Unexpected Bliss

Nights in Bliss, Book 13

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About the book

Elisa Leal is looking for some joy in her life. Years of tragedy and struggle took their toll, and now she is searching for new connections to raise her spirits. When she discovers proof that her biological father is alive, she decides to find him and make contact. Her quest leads her to the small town of Bliss, Colorado, and the strangest man she’s ever met—Mel Hughes. He believes in aliens and sasquatch conspiracies, but he’s also kind of awesome. And there might be even more in Bliss to make her smile.

Sylvan Dean and Hale Galloway have enjoyed wandering their way through life, always in motion. Always searching for the woman who could make their life complete. Living in Bliss made them realize it’s time to settle down. Van’s finally going to college and has a job lined up with his brother when he finishes. That job is in Dallas, and while Hale is happy for Van, he can’t imagine leaving Bliss behind. It feels like everything is coming apart until they meet Elisa. She’s the one they have been searching for, and she is worth the wait.

The future looks bright until the guys’ past comes back to haunt them. Danger lurks in every corner, but it may not be the biggest threat to their happily ever after. The citizens of Bliss know how to handle a killer, but handling Elisa, Van, and Hale might require some cosmic intervention.

Excerpt

Chapter One

Hale Galloway tapped on the door to the Movie Motel’s room number seven and hoped it was his lucky number and whatever was behind that door would be super easy to fix so he could still make it to Alamosa. The faucets he’d ordered had come in and he was eager to get to work on the bathroom. Not his, of course. His client’s. Any bathroom he actually owned would be shared with his best friend, who would have zero interest in claw-foot tubs and antique brass handles. He loved the guy, but Van had the taste of a kid who’d grown up in a glorified camper. Which—in his defense—he had.

And it wasn’t like Hale was really interested in how luxurious that bathroom was going to be when he was done with it. The client being happy with how it turned out and the fact that he might make enough to put a down payment on a cabin of his own was all that mattered.

Their own.

At least he thought maybe they would get a cabin up here. Sometimes Van mentioned going back to Dallas but when Hale tried to talk to him about it, he changed the subject. It was typical Van behavior. Something got serious and he turned his attention back to whatever TV show/pop culture thing he was currently interested in.

Van was starting to get that look in his eyes, the one that let Hale know he was getting restless. When Van got restless, he inevitably ended up finding some new cool place for them to go visit.

Hale kind of thought Bliss might be the be-all, end-all of cool.

He could think here. He could be here in a way he hadn’t when they’d been living in Dallas all those months.

Was he going to have to choose between the only family he had and staying in the only place that had ever brought him any peace?

“I’ll be right there,” a feminine voice said. It was on the deeper side, a little throaty and sexy.

Not that the sexy part mattered. He was here to work and fix this lady’s shower, and that was all. The last thing she needed was the handyman hitting on her. Also, what the hell was up with his libido that he was contemplating how sexy this woman would be from her voice? He wasn’t that guy. He didn’t view women as sex objects. So why was he so damn interested in whoever was going to answer that door? Especially since she was a tourist, which meant she was likely here with a husband and kids or a boyfriend she was taking to the Winter Festival.

Still, he found himself straightening his coat as the door opened.

Damn that voice matched the magnificent Amazon of a woman who stood there in nothing but a thin robe, her short hair plastered to her face. She wore no makeup, but there was a glow about her. He stood there for a moment, staring. Like a dumbass.

A brow rose over her eyes. “Are you here to fix my shower or to serially murder me? I’ll give you a moment to decide.”

And she was sarcastic. He loved the funny ones. He held up his tool kit. “Shower.”

She nodded. “A man of few words. I like it. Well, come on in. I suspect you can find the shower in my palatial estate.” She stepped back and allowed him to enter the room. Her teeth chattered slightly as she closed the door behind him. “I’m not sure what happened. The showerhead came apart and water went everywhere. I turned it off as fast as I could. I’ve still got shampoo in my hair. Not that there’s a lot of it. The sink’s too small to rinse it out in. I only called this in a couple of minutes ago. Do you live on site?”

He moved toward the bathroom because she needed him to work quickly. “Nah, this is kind of a side gig. Gene used to do this work himself but since he found out I can pretty much fix anything, he calls me in when he can. I happened to be dropping something off at the front desk when you called. It’s how I got here so fast.”

And hopefully he would fix the shower and leave just as fast. Get to Alamosa so he could spend the evening installing fixtures.

Or he could go to the party that was happening out at the fairgrounds. He’d seen a bunch of the locals out decorating the big gym at the townhall. It was new, he’d been told. The construction had been finished a few weeks before he and Van had moved here. He’d overheard a group talking about how nice it would be to have a warm place for the Winter Festival gathering. The annual festival featured skiing and snowboarding competitions, tons of crafts, and food and activities for the kids.

He was pretty sure there would be some kind of protest by the Flanders’ family, but he hadn’t figured them out yet. He hadn’t figured out much yet, and that was refreshing. Most of the time people were easy to figure out or they were easy to ignore. Not so in Bliss.

He rather thought that was why Jake had offered to send them up here while Van was in school. There had been lots of choices in Dallas, but Jake had included Adams State University. It was close to Bliss and the lodge they’d both originally worked at.

“Well, I appreciate it.” She picked up a towel she’d draped over her neatly made bed and ran it over her hair. “I’m afraid I’m new in town, and my first day here has not been a great success.”

He moved into the tiny bathroom. Normally he didn’t like to make small-talk. He wasn’t good at it. But she was awfully pretty. She was only an inch or two shorter than he was, with curly dark hair that barely brushed the tops of her ears. That hair framed a face with high cheekbones and brown eyes. It was her lips that really got to him. They were full and dusky pink. He forced himself to focus on the task ahead of him. The pull he felt was odd and disconcerting.

He was a man who could focus on a task. Sometimes way too much. He could tune out the world in a way that some people found annoying. It was one of the things he liked about this town. When he missed social cues, the folks around here simply shrugged and tried again or moved on without judgment. He’d already heard someone saying that was “just Hale.” He liked being “just Hale.”

This woman was distracting him, and he wasn’t used to being distracted.

He needed to focus on the shower. He wasn’t going to take the bait because it would lead to nothing but him making an idiot of himself. Van was the smooth one. When they had a woman with them, she was almost always into Van and put up with him because…well, he could focus on a task, and that included sex.

The sex had gotten hollow. He wanted to connect with someone, but it wouldn’t be this gorgeous goddess of a woman.

So he moved to the bathroom and picked up the showerhead. She’d placed it on the sink with her neatly put-together makeup bag and a familiar-looking medication bottle. Prescription from a national chain. It was facing out, and he immediately recognized the name of the drug. Tamoxifen.

His heart constricted. His aunt had used that medication for years after her first round of breast cancer.

“Why would you say it’s been unsuccessful?”

Damn. He hadn’t meant to ask the question. He was supposed to be disengaging. Maybe she hadn’t heard him. Maybe she was ignoring him because he was the weirdo handyman. He opened his tool kit and pulled out a Phillips-head screwdriver.

She stood in the doorway, but she’d wrapped a heavy sweater around her robe. “Well, I’m here to get in touch with a long-lost relative, but when I went out to his last known address, there was no one there. I asked a neighbor and they told me they’d never heard of him. Said the lady who used to live there was in Dallas with her sons.”

This was going to be a short job. It looked like someone had played around with the showerhead and left it loose. At some point one of the screws had come off and likely gotten cleaned up by the housekeeper. Over time and use, the showerhead had worked its way off and bent the second screw that held it on. “Who are you looking for? We have a surprising amount of connections to Dallas. My partner’s family is from that area.”

“Oh,” she said with an odd sigh. It sounded almost disappointed. Maybe she didn’t like Texas. “Uhm, I’m looking for Luthor Hughes. He used to be in the military. He was an SFC.”

He’d never studied military stuff. He was more interested in construction. “I’m not sure what that is, but I don’t know a Luthor. I know there’s a Hughes here, but he was definitely not military. He’s on the kooky side but nice enough.”

“Oh, sorry. I still haven’t quite left military life behind. Luthor Hughes was a sergeant first class,” she explained. “He worked with my mom in intelligence.”

Hale snorted. “Then it’s definitely not the same guy. I can’t imagine this guy being in the military. Nice enough, but do not get him talking about aliens.”

“Aliens?”

“Yeah, like little green men, although he will tell you that is a myth put out by the aliens themselves,” he explained as he located the right screws. “The green part. According to him they’re more gray.”

“Huh. Well, I guess Hughes is a pretty common name,” she allowed. “Maybe this was all a big bust.”

That was a good place to leave it. He would be done in ten minutes flat and he would be on his way and she on hers. “Where did you come from?”

Who the fuck was this chatty guy?

“North Carolina. I’ve lived there since I was a kid,” she admitted. “My mom was in the Army and when the time came, I went in, too. So I’ve kind of lived a lot of places, but I always came back to Jacksonville, North Carolina.”

“You’re a soldier? I thought the haircut was from breast cancer.” Fuck him. Yep. He was just being Hale, and Hale was an idiot who couldn’t help what came out of his mouth, and he didn’t have Van to smooth things over. He faced her, and his gut tightened because her eyes had gone wide and there was a flush to her skin. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I noticed the meds. My aunt took them for years.”

“The hormone blocker.” She nodded. “Yeah, I started on them after my radiation course was over. That was after the chemo, which was after the surgery. The last year of my life has pretty much been all about cancer. Is your aunt okay?”

“She died when I was fourteen,” he admitted. “Despite all the meds, it had metastasized to her bones by the time they found it.”

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly, her gaze softening. “I’ve been told I’m lucky. I had an aggressive cancer but they caught it early. They threw everything they could at it and now we hope it doesn’t come back. As for the hair, I did lose it via chemo. It used to be super straight. It’s coming back curly.”

He couldn’t help but smile. “Chemo curls. Same thing happened to my aunt. She actually loved it.”

She reached up and touched the dark curls. “I’m getting used to it. My name is Elisa, by the way.”

“Hale,” he replied and remembered his manners—which were so easy for him to forget. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“So how long have you and your partner been together?” She seemed to relax all of the sudden, the sadness he’d seen replaced with ease. “Can I help you with that?”

It would be easier with another set of hands. The showerhead was big and bulky. “Can you hold this on while I screw it back in?”

Her lips curled up. “Sure.”

“And we’ve been together since we were kids,” he said, enjoying how comfortable he felt being around her. Something in the way she held herself made him relax, made him want to pay attention to her instead of the work he was doing. “I met him when we were eighteen. I’d recently aged out of foster care and I was living in a camper with four other kids who’d gotten the boot.”

“You lived in a camper?”

“Yeah, but not one that was attached to anything.” He started on the first screw and realized he would be done in five minutes flat and he didn’t want to be. “We rented a campsite but the one car we had among us would never have actually moved that sucker. It was nothing more than a place to sleep. Anyway, I met him when his family was coming through. They stayed at the campsite a couple of weeks because his dad was doing some seasonal work and the company paid for the site. He worked, too. He’d been saving money, and we got to be friends. When the job wound up, between the two of us we had enough for a used truck, and we were kind of nomads for a long time.”

“That’s funny because when you think about it, being military is kind of nomadic in a way,” she mused. “I say I’ve always lived in North Carolina, but that was just a base even when I was young. The house had been in my family for over fifty years, but my mom would rent it out when she was on assignment, and we went with her. My sister and I, that is. Just the three of us. I’ve been all over the world and yet I don’t feel like I saw much of it. I was either in school and my mom was working too hard to take us anywhere, or I was working and I was too serious to have any fun.”

“I had way too much fun,” he admitted. Way too much, though he was playing fast and loose with the word fun. They’d had wild times. He wasn’t sure he enjoyed being wild. He liked it better here than those communes and youth hostels they would stay in when they were younger. Even when they’d gotten an apartment for six months here or a year there, no place had felt like home until he’d walked into this town.

The months they’d spent with Van’s brother had done what he thought Jake had meant them to. They’d shown him how nice it was to have a stable family and friends who they could count on. He’d enjoyed being around the kids. They tended to be open and honest and told him when he was being a weirdo. He appreciated honest feedback.

He kind of wanted a couple. He wasn’t sure he would be a natural paternal figure, but he could learn. He could study and find his way through, and Van would be there if he fumbled.

Except he’d started to wonder if Van would be there. He was starting to wonder if Van was planning on going back to Dallas and leaving him behind. He might have outgrown the need to have his best friend at his side. Hale wasn’t sure he had and had no idea how to deal with it. He also didn’t know how to broach the subject without sounding like a whiny man baby.

She moved in, bringing her hand up to hold the head in place. Yes, that was much easier than trying to hold it on and shift the screws around. They were tricky. An extra set of hands helped.

But then he’d discovered that early in life.

“I wouldn’t say my years in the military were fun,” she said, her eyes on the showerhead as she watched him. “But they were rewarding.”

“My partner’s brother is ex-military. So are a lot of his friends. They’re good people.” He locked in the first screw and moved to the next, shifting his body slightly. His hip brushed hers. “Sorry.”

She glanced up at him, a grin on her face. “I think it’s okay. Close quarters and all. And yes, lots of great folks in the military. Though I think most of the people who worked with me would say I was not a fun person.”

“Are soldiers supposed to be fun?”

She chuckled. “I assure you fun can be had, but probably not if you worked under me. I was very serious.”

“And you’re not now?”

She seemed to think about that for a moment. “I don’t know. I’m trying. Not to be less serious but to find more joy. That’s what my therapist says. I need to be more open to joy. It turns out it is possible to fear happiness.”

He’d never heard it put that way before. He stopped and stared at her for a moment. “Why would you fear happiness?”

“Because I don’t understand it. Because it’s not my default state. I think I distrust the emotion,” she explained.

“Huh. I need to think about that. That’s kind of deep.”

“You think so? It seemed pretty apparent to me once I thought about it. I have now spent almost eight months in therapy, and if I’ve learned anything at all, it’s that fear is pretty much at the heart of everything that drags us down as human beings.”

“I thought it was anger. For me, that is.”

“See, anger is how some people process fear. Most people, really. Not like normal irritations,” she continued. “Like if I’m mad at the dude who cut me off, that’s irritation. Anger, though, is different. It’s funny how much easier it was to deal with life once I started using the proper names for things.”

“So you think that the low level of rage I walk around with all the time is actually fear.” He finished off the final screw.

And she stepped back, a bit of trepidation in her eyes now. “Well, I’m not a therapist myself. I’m sure you know your own feelings.”

He softened his expression because even he could see she was anxious now. She’d likely tried this new information out on people—men, mostly—who got offended with simple truths. He knew some men who got their backs up the minute anyone said they could possibly have ever felt fear. “Not at all. You’ve kind of blown my mind, and I need to think about what you’ve said. It makes sense. Now let’s see if we can get you back in the shower and maybe the day will turn around.”

“Thanks.” That momentary wariness was gone again.

He turned on the shower and the head held. “You’re all set. I’ll let you get back to your day.”

“Thank you. Uhm, I’ll be around for a couple of days. Maybe a week,” she said. “If you want to talk more. Maybe have dinner. With your partner, of course.”

When the hell was the last time a woman had asked him out? He couldn’t remember. Maybe never. Especially one as gorgeous and glowy as this one. He liked her. Sure, he was attracted to her, but he could ignore physical attraction. He was attracted to her in a way he might never have felt before. Something about this woman pulled him in. And she had asked him out. Him. She obviously hadn’t figured out he was a complete weirdo, and he might be able to hide it for at least a couple of days. “Yeah. I’d like that a lot. There’s a place called Trio.”

Her eyes had lit up. “Yes, I saw it earlier.”

He was going to be bold. He was never bold. “Seven o’clock tonight sound good?”

“Yes. That sounds perfect. I’ll meet you there,” she said with a smile. “And my hair will be shampoo free thanks to you.”

He kind of liked her any way she came, but he thought saying that might scare her off. Damn. He could learn. Max Harper had started trying to teach him how to blend into what he called the “boring world,” and some of his tutoring included punching his arm when he said stuff that was “too intense.” It might be working. He suddenly remembered she’d come here for a reason. “Oh, and if you want to ask about your relative, there’s a festival going on in town. Everyone knows everyone else here. You can ask around.”

“That won’t be seen as rude?” she asked.

He chuckled. “As long as you ask politely no one will mind. This place is different. I know a lot of places say that, but it’s true here in Bliss. The people are great. But if someone tries to get you to take the beet, you should probably run. Cassidy thinks she can cut the dirt taste out with rotgut whiskey. Then it tastes like dirt and potential death. I don’t care. The aliens can take me. Oh, and don’t worry about the murder rate. It’s overblown.”

“What?”

He walked out feeling something he was sure he hadn’t felt in a long time.

He was looking forward to the day.

* * * *

Sylvan Dean looked over the fairgrounds and wondered at the vague panic he felt.

He liked Bliss. He felt…right…here. But he was going to graduate in a few months and then he was supposed to go back to Dallas and work for his brother. It was the deal they’d cut. Jake would pay for his college and he and Hale would handle living expenses, and at the end he would come out of it with a business degree in marketing and a job at his brother’s company.

It was a sweet deal, and he genuinely loved his oldest brother, but he wasn’t sure if he left that Hale would come with him.

He shook off the feeling because it wasn’t something he needed to deal with now. He had lots of time. He wouldn’t graduate for months and months. Live in the moment. That was his motto.

So planning for the future was weird for him, and yet it seemed like the future was all around him. There were kids running all over the place, giggling and bringing their energy to the world. The amount of throuples was somewhat shocking.

He counted three in his line of sight alone.

Max, Rye, and Rachel Harper were playing in the snow with their kids. Well, Max was being used as a jungle gym by their two kids, and Rye and Rachel were looking on indulgently.

Cameron Briggs was standing with the wife he shared with Rafael Kincaid. Laura Niles handed Cam a hot cup of coffee while Rafe held their daughter, Sierra, in his arms and let her look up at the big brightly colored Christmas tree. The girl was three and stared up with wide eyes at all the pretty ornaments.

The third trio included his boss who owned and ran the appropriately named Trio. Zane Hollister operated the small-town pub with his wife Callie, while Nate Wright ran the sheriff’s office. Both Nate and Zane had a toddler boy in their arms. Their twin sons. They had names, but Van wasn’t sure what they were. There were a lot of kids and they all had names.

The funny thing was Hale would remember. Hale was good at stuff like that.

“Hey, can I get a coffee?” Henry Flanders walked up to the booth Zane ran every festival to represent his pub. The booth contained a pared-down bar that served some of Trio’s most popular winter drinks and treats.

Van felt his eyes narrow because coffee was served everywhere and for way cheaper. “Coffee isn’t on the menu. I can serve you a virgin Irish coffee.”

“Which is just coffee,” Henry pointed out.

“A coffee that costs as much as an Irish coffee,” Van countered.

Henry frowned. “You know I can get a coffee over at Stella’s booth.”

“And I can get fired for passing out Zane’s precious coffee for nothing. It’s a special blend he swears mixes with the whiskey and makes some kind of magic.” He knew his boss. Zane was cool, but he had his rules and very specific ideas about how to make a drink at Trio.

“I seriously doubt Zane will fire you,” Henry replied.

“And I doubt all you want is a cup of coffee.” If there was one thing he’d learned over the course of his months in Bliss it was that Henry Flanders never ordered a cup of coffee without asking about how that fucker had been sourced. If Henry was willing to risk imbibing a non-sustainably sourced cup of joe, he was hunting far bigger game.

Henry was a blandly attractive man in his forties who—if rumors were true—used to be a spy. According to Jake, this guy—who wore Birkenstocks with socks sometimes—had trained Jake’s boss, who was the single scariest man in the world. “All right. I was hoping to get you to talk to Hale for me.”

Yep. There it was. This was about Hale’s new job. “Why when you can talk to him yourself?”

“Hale is surprisingly good at avoiding me,” Henry said with a huff. “And ignoring me. He can ignore Nell. Even when she’s chanting.”

That was his best friend. Hale was a stoic grump who could sleep with his eyes open through almost anything. Nothing fazed Hale when he decided not to let it. Van had met actual Tibetan monks who couldn’t meditate the way Hale could when he didn’t want to listen to someone. Of course Hale wouldn’t call it meditation. He called it blanking out his brain.

Which was meditation, but Van wasn’t going to argue with a master of the craft.

“I’m sure he’s not avoiding you.” Hale was totally avoiding the Flanders family. Even their baby seemed slightly judgmental. He’d seen the kid get a look when he missed the recycling bin. “He’s been busy.”

“Yes. That’s what I want to talk to him about. I need to talk to him about some of the plans he has for the renovation of the old Jones homestead.”

“You mean the cabin Ian Taggart bought.” He did not understand why a relatively small three-bedroom cabin would be considered a homestead. It apparently was also considered some kind of landmark. “The one you should have told him was haunted.”

Henry’s eyes rolled ever so slightly. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

Van didn’t think he was being ridiculous. “Sometimes at night I swear I can hear the sound of something creaking. Like a swing or something. And there are moans.”

Henry coughed suddenly, putting his hand to cover his mouth. “I’m sure it’s nothing more than normal settling. Look, haunted or not, I’m worried about Ian’s construction material choices. I understand the security upgrades on the doors and windows. Given Ian’s business, it’s for the best. But the interior is a completely different thing. I think Hale should gently guide him toward more earth-friendly materials. Ian’s a friend of mine. I was his mentor.”

“Did you teach him how to look at a man in a way that makes the man feel like he’s the dumbest dumbass in the history of time?” Because the man his brother called Big Tag was good at that. Van was fairly certain the man didn’t know his name since he constantly called him “Dean’s Little Brother who can’t even make a lemon tart.”

The man liked lemon tarts. He liked lemon everything except the one thing Van could make. When he’d offered the dude a lemon drop martini, Taggart had stared at him like he was an idiot and went back to drinking his super-old Scotch.

“Oh, I think he was born with that ability,” Henry affirmed. “But he wasn’t born with the willingness to erase his carbon footprint. I heard a rumor that Hale was planning to expand the main bedroom’s bathroom and install a shower with multiple heads.”

It appeared Henry was still good at gathering intelligence. “Yes, apparently Mr. Taggart wants to get hit from all sides with super-hot water. He also said something about wanting to be able to basically hose down his kids with it.”

“Has Ian considered a low-flow single showerhead?” Henry asked.

Henry was getting that “I’m going to lecture you” look on his face. Also, he’d seen those kids. He wasn’t sure anything low flow could get those kids clean. “This feels like a you and Big Tag talk. I think Hale’s just trying to do his job. This is a big job for him. It’s pretty much what he’s always wanted to do. He gets to renovate a whole house. With what they’re paying him, he can buy something else and reno that, too.”

Henry’s jaw dropped. “He’s planning to do this all over the valley?”

Oh, he’d stepped in it and likely gotten his best friend in serious trouble. “I did not say that.”

“This is worse than I thought.” Henry backed up. “Let Hale know we should talk.”

He watched Henry practically run away. He didn’t want to tell Hale anything. Hale was living his dream of renovating a house that might or might not be haunted. Sometimes Van could see the HGTV show playing out in his head. Hale’s Haunted Reno. It could include a whole episode where Van used the skills he’d learned at the commune in Vermont to sage the space. He’d also learned how to make cider and braid friendship bracelets, but it looked like freeing trapped spirits would be the one that stuck.

“Did Henry find out the coffee beans aren’t organic?” Sheriff Wright stepped up to the booth.

Normally having law enforcement approach him kind of made Van nervous. Nate Wright was different. Policing in Bliss felt different because the cops knew everyone. They lived in Bliss and raised their families here. He was comfortable with Nate Wright. “No. He’s upset about the new…old Jones homestead.”

The sheriff visibly relaxed. “Good. Listen, I do have something I wanted to talk to you about.”

Damn. Had the sheriff figured out he had a record? Was he about to get the whole “we don’t want your kind around town” talk? Was he going to get fired? He shouldn’t have left the lodge. The boss there knew about his record and didn’t care. “Yeah.”

A quizzical expression came over Nate’s face. “You okay?”

“Am I about to get fired?”

“Why would I fire…” Nate sighed. “You think Zane would send me to fire you? He would do that himself. What have you done that you would be fired for?”

Now he was really in it. He shrugged and got busy cleaning the counter. “Nothing. Just joking.”

Nate stared at him for a moment. “You know I know about the arrests, right? We all know.”

Van felt himself flush. “I can explain.”

“No explanations needed. Van, if we ran everyone out of town who had a record, there would be no one in town,” Nate explained. “Alexei alone can fill a book, though I think Max has him on sheer number of arrests. Most of those are misdemeanors, and I think he gets arrested to get out of shit Rachel wants him to do. Hope came to Bliss because she thought she murdered her husband. It’s okay. We taught her how to make sure the fucker’s dead next time. She teaches a class at the community center. My office manager got arrested for assaulting a fellow lawyer and stealing her hair. It’s why I keep mine short. Hell, Trev McNamara’s rap sheet is available on the Internet. No one cares that you got into a couple of bar fights. If you need to get into another one, do it at Hell on Wheels. Now, I wanted to talk to you about a break-in at the cabin on Old Timber Road.”

He breathed a little easier. He should have known Zane would run a background check on him.

“The one Hale fixed up?” It had been a quick job, not like the months they would spend at the Taggart cabin. It had been the first time they’d moved into the place Hale was renovating. They’d been there for a month, and then moved into the Taggart place and would likely be living there until mid-spring. Van was looking forward to trying that mega shower.

“Yes. The owners are using it as a short-term rental,” Nate explained. “Yesterday, the caretaker they’ve hired walked in and found someone had trashed the place.”

Okay. The sheriff had said he was cool with his record, but here he was wanting an alibi. “We haven’t been out there in weeks. We left and didn’t go back once the job was done.”

“You are so touchy,” Nate said with a shake of his head. “I don’t think you did it, Sylvan. I found something that makes me worry. Who knew you were living there?”

“You found something?”

“A note. It was yours and Hale’s names written on a page from a notepad along with directions to the cabin. The notepad was from the lodge,” Nate said.

Shit. He searched his memory, trying to find a name or face and finding way too many. “If someone was looking to beat the crap out of one of us, it was almost surely me, Sheriff. Hale’s never been in trouble. He barely talks to people. There might be a couple of exes who are upset with him, but that’s mostly because he has no idea how to break it off with a woman. He’s supremely bad at it. Honestly, he’s pretty bad at getting together with them, too. I’m more likely to start a relationship.”

“So if it’s a woman, she’s pissed at you. If it’s a guy, he’s pissed at you.”

Well, that pretty much summed it up. “Yeah, probably. If someone’s mad, it’s usually at me.”

“Because Hale’s a saint?”

Van wouldn’t put it that way, but the sheriff had a point. “He doesn’t piss people off the way I do.”

“You know you can do therapy online now,” the sheriff offered. “Or there’s a therapist in Alamosa.”

The sheriff was kind of an asshole. “Is there anything I can get you, Sheriff?”

Nate sighed and straightened his Stetson. “Let me know if you think of anything. I’m going to send Cam out to the lodge to find out if anyone’s been asking about you. I suspect some people up there knew where you were staying.”

He’d made a couple of friends while working at the ski lodge as a bartender. “Yes, and I left that cabin as my forwarding address. I probably should have gotten a PO box, but I don’t get a lot of mail. I’ll let the lodge know to forward everything to my brother’s place in Dallas. I don’t know where we’ll be this time next year.”

Nate looked surprised. “I thought Hale was looking for a cabin. I saw him talking to Marie the other day and she had her realtor face on.”

Marie Warner was Bliss’s all around everything. She and her wife, Teeny, ran the all-purpose store called the Trading Post. It sold everything from groceries to sporting goods. They also ran a tea shop, a bookstore, and when property got sold in the area, Marie handled that, too. “Hale is looking for a project after he finishes with the ones he has lined up. That’s all. He wants to try his hand at potentially flipping a cabin. Hopefully one that’s not haunted.”

Nate grimaced. “He should be careful then. Lots of murder around here. Well, I hope you two stay for a while. And when you get tired of bartending, there’s a deputy spot open. A couple, really, since Cam wants to go part time.”

Nate turned.

There was no way he was going to be a deputy. “Did you forget about the whole rap sheet thing?”

Nate didn’t look back, simply held up a hand. “Nope. Just don’t care.”

He watched the sheriff walk away. He would not be a good deputy. Not in any way. But he had started thinking about what he could do here in Bliss if they stayed.

The idea of letting his brother down gnawed at him. He’d promised Jake he would come back.

All of his life he’d truly only had Hale and Jake to count on, and he felt like he was going to have to choose between them at some point.

“Hey,” a voice whispered from behind him.

He turned but no one was there. Shit. Could a booth that moved around be haunted? “Uh, hello?”

“Keep it quiet, son. You never know who’s listening.”

“Yeah, well, right now I don’t know who’s talking, and it’s kind of freaking me out.”

The door at the back of the booth slid open slightly, and he was facing an older man in a trucker hat. Mel Hughes was a slender man in his sixties. He’d recently adopted a big dog with floppy ears and the look of a hunting breed. He claimed the dog could detect alien beings, and Van had been glad when the dog merely accepted him because he wasn’t sure he wanted to know what happened when an alien was detected.

“It’s only me and Ripley,” Mel said with a nod to his hound. “Something’s happening and I need you to back me up. Someone from the government is going to come and ask you about me.”

“They are?”

“They are.” Mel’s tone was low and grave. “Sent out a woman this time, but I can tell she’s military. Even looks a bit like someone I knew back in the day, so she could be an alien taking another form. You should tell her you don’t know me. Never heard of me.”

He barely knew the man, was the tiniest bit scared of him because while everyone told him Mel was a sweetheart, he also seemed like a dude who knew how to handle various weapons and maybe shouldn’t have any weapons at all. “Will do.”

Mel nodded and slipped back away, Ripley wagging her tail behind him.

He probably wouldn’t get this weirdness when he was working at the business offices of DMW…WDM…it was a lot of initials. His brother’s company was a whole bunch of initials, and he would never get that right and how could he work a nine to five and…

Oh. Well, that was a gorgeous woman. Damn. She was pretty and he’d never seen her before, so she was likely here for the festival.

She had a phone to her ear but she smiled as she slid it back into her pocket. She looked adorable in a puffy jacket, dark curls peeking out of the knit cap on her head. She looked around, pausing at the smaller tree that stood near the big Christmas tree the town put up each year. In addition to the tree, there was also a display of all the other holidays to be celebrated at this time of year. The lovely symbols for Hanukkah, Mawlid al-Nabi, Rohatsu, and the winter solstice weren’t what the pretty lady was staring at. Nope. It was the smallish tree decorated in carved beets she was examining.

Yeah, that would likely require some explanation. Maybe an explanation he could make over dinner.

She turned his way and seemed to make a decision.

He stood up straighter because she was making a beeline for him.

She gave him a bright smile as she looked over the menu. “Could I get the boozy hot chocolate?”

“Absolutely.” He smiled back, hoping he could still find some charm. He had that. He’d lived off his charm for years. “How are you doing today?”

“I’m good. Are you from around here? I’m looking for a man named Mel Hughes. Do you know him?” she asked.

Oh, here was the crossroads. She was the military person looking for Mel? He could follow Bliss law that stated plainly “thou shalt not allow the government in”…or he could go with his dick.

“Sure do.”

Yeah, he was going to get kicked out, but when she smiled, he thought it might be worth it.

Copyright 2023 Lexi Blake