The sun dipped low on the horizon casting a pinky orange glow across the surface of the lake. The shadows grew longer, the coolers slowly emptied, and the music played low in the background as we listened to crickets and tree frogs. I leaned against the railing enjoying the heat that pumped off of Devlin’s body next to me. He’d relaxed today, smiled, laughed, made small talk.

Misty Lynn Prosser did her best to catch Gibson’s eye while she bounced on the lap of her on-again, off-again fuck buddy Rhett. Misty Lynn had the misfortune to be the person I hated most in this world. She’d kicked Gibson when he was down, right after our mama’s death. She cheated on him and laughed in his face when he called her out on it. Gibson didn’t hit women. But I sure did.

Her nose still hooked to the right just the slightest bit from my fist. Bootleg Justice was swift and brutal when necessary.

I still hated her guts to infinity and back again. But this was Bootleg. So Misty Lynn showed up at every party, every bonfire, every softball game just like the rest of us. And while she blew Rhett in the Shop ‘n Buy parking lot, I knew she still wished she was Gibson’s girl.

Devlin shifted next to me, nudging my shoulder with his. He pointed with his water bottle toward the sun as it finally disappeared behind the trees. I smiled.

He’d argued baseball with June for almost a solid hour. And he’d given my bikini more than a passing glance. I liked seeing that heat in his whiskey brown eyes. That slow thawing of the ice inside him. There was life in him yet. He just needed to be reminded of it.

Dusk fell. It was my favorite time of day. Sure, there were merits to the sunrise, and the sunset was no slouch either. But dusk was when the world got quiet. Dusk was when Daddy swung Mama into an impromptu two-step in the kitchen on the good days when supper was getting done and the right song came on the radio. Dusk was when I sat on my screened-in porch and reminded myself how lucky I was. Every day, I used this time to count my blessings.

I had a house I loved, a truck that started every morning without fail, a business that made me indispensable, and I had my brothers. What more could I want?

Besides maybe someone like Devlin to fool around with. I side-eyed him as he chatted with Bowie and EmmaLeigh’s husband, Ennis. There was something there that sent my blood singing. Sure, he was a pleasure to look at. But there was something else there. Several somethings. He was going through a rough patch, and I was a sucker for someone who needed a little extra loving. But the way he looked at me was a lot different from the way every other man in town did. It was downright impossible to be sexy and mysterious with a guy who’d dared you to eat paste in kindergarten.

But Devlin didn’t know me as Jameson’s little sister or Jonah’s daughter. He looked at me like I was a woman. And I liked it.

It was right about that time that the right song came on and someone cranked the volume. Those with enough energy jumped into the Cowboy Boogie in bare feet.

“What’s happening?” Devlin asked in my ear as the decks rocked and swayed with the motion.

My skin pebbled in a thousand different places with him so close.

“It’s a line dance, and we should probably move—”

It was too late. Rocky Tobias’ enthusiastic arm caught me across the chest, and I felt myself falling. Strong arms reached around me, but dang if that gravity didn’t have other plans. We hit the water in a splash, and I came up laughing. Devlin surfaced next to me spitting lake water.

“Are you okay?” he asked, his hands searching my arms for injuries.

My t-shirt floated up around my waist, leaving my bikini bottoms as my only barrier to him.

I slipped my arms around his neck. The water was deep here on this side of the sandbar. He froze for a moment at my touch and slipped under the water. He came back up sputtering.

I could barely see his face in front of me in the darkness.

“What are you doing, Scarlett?” he asked gruffly.

“Tryin’ something,” I told him. I wrapped my legs around his waist and let him keep us afloat. The water was warm. The dark made us both braver than usual.

I leaned in and pressed my wet mouth to his, anticipating that nice little zing I always felt when kissing a new man.

But a zing wasn’t what hit me. Devlin hesitated for about a whole half-second, and then he was tasting me like I was a buffet of desserts and he was a man starving. His mouth was hard, bruising against mine, and when I opened to whisper “wow,” he entered my mouth as if he owned it. His tongue was strong and sure and hungry.

I plastered myself against him and felt him go hard. That to me was power. Devlin kicked his legs to keep us from going under, and I wriggled against his hard-on, wondering what we could get away with under the water.

He fed on me with an unsuspected rawness that made my mind go blank. All I could do was feel. I’d only thought to tempt him, tease him into a response. But this was something I hadn’t expected. I had awakened the dragon, and now he was going to consume me. And I dog paddled along happily to my doom.

Devlin’s hand skimmed up my back and grabbed a fistful of hair, yanking my head back. He pressed kisses along my jawline, my neck. He bit at the strap of my bikini top, and I gasped in shock at the need that had fired up to red line.

I hadn’t anticipated the power of his need and what a shockingly beautiful thing it was. To be taken by him, desperate and hungry? Oh, hell yeah.

I wanted his touch everywhere. I wanted him to brand me in this lake that I loved. To take me in the darkness like we were two night creatures. I wanted to belong to him right here in the water.

“Y’all about done maulin’ each other?” Cassidy asked from the deck.

We were in the spotlight of someone’s flashlight, and there was quite the audience gathered on the decks to watch us.

Devlin’s hands flexed on my waist, just under my breasts.

“To be continued,” I whispered in his ear.

“Get on the damn deck, Scarlett,” Gibson snarled.

I swam back to the deck, and a strong hand grabbed my arm and hauled me aboard. “Careful there,” Bowie cautioned me. “You don’t know him.”

“I know enough of him,” I shot back, feeling rattled. It was hard to go from revved to full brake.

My brothers closed ranks around me—cockblockers—and left it up to Cassidy and June to haul Devlin aboard.

“I think it’s time we call it a night,” Bowie announced.

“You all suck,” I drawled.

“You need to stop foolin’ around and find a nice guy that you can settle down with,” Gibson announced. “Someone we can beat the hell out of, if necessary.”

“Shut up, Gibs. I’m not settlin’ down until—”

“Thirty,” he interjected. “Yeah, yeah. You made Mom a promise. I get it. She didn’t want you to make the same mistakes she did.” He said it like he’d heard it all a million times before.

“I don’t see you all hurryin’ down the aisle. Do I?”

“That’s different,” Jameson said, offering up a rare opinion.

“If one of you assholes says ‘because I’ve got a dick and you’ve got a vag,’ I swear to Christ almighty I will murder you, and they’ll never find your body.”

“Cut us some slack, Scar,” Bowie butted in.

“No. You all need to cut me some slack. You raised me. It’s your fault. So deal with it.”

I shoved my way between them. But instead of heading over to Devlin’s side, which would turn him into an instant target, I stood in the only unoccupied corner of the deck and plotted the murder of my brothers.

They were overprotective to be sure, but had I been a man, they’d have no issue with me wrestling in the water with someone. But no. Because I had a vagina, they thought they could dictate my sex life. It wasn’t cute anymore. Not like when I went to junior prom and they lined up on the front porch and glared down Freddy Sleeth until he all but ran back to the car. Or when I had my heart broken by Wade Zirkel senior year. Gibson had shoved that boy in the trunk of his car and driven around for an hour before he let Jameson and Bowie take one shot each at him.

I had yet to tell them that I’d accidentally slept with Wade a few times at the tail end of this past winter and it hadn’t ended well. He’d flirted up Zadie Rummerfield at The Lookout while I was playing pool. I’d dumped a pitcher of beer over his head and flattened one of the tires on his pick-up on my way out.

He still had some of my stuff at his apartment, and come hell or high water, I was gonna get it back.

“You all right, babe?” Cassidy asked, handing me a towel.

“Just peachy with three asshole misogynists for brothers.” I made sure the comment was loud enough for everyone to hear.

“They love you,” Cassidy reminded me unnecessarily.

“That doesn’t give them an excuse to shame me,” I said, dropping my voice.

“They’re not trying to shame. They’re trying to protect you.”

“I’m an adult.”

“Does an adult really start wet humping a stranger in a lake in front of her brothers?”

I stuck my jaw out. “Careful, Cass. It’s almost soundin’ like you’re on their side.”

“I’m always on your side, Scarlett. But there comes a time when we all have to grow up.”

Damn the pragmatic deputy in my best friend. Sometimes I had the distinct feeling that Cassidy had gone and grown up without me, leaving me—her best friend in the world—to fumble through life all by my lonesome.

I spotted Devlin on the other side of the deck as Gibson grumpily motored us home. He was watching me with an unreadable expression on his fine face. I’d taken him by surprise in the water. Hell, I’d taken myself by surprise with my reaction. But what surprised us both was Devlin’s reaction.

It was times like these that I wished I still had a mama to talk to.

We reached my dock in subdued spirits. I hopped off and tied the lines, ignoring my brothers and Cassidy, who’d also landed on my shit list. I muscled a cooler off the deck and griped when someone took it from me.

But it was Devlin. And from the sparks that exploded from just a brush of his fingers, I knew the kiss hadn’t been a random fluke. I wasn’t sure if I was eager to explore it or if I should run in the opposite direction like my mama had made me promise.

“Never, ever get married before thirty, Scarlett Rose,” she’d told me time and time again. It was common knowledge that she and daddy had to get married right in the middle of their senior year of high school, pregnant with Gibson. Theirs had been a volatile relationship with more downs than ups. But the ups were still the highlight reel of my childhood.

Jameson took the cooler from Devlin, and Gibson bumped Devlin with his shoulder on purpose.

“There’s no reason for you to be actin’ like an asshole,” I announced to my oldest brother.

Wearily he looked at me. “Can we just not for once, Scar?”

“Whatever.” I shrugged. I was tired, too. I wanted to go home, alone. And sit in the dark. This melancholy was familiar. I’d lived with it daily for a year or so after Mama died. And since Daddy… well, it had found me again. And tonight, I was tired of running from it. I’d soak in it, feel it, suffer through it. And then tomorrow I’d start fresh.

“Who’s that?” Bowie asked, tensing as a stranger walked toward us in the dark.

He stopped at where the dock met the land.

My brothers stood shoulder to shoulder in front of me, and it didn’t escape my notice that Devlin wedged himself in between Gibson and Jameson.

“Is there a Scarlett Bodine here?” the stranger asked.

He didn’t sound like West Virginia, and I couldn’t see his face in the dark. Cassidy turned on the flashlight she went everywhere with, blinding the man.

“Can we help you?” she asked, all no-nonsense deputy now.

“Looking for Scarlett,” he said.

“Jesus,” I whispered. That voice. The face. It was like staring at a ghost.

“And who might you be?” Cassidy asked.

“Jonah Bodine.”