Even though the show was supposed to take place on the actual Mason-Dixon Line, they filmed in a city right outside of Nashville. So Kiki was never too far away. The girl was a good actress. He’d give her that without argument. But her sweet-as-pie persona when the cameras were off was the real act. She was much more like the villain she played on the show. Conniving and manipulative.

Everything was a game to her, and she liked to play as many people as she could.

He’d witnessed it in full force, too. He wouldn’t exactly call the time he’d spent with her dates so much as forced proximity. It hadn’t taken him very long to realize he didn’t want his name—or anything else for that matter—anywhere near hers. He’d known that months ago…and he most definitely knew it now after Harper.

Not that it mattered, because again, she was gone.

Liam stretched his legs out, his boots sliding across the wooden floorboards of his brother’s back porch as he slowly rocked in his chair. The humidity in the air was in that transitioning stage of unbearable to mostly tolerable, and the breeze coming off the Intracoastal Waterway that ran behind the house wasn’t too shabby, either.

Or maybe the supposed cooling in the air had more to do with the fact that he was on his third beer of the evening. The bottle was sweating in his hand, trying its damnedest to stay cold. But no matter, it would be finished in another couple of minutes.

Liam had been in Jacksonville, Florida, for the last two weeks, going to the final games of the Stanley Cup playoffs where he got to witness the Stampede’s—and his brother’s—victory firsthand. Now he was sticking around for the big celebration that was the following evening.

Might as well, it wasn’t like he had any place else to be before the next leg of the Isaac Hunter tour started the following week. So he was getting in some time with his siblings and parents who’d also come into town for the festivities.

They’d all had dinner that night, a meal prepared by his mother Edie, sister Adele, and Logan’s new—and very serious—girlfriend Abby. The three women were now sitting at the dining room table chatting as Liam, Logan, and their father Dustin sat outside.

Logan and their father were carrying on a conversation while for the most part Liam sat there in silence. Brooding, as he was prone to do of late. But he supposed that was to be expected when he was comparing a woman’s eyes to the sunset.

Fucking sap.

He needed to shake this off. Needed to pull his head out of his ass and move on. Sure his time on this side of things was few and far between as he was normally the one doing the leaving. But he’d gotten over stuff like this before, and he’d damn well do it again.

Right?

It was a little before eleven when his parents headed upstairs to go to sleep, and it was just Logan and Liam sitting out on the porch, fresh bottles of beer in both of their hands.

Maybe more beer wasn’t the answer at the moment…he tended to do stupid things when he was drinking, like hit on gorgeous girls at bars. An image of Harper filled his brain and he was tipping his bottle back immediately. Maybe if he drank enough he could kill the memory cells of her.

Or probably not as she was permanently branded into his brain.

“So, you going to tell me what’s eating at you, or would you prefer to suffer in silence?” Logan asked after about five minutes of nothing but the cicadas talking to each other.

Liam stopped rocking and turned to look at his brother. Most of Logan’s face was in shadow as the only light was coming from the dining room behind them—where Adele and Abby were still talking as they finished a bottle of wine. But shadow or not, Liam had no doubt as to the expression of concern on his brother’s face.

Logan was three years older than Liam, and as they’d shared a bedroom for fifteen years growing up, it was safe to say that they knew each other pretty well. And distance or time apart hadn’t changed that.

Not only were they brothers, but they were best friends.

And if anyone looked at them side by side, there was no doubt that the men were related. They’d both inherited their father’s strong jaw, though Logan’s and Liam’s were just slightly dusted with scruff whereas their father sported a clean shave. Then there was their green-gold eyes that were the perfect mix of their mother’s golden brown and their father’s sage green. The really big difference was their hair, Logan’s shorter and the lighter brown of their father’s, while Liam’s was an inch-ish longer and the dark brown of their mother’s.

“It’s up to you and I’m not going to bust your balls either way. But if you think this,” Logan waved a hand in the air at Liam, “whatever it is that you’ve got going on has escaped anyone’s notice in our family…well, you my friend are pretty fucking delusional.” He finished before he brought his beer to his mouth and tipped back the bottle.

Liam took a deep breath and let it out on a sigh, turning back to the water as he took a drink of his own beer. He wasn’t sure how long they sat there in silence, probably long enough for Logan to give up on Liam answering.

The thing was, if there was anyone to talk to about this, it was Logan. He and Abby were a pretty recent thing, and it was nice to finally see Logan happy after all these years, because he’d been through some dark times. Eight years ago, Logan’s daughter Madison had died of leukemia. It had happened right after her fifth birthday.

That was the darkest moment of Liam’s life, too, and he missed his niece every day.

Madison’s mother hadn’t really been around before, during, or after. She’d walked out on her daughter, and Logan had been pretty careful with his relationships since. Well, that was the case until Abby.

Liam had never seen his brother in love before.

“I met someone,” Liam finally said into the darkness.

“No shit.”

“Did you know immediately when you met Abby?”

“Know what? That she was it for me?” Logan asked.

“Yeah.”

Logan was quiet for a second before he cleared his throat and spoke. “When I first met her I knew two things: that she was a pain in the ass, and that she was a hot pain in the ass.”

“Well, never let it be said that you aren’t romantic.”

Logan laughed. “But to be completely honest with you, it’s sometimes hard to see something you aren’t looking for.”

“So when did you see it?”

“That first night we spent together. But it still took me a while to figure it out after that. I’m guessing that wasn’t the case for you?”

“No.” Liam reached up and scratched his jaw, the sound of his nails on his beard rasping in his ears. “I figured it out immediately.”

“Damn, seriously? You fell in love? No wonder you’re a mess.”

A humorless laugh escaped Liam’s lips. “Understatement.”

“Who is she?”

“Someone who doesn’t feel the same way.” He took another mouthful of his beer before he started from the beginning of the story. About halfway through Logan went inside to grab more beer. He came back with a full six-pack of bottles that they started in on as Liam finished the whole long, sorted tale.

“So then I woke up the next morning and she was gone.” He was leaning forward, his elbows resting on his knees as he looked out into the dark backyard.

“And there’s no way for you to find her?”

“Nope, the only thing I know is that her name is Harper and she isn’t from Nashville…oh, and she has an aunt who works at a hospital there.”

“She made it pretty much impossible for you to find her. And she doesn’t know who you are?”

“No. She never said her last name, so I never told her mine.”

“So there’s no way for her to find you, either?”

“No, there is. She has my phone number. Knows the address to the cabin. She could find me if she wanted to. She just doesn’t want to. Which is why I should let this go but…” he dipped his head and stared down into the empty bottle in his hands.