Archer and Edie were getting married in a few weeks and everyone was buzzing because Archer had picked Kit to be his best man and Edie had asked Goldie Flint, who was back from her travels, to be her maid of honor. Her cousin, Quincy Bankcroft, was allowing his home, The Dales, a historic mansion and the biggest home in the county, to be the reception site.
Bets were being exchanged at Haute Coffee and The Dirty Shame Saloon as to how long into the ceremony it would take before Kit and Goldie were dueling with pistols. The current average estimate was eight minutes and twenty-six seconds.
“Everyone! Everyone! Guys! Come quick, you have to see this.” Atticus tore from the forest edge, Sawyer and Archer tagging after him. Wilder had foregone their trip down to the falls in favor of games like “How Fast Can the Plastic Baby in the Ice Cube Melt?” “Guess the Baby Food,” and the homemade “Pin the Sperm on the Egg” that Grandma brought.
That was the only one that sent Wilder into the house for a beer.
“Are you okay, sweetheart?” Annie asked, jumping to her feet. She was going to be Edie’s matron of honor, and Quinn had been leaning on her as a big sister, gleaning everything from labor tips to must-have baby gear.
“It’s so cool.” Atticus took a puff from his inhaler. “The mystery is back.”
“Mystery?” Annie glanced to Sawyer with a quizzical expression.
“Sorry to break in on all your fun, ladies, oh, and gent.” Archer tipped his hat at Wilder. “But this is well worth a gander.”
“Gander?” Edie said, lacing her fingers with his. “Have you turned old-timer on us?”
“Nothing wrong with that,” Grandma said, hobbling forward.
“Right this way.” Wilder offered Quinn his arm.
The baby shower party walked through the forest. The sound of the falls grew louder and louder. Upstream, not far from Wilder’s hot spring, were three perfect circles of wildflowers.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Grandma said.
“Fairy rings!” Annie clapped her hands. “Just like in the old tale. I’ll have to do a story on it for the Bugle.”
Wilder frowned, puzzling over the sight. This is where he’d left the cracked corn out. Perhaps the very same night that Sea Monkey started growing inside her.
The supplemental food attracted the deer and their trampling had created circles in the snow. Now that the late-spring wildflowers were coming into bloom, they were growing thicker in the places that had been so friendly to them all winter.
He glanced at Quinn. “The deer?” she murmured, putting two and two together.
Everyone wandered, exclaiming, trying to guess how it happened.
“Looks like whoever the hermit of Castle Falls was, he also had a good heart,” Quinn said, bending down and picking a pale purple blossom. “And your mom was right all those years ago.”
“How’s that?” he asked.
“No act of kindness, however small, is ever wasted,” she said, tucking the flower into his buttonhole.
He put his arm around her shoulders and rested his head against her. The flowers waved in the light breeze and all around them good things were taking root.
Can’t wait for more of Lia Riley’s Brightwater series?
Keep reading for an excerpt from the hilarious second book in the series,
RIGHT WRONG GUY
Sometimes two wrongs can make a right. . .
BAD BOY WRANGLER, Archer Kane, lives fast and loose. Words like responsibility and commitment send him running in the opposite direction. Until a wild Vegas weekend puts him on a collision course with Eden Bankcroft-Kew, a New York heiress running away from her blackmailing fiancé . . . the morning of her wedding.
Eden has never understood the big attraction to cowboys. Give her a guy in a tailored suit any day of the week. But now all she can think about is Mr. Rugged Handsome, six-feet of sinfully sexy country charm with a pair of green eyes that keep her tossing and turning.
Archer might be the wrong guy for a woman like her, but she’s not right in thinking he’ll walk away without fighting for her heart. And maybe, just maybe, two wrongs can make a right.
Available Now from Avon Impulse!
An Excerpt from
RIGHT WRONG GUY
ARCHER KANE PLUCKED a dangly gold nipple tassel off his cheek and sat up in the king-sized bed, scrubbing his face. Overturned furniture, empty shot glasses, and champagne flutes littered the hotel room while a red thong dangled from the flat screen. He inched his fingers to grab the Stetson resting atop the tangled comforter. The trick lay in not disturbing the two women snoring on either side of him. Vegas trips were about fillies and fun—mission accomplished.
Right?
“What the?” A dove dive-bombed him, swooped to his left, and perched on the room-service cart to peck at a peanut from what appeared to be the remnants of a large hot fudge sundae. Who knew how a bird got in here, but at least the ice cream explained why his chest hair was sticky and, farther below, chocolate-covered fingerprints framed his six-pack. Looked like he had one helluva night. Too bad he couldn’t remember a damn thing. He should be high-fiving himself, but instead, he just felt dog-tired.
He emerged from beneath the covers and crawled to the bottom of the bed, head pounding like a bass drum. As he stood, the prior evening returned in splintered fragments. Blondie, on the right cuddling his empty pillow, was Crystal Balls aka the Stripping Magician. The marquee from her show advertised, “She has nothing up her sleeve.” Dark-hair on the left had been the assistant . . . Destiny? Dallas? Daisy?
Something with a D.
How in Houdini they all ended up in bed together is where the facts got fuzzy.
A feather-trimmed sequined gown was crumpled by the mini bar and an old-man ventriloquist’s dummy appeared to track his furtive movements from the corner. Archer stepped over a Jim Beam bottle and crept toward the bathroom. Next mission? A thorough shower followed by the strongest coffee on the strip.
Coffee. Yes. Soon. Plus a short stack of buttermilk pancakes, a Denver omelet, and enough bacon to require the sacrifice of a dozen hogs. Starving didn’t come close to describing the hollow feeling in his gut, like he’d run a sub-four-hour marathon, scaled Everest, and then wrestled a two-ton longhorn. His reflection stared back from the bathroom mirror, circles under his green eyes and thick morning scruff. For the last year a discontented funk had risen within him. How many times had he insisted he was too young to be tied down to a serious committed relationship, job . . . or anything? Well, at twenty-seven he might not be geriatric, but he was getting too old for this bed-hopping shit.
“What the hell are you doing?” he muttered to himself.
The facts were Mr. Brightwater wasn’t looking his best. His second cousin, Kit, gave him that nickname after he graced the cover of a “Boys of Brightwater” town calendar last year to support the local Lions Club. He’d been February and posed holding a red cardboard heart over his johnson to avoid an X rating, although as his big brother Sawyer dryly noted, “Not like most women around here haven’t already seen it.”
In fairness, Brightwater, California, didn’t host a large population. For a healthy man who liked the ladies, it didn’t take long to make the rounds at The Dirty Shame, the local watering hole. Vegas getaways meant variety, a chance to spice things up, although a threesome with Crystal and Donna—Deborah? Deena? Dazzle?—was akin to swallowing a whole habanero.
He reached into the shower and flicked on the tap as a warm furry body hopped across his foot. “Shit!” He vaulted back, nearly going ass over teakettle, before bracing himself on the counter. A bewildered white rabbit peered up, nose twitching.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” He squinted into the steam with increased suspicion. Hopefully, Crystal’s act didn’t also involve a baby crocodile or, worse, a boa constrictor. He hated snakes.