The thudding on my front door was getting old, real old. It was just after 8 a.m. And I was working on my second visitor of the day.

“Cassidy Ann! You open this door right this second!”

I knew exactly who it was even before she started bellowing. Bowie was out for blood, and there was only one person he’d send my way to extract it.

I wrenched open the door, trying to fight my way out of the hoodie I’d pulled on backward.

Scarlett, my best friend, co-conspirator, and wingman, stormed inside with all the heat of a thousand Julys.

“I am so mad at you right now!”

I looked over Scarlett’s shoulder to the SUV idling in front of my house. Devlin, Scarlett’s live-in boyfriend, sent me a wave and mouthed “good luck” to me before pulling away from the curb.

Scarlett unwound a mile of blue and gold striped scarf from her neck and shrugged out of her parka. “You have five seconds exactly to earn my forgiveness,” she said, crossing her arms the same way Bowie had barely an hour before.

I had a feeling Scarlett at least wouldn’t be pushing me up against my fridge sporting hard wood.

“Coffee?” I offered. I was so damn tired.

“You’re forgiven,” Scarlett chirped, skipping her way back to my kitchen. She was as at home here as June or Bowie. Damn him.

Scarlett helped herself to the mug she’d made me with our high school graduation picture on it. “All right, sit ‘n’ spill.”

In the rest of the South, it was “sit a spell.” But in Bootleg Springs, where gossip flowed faster than the creeks to the lake, it was spill.

“Look,” I said, “the DNA results came back a few weeks ago. Connelly’s keeping everything under wraps so he could have more time with the investigation before the whole town turns into a circus over nothing.”

“Over nothing?” Scarlett snorted mid sugar dump. “It’s her blood.”

“That’s a good thing, Scar.” I sat down wearily on the same stool I hadn’t bothered pushing back in. “It was always going to be her blood. What’s more important is what they didn’t find.”

“What didn’t they find?”

“No DNA belonging to your dad.”

She leaned against the counter and contemplated. “You still should have told us.”

“I was under direct orders not to say a word. No matter what your stupid brother says about me, I take my job very seriously.”

“He’s real mad, Cass.” Scarlett turned her back on me and began to rummage through the refrigerator that her brother had pinned me to with his very hard—I’d think about that later. No, I wouldn’t. I’d refused to give Bowie more than a passing thought since I was a teenager. No siree. My brain didn’t have enough room for the man. Or his morning wood.

“What are you digging for?” I asked, changing the subject. Bowie being mad at me was something new to our 27-year-old relationship. It didn’t much bother me when anyone else had an axe to grind with me. But it wasn’t sitting well that he was good and pissed.

She pulled out eggs and milk. “If you make me pancakes, I’ll probably forgive you.”

“You forgave me over the coffee,” I reminded her.

“Yeah, but this way I’ll doubly forgive you and I’ll be inclined to share all the dirty details of what Devlin did to me last night.”

My dating life was a disaster. My sex life had coasted on fumes for so long I’d forgotten what an orgasm felt like. Scarlett was my only connection to the world of pleasure…and dating men who weren’t half-wits.

I yawned mightily, giving up on the idea of sleep. “Go snatch the bacon out of your brother’s fridge and you’ve got yourself a deal.”

Over crispy, pilfered bacon and fluffy pancakes, we caught up on lives that seemed to be moving faster and faster these days.

“How’s living with Devlin?” I asked, swirling a piece of pancake through the river of syrup on my plate.

“Amazing and awful and everything in between,” Scarlett reported cheerfully.

“Awful?”

“The man has more shoes than a Macy’s! I mean, we have rolling racks for his suits in the living room.”

I laughed. The suave, educated, charming Devlin McCallister had been on track for some sort of political post in Washington, D.C. when Scarlett set her sights on him. They were both miles happier with him opening up his own law practice here. Rumor had it, he might be eyeing up Ol’ Judge Carwell’s seat when he hit the residency requirement.

“When are y’all gonna build?” Scarlett and Devlin had bought a pretty piece of lakefront property and spent the last few months arguing over house plans and tile samples.

She rolled her eyes in the direction of my window. “Ground breaking was supposed to happen tomorrow. Thanks, Mother Nature.”

I watched the fat flakes fall from the white sky. “Couple of days and it’ll be gone. You’ll be in your house in no time,” I predicted.

“Let’s hope so before I end up strangling my handsome roommate with one of his nine belts. Nine. Who the hell needs that many ways to hold your pants up?”

I topped off our coffees and pushed my plate away. Too little sleep, too much caffeine, and a pissed off next-door neighbor were wreaking havoc with my insides.

“Bowie said he let you have it this morning,” Scarlett said, beginning her fishing expedition.

“He wasn’t happy with me,” I said cagily. There’d been a time in our lives when Scarlett and I had no secrets about my feelings for her brother. But those days were over. She’d stormed my bedroom two days after Bowie had told me I was basically just another sister to him and demanded to know what the hell my problem was.

I’d never told her what he said to me. But I made her pinkie swear she’d never, ever bring up me marrying Bowie ever again. I reckoned she’d gotten the hint. And true to her word, Scarlett had done what I’d asked. She was a good friend.

“He told me I was a shitty friend,” I admitted. The insult bothered me more than a nest of nettles.

“He holds you to a pretty high standard,” Scarlett said carefully. “Higher than most anyone else. He’s taking it personally that you didn’t come to him with this.”

“Why in the hell would he think I would come to him? He’s not my keeper. If anything, I should have shown up on your doorstep the minute I found out.”

“Yes. You should have.”

Dang it. Walked right into that one.

“Scarlett, my job—”

“Your loyalties are torn right down the middle. I get it. I really do. You’re a law enforcement officer. And you’re my best friend. I don’t know what I would’ve done in your place, Cass. I really don’t. But I think some of the reasoning behind you keeping us out of it is because you’re hell-bent on doing everything yourself.”

“I am not hell-bent on doing everything myself!”

“You’ve taken independence to a whole new level,” Scarlett pointed out.

At that moment I heard the scrape of metal on concrete. Scarlett and I got up to look out the back window where Bowie Fucking Bodine was shoveling my walk.

“I was getting to it,” I grumbled. Jesus, a girl couldn’t catch a few hours of sleep after a late-night call and then shovel her own walk? It wasn’t like anyone but me would be using the back door anyway.

“May it please the court? Exhibit A of Cassidy’s overinflated independence.”

“We need to stop watching all those lawyering shows.” Scarlett and I had binge-watched our way through Boston Legal and now the better part of Suits. She wanted to get a better handle on what Devlin did for a living. I just liked the bromances.

“And you and Bowie need to work this out.”