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Chapter One
Lucy Malone tossed another suitcase in a growing pile of luggage. She slung a shoulder bag toward the massive stack of leather and cloth, releasing a grunt when the last piece fell to the grassy ground.
“This is just perfect,” she grumbled, aware of the fact that no one was around to hear her complain. She glared at the large house towering over her like a black widow’s curse. “Grandfather got his final wish. I’m at the start-finish line with a lot of tracks behind me and a winding road straight ahead.”
She snarled at the plantation-style home, half expecting some sort of return gesture. With the chipped white paint and black shutters strategically placed on the upper and lower floors, the house appeared to glare back at her through various sets of dark, hollow eyes.
This must have been the devil’s joke.
At the very least, Lucy’s return to East Tennessee was her grandfather’s cunning way of getting what he wanted, and that knowledge irritated her to no end. What she’d give to dig up the old geezer and have a sit-down talk with him, the kind of conversation guaranteed to start a war of words.
When Mason Malone was teetering around among the living, the old man always found a way to manipulate those around him. Death hadn’t changed him any. He played his final hand like a great game of chess, strategizing until he took his last breath.
Lucy might as well get used to losing. In this small county, it was hard to find a winner’s circle right smack dab in the middle of no-man’s-land.
To add insult to injury, Lucy never possessed the desire to live in Church Hill, Tennessee. None. There wasn’t anything for her in Small Town, USA. Nothing.
Yet here she stood, light years away from the glitz and glamour of being the front woman for Mason Malone’s High Performance Group, a stock car auto racing conglomerate she’d owned with her grandfather and cousins until she bought them out one by one.
As a high-profile race team owner, Lucy was accustomed to stressful situations. Handling everything from publicity to mechanics, Lucy maintained a demanding career, but what she learned in the pits never prepared her for this.
Dealing with race car drivers—all of whom were on her payroll—was one thing, but facing off with cowboys she’d avoided, quite another. Most men were all the same unless they were topped off by a Stetson, wearing manure-covered boots and a cocksure attitude.
Lucy couldn’t feel too sorry for herself. She had pushed her SUV to extraordinary limits, ignoring the laws set by every state she put in her rearview mirror. Driving ninety miles an hour from Dallas, Texas, she rarely took a rest, deciding there were only three reasons to brake for traffic—coffee, chocolate, and necessary refueling.
For some reason, even with a smidgen of dread embedded in her head, she’d been in a mighty big hurry to get back to this godforsaken place. The why behind her need for racing up the interstate at a high rate of speed infuriated her on many levels.
Turning her gaze toward the McDavid land, Lucy searched the property boundaries. The grass was greener on the other side of the fence, or at least, Lucy used to think so. At the moment, the land looked like any other small-town farm.
Round bales of hay lined the center of the McDavid’s lower fields. Several horses frolicked in the distance, kicking up their heels as if they meant to show off before a spectator’s eyes, and a tractor slowly backed up to an empty wagon.
Most would consider the day a fine time for a homecoming. High above her in the whispering trees, birds chirped and sang their high-pitched songs. The sun was bright in the afternoon summer sky, and the smell of honeysuckle and lilac filled the air around her.
In that moment, Lucy reached a calming decision. Denying why she’d gotten in a rush to return was pointless. Lucy had hit I-30 East and kept one speed—wide open and as fast as she could go, driving like a madwoman who meant to arrive somewhere the day before yesterday.
Truth told, she should’ve returned home years ago. She’d realized that much when she’d felt the excitement in her pulse as she’d watched Dallas disappear in her car mirrors. Her heart found an uneven tempo from the moment she punched the pedal. Then, her breathing changed and her palms stuck to the steering wheel. They were clammy and more noticeable at every turn.
Those were the early signs of a disaster waiting to happen. Of course, being a woman and all, what did she do? She drove faster, clutched the padded wheel even tighter, and with stark determination kept her eyes focused on the road with every intention of closing the distance between Texas and Tennessee.
Spotting another overnight bag, Lucy opened the car door and grabbed a stubborn duffle from the backseat. She latched on to the stiff handles with both hands and tugged the daylights out of one final leather satchel. She gave her luggage a whirl, heard it land with a plop, and slammed the heavy automobile door, satisfied that the sound was one of finality, a defining moment to notify her of the obvious.
After years of running, she’d found her way home.
It was then when she wondered why she’d hauled around a vehicle stuffed full of insignificant material. Seventeen fancy totes of junk and her belongings had been unloaded in a matter of minutes.
Moving was simplified since she’d said good-bye to her treasured modern furnishings. Her city apartment would bring a pretty penny selling as a furnished unit full of oil paintings and fine art pieces, expensive furniture and colorful—not to mention overpriced—draperies. While she’d miss certain appointments, she didn’t need anything contemporary there. She’d inherited a house filled to the brim with priceless antiques, family treasures that had been handed down through the years.
She focused on the ten-bay garage located behind the house. A wave of sadness washed over her. Her grandfather’s dream would soon be realized, but he wouldn’t be there to see the end result.
Taking a deep breath, she placed her hands on her hips, leaned against her Jeep, and glared at the row of white fencing located between the Malone place and the McDavid land. She wondered about two hard and rugged cowboys then. And it wasn’t the first time she’d thought about Rex and Luke McDavid.
Sometimes she could close her eyes and still see them. She typically pictured Luke, the youngest McDavid brother, in his red Jeep Wrangler. When her imagination ran wild, her mind’s eye sketched him to perfection, right down to his chiseled cheeks, cut abs, and golden tan, something he maintained regardless of the time of year. Shorter than Rex, Luke sported a stocky build with thick, muscular limbs and large hands. Those were two attributes she’d always loved.
His hands had roamed over her. His arms had held her.
Jerking when she heard something in the bushes, Lucy shook her head and tried to defy the resurfacing memories while two rabbits darted across the front lawn, pausing at the edge of a small vegetable garden. They looked around as if they knew better than to hop among the rows of cucumbers, beans, and corn, but the temptation was too great.
The small creatures reached the outskirts of bunny heaven. In many ways, Lucy could relate. Remembering the bittersweet past and the history she shared with the McDavids often stirred a mixture of emotions. Some good, some bad.
The years spent there were always recalled in the same way. She first thought of better days, something special about one or both McDavid men. Then she remembered the way things ended.
Luke and Rex broke her heart. She ran away, and she would’ve kept running if her grandfather hadn’t passed away.
“Damn him for dying at the young age of ninety-one,” she muttered, defying the tears welling in her eyes and thinking of how her grandfather might respond to such an outburst. Her words would please him. After all, Mason Malone was supposed to live forever. He always planned for tomorrow and never lived for the day expecting it to be his last.
Lucy often credited her grandfather’s smothering for her departure, but the McDavid brothers were responsible. They also contributed to the list of reasons she’d decided to return. She should’ve been ashamed of herself for blaming her grandfather. Eventually, she would’ve come back anyway.
Lucy had an old score to settle, and she’d never been one to let sleeping dogs lie. Lucky for her, Mason Malone—her deceased, wealthy grandfather and business partner—gave her one hell of an excuse to come back home and wake the beasts that damn near destroyed her.
* * * *
“She just pulled in,” Luke McDavid announced, entering the kitchen. Rex kept his head under the sink. He was trying to fix the leak Luke meant to take care of weeks ago, but with water in the floor, the proof was in the mildewed linoleum. He hadn’t gotten around to it.
“She sure took her own sweet time.”
“Not really,” Luke said, squatting beside him. “I told you after the old man kicked the bucket she’d be here in a matter of days.”
“A month,” Rex blurted out. “It took her a damn month.”
“Her mother said she was overseas when Mr. Malone died.”
“Hand me those pliers,” Rex said, tossing a wrench off to the side before fiddling with an O-shaped ring. “And what would her mother know? When we saw her at the funeral, she looked just like always, high as a kite and three sheets to the wind.”
“Do you even know what you’re doing?” Luke asked, passing off the requested tool.
“No. I just like tight, damp spaces.”
