No Perfect Hero Read online

  Packing it in and leaving.

  Thank fuck.

  The sharp relief lets me actually enjoy my coffee while I sink down on the couch, planning my day.

  The gossip about me looking for a house to settle down in will help. Considering the extent that Bress’ business holdings have grown since he’s worked his way into Heart’s Edge like a bad infection, I'll take any excuse.

  This one's perfect cover for cruising around town. I'll pretend I'm looking at For Sale signs on lawns to case his investments in broad daylight. I want to know every time Dennis Bress sneezes.

  Where he spends his time. With who. What his weaknesses are.

  And just what Jenna discovered about that asshole that made him kill her.

  I’ve got a good idea where to start scouting from public records.

  A few addresses, a route, a few more stops planned to make things look casual, then it's on.

  I’m climbing in my pickup truck and heading up the highway into town.

  No more sign of that pretty blue Mustang. The girls must’ve hotfooted it out without even saying goodbye.

  If I didn't have a murderer's bug up my ass, I might feel sorry.

  I’m completely distracted from any thought of the girls, though, when I round a corner off Main and catch sight of none other than Bress himself.

  Shit!

  He’s getting out of his old work-worn camper truck, parked right in front of the tack and feed store. It's the closest thing we have to a mall in Heart’s Edge, if only because the owner, Tandy Thatcher, let her daughter have a little addition with a craft supply store, while her son runs a gardening shop out back.

  Bress hauls himself out of the truck like a snake. Dripping with his trademark mix of weariness and quiet authority, this mask of a calm, thoughtful man laid over the demon underneath. He rakes a hand back through ash-blond hair, sighing heavily like he's carrying some great weight, and then trudges inside the main barn-like shop.

  There’s no one else around this early in the morning.

  Perfect opportunity.

  I park my truck on the curb, then steal a quick glance around.

  There's no traffic and a barn wall between me and any line of sight from inside. Quickly, I rummage in the duffel bag I keep under the seat, until I find one of my GPS trackers.

  It's magnetic, small, easy to hide inside a wheel well.

  I slip around the far side of Bress’ truck, letting its bulk conceal me, and bend in to tuck the tracker just above the right rear wheel.

  “Playing mechanic again?” a tart voice asks from behind me.

  I almost leap out of my skin.

  I'm rewarded with a smack of my head against the camper of Bress’ truck.

  Hissing, swearing, I stand, rubbing at my throbbing temple and whirling to see who’s caught me – even though I already know.

  Who the fuck else?

  It’s irritating that I already know her voice so well, this mix of saucy sweetness with a soft burr at the edge, always on the verge of laughter. And Haley West looks like she’s laughing at me right now, leaning her elbow over the driver’s side door of the convertible, watching with glittery eyes as she eases it in to park.

  “You okay, mister?” the kid asks.

  “I'm dandy,” I answer, but fuck – fuck, did she see what I was doing? “What're you two doing here?” I demand, before she can ask what I’m doing here. “I thought you were heading out?”

  “Oh? When did I ever say that?” Haley arches both brows with a prim little pursing of her lips, and I can see the resemblance between her and the kid. “Mr. Bitters was kind enough to point me to the craft supply store so I can stock up.”

  I stare at her blankly. “Stock up?”

  There’s something almost triumphant about her smile as she hauls herself out of the car.

  She's such a lithe, spry young thing, she doesn’t even bother with the door. Just pulls herself up on her arms and vaults over the top of it to land lightly.

  The kid tries to imitate her, clearly a bit of hero worship, but ends up just clambering over the top and tumbling down before clearing her throat and straightening her sundress primly. Almost like a cat daring anyone to notice it tumbled off a windowsill.

  Haley’s more like the cat that got the cream, though, as she looks up at me with her green eyes blazing and her hands posted firmly on her hips.

  “Turns out, I kinda like it here,” she says with a smile so sweet, it can only be poison.

  Absinthe, like the color of her eyes. Intoxicating and venomous.

  My fists tighten, but I'm quiet as a stone, staring her down.

  “Think we'll stay a bit, neighbor. Chicago will be there when I’m good and ready. What kind of artist would I be if I didn’t follow my muse? And Heart’s Edge is so lovely.” Her smile takes on a razor's edge. “Besides. My little Tara’s never really been camping in the boonies, so it’s a great opportunity. But really, Warren. I appreciate all the hard work you did fixing my car and trying to run me out of town. I already feel like I’ve had the authentic small-town welcome.”

  I don’t know what to say when it hits me like a brickbat to the face.

  When I thought she was packing up this morning, she was actually unpacking.

  Settling in halfway to damn well spite me.

  I’m torn.

  Torn between wanting to argue that I’m not some closed-minded mountain townie trying to run the fancy city girl off like it's a bad comedy flick...and wanting to drag her closer. Wanting to kiss that insufferable, satisfied smirk off her wicked little lips. Wanting to find out if she tastes like sugar and booze, just like the absinthe in her eyes.

  Instead, I’m left frozen while she turns and walks into the shop with a little flip of her hair, her hand tangled in the little girl’s.

  Fuck. Me.

  I’ve got to talk to Flynn.

  One way or another, I need to get this distracting, ornery, entirely maddening woman away from me ASAP.

  3

  Talk About Nothing (Haley)

  It shouldn’t have been so satisfying to walk away from that asshole, leaving him flabbergasted and wordless.

  But c’mon. He deserved it.

  Especially after he answered the door this morning, all broad, tattoo-swirled chest, and thickly toned thighs, and a pair of boxers so small I wouldn’t even use them for a handkerchief.

  I mean, wowza, if the crotch hadn’t been cupping his bulge so snug, something just might've peeked out to give me a free show. And one more problem I really don't need.

  Honestly, he could’ve had a little decency.

  Or at least not opened his jerk-mouth, so I could’ve quietly enjoyed a little indecency.

  Leave it to the gorgeous ones to talk too much.

  I can’t stand Warren.

  He’s surly. He’s authoritative. He’s presumptuous. He’s rude. He’s –

  Taking up far too much of my headspace, apparently.

  Because I should be thinking about the shades of blue gouache paint I need to capture the colors of hazy sky around a distant mountain peak. Not about the particular shade of blue Warren’s eyes were this morning when he’d been half asleep, his gaze dark and smoky.

  Definitely not about the tousled hair falling into his eyes and the morning sun licking tawny gleams over the hard chisels of his bare chest.

  God.

  Settle down, girl.

  There’s a minor in the room.

  And Tara’s busy tugging at my shirt, pointing at a box of nearly two hundred Prismacolor pencils in a rainbow palette of bright shades.

  I eye her with a sigh. She’s too much like me at that age.

  At ten years old, I picked up lots of things and tried them once and put them down before moving to the next – but I’m still crunching the numbers in my bank account. We're running on a tight budget.

  But it’s not fair to stock up on art supplies for myself just because I’m staying here out of some spiteful whim, and then tell Tara she can’t have this one little thing.

  Besides.

  When I was a little girl, the thing that made me finally sit still and stop bouncing from hobby to hobby was a box of pencils. They came in various lead hardnesses and textures, a gift from a fourth grade teacher who admired the little doodles I left down the margins of my assignments.

  Ms. Brandy hadn’t been able to get me to pay attention in class, but when she put those pencils in my hand? Suddenly, I found something that could keep my complete and utter focus like nothing else.

  Maybe the Prismacolors will be that for Tara.

  And if not, she deserves the same chance I got to try things again and again until she finds her one true love in a pencil.

  I offer her a smile, shifting my load of canvases, paint tubes, and brushes to one arm so I can squeeze her hand. “You’re sure that’s the one you want? Not the markers or the pen sets?”

  She shakes her head. “I like the way the pencils look soft when you color with them,” she says. “I want to try that.”

  “Okay, baby.” I grip her hand a little tighter, encouraging her. “You’ll need a sketchbook to go with them, then. The kind that binds at the top. Spiral rings are easiest for pencil drawing. Go pick out one you like.”

  Her face brightens, her eyes widening, and she hugs me tight enough to almost make me drop everything. “Thanks, Auntie Hay!” she cries before racing off, leaving me watching her with a fond sigh.

  I really do love that girl.

  I don’t see enough of her, living so far away from my sister, but maybe once I settle in Chicago, I’ll make a point to take more time off to see family.

  And she’ll grow out of the nickname one day.

  One day.

  I turn to look for a few more things – a paint scraper, a little blending toner. But I can’t seem to find the register when Tara comes bouncing back with her box of colored pencils and a large spiral bound sketchbook clutched to her chest.

  Then I see the wooden sign over the open doorway. It's hand-painted, pointing to the attached barn that looks to be some kind of...horse shop? Farm shop?

  They have bags of seed and bales of hay, at least. It smells warm and earthy and just dusty enough to tickle my nose.

  Pay inside, the sign proclaims, so I rearrange my armful and head through the door to do just that, stepping from the tile over the threshold onto a packed dirt floor.

  That's how I bump right into a broad barrel chest, hard enough to send me rocking back with a squeak, clutching at my things.

  Bad move. It just makes them go flying out of my arms like I’d squeezed a water balloon and sent it popping everywhere.

  “Oops,” a kindly, thoughtful male voice says, catching me by the shoulders and steadying me. “Here. Let me help.”

  I look up into blue eyes and for a moment think it’s Warren – but Warren’s eyes are a darker, stormier blue. More passionate and hot and wild.

  These eyes are paler, softer, haunted by a quiet exhaustion that strikes me before I even fully take him in. He’s tall, older but not quite old, with the same hard-cut ex-military build that makes me think of Warren as well. His ash-blond hair dips with a reserved smile he offers me as he drops down to one knee to start gathering my things.

  “Sorry,” I manage, sinking down to help, while Tara stands over us, watching curiously. “I should’ve been looking where I was going.”

  “Kinda hard to with all that piled in front of your face, I’d say.” There’s a soft drawl to his voice.

  I wouldn’t quite call it Southern, more like that particular flavor of Pacific mountain country you find in Oregon or California. With a chuckle, he helps me gather my spilled paints and supplies into the back side of a canvas, then frowns at the canvas itself. “Aw, looks like I got this one dirty. I’ll pay for it with the owner if you want to grab a fresh one.”

  “Oh, no, it’s okay.” I shake my head, rising to my feet and smiling. “Canvases aren’t hard to clean. I’ll just buy this one, but thank you so much Mr...?”

  “Bress,” he says, offering me a hand, then chuckling and dropping it when I eye it wryly, my own hands overflowing. “Dennis Bress. You look like a new face around here.”

  Bress.

  Wasn’t that the name Warren snarled at me when he caught me in his side of the duplex?

  I don’t understand. This man seems so nice.

  Why would he be sending anyone after Warren, especially a hapless artist and occasional corporate slave?

  I keep my thoughts to myself, though, and wiggle my fingers in a little wave in lieu of a handshake. “I’m just passing through for a few days while my car gets fixed. Staying over at Charming Inn. I’m Haley West, and this is my niece, Tara Brenley.”

  Tara pipes up with a chirpy little “Hi!” and lets go of her death grip on her prizes long enough to shake Bress’ hand like the delicate little lady she likes to be. He bows over her hand, mimicking touching his forehead to it like a proper gentleman, and she giggles.

  “Charmed,” he drawls, then straightens and flashes me another smile. “If you’re ready to check out, I’ll help you get all that into your car.”

  I’m grateful for his help. Especially after I meet the owner of this strange little conglomeration of shops and find out that the rumors about small-town hostility aren’t at all true.

  Not when Ms. Thatcher is all smiles, offering a few suggestions for getting the dirt out of the canvas with rubbing alcohol. She even gives me a discount, though it’s my fault the canvas was damaged.

  Tara gets a few warm, inquisitive questions about her artistic talents without being patronizing, and then Bress helps us pile our shopping bags in the back of the car.

  “Have you been to see the mechanic yet?” he asks as I climb behind the driver’s seat.

  “Not yet, which is a little ironic,” I answer dryly. “He’s the one person I need to see most, but I haven’t had a chance to get into the shop yet and find out about the part I need.”

  “Well...” Bress’ sigh is long and slow as he folds his elbows over the door of the Mustang and leans on them. He’s not looking at me, but instead somewhere in the distance past me, but there’s a troubled knit to his brow. “If he can’t help you, look me up. I’ll make sure you’re taken care of.”

  That’s an odd thing to say. Or maybe I’m projecting because of Warren?

  I frown, but then his gaze drops back to me, and I quickly shift into a smile, hoping I don’t look as uncomfortable as I feel. “Thanks, Mr. Bress. I appreciate it.”

  He doesn’t answer my smile. Just looks at me for a long, wandering moment, his gaze strange, before he straightens, pulling back with one last light tap against the car door.

  “You take care, Ms. West,” he says. “And welcome to Heart’s Edge.”

  I’m brooding over our conversation on the entire drive back to Charming Inn.

  Something’s not right here. I feel like I just stepped into an Agatha Christie novel.

  Small town that looks picturesque on the surface, but the people are all just a little too weird in ways you can’t quite nail down. Not until you find out there’s a dead freaking body under the floorboards of your cabin or something.

  It’s just strange. Warren’s shady as hell, intent on getting me away from him – as if he’s hiding something in his side of the duplex, and he’s afraid I’ll find out.

  So maybe a few of the things he’s done for me would be considered nice, if he wasn’t clearly just doing them to get me as far away from him as possible. And then this guy he mentioned, Dennis Bress, just happens to bump into me in the craft store and starts speaking cryptic, although when I compare him to Warren...

  Bress seems like an angel.

  At least he has manners.

  He knows how to dress himself, and he doesn't give that hell-look like some kind of chest-thumping Tarzan. The look that makes me think Warren either wants me in flames or wants to throw me against the wall and kindle something far more wicked than another cursing, spitting fight.

  So what’s going on here?

  Is there some kind of grudge between Warren and Bress? Like a small town blood feud?

  Is Bress a criminal? Hell, is Warren? A gangster, a thug, squeezing poor Bress for something he’s owed – or just for the sport of it?

  My lips twist sourly, none of the options seeming quite right.

  Bress is too nice. And Warren...

  Well, he’s not nice. Not at all.

  But there’s some kind of core of honor and morality there, or he’d have insisted on having me hauled off the property even after he’d found out Tara and I had nowhere else to go.

  Or maybe I’m just dickmatized.

  Maybe I'm losing my mind.

  And I don’t want to believe a man who could put every LA underwear model to shame when he's in his boxers could be so awful.

  I haven't forgotten Warren at his finest.

  This lion of a man standing in the doorway like Hercules himself came back to earth and stopped by a tattoo shop, bed-tousled hair, the elastic band of his boxer briefs hugging up snug against that dip of flesh just below his crest.

  God.

  Somebody stop me.

  I’m still turning it over, chewing my lower lip, completely wrapped up inside my own head when I turn off onto the little side lane leading to the back of the Charming Inn’s sprawling property and our own little private corner. I’m so preoccupied unloading the bags and closing up the Mustang that I don’t even take in the cabin as I’m mounting the steps, sorting through my keys for the new one on the ring.

  Then Tara screams.

  High, shrill, scary.

  My blood instantly chills to ice water as I jerk my head up, racing to grab her, to protect her.

  But then I stop, my brows knit together, as I finally see what frightened her.

  “What in the world?” It just falls off my lips, suddenly as numb as the rest of me.

  And the first cold fingers of real, dense fear prick my skin. I can't stop staring at the mess smeared over my front door.

  Blood.