This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The author makes no claims to, but instead acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of any wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction including brands or products.
Copyright © 2016 Nazarea Andrews.
DIRTY SEXY SECRET
All rights reserved. Published in the United States of America by A&A Literary.
Summary: Hazel Campton left Green County to keep her secrets. But now she’s home, and Brandon Archer is everywhere she turns. There are secrets more dangerous than a forbidden love story in Green County and when four people are murdered, those secrets begin to come to light.
1. Romance 2. Small Town 3. Family Drama
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
For information, address Nazarea Andrews
[email protected]
Edited by Angi Black
Cover design by The Illustrated Author
Cover art copyright©: Nazarea Andrews
Ebook Formatting by The Illustrated Author
For Jessica, who heard the original idea and wouldn’t let me forget it.
And for Tiffany, who cheered me on and said the right thing at the right time.
Thanks, girls.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
DIRTY STOLEN FOREVER
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Three killers, two cops, and a journalist walk into a bar.
Sounds like a bad joke, right? It’s not.
It’s the end--dear God I hope it’s the end--of the worst day if my life.
I just hope we all walk out alive.
Some people say you can’t go home again. And that is a complete pile of bullshit. You can. It just won’t be home.
I should know. I did it.
Green County doesn’t change. It’s been four years since I bolted. Six months since I sucked up all my pride and ego and came back. And it still struck me as strange. Green Co. is exactly the same. Same ridiculous festivals. Same leafy boulevards and parks filled with yoga moms and shrieking children. The same gossips fill the coffee shop and eye me when I step in.
They’ll chatter my every move to Eli later, cooing over him while warning that I was too skinny, too wild, too rude, too, too, too.
They did the same thing in high school.
Nothing changed in Green Co. If you want change you go somewhere else and you let it wrap you up tight and fight like hell to keep from being dragged back.
Eli gets pissy when I say shit like that. But Eli never left Green Co. Never felt the need to get out, to see and shape the world. He’s always been more than happy to see and shape the County.
And you know, he was right. He was good at it. I loved that he cared so much about Green Co. That he wanted to save the little Kansas county from itself.
Someone had to.
I flash the ladies a smile as I order two extra large iced coffees. Cindy grins at me, punching in the order and adding a slice of banana bread and her boxed lunch.
“Long day, Hazel?”
I grin, a half quirk of my lips that passes as a grin these days. “It’s a day ending in Y, Cins. Those are always long.”
She gives me a smirk that tips toward worry. “You need a day off, sugar.”
I make a face, and drop a twenty on the counter as I take my order. “I don’t even know what I’d do with that much free time.”
She arches an eyebrow at me and I grin at her.
“Hazel, my love,” Gabe says, sailing through the door of the coffee shop as I turn away from the counter.
I swallow the grin before it twists into a smirk. “Gabriel,” I say, almost frosty and he laughs.
Smug bastard.
“We should carpool, love, if we’re going to keep meeting like this. Save the planet and all.”
“Because you care so much about the damn planet,” I scoff, and he makes a face, all wounded dignity.
The problem with that face is that I know Gabe. I’ve known him my whole life.
Gabe is everything I ran away from when I left Green Co. Everything I wanted to forget. The tiny smile that means trouble and the too sharp eyes that see right through my quick easy lies and watches with concern when I isolate.
Fucking bastard is my neighbor. He’s too damn close for comfort and too damn nosy for his own good.
And coming from an investigative journalist, that’s pretty fucking nosy.
“I’ve got work, Gabe. So as much as I’d love to spar,” I shift my boxes and nod at the door.
“Hazy,” he says, and it draws me up. Because once, we were friends. We were impossibly close. He was my rock, and I threw him away. Because I was so fucking determined. To be more. To get out. I fucked up and I ran, and I left Gabe behind with all my other mistakes.
I always regretted that. Hurting Gabe.
“Wine night?” he asks, and I flinch, falling back a step.
It’s still too soon for that shit. And he sees it in my eyes.
His smile dips, just a little. Just enough that I notice. Because I know him better than he knows himself, and I can read his sadness in the line of his shoulders.
“Maybe next week,” I offer, shuffle stepping closer to the door. Aware of all the church ladies watching, and Cin, standing at the counter, her lips pulled down in a frown, and worry.
And Gabe shrugs it off. Beams at me like a fucking lunatic, and nods.
Gives me the out.
I flash him a quick smile and move toward the door, and he steps to the side, giving me a sardonic smile.
Because he’s Gabe.
And this is Green County.
And nothing here changes. Not really.
The door opens and Brandon Archer steps through, all long legs and wide shoulders and a face that’s so fucking pretty it’s almost painful. His green eyes, so expressive and alive, find me and go blank. And I almost drop my bags.
Because if there was ever a mistake I made, it was him. Eli comes in a half-step behind, and a half-foot taller. His eyes warm as he pushes past Archer to wrap me in a hug.
It’s been about twelve hours since I saw my foster brother, so of course he’s tackle hugging me in CinSations. While Archer watches, those moss-green eyes probing me. I squeak and Elijah relinquishes me reluctantly. I drive an elbow in his gut. “Dumbass. You spill my coffee, you replace it.”
He doesn’t even blink. He just shoots a quick look at Archer, an eyebrow quirked in question.
Because of course they don’t talk. How silly. Why would they?
See—this right here? This is why I left. Because I can’t handle seeing the epic fucking bromance that is Elijah Beasley and Brandon fucking Archer.
I shift, and Archer smiles, a slow curling thing that I want to smack off his face. “Hazel, sugar, you need a hand?”
My smile feels more feral than sweet, and his eyes are sparkling, that fucking, amused she’s so cute light I’ve seen for so long. “Thanks, but Gabe is helping me. Right?” I side eye my friend who gives me this extravagant bow that doesn’t say, you just blew me off.
Thank Christ for Gabe.
I twist. “Have a good day, Officer.”
Gabe snorts at that as he takes my bag and one of my coffees. I think I’m in the clear. That I’m safe, and out of the danger zone that is Archer.
And then his hand closes around my arm, and it pulls me to a stop.
He’s always been ridiculously able to pull me to a complete stop with almost nothing. “You can’t hide in that farmhouse forever, Hazel,” he murmurs, and I flush.
Damn fair skin. A blush is too fucking easy to see and he’s always been too fascinated with pulling them from me. I can almost feel the low chuckle he gives as he lets me go, and I fall back a step.
It’s a retreat, and that’s just another reason I scowl at him. “Tell Eli I’m making dinner on Sunday. Mom is coming over.” I push past him and Gabe slips an arm around my shoulder, ignoring Archer’s tension. “You aren’t invited,” I add, all sugar sweet. And then I’m gone. Outside and Gabe is steering me to my truck.
“Tension between you and Green Co’s finest, love?”
“I don’t want to do this, Gabe,” I murmur, and he pushes a blond curl out of my eyes, watching me with those strange honey-warm eyes of his. And then he nods.
“Ok. Not now. But we will talk. Soon. I just painted a target on my back and Archer’s never liked me to begin with. You owe me.”
I huff out a breath, and let my gaze dart up to him. Gabe gives me a patient, waiting look and I nod.
Because apparently things do change.
Gabe can grow up, even just a little.
“Ok. Tomorrow.” I say, and he nods. Brushes a kiss over my hair and hands me my bags as I slide into my truck.
And then he stands there, watching, braced between me and CinSations as I drive away. He was my best friend a lifetime ago, before I fucked up everything.
I wonder if maybe he could be again.
Eli is still charming Cindy, and I’m still listening to the gossipy bitches who like to fill me and him in on everything that might be even the slightest bit interesting in the County.
For the past six months, that’s been almost exclusively Hazel.
Which would be great, if I cared the way I’m supposed to. If I could push Hazel back into the box she’s supposed to be in, the one that she hasn’t been in since I came back from my one tour overseas and she greeted me with a fist to the face. She broke my nose and shattered the protective little box that I’d always stuck her in.
“She’s looking pretty, but she has to be lonely.” Prudence McCann is telling her sister-in-law, but her eyes are on me, like I should be doing something about Hazel being lonely.
Because that’s appropriate.
Fuck, Nora would eviscerate me and let Eli strangle me with my guts if I made a move toward Hazel. And I’d probably provide the knife.
Doesn’t mean I want someone else anywhere near her.
Pru doesn’t really relent until I offer a smile, tight and awkward and pull away.
Gabe reenters the shop and I catch his eye.
There’s a lot of anger there, and I swallow a curse. Gabriel Delvin on a warpath is the very last thing I want to deal with now. If there’s anyone besides Eli whose been protective of Hazel it’s Gabe, the short, snarky best friend who attached to her in middle school and never quite let go.
And I always liked him as much as I loathe him. Even when I was pretty sure he was fucking her, I liked him, because it was better him than me, even if I wanted to punch his too white teeth down his throat.
“Officer, may I have a word?” he asks, and even phrased as a question, that’s a summons.
And we all know it.
Gabe isn’t Green County royalty, but he’s old blood. That’s why his befriending Hazel was so strange. Military brats, especially ones like us, didn’t mix with the County’s founding lines. The Moats and the McCanns and the Jacksons. The Delvins are less of a power in the County, especially now that they’re fading and most have left.
But that doesn’t mean Gabe is someone I can ignore. So I follow him away from the ladies who are still prattling about Hazel, catch Elijah’s eye and he gives me an irritated look, like he’s annoyed he has to deal with them while I deal with fucking Gabe Delvin.
Gabe drops two boxes on the café table outside CinSations, and glares at me.
“What the fuck are you doing with Hazel?”
I stare at him, trying to process. Frankly, I’m still trying to catch up. It’s early and I haven’t had a lot of coffee yet, and Eli is the morning person in this equation, so, “What?”
Gabe snaps his fingers, his green eyes furious as he stares at me. “She was grumpy but fine, until you showed up with the puppy. She likes him. So tell me what the hell you did that sent her running, Archer?”
I cock my head at him.
Because I know. Of course I fucking know. I’m just surprised Gabe doesn’t. “She’s your best friend, Gabe. Doesn’t that mean she tells you this shit?”
A spasm of pain flares across his face. Shakes the mischievous, smiling jackass that the town knows and loves.
For a second, I see Gabriel. The last Devlin to stay in the County, the one who said fuck it when his family said he should go into politics and law. The one who stayed when his family, even his favorite brother, left.
Everyone left Gabe. Even Hazel. And he’s not as immune to that as he’d like the rest of Green Co. to think.
So I sigh, and shrug. “Hazel doesn’t talk to me. She hasn’t for a long time, man. I have no idea what’s going on in that pretty little head of hers.”
Gabe watches me, all narrowed eyed contemplation, and I struggle to keep my face blank. Until, finally, he snorts.
“Get a donut, Archer. I hear they’re to fucking die for,” he says, and then he’s snatching up his boxes and shoving back into CinSations.
Eli, coming out of the shop, gives him that tight smile he only ever fishes out for Gabe, and it reminds me I need to ask about what the hell is happening there, but I don’t.
I haven’t since I came home from Afghanistan and Eli graduated and we both joined the force. I remember it, clear as day. I was sitting at Mom’s house while Hazel prowled around, nursing a bottle of beer and giving these reserved little smiles. Eli was graduating and she was two years from it herself, and her eyes skipped over me like I wasn’t even there. Gabe alternated between clinging to her like a burr in fur, and spinning away like a falling star. But he avoided Eli, and I would say it was unconscious, except that I had watched my brother and Hazel and Gabe for too many years to see it as anything but what it was.
They were avoiding each other.
And because I was so wrapped up in my own shit, I let them. I didn’t push.
That was six years ago.
Sometimes, when shit drags too long, you don’t get to bring it back up. After Hazel left, we didn’t see much of Gabe. Mom said he came by, sometimes, but it was never when we were there.
Green County was small, but if he wanted to hide, he could and without Hazel as the glue to bring him into our inner circle, there was no real reason for us to see him.
Bury something long enough, it’s hard to bring it back up.
“What did Gabe want?”
I hesitate, and then, “He wanted to know if Hazel and I were fighting.”
Eli’s eyebrows go up and he frowns. “You have to see someone to f
ight with them, and you’ve seen her what, three times since she came home?”
There’s an accusation in his voice, and I ignore it. I don’t need to defend myself to Eli. He’s never pushed me for an explanation. He just accepted it. I think if it were just me, he’d push. If it were just Hazel he’d push. But with both of us playing the same game—avoidance and refusal to talk—he let it slide.
I know he wants an explanation. But for now—“Here,” he says, handing me a cup of coffee and a slice of carrot cake. Thank god for Eli. Kid knows me way too well. “Pratt wants to talk to us. Eat in the car.”
I huff at that, but follow him back to where I parked.
Being detectives means we get drive an unmarked car. Being Brandon Archer means I’m driving my unmarked car, a sleek 74 Roadrunner, fully restored, and painted a blue so deep it borders on black. Eli laughs and says it’s not practical because people know it’s mine. But we aren’t undercover so fuck that noise.
I hate driving anything but my girl.
Eli turns down the radio and I glance at him as he thumbs through emails on his phone. “Why didn’t you tell me about family dinner?” I ask casually.
Guilt in those big puppy eyes before he shrugs quickly.
“Because you wouldn’t come. Nora’s been inviting you since Hazel came home and you’ve blown her off every single time.”
“Does it occur to you I might have had plans?”
“Not if those plans include a girl you don’t call again, or the bar,” Eli deadpans, and I grin, sipping my coffee as I head toward the courthouse.
“It’s Green Co, man. I’ll see them again.”
“Archer, you’ve been avoiding Nora since Hazel blew back into town. And she gets it. I get it. Even if I’m not asking—I know there’s some shit you won’t talk about. But, fuck, man. She misses her kids. That’s all.”
And that makes me feel like shit, because Nora did her best with us. When we could have ended up in the county home, we ended up with Nora. And she fought like hell to give us the best she could.
“I’ll do better,” I say and he flicks another glance at me. It’s not much, as far as promises go, but it’ll do for now. It’s enough for Eli for now.
Maybe it’s time to put aside my shit with Hazel and make peace. I glance at the clock on the dash and sigh. I’ll go, after our shift.
Dirty Sexy Secret (Green County Book 1) Page 1