March 26—nine months ago—Black Falls,
Vermont
The Cameron brothers were in town that night. Hannah Shay
watched them enter O'Rourke's from her perch on a high stool
at the rough-wood bar. She couldn't remember when she'd last
seen them together. A.J., the eldest, was down from the
mountain lodge the family owned and he ran with his wife.
Elijah was home briefly from war. Sean had flown in from
Southern California between fighting wildfires and making
his fortune.
As they gathered at a table on the far wall, under old
black-and-white photographs of their small Vermont town,
Hannah doubted they noticed her with the glass of
char-donnay she'd been nursing for the past thirty minutes.
She had no concerns about being at the bar alone. The owner,
Liam O'Rourke, a longtime Cameron friend, had little
tolerance for troublemakers—including ones who were
blood-related. Everyone in Black Falls knew stepping out of
line at O'Rourke's meant a boot out the door or a trip in
the back of a police cruiser.
Even Bowie O'Rourke, Liam's cousin, had to know.
Bowie followed the Cameron men into the bar, shutting the
door with a hard thud. He didn't take a table but instead
stood two stools down from Hannah and ordered a beer. He was
a stonemason and, at thirty-four, the same age as Elijah,
three years younger than AJ. and a year older than Sean, but
Bowie and the Cameron brothers had never gotten along. He
was combative and often in trouble. They were rigid and
often unforgiving. He'd finally moved away from Black Falls
in his early twenties, but he was back now.
Built like an ox, Bowie wore a down vest over an orange
hooded sweatshirt, jeans and scuffed work boots. He and
Hannah had grown up in a hollow up on the river. Isolated
and poor, it was a different Vermont from the one the
Camerons and most people in Black Falls had experienced.
Without acknowledging anyone else, Bowie looked up at the
basketball game on TV while he waited for his beer.
The Camerons tensed visibly at their table but didn't move
to leave.
Hannah considered quietly easing off her stool, paying for
her wine and getting out of there. Her younger brothers
needed her help with homework, and she had studying of her
own to do. She'd turn thirty this year. Time to finish law
school and get on with her legal career. She was also
part-owner of a breakfast-lunch café just down Main
Street from O'Rourke's. The café closed at three
o'clock—hours ago— but she kept the books and
managed the staff as well as cooked and cleaned, and work
could go well into the night. It probably would tonight.
Two more sips, she thought, lifting her glass and trying to
stifle a rush of self-consciousness. It was a stubborn demon
she thought she'd finally conquered, but with Bowie just
down the bar and A.J., Elijah and Sean Cameron at their
table in their canvas jackets and hiking boots, with their
very blue eyes and square jaws and scars from hard work,
fighting fires and fighting wars, she found herself wishing
she'd stayed away and hadn't taken this time for herself.
She hadn't bothered with makeup, and she'd pulled on a long
wool skirt, sweater and boots more for comfort and warmth
than style. Her blond hair, which she'd hastily tied back at
dawn, had to be stringy by now.
But how would she know? She hadn't taken a half second to
check herself in the mirror before she'd set out for her
hour on her own.
Her sudden self-consciousness had nothing to do with A.J., a
happily married father of two young children, or Elijah, a
Special Forces soldier who'd left Vermont at
nineteen—all but kicked out of town by his own father.
No, Hannah thought. Sean was the Cameron who could have her
forget she was a top law student and a successful businesswoman.
Nothing new there.
All three were competent, good-looking men anyone would want
to have as allies and rescuers and dread to have as enemies.
Their sister, Rose, the youngest, one of Hannah's closest
friends, was likewise competent and attractive, but she was
out of town with Ranger, her search-and-rescue dog.
Sean was considered the charmer of the three brothers, but
only in contrast to AJ. and Elijah. Hannah had never been
intimidated by any of them, but that didn't mean she didn't
wish they hadn't come to town tonight.
As she sipped the last of her wine, Sean seemed just now to
see her. He smiled that devastating smile she'd first
noticed back in high school Latin class, when she'd been an
eager freshman—at thirteen, a year younger than most
other freshmen—and he'd been a bored senior, a star
athlete who'd had no interest in Latin. He'd just needed a
class that fit his schedule and provided the needed credits
for him to graduate. She remembered a rainy afternoon when
she was the sole student who'd known that
Dido and
Aeneas was a Henry Purcell opera based on the tragic
love affair between the queen of Carthage and a Trojan
refugee. Proud of her answer, Hannah had heard laughter
behind her. No idea what it was about, she'd turned around
and seen Sean Cameron's smile, those blue eyes, and realized
he was laughing at
her.
She hadn't let him see how mortified she was and had
redoubled her efforts to maintain an A in class—not
that it was much of a victory when Sean was happy to squeak
by with a D. What did he care about an A in Latin? He was on
to bigger and better things.
She tipped her glass to him now and gave him a warm but
reserved smile. She wasn't thirteen anymore, and as sexy and
appealing as all the Cameron men were, she'd never had any
serious romantic interest in Sean or his brothers. She had
plans of her own, ones that wouldn't fit into the life of a
driven, blue-eyed Cameron.
Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Bowie O'Rourke
raise his beer with a callused, scarred hand. He'd first
learned his trade working after school and summers with
Hannah's father, Tobias Shay, who'd led his own troubled
life before ramming his car into a tree sixteen years ago.
She had learned not to speak of her father in Black Falls.
Who remembered him now? Who even wanted to?
"I do," Hannah whispered.
She stared at her chardonnay, wondering where the words had
come from. Why was Bowie even back in Black Falls?
Short-fused and on the verge of doing time, he had finally
figured out that he and his hometown weren't a good mix and
moved up to Burlington ten years ago. Last October, he'd
purchased his family's old place out on the river. He'd
spent the rest of the fall and the winter fixing it up and
had moved in a few weeks ago.
Hannah could see her father leading her and Bowie through
the woods above the river as they searched for old cellar
holes—the foundations of long-abandoned homes. He'd
imagine where those early Vermont settlers had ended up.
Ohio? Wisconsin? San Francisco? He'd turn to them with a
grin and ask why
his ancestors hadn't cleared out
of northern New England.
He and Bowie both had always been at their happiest, their
most controlled, in the woods.
Hannah wasn't yet fourteen when her father died. Her younger
brothers didn't remember him at all. Devin was two, Toby
just one. Nine years later, they lost their mother to an
infection from a tick bite. Hannah had navigated the legal
battles to become her brothers' legal guardian. They were
eighteen and seventeen now. They'd be out on their own
before long.
A loud male voice shouting insults from a table toward the
back of the bar drew Hannah's attention. She didn't think
the insults were directed at anyone in particular, but she
didn't intend to stick around to find out. She eased off the
stool and reached for her jacket on the floor. She slipped a
ten-dollar bill out of a pocket, tucked it under her glass
and turned to leave.
The voice grew louder.
Derek Cutshaw.
Although she couldn't make out what he was saying, Hannah
tensed as she started for the door. Derek and his friends
Robert Feehan and Brett Griffin had been in O'Rourke's when
she'd arrived. They were private ski instructors who didn't
live in Black Falls but would sometimes stop at the
café on their way to Killington, Okemo or Stratton.
They'd struck her as arrogant, but she'd never had serious
trouble with them.
She'd never seen them drunk, either.
"I see you took off your apron to sit at the bar and
booze it up." Derek chortled, obviously pleased with
himself. "Good for you, Hannah. You wouldn't want people
to think you were your mother's daughter."
She laid her jacket over one arm. So. His insults
were
directed at her. Her mother had worked at O'Rourke's,
making a living for her and her three children. Had she
endured comments—however rare—from people who
had their own prejudices and fantasies about an attractive
young widow of limited means?
Derek didn't relent. "A secondhand jacket for a
secondhand girl."
Robert laughed at his friend's awkward insult and gave him a
better gibe to try on her, but Derek shifted to bragging
about his recent female conquests. Hannah felt her face grow
hot.
Do they mean me? Out of the corner of her eye,
she saw the Camerons look over from their table. Would they
hear the insults and innuendos and
believe them?
Embarrassed and angry, she headed for the door. She didn't
care how cold it was outside, she had no intention of
spending another second listening to drunken insults.
"Hold on, there," Derek yelled. "You can't
leave. Who the hell do you think you are?"
Hannah could see him coming toward her from the back of the
bar and jumped back, dropping her jacket. She stepped on the
sleeve and slipped just as Derek got to her, swearing,
drunkenly slurring the taunts he aimed at her. She tried to
find her footing but couldn't. She went down hard, putting
out her hands to brace her fall. Pain radiated up both arms,
but she immediately got up onto her knees.
Derek and his friend Robert both stood over her now,
laughing. Derek bent down and got in her face. He was as
fair as she was and very fit, clad in ski clothes, but his
face was contorted with anger, entitlement and alcohol.
"That's a good position for you," he spat at her.
"You can tell your—"
"That's enough."
Bowie. Hannah recognized his voice. "No,
don't," she said, grabbing the edge of a table and
pulling herself back onto her feet.
Derek and Robert both spun around at Bowie. Brett Griffin
was up now, too. One of the men shoved a table into Hannah,
pinning her against the wall. Frantic, angry enough now to
throw a chair at someone, she pushed the table away from
her, striking Derek in the upper legs. He started to leap
over the table to her, but Bowie got one of Derek's arms and
twisted it behind him. Robert came at him, and Bowie stomped
him on the instep. He went down in pain.
Hannah came to her senses. "Bowie, stop." She didn't
know if he could hear her. "These bastards aren't worth
a jail sentence."
He loosened his grip on Derek, who repaid the favor by
lunging for Hannah. She reached for a chair to defend
herself, but before he could get to her, a strong male arm
clamped her around her waist. She didn't see who it belonged
to and jabbed a sharp elbow into an iron abdomen. The man
who had her didn't break his stride as he lifted her off her
feet and carried her out the door.
Kicking and clawing, Hannah was down the steps and into the
March cold before she'd caught her next breath. The man
released her, but she was so off balance from fighting him,
she almost landed butt-first in a puddle. She managed to
stay on her feet and spun around, ready to pound whoever had
just hauled her out of O'Rourke's.
"Hold on. I'm on your side." Sean Cameron licked a
split knuckle, the steady, cold drizzle already collecting
on his dark hair and obviously expensive long black coat. He
must have brought it from California with him. He certainly
hadn't bought it in Black Falls. He grinned at her. "I
never thought I'd be carting Hannah Shay out of a bar
brawl."
Anyone else, and Hannah would have pulled herself
together and marched home. But Sean? She didn't know whether
she was mortified or just really irritated that he'd been
the one to get her out of O'Rourke's. She could hear grunts
and thuds, breaking glass and swearing, as the fight went on
inside.
Police sirens sounded down the street.
She was breathing hard, the insults fresh in her mind.
It wasn't me, she wanted to scream.
That
bastard didn't mean me.
Hannah adjusted her twisted skirt. "I didn't ask for
your help."
"You're welcome," Sean said with a mock bow.
She shivered, wondering how many of the insults he'd heard
in the dark, noisy bar. She swallowed, tasting blood. She
realized she'd cut the inside of her lip. She managed a
smile. "Sorry. Thank you for your help."
AJ. and Elijah came out of the bar. Elijah handed Hannah her
jacket without comment. She slipped it on, the cold rain
already soaking into her hair. The three Camerons stood in
front of her, controlled, steady—she'd been the one
out of control.
Of course. She was a Shay.
"Go home, Hannah," AJ. said.
His wife, Lauren, was one of the nicest people in Black
Falls. She hadn't grown up there, but she was respected and
well-liked for her kindness and her love for AJ. and their
two young children. Her husband, however, wasn't known for
his patience, especially with Hannah.
The sirens were louder now. She could feel where the table
had hit her in the hip. "If the police want to talk to
me—"
Elijah stopped her midsentence. "They won't," he said.
Sean's eyes seemed black in the Vermont night. "I'll
take you home."
"No," she blurted, panicked at the idea of walking
down the street with him, or, worse yet, being in a vehicle
with him, but she calmed herself and managed a smile.
"Thank you."
A.J., Elijah and Sean paid no attention to the commotion
inside O'Rourke's. Shaking with the cold and adrenaline,
Hannah tried to make out Bowie's voice. She wanted him to
appear in the doorway and say he'd walked away from this
fight, as he hadn't so many fights in his past.
But he didn't, and she zipped up her jacket and started for
the bar entrance.
Sean touched her shoulder. "You're not going back in
there."
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