Given Neely Kate’s family history, it wasn’t all that odd that she knew how to shoot a gun. And being a great shot didn’t seem like any cause for shame. So why was she keeping it from Ronnie? I started to ask her, but my heartbeat kick-started into a gallop when I heard a siren approaching from a distance.

Neely Kate gave me a perplexed look, and we both turned to face my driveway as a sheriff’s car came barreling toward us, shooting gravel and dust out behind it.

What were they here to arrest me for this time?

“Oh, my stars and garters,” Neely Kate sighed. “It never occurred to me. Give me your gun.”

“What?” I asked, watching in disbelief as the sheriff’s car ignored the end of my driveway and continued to tear through the yard toward us.

“Joe’s farm is close enough to hear the gunshots.” She took a step toward me and grabbed the gun I still held at my side, then took a couple of steps away from me. She looked wild and untamed, both guns at her sides, her long blond and pink and purple streaked hair blowing slightly in the wind. There was an edge in her eyes I wasn’t used to seeing, and I had to admit she was a bit scary.

The car stopped about twenty feet in front of us, and Joe climbed out, wearing a look of frustration along with his uniform and coat. “What the hell are you doin’? You scared the ever-lovin’ shit out of me!”

“Why do you even care, Joe-traitor-Simmons?” Neely Kate shouted. “It looks to me like you’re trespassing. Now go the hell away!”

“Trespassing?” he shouted back. “I damn near got in a wreck trying to get here in time to save you!”

“Save us or arrest us?” she asked, taking several steps toward him, the guns pointed toward the ground.

He glanced down at her hands, then up at her face. “I hope you have permits for those weapons, Neely Kate.”

“You think I’m fool enough to be shootin’ without them?” she fibbed. The ownership of the smaller gun was questionable at best.

He pursed his lips and shook his head, his chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath. “What the hell are you doin’?”

“Target practice.” She waved toward the exploded cans on the ground behind the fence. “What’s it look like?” Her face scrunched in disgust. “No wonder you arrested Rose on the lamest charges ever thought up. You’re just as inept as Officer Ernie.”

His jaw clenched. “Why the hell are you doing target practice here?”

She tilted her head and sneered. “The last time I checked, the Second Amendment was still in place and this is private property. But if you must know, I’m practicing to protect my best friend, thank you very much.”

“That’s why I got you Tasers! Why have you resorted to guns?”

She gave him a condescending glare. “I don’t have to answer that.”

He turned to me, anger flashing in his eyes. “Why’s Neely Kate doin’ all the talking? Don’t you have anything to say?”

I put my hands on my hips. “My attorney has advised me not to speak to you outside of his presence.”

His eyebrows rose. “So, you’ve already talked to Carter Hale this mornin’, have you?”

I’d meant Mason, but I saw no sense in correcting him.

He looked across the field toward his house before returning his gaze to me. “I realize this is your property, and Neely Kate certainly has the right to hold target practice on your land, but I formally request that you let me know if you do this again in the future. I think I just aged ten years. I thought you were being attacked.”

Something in me softened, although I wasn’t sure why. If I left my future in his hands, I had little doubt I’d be shipped off to McPherson in a few weeks.

He took a step toward me and stopped. “Rose. Can I speak to you for a moment?”

“Didn’t you hear what she said?” Neely Kate sounded incredulous. “She can’t talk to you without her attorney!”

Joe grunted and opened his jacket, jerking his badge off his uniform and tossing it onto his front seat through the open car door. “Will you talk to me now?”

Tears filled my eyes. My anger from the previous night had faded … all that was left was a sense of betrayal. “Why?”

“Rose.” The pleading in his voice was nearly my undoing, but why? Why did this man still pull at my heart after everything he’d done?

“Don’t do it, Rose,” Neely Kate warned.

“Please,” he begged.

I was such a fool, but I heard myself say, “Okay.”

“Rose!”

My chest heaved for several breaths as I fought tears. “I need your promise you won’t use this against me somehow,” I said to him, ignoring Neely Kate.

He looked more serious than I’d ever seen him. “I swear it.”

Neely Kate stomped toward us, her eyes wide in disbelief. “What are you doin’? You can’t trust a word that man says, Rose! He stood in your landscaping office and asked me to watch out for you. And less than forty-eight hours later he turned around and had you arrested for the most asinine charges in the world.”

But I walked away from her, passing him as I walked toward the tail end of his car. I stopped there and crossed my arms. “What do you want?”

He followed and came to a stop a few feet in front of me. “I think we both said things we regret last night.”