother’s chest and pushed him out. “Good-bye, Hale. Thanks for stopping by and thanks for dinner.” She meant it . . . even if she was annoyed with him right now.

He turned and walked down her driveway, his gaze turning to stare in the direction of North’s yard.

North hadn’t returned yet to finish his mowing. They had chased him off. She felt bad about that. About all of it.

She imagined he would return once her brother’s vehicle left the driveway.

As she heard her brother’s Bronco start up and drive away, she reached for her phone. She pulled up North and fired him a text.

She stood there, staring at the phone, waiting for him to reply, but somehow knowing deep in her gut.

He wouldn’t.