“He scared the shit out of me, told me point-blank my friend was dead, and went on to make it clear to me that he wasn’t the least bit sorry about any of it.”

“Yep.” Will sat back in the booth and stretched his arms out in front of him, working a kink out of his shoulder. “That’s J.D. He got all the tact in the family.”

Mari sniffed and speared the last piece of bacon just as Will’s fingertips brushed over it. “Must have been a defective gene,” she said caustically. “No offense, but your brother is about the biggest jerk I’ve run into.”

“None taken,” he said, his face glowing with unholy glee. “He can be an abrasive son of a gun.”

“He could give lessons to concrete.”

The sound of someone rising in the booth behind her sounded to Mari like the ominous roll of thunder. Her heart sank like a rock into the morass of heavy food she’d consumed as J. D. Rafferty stepped into view. He stood beside her table, looming like an oak tree, not so much as sparing her a glance. Slowly he settled a pale gray hat in place and pulled the brim low, his unwavering gaze on his brother.

“You done shooting your mouth off?” he said quietly, his low voice setting off discordant vibrations inside Mari. “We got work to do.”

“That’s what I love about you, bro,” Will said, the finest razor’s edge in his tone as he slid from the booth. “You’re just a great big bundle of fun.”

“Fun?” The corner of J.D.’s mouth curled in derision. “What’s that?”

The air between and around the two brothers was suddenly charged with enough electricity to make hair stand on end. Mari watched with guarded fascination as some tense, silent communication passed between their eyes. Will broke contact first, turning for the door without a word.

J.D. turned toward Mari, his gaze heating from gray ice to molten pewter as it lingered on her lower lip. Mari fought the urge to squirm in her seat. It was all she could do to keep from covering her mouth with her hand.

Rafferty met her eyes and smiled, the slight curve of his lips radiating male arrogance. “You don’t have to like me, Mary Lee,” he murmured.

His meaning was crystal clear. Mari glared at him, wishing they weren’t in quite so public a place so she could feel free to rip him up with her opinion of him. Still, she couldn’t let him get away unscathed. She gave him a look of utter disgust and mouthed Fuck you.

The gray eyes darkened, the smile took on a feral quality. “Anytime, city girl.”

“When hell freezes over.”

He leaned down close, his eyes never leaving hers. He curled his big hands into the fabric of her old denim jacket and pulled the edges closed. “Better button up, sweetheart. I feel a cold spell coming on.”

Mari shoved his hands away. “It’s called rejection, slick,” she said through her teeth. “Have the local schoolmarm look it up for you.”

J.D. stepped back, chuckling at her sass. He tipped his hat ever so slightly, conceding the round but not the war. “Miz Jennings.”

Mari said nothing. She felt used and furious. Will Rafferty had set her up and egged her on to get a rise out of his brother. And J.D… She decided the initials stood for Jackass Deluxe.

Nora appeared beside the booth, rag in hand, and leaned across the table to wipe away the crumbs Will had left. “Those Raffertys are enough to give a girl cardiac arrest,” she said matter-of-factly. “They don’t make men like that anymore.”

“No,” Mari said, scowling as she watched J. D. Rafferty through the front window. He climbed into a battered blue and gray four-by-four truck with STARS AND BARS emblazoned across the bug guard. “I thought they broke the mold after the Stone Age.”

IT WAS a joke. Lighten up, will you?”

J.D. didn’t say a word as he climbed into the cab of the battered Ford pickup. He nursed the engine to life carefully. The old truck had 153,000 hard miles on it. It needed to go a few more. There was no extra cash for buying new pickups. What money didn’t get eaten up this year by Will’s gambling or by the astronomical property taxes they had to pay because of the influx of elitists to the Eden valley would be sunk right back into the operation.

Fortify and strengthen. A siege mentality. Well, by God, if they weren’t in a war, he didn’t know what else to call it.

And in this war, Miz Marilee Jennings stood squarely on the other side of the DMZ.

“She’s a friend of Lucy MacAdam’s,” he said tightly, pronouncing the name macadam, like the pavement. She had been that hard, that abrasive. Even in bed she had had sharp edges.

He backed the pickup away from the curb and headed north on Main, automatically glancing in the rearview mirror to check the feed sacks. Zip, their black and white border collie, stood with his front paws on a stack of plump bags and surveyed the passing scenery with a big grin on his face. Behind them a maroon Jaguar purred impatiently. J.D. eased off on the gas.

“So she’s a friend of Lucy’s,” Will snapped irritably. “So what?”

The sun cutting through the clouds pierced his eyeballs and rejuvenated the hangover he had fought off with mass quantities of caffeine and food. He pulled a pair of mirrored sunglasses out of his shirt pocket and slid them on.

“So she’s one of them.”

“Jesus. She came to visit a friend who turns out to be dead. Give her a break.”

“Why? Because she’s pretty? Because she’s a woman?” Disgust bent J.D.’s mouth into a sneer. “I swear, if it wears a bra, it can lead you around by your dick and you’ll just go grinning like a jackass eating sawbriars.”

“Oh, Christ, will you lay off?” Will exploded, the volume of his own voice setting hammers swinging inside his temples. He fought off the need to rub the ache, not wanting to exhibit any sign of physical weakness in front of J.D. “You know what your problem is?”

“I’m sure you’ll tell me.”

“You live like a goddamn monk. Maybe if you went out and got a little every once in a while you wouldn’t begrudge the rest of us.”

“I get as much as I want. I just don’t go around shooting my mouth off about it.”

Behind his shades, Will’s gaze sharpened. “Or maybe you want her for yourself? Is that it, J.D.?” He hooted, wincing at the needles the laughter stabbed into his brain. “That’s it! Ha! She doesn’t seem like your type. More like mine. ’Course, damn near every type is my type.”

J.D. leveled a deadly stare at him as they idled at the town’s one and only stoplight. “You’d do well to keep your eyes in your head and your pants zipped. You’re married, ace.”

The words were both accusation and reminder. Will wanted neither the censure nor the guilt that rose at the prodding. He knew damn well he was married. The knowledge was like a yoke around his neck. He may not have remembered the ceremony. Even the drive to Reno was hazy-it had been a hell of a party that had led up to the event. But he was very much aware he had come back with a wife. Nearly a year after the fact, the idea still scared the hell out of him. A wife. A commitment. He didn’t want it, couldn’t handle it, wasn’t ready. The excuses piled up at the back of his throat in a sour wad.

In a soft, unguarded corner of his heart he wondered fleetingly how Samantha was faring without him.

“Shit,” he snarled half under his breath.

He fell back against the seat, jerked an old University of Montana baseball cap off the gun rack behind him, and pulled it on, settling the brim just above the rims of his sunglasses. As if he were in disguise. As if he thought he could hide his character flaws from his brother with a costume. Will Rafferty incognito as Everyman. Christ, as if J.D. couldn’t see through that in two seconds. J.D. could see through bullshit the way Superman could see through steel. He wondered how long it would take before J.D. found out about the sixty-five hundred and the busted flush of last night’s poker game in Little Purgatory. He figured he had maybe a day and a half to live.