“If you really don’t mind the low hours and the work, let’s see if we can figure something out.”
JJ made a show of being overjoyed.
“Thank you. You won’t be sorry.”
Cassandra pulled her résumé across the counter and then motioned JJ to follow her down the hall to the back. She only paused when the bell over the front door rang, and a teenaged girl called a hello.
“That’s our other part-timer,” she explained to JJ when they were settled in the manager’s office. “Even though her daddy can be overprotective sometimes, she’s a hoot to have around. I’m sure you’ll end up having a good time when she’s on shift.”
JJ said she was looking forward to that and then they got down to the business side of hiring someone new. When that was done, Cassandra went on a little about some of the regular customers and commented carefully on a few more.
She didn’t know it, but JJ was hanging on her every word as she did so.
Then, when a name she was hoping would be said never came, her attention went back to casual.
It made lying easier when the number one question she had been asked since moving to town came.
“So, Miss Shaw, what brought you to Seven Roads?”
JJ smiled once more.
“My dad stayed here for business years ago and I liked the idea of the slower pace when I was trying to figure out where to go next. Also, I think we all hit that urge sometimes for a change. I’ve just been lucky enough to be able to find a way to make it happen.”
Cassandra accepted the answer with a solemn nod.
“I’ve been there before, for sure,” she said. “Sometimes you need space from the bad to realize all of the good still out there.”
It was JJ’s turn to nod.
Though she felt the strain in her smile.
She couldn’t say it—wouldn’t say it—but the life JJ had been living before was the good. It was stressful at times, sure, and there were secrets she couldn’t touch, but it had been nice and fun and safe.
Now she was JJ Shaw.
She had left that good and jumped right into a past filled with bad.
There was no normal life left for her now that she was in Seven Roads.
She was only there to do one thing and one thing only.
JJ was there to keep a secret, and no one was going to stop her from doing that.
CHAPTER ONE
Perry Price Collins already wasn’t having the best of days, way before he took the punch to the jaw.
First, as in as soon as he rolled off the couch, his cell phone was buzzing with the sheriff’s caller ID.
“I can’t promise this in writing, and it definitely won’t hold up in court, but I’ll pay you everything in my bank account if you could do me a favor.” Instead of Liam Weaver, current sheriff of Seven Roads, his wife, Blake, was on the other end of the line, laughing into her own words. But Price could hear she surely wanted the favor.
He rubbed his eyes, grimaced at the slight hangover already beating at his skull and nodded to his empty room.
“You know, I was just out with your husband a few hours ago. Can’t this favor take pity on me and wait until later?”
Blake laughed. Or, really, more like cackled. Since marrying the sheriff, she had become more comfortable with teasing him. And especially when he looped in a poor, unsuspecting Price for a “quick drink.” That quick drink was now muddy boots in the living room, a bar tab that he couldn’t exactly remember and a hangover that he couldn’t ignore if he wanted to.
“If you want sympathy, let me remind you who came and picked you two fools up last night. And who fought with some guy for a solid five minutes because he was sure as sure that his keys were back at the bar when they were in fact in hishand.”
