Starting with June. Emilie Rose

it was for Roth to ask for a favor. “How many on your force?”

      Not that he was considering it.

      “Five, including me.”

      Nope, not even thinking about it. Stagnating in a backwater swamp wasn’t anywhere on his bucket list. He’d lived in North Carolina during one of his dad’s stints at Lejeune. He hadn’t hated it. But he hadn’t seen any reason to return either.

      “How many do you suspect?”

      “All four until proven otherwise.”

      Not good. “You don’t have anyone you can trust with your six?”

      “No. I’m telling you, Sam, this small-town department isn’t run like any operation either of us has ever seen. There’s no black-and-white. It’s all shades of gray, and the corruption went on for a long time. What I have to figure out is where a favor for a friend or looking the other way crosses the line into illegal activity and how many of my officers are doing it.”

      Sam stalled by wrapping his lips around the bottle and letting the cold beer roll down his throat. He had that itch between his shoulder blades—the one that told him he was in somebody else’s crosshairs. Time to seek cover.

      But how could he refuse Roth’s request? Roth never asked for anything. Not only did Sam owe him, Sam had nothing better—nothing, period—to do. He sure as hell wasn’t going home to his family. Not that his dad, a recently retired Marine, wouldn’t try to be supportive. But his mother and sisters would smother him.

      Short of going to ground, did he have a choice? Maybe he could hang in Quincey until he healed enough to approach the corps again. “It’ll take ’em a few weeks to process my paperwork.”

      “I can wait.”

      He had to be crazy. “Shoot me whatever you have on your deputies.”

      “No. I want your unbiased first impressions—they’re always damned accurate.”

      Flying in blind. But as Roth had said, the assignment would keep Sam occupied while he healed and plotted his next step. Working with Roth again might be fun.

      How bad could it be?

      “I’ll see you ASAP.”

      * * *

      TO ALLEVIATE THE scorching heat, June Jones spritzed herself with the water bottle and kicked her feet in the four-foot-diameter plastic wading pool she’d bought for her nieces and nephews. She had three days of vacation with nothing to do but work on her tan and wait for the new tenant to arrive.

      Idleness was not her thing, and vacations...well, she rarely took them. Someone else always needed the time off more than she did, and she loved her job. Why leave it? Labor Day weekend was just one of fifty-two in the year for a single woman whose friends had recently paired up with their Mr. Rights. The unofficial end of summer didn’t mean family trips to the beach or mountains for her—unless one of her siblings needed an on-site babysitter. Labor Day meant the opportunity to earn some overtime.

      But not this year. Even though she’d volunteered to cover the holiday shifts, her new boss, who happened to be the husband of one of her two besties, had ordered her to stay away from the office.

      She squinted at her watch. Approaching one o’clock on her first day off and she was already climbing the walls. She might go crazy before the seventy-two hours passed. Shifting in the lawn chair for a comfortable position, she dredged her brain for something more productive to do than sit here and sweat. But she’d already done everything that needed doing.

      She’d risen at five and fed her landlord’s animals, baked cookies, brownies and cheese puffs for the new tenant’s welcome basket and cleaned both houses, hers and the rental next door. Her friend-slash-landlord, Madison, was spending the long weekend with her fiancé and had told June she had no idea what time the new tenant would be arriving. But June took her assignment as deputy lessor very seriously. That meant twiddling her thumbs for as long as it took even if it drove her to adding tequila to her pitcher of virgin margaritas.

      Determined to prove to her naysayers that she knew how to relax, she refilled her glass and took a sip of the tart slushy beverage, then tilted her head back, sprayed herself with the water again and tried to pretend she was enjoying the final day of August. Why hadn’t she planned ahead and picked up books from the library, rented movies or bought ammo?

      The cackle and scatter of the chickens brought her to instant alertness. Remaining still, she eased her eyelids open, scanned the area and the sky from behind her dark lenses and listened for what had set them off. She heard nothing—not even the usual country critter sounds—and she didn’t see a hungry hawk. Animals didn’t lie. Their silence spoke volumes. She wasn’t expecting anyone except the man who’d rented the cottage beside hers. But in Quincey, North Carolina, neighbors tended to drop in unannounced, especially when they wanted to know your business. But neighbors made noise.

      Movement drew her eye to the corner of the empty cottage thirty feet away. A blond-headed guy just over six feet tall eased around the back corner with slow, silent footsteps. He wore dark wraparound sunglasses, charcoal cargo pants and an olive T-shirt that conformed nicely to his torso—not too lose or tight.

      He wasn’t from around here. Was he her new neighbor? She hadn’t heard a vehicle drive up.

      “Can I help you, sir?” she called out while sitting up. And without seeming to move, he suddenly seemed more alert.

      Madison had given June no details beyond the name of the new tenant—which June wouldn’t volunteer. Cataloging his erect bearing, muscular build, hyperalertness, and military-style pants and boots, June rose and so did the warning hairs on the back of her neck. This wasn’t a hunter or antiquer who’d wandered off course.

      Dang it. She’d left her service revolver inside.

      Even though he barely moved and she couldn’t see his eyes behind his tactical sunglasses, she felt his gaze raking over her and cursed her choice of attire. Of all the days to wear her sister’s discarded bikini. But the elastic in her only other swimsuit had dry-rotted from disuse and her sister had handily stored her prepregnancy-sized clothing in June’s attic.

      “I’m renting this place.” He jerked a head toward the white cottage. “The note on the front door said ‘Pick up key at yellow house next door.’”

      Wow. The women of Quincey were in for a treat. The town’s newest citizen was a hunk with a hard jaw, full lips and a voice as deep as a rock quarry. They didn’t grow men like him around here. She ought to know. Except for a short stint at the police academy up in Raleigh followed by a few months of blind stupidity, she’d lived here all her life.

      She snuffed the memory and stuffed her feet into the idiotic flip-flops that matched the bikini, then crossed the grass snip-snapping with every step. She hated the sandals, but nothing said vacation like the useless rubber thongs. She wished she had a towel or a cover-up or something with her, but inexperience with loafing meant she’d come outside ill prepared.

      “I’m June. Your name?”

      “Rivers. Sam Rivers.”

      That matched what Madison had told her. “You have ID, Mr. Rivers?”

      He dug into his back pocket and flipped out a worn wallet with precise movements. She checked his name, Samuel Zachariah Rivers; age, thirty-one; eye color, blue. “You’re from Virginia?”

      “Yes.”

      Had she imagined that hesitation? “I’ve been waiting for you. I have your key and the lease. What brings you to Quincey?”

      “Work. The key?”

      Okay. Not the friendliest guy. Quincey would either fix that or run him off. “I’ll get it.”

      She hustled into her cottage as quickly as possible, then retrieved the key and the goody basket she’d prepared. She debated covering up, but her skin was slick with