Chapter 1

Beware of chickens. They can be real peckers.

-Wall sign

Kennedy

Three months later

The city of Hostel, Texas was hopping.

We weren’t in New Orleans, but we were in a town that celebrated the holiday just as hard as New Orleans did, though to a much smaller scale due to the town’s size. When it was time for Mardi Gras, we went from a quaint little farming town with barely any excitement to crazy extremes.

Beginning in early January through Fat Tuesday, it was a nonstop party.

Today was no different.

With Mardi Gras only a few days away, Hostel was in full party prep mode.

Even the feed store—one of the few places in town besides the library, the Wal-Mart, and the burger joint that I practically lived at—was celebrating.

I loaded one more bag of feed onto my flatbed cart, and then rolled it up to the register, very conscious of how difficult the cart was to stop.

In fact, I was concentrating so intently on the progression of my load that I didn’t see the other cart coming from the aisle beside me until I was lying flat on the floor, my flatbed cart now four feet in front of me and not stopping.

I groaned and pushed myself up to a sitting position, and then looked at the cart that was pushed into my path.

It was manned by a child. A four or five-year-old at most.

I grimaced and looked away from the little boy just in time to see my very heavy cart, loaded down with four bags of chicken feed and two bags of all-feed, smack straight into the back of a man’s legs.

He cursed and whipped his head around to look at the offending object, only to turn his eyes even further toward me.

The moment that those eyes, steel blue and so intense, landed on me, the little breath I’d been able to catch left my body in an audible whoosh.

“You okay?”

I blinked.

Then nodded, not trusting myself to say a word.

He held his finger up to the cashier and walked toward me, shooting the kid, who was trying to move forward with his cart despite me still being in his path, a glare before offering me his hand.

He had tattoos on his knuckles.

Actually, he had tattoos on his arm that extended to his knuckles, but still, he had tattoos on his knuckles.

I took the hand.

Mine so white compared to his tanned and tattooed one.

Effortlessly he lifted me to my feet and stared at me.

“You have a cut,” he pointed to my jaw, or somewhere near it since I couldn’t quite see.

Then he pulled out a fucking handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it against my face.

I brought my hand up and placed it on the handkerchief, which happened to still be in his hand, and said, “Thank you.”

My words were so low that even I barely heard them, but he did and nodded as he stepped back.

When the kid tried to hit us with his cart again, and the man whipped his head to the side and growled, “Stop that.”

The kid froze, and a woman who’d obviously not been paying attention to her child said, “Evander, I’m so sorry!”

The man turned to her.

“Your son just knocked this woman flat on her ass,” he said none too gently. “Watch that kid of yours.”

The woman flushed and looked at me guiltily, but not because she felt bad. It was obvious that she didn’t care if her child knocked me down or not. What she cared about was that this Evander had made her look bad in front of the entire feed store.

“I’m sorry,” she lied.

I shrugged. “It’s okay. Are you okay?”

Evander looked at me, then nodded. “Fine.”

Then he walked away, finally giving me the chance to take him in fully.

He was tall with jet black hair that was clipped closely to his scalp. He had to be at least six-foot-five or six. He had on a black t-shirt that had Hail Auto Recovery written on it and was so tight that I could see every single dip and indention that his muscles made beneath the shirt. He had on dark washed blue jeans that looked stained and dirty from a day full of work, and he had black motorcycle boots that looked damn near as worn out as the pants covering his large feet.

Then there were the tattoos.

And there were a lot of them.

From underneath his t-shirt all the way down to his hands. They were even on the palms of his hands. It was more than obvious that the man liked his ink.

The cart hit me in the ankles again, and I jumped in surprise, then shot the kid a glare.

“Ouch.”

The mother snorted. “Honey, he’s out of your league.”

Then she pulled the cart back and started back to the boots she’d been checking out, completely shutting me out.

Rolling my eyes at her words, I started toward where my cart was now stopped directly next to the register, and listened to the man behind the checkout counter and Evander speaking.

“I need a three-hundred-and-forty-foot roll of goat wire fence, eighty t-posts, and some tie wire,” Evander murmured. “I also have an ag exemption.”

The boy started clicking away at his computer, but my eyes were only for the man who was now looking out the front window.

“Okay, that’ll be four hundred and sixty-two dollars and thirty-two cents,” the boy hesitated. “Please sign for the ag exemption.”

Evander did, and I watched the way his muscled forearm bunched as he wrote his name. In perfect cursive.

Who the hell could write that pretty on those little stupid screens?

I knew I couldn’t. Those things were the devil, and it never failed that my cursive would end up looking like someone else’s name that wasn’t mine.

“If you’ll take the receipt to the side gate, someone will load you…”

Evander suddenly darted outside, leaving his receipt.

I watched him go, then turned back to the checker, who was also watching Evander go.

“I’ll give it to him on my way out,” I said. “He’s parked right next to me.”

I’d, of course, seen the tow truck as I’d parked my old Ford Diesel next to it. It was beautiful—big, black, and shiny with skulls and crossbones painted across the hood. The airbrushed words, Hail Auto Recovery, were even prettier.

It had to be new, probably even brand new.

I’d have driven the hell out of that truck.

“Okay,” the checker shrugged. “That all you have today?”

I nodded. “Yep. Until next week.”

He chuckled and rang me up. After I signed for my own ag exemption, I pocketed both receipts and started outside, only to stop when I saw the tow truck moved and now backing up to a car that was so shiny and beautiful that I’d be scared to even walk next to it for fear of scratching it on my way inside the store.

I knew it was a sports car, but beyond that, I didn’t know exactly what kind it was. But it looked expensive…and it was now being towed by the biggest, meanest looking motherfucker on the planet.

There was a small man dressed in gym clothes—expensive ones that matched and were in bright, obnoxious colors—talking to Evander, but Evander kept loading the car up without saying a word.

Then the little man tried to touch Evander, and Evander shoved him away so brutally that I winced.

The guy hit the pavement with a crash, but he was up again and got even further into Evander’s face within seconds.

I bit my lip, watching as the two fought it out.

Evander only thwarting the little man’s attempts to touch the controls that were on the side of the tow truck.

Then the car was lifted into the air by the huge boom thing hanging at the back of the truck, and the little guy started to scream at the top of his lungs like a six-year-old girl—a kind of high-pitched squeal that hurt my ears even from all the way across the parking lot.

A crowd had gathered outside the feed store’s front entrance as everyone started to come outside to watch.

The occupants from the other buildings—a cake shop, the gym that it was likely the little man had come from, and a restaurant just a little down from the gym—came outside as well and gawked at the spectacle.

“Man, I don’t know why you didn’t pay your bills, but I’m only doing my job. If you want it back, you’ll have to get your payments current.”

“Can I at least get my stuff?”

The little guy panted, no longer screaming.

He must’ve seen the reality of the situation, because he looked defeated.

“No. But if you want to come by Hail, then you can get your shit there from the office lady,” Evander grunted. “Have a good day.”

The man backed up as Evander started to round his truck, and then went back to the gym.

“Asshole,” the guy muttered.

I didn’t agree. Evander hadn’t been an asshole. He’d been doing his job.

However, I suppose if that was me that that had happened to, I probably would have been thinking the same thing.

Regardless, I stepped out into the parking lot and started toward him.

“Umm, Evander?”

Evander looked up from where he’d been getting into his truck.

“Yeah?” he questioned.

“You forgot your receipt,” I said, handing it to him over the door that separated us.

He took it, then nodded his head in thanks.

“Have a good one.”

I nodded back, backed my cart up, and moved two rows over and down to where my old Ford truck was parked, and dropped the tailgate.

I grunted when I picked up my first bag, thinking that I was getting more and more tired as the day wore on.

It was now two in the afternoon, and I’d been working since five this morning. Plus, I hadn’t eaten.

Maybe a burger from Maple’s was what I’d do. It was quick and it sounded really good. And it was in the same parking lot as the bank, where I had to go to next.

I’d just reached down for the second bag when a set of tattooed hands filled my vision.

“I got it,” Evander said, picking up two bags at a time.

That was a hundred pounds, and he’d lifted it like it was effortless.

“T-thank you,” I stumbled over my words.

Evander reached down for the rest of the bags and then tossed them into the truck bed before closing the tailgate.

And without another word, he was gone.

Shaking my head, I got into my old truck and started it up, praying to sweet baby Jesus that it started without backfiring.

I’d made it all the way out of town, and was pulling into my driveway, when I realized that I hadn’t stopped for the burger that I’d been craving.

Groaning, I pulled over to the side of the driveway and contemplated what to do.

I had eggs—I always had eggs, though—and I thought I might have some bacon. I could make myself some, but my mind was set on a really juicy burger, and it wasn’t going to settle for anything less.

Which had me pulling the old truck into the driveway, and turning around.

Only, just when I was about to pull out of the driveway, I remembered that I was planning on taking my father’s old ‘Cuda out for a drive to keep the battery up.

Knowing that if I didn’t do it today, it’d be next week before I could do it due to previous obligations including meeting my sister, Trixie for her doctor’s appointment tomorrow at two, I decided to go ahead and do it now.

Plus, it didn’t hurt that tonight was classic car night at the Dairy Queen.

Not that I would be going there. However, since the antique license plates my Pop had on the car had stipulations—such as you couldn’t drive it unless it was to a car show or to do regular maintenance on the vehicle at a mechanic’s shop—it was best to have a good excuse for why you were taking it out, despite knowing that you weren’t doing anything wrong.

Though, cops always made me nervous when I was in the ‘Cuda.

My father had kept that ‘Cuda in perfect condition, and there wasn’t much in this world that would catch a cop’s eye faster than a car painted cherry red with white racing stripes. Well, that and the fact that it had a 383 big block in it.

With my plan firmly in place—IE, getting into the car and driving to get myself that burger I’d been craving without getting pulled over by the cops—I headed out, being sure to keep the GPS on the front window where I could see it.

This car’s speedometer didn’t work. The gas tank also didn’t work once you got below a half tank, and I wasn’t even going to mention the fact that the ignition was long past overdue to be replaced.

Apparently, old cars were notorious for being able to start without a key, due to the ignition fucking up somehow, but I hadn’t known it until my dad had passed the car into my care once he’d injured himself on a tractor.

That, by no means, meant it was mine. It just meant that I was charged with taking care of it, and making sure that if he ever was in need of the car, it’d be in driving condition.

Once I was on the way to the burger joint, Maple’s, I started humming to myself, wondering if everyone in my family was cursed.

My mother had died of ovarian cancer. My older sister, Heidi, had died of breast cancer. My dad had fallen off a tractor while tilling the fields to get them ready for planting and was paralyzed from the waist down. My brother, Paul, was run off the road by a drunk driver, and as a result, he now had such debilitating back and leg problems that he couldn’t work because he couldn’t stand.

Then there was my sister, Trixie.

Trixie was the baby, though not by much.

She was my twin sister. I was older by four minutes, but you wouldn’t know it. Trixie was a natural mother hen. She always wanted to make sure everyone else was okay before she did anything for herself, and I hadn’t been spared from her care.

Now, it was my turn to watch over her, and I wasn’t looking forward to it.

Not because I wasn’t willing to take care of her, but because I didn’t like the idea of her being unwell enough to need watching over.

I pulled into the parking lot of Maple’s on auto-pilot, barely registering the fact that the parking lot was full before I parked and started inside.

I walked past a gaggle of men who’d been busy looking at the antique car in the next parking lot, and nodded my head at the men when they said, ‘nice ride.’

I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going, so when I face planted into something that felt very similar to a human wall, I squeaked in surprise and started to fall backwards.

“Sorry, Sweetheart.”

I looked up at hearing that slow, Southern drawl, and blinked in surprise.

“Wow,” I managed to say. “That sure did hurt.”

Please, kill me now.

He offered me his hand, and I reluctantly took it. “Thank you, Mr. Evander.”

Evander blinked. “Van is fine.”

I nodded. “Here for a burger?”

Then I mentally kicked myself in the shin. Are you fucking kidding, Kennedy? This is the best burger place in not only Hostel but also the surrounding counties!

There was only one thing that you could get at Maple’s and that was a hamburger—unless you counted the complimentary beans that Maple herself cooked in the kitchen every day from scratch.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Hungry.”

Of course, he was.

Jesus Christ, Kennedy. You’re so fucking weird.

“Righty-O,” I called, maneuvering myself around him where he still stood in the doorway, holding the door for me to enter. “Have a good one.”

Righty-O? Are you here for a burger?

Jesus.

Sidling up to the far end of the counter, I waited behind a few other customers for the line to move and watched the woman ahead of me instead of turning my head to examine the man that was standing at my back.

He had his large, tattooed arms stretched out across his chest, and he was looking at me.

I could tell.

I felt it on the back of my neck like a physical caress against my skin.

But he didn’t say a word, and neither did I.

And by the time I’d gotten up to the counter, another register had opened, and he’d moved to that line and ordered at the same time as me.

“No pickles,” I said to the lady just as Evander said, “Extra pickles.”

I grinned at him, but he didn’t look at me, his eyes studying the menu.

“I’d also like some chili cheese fries,” I said to the lady.

“You realize that those are made for two, right?” the young teen asked.

I nodded. “Yes, but since you don’t put that on the smaller order, I have to order the big order.”

She grunted something, and I had to catch the urge to roll my eyes.

She was a teenager. From the look she’d just given me, you’d have thought I’d given her a grave insult that she could never recover from.

Once I had my little buzzer, a cup filled to the brim with ice water and a bowl of beans, I took a seat at the one and only empty spot in the entire room and started to shovel them down.

Which was why I didn’t see the man—Evander—looking around the room with open curiosity to where he’d sit until he was standing right next to me.

“You mind if I share the end of your table?”

I looked down the length of the eight-person table, and then shook my head. “No, go right ahead.”

He took a seat at the opposite end, and started to shovel his own beans into his mouth, leaving me to wonder if I should bother to make small talk or just ignore him and act like he wasn’t sitting at my table.

I chose option two, and started to eat my beans while also wondering if this place knew that their lighting was shit. The acoustics weren’t all that great, either, making it almost impossible to hear anything from someone that was already directly next to you.

The same old men that I always saw at the coffee shop in the mornings were now crowding up the middle of the restaurant. Their laughter was on the verge of being too loud, but with nothing to control their exuberance—IE, their wives—they talked and joked and were having a merry old time.

Until they weren’t, and that had a lot to do with their numbers being called and their burgers being ready.

I was so engrossed watching the men get up to put the fixings on their food when the man from the opposite side of the table gestured to me with empty hands.

“Can you pass the salt?”

I reached for the salt and the pepper, handing them both to him.

“I asked for the salt,” he repeated himself.

“Okay,” I mumbled. “You got the salt.”

He held up the pepper.

I shrugged. “My father says that if you don’t pass the salt and the pepper together, you lose your girlfriend.”

He blinked, then blinked again.

“W-what?” he stuttered, sounding utterly confused.

I nodded soberly. “I’m not sure if you actually lose your girlfriend,” I babbled. “But I’ve done because it makes my family laugh. Even my brother did it. My sister. Her husband. Their children. I think at this point, it’s just a habit.”

He muttered something under his breath.

“I see that.” He used the salt and pushed it back to me, then pushed the pepper down a moment later.

“You just lost your girlfriend,” I informed him, a smile on my face.

He grunted. “That might be why I don’t have a fuckin’ girlfriend.”

I don’t know why hearing that news made me so blessedly happy, but it did. However, I chose not to comment when it was clear that he didn’t want to speak.

Both of our orders were called at the same time, and he got up and brought both back to the table before I could so much as stand from my chair.

So, there I sat, enjoying my burger, while I tried not to stare.

It worked.

At least for a little while.

“Napkin?”

I handed him a napkin, then decided to be proactive.

“Anything else? Steak sauce?”

I never understood steak sauce at a burger joint, especially one with burgers that tasted as good as Maple’s did. Nonetheless, it was there so I thought I’d offer it.

He shook his head and reached for multiple napkins, laying them out on the table before taking his bun off.

Then, before my eyes, he blotted his burger with the napkins, and then proceeded to do it again and again until there was no more grease to be soaked up off the burger.

So that had been why he’d had all of his condiments, mustard and ketchup included, put off to the side.

He quickly reassembled his burger, putting back first the onions, then the cheese, followed by the mustard, pickles, and then the ketchup.

Once everything was piled high, he shoved the bun on and squished it down so that mustard and ketchup squirted out the sides.

“Are you new around here?”

His eyes, those beautiful steel blue ones that were quickly starting to be my favorite color, turned to me.

“No,” he grunted. “I went away for a while, but I’m back now.”

I wanted to ask him more questions, but he shoved his face full of French fries and turned his face away so that he was staring at his tray and nothing else.

He ate fast.

So fast, in fact, that I was only through half my burger and only some of my fries when he was collecting his trash and standing to go.

“See you around,” I called to him.

He glanced down at me, shook his head, and then walked away without another word.

Rude!