Bowie’s voice snapped like a whip. And a voyeuristic crowd materialized around us.

“Ooooh. Local boy doesn’t like it when we take his toy,” Blaine taunted. His cronies snickered.

I kneed him in the gut, and his friends laughed harder when Blaine chucked me off his shoulder as he doubled over.

I hit the ground hard on my hip and hand.

But before I could pop up and slap the crap out of him, Bowie was on him.

He grabbed Blaine by the stupid shirt collar and hauled him up on his toes. “When a girl tells you to stop touching her, you do it. Understand?”

Blaine didn’t answer fast enough, and Bowie gave him a good, hard shake.

“What’s your problem, man?” Blaine shoved uselessly at Bowie’s hands.

“My problem is you put your hands where they weren’t wanted,” Bowie said. His voice was quiet, scary.

“Bow, it’s fine,” I said, climbing to my feet swiping at the dirt on my legs. Scarlett appeared at my side with June on her heels.

The bonfire crackled in the silence that followed.

“What the hell is goin’ on?” Scarlett demanded.

“The timer went off,” June announced, walking obliviously into the circle. “We can leave now.”

Bowie shot me a look, gave me the once-over. I pleaded with my eyes for him to let the moron live.

Reluctantly, Bowie released Blaine. “Watch yourself,” he warned him, turning his back and heading in my direction.

Uh-oh.

Blaine straightened his shirt, and I saw the look he telegraphed to a couple of his bigger, drunker friends.

“Let’s go home,” Bowie said, reaching for my arm.

I don’t know if he saw the attack coming or not, but there wasn’t time to shout a warning. Blaine came running—or staggering real fast at him. I side-stepped Bowie and stepped in front of the charging Blaine. There were fights all the time in Bootleg Springs. Good, clean fights. But nobody attacked from behind. It just wasn’t done.

It might have been a fist or an elbow or one of Blaine’s stupid friends’ appendages, but I took the first shot right in the chin.

“You stupid son of a bitch!” I lashed out with my foot and caught a drunk jackwagon still wearing his sunglasses right in the balls. Bowie’s fist was busy plowing its way through Blaine’s face. Then I heard Scarlett’s legendary battle cry. Jameson and Gibson, the other two Bodine brothers, appeared and entered the melee, throwing punches indiscriminately.

It was a free-for-all as the rest of the Bootleggers present joined in good-naturedly. Some of them were throwing punches at each other just for fun.

I threw an elbow into the ribs of one of Blaine’s pals and watched Hester kick a guy in the stomach.

June waded in and grabbed me. “It’s time to go,” she said.

“June! I don’t care about the goddamn timer!”

She pointed at the flashing red and blue lights as our dad’s patrol car rolled through the grass.

“Ah, hell.”

There was an unspoken truce between law enforcement and the Bootleg Bonfire community. As long as no one drove home under the influence and there were no fights or property destruction, the cops pretended that these bonfires didn’t exist.

I’d broken the truce.

Sheriff Tucker climbed out of his car, all long legs and silver mustache. I knew better than to call him Dad when he was on the job. He shot me a disapproving look as he hustled into the melee, a portly deputy named Bubba wading in behind him.

It took both of them and Gibson to pull Bowie and Blaine apart.

Scarlett bebopped over, fixing her hair that had gotten disheveled in the fight. “He fought for you, Cass,” she whispered breathlessly. She had dirt smudging her chin, and the sleeve of her blouse was torn. “Y’all are one step away from diamond rings and babies.”

Bowie had punched out another guy over me. Was Scarlett right? Did he do it because he cared? Or was it reflex?

“Shut up, Scar,” I hissed.

“I mean, come on. He totally overreacted to that stupid jackass messing around with you—as if you couldn’t handle yourself if necessary. It was like he was claiming you!”

I watched as my dad pointed Bowie to a picnic table before slapping restraints on Blaine.

“Why the fuck am I being cuffed and he’s just sitting there?” Blaine whined like the privileged brat he was.

Bowie shot him a smirk that had Blaine fighting against his restraints.

“We’re gonna give you a ride home,” my dad said amiably. “And you’re going to promise your parents that you aren’t gonna be starting any more fights in my town. Or I’m gonna slap you with a $500 fine for disturbing the peace, underage drinking, and public drunkenness.”

He handed the squirming, whining Blaine over to the deputy. My dad’s gaze skated over me again and then on to Bowie. He stroked his fingers over his mustache before heading in Bowie’s direction.

“Dad looks unhappy,” June mused. “Did you do something to upset him?”

“You mean besides starting a fight and drinking underage?” I asked with sarcasm. “No, I can’t think of a thing.”

“Huh. Maybe he’s constipated again.” June didn’t get sarcasm.

I tuned out June’s erroneous observations and watched my father lay a hand on Bowie’s shoulder. It looked like a deep discussion, and I wished I could hear what was being said. Bowie looked at me, his gaze connecting us across the space. His face was unreadable. He nodded at something my dad said and then looked down at his feet.

My dad clapped Bowie on the shoulder again. Bowie nodded once more and headed in the direction of the parking lot.

“Where’s he going?” Scarlett wondered.

“Bowie,” I called after him.

“Cassidy Ann Tucker.” My dad looked even more disapproving in his uniform. His mouth was pressed into a firm line under his mustache.

I was already trying to juke my way past him to go after Bowie. “Dad, I need to talk to Bowie—”

“Leave the boy alone,” he said wearily. “I think you’ve caused him enough trouble. Now, explain to me how you started an all-out brawl when you promised you were just going out for an hour or two to hang out with friends.” His voice raised at the end of the sentence, cueing me in to the fact that my easygoing, implacable father was five seconds away from blowing a gasket.

“It was a misunderstanding,” I told him, shifting gears into Downgrade Hurricane Dad. “A simple misunderstanding. Blake was just messing around.”

“Blaine,” June corrected me.

“Blaine was just messing around, and Bowie thought I was scared and he stepped in. That’s all.”

“I wonder if Blaine thought Bowie was going to prevent you from having intercourse with him?” June mused.

My father and I shot June twin looks of horror.

“June! What’s the rule? What’s the one rule?” I snapped.

My sister furrowed her brows, working her way through her memory banks. “Ah. Don’t discuss intercourse with Dad. I forgot. Can we go home now?”