by Tegan Maher
Table of Contents
Mudflaps and Murder
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Marked by Fate
© 2020 Tegan Maher
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, in any form, by any means electronic or mechanical, including but not limited to photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system currently in use or yet to be devised.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or institutions is entirely coincidental.
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Dedication
To Dustin, as always. And to Ahab and Dog, for being an ever-present source of love and laughs. Dogs are a girl’s best friend!
Finally, to Regina Welling, for being there, and for making me the most awesome covers ever!
CHAPTER ONE
The roar of the rodeo crowd faded as I kneed Missy, my little paint horse, through the arena gate. We were both a little rusty, but she knew what was up—barrel racing was in her blood.
Her muscles bunched as the gate clanged shut behind us, and raw energy traveled from her through the saddle to me like little zaps of electricity. She danced and sidestepped a little, her ears, one black and one white, pivoting back and forth from me to the arena ahead, just waiting for the go-ahead.
I grinned as I gripped her with my knees, grabbed my saddle horn, and shoved the reins forward. That was all the permission she needed. For a fraction of a second, the force of her leap threw me off balance, but I was ready for it.
In three huge strides, we were in the body of the arena and rushing toward the 55-gallon money barrel—so called because as the first of three, it set the time for the entire run. We whipped around it and headed to the second one on the other side of the arena. Missy faltered a little as she hit deep sand, but recovered with barely a bobble and made the turn. One more to go. She ate up the distance to the third, and I cringed when my stirrup clicked the steel of the barrel as we rounded it. No time to look back, though. If it fell, it fell. Now, we were on the homestretch.
I gave Missy her head and she bolted back towards the gate, her nose stretched out and her ears pinned flat as she gave it everything she had.
“Go, girl, go!” I yelled, flapping my legs against her sides and leaning forward in encouragement. The wind whipped my hat off my head, my eyes watered, and my heart sang with the joy of being one with my horse.
Once we cleared the timer, I sat back and shoved my feet forward—Missy’s cue that we were done. Without a second’s hesitation, she dropped her hindquarters and slid to a beautiful stop, and I leaned forward and patted both sides of her neck, reveling in the smell of horse sweat and the heady rush of adrenaline coursing through my body. I glanced over my shoulder and did a fist pump when I saw that the barrel was still standing. No time penalty!
“Woo-eee, folks!” The announcer’s voice sang over the loudspeakers. “That’s a smokin’ twelve seconds flat for Noelle Flynn aboard Miss Frosty Flit!”
That was almost half a second slower than the time I needed to beat, so I was out of the money. That was okay with me, though. We’d had fun.
“Thanks,” I said as the young kid attending the gate swung it open for me. Hunter, my own little slice of tall, dark, and handsome, was waiting on the other side, grinning to beat the band. His green eyes shone as he reached up and rubbed Missy’s forehead.
“So how’d it feel?” he asked.
“Incredible,” I replied, swinging my leg over and sliding to the ground. “She got bogged down a little at the second barrel and came into the third a little wide, but I couldn’t have asked for much better, seein’ as how neither of us has done it in over a year.”
My sister, Shelby, and I had been competing at local rodeos since we were old enough to sit in a saddle, but we’d had a stretch of time where there were just so many other priorities that speed shows—the insider name for local barrel racing events—had sort of fallen to the wayside.
“No more, though,” he said, slinging an arm over my shoulders as we headed toward the fairgrounds barn, Missy walking beside us. “Now you have time to pick it back up again if you want to.”
“I know,” I said, leaning my head against his shoulder. “And maybe I will. There are only a couple shows left this season, so we’ll see.”
Shelby had just left for college the week before, and we’d dealt with the coven of witches that had been wearing us thin for the last year, even though it had almost killed us. I was sort of at loose ends because those two situations had been my raison d’etre for so long that I wasn’t sure what to do with myself now that they didn’t require all my headspace.
I had to get a life, and that meant figuring out who I was now that being Shelby’s guardian and a Flynn witch destined to save the world weren’t my two defining roles anymore.
Even though the battles had been fought and the war won, my powers were still wonky, and so were my cousin Raeann’s. Nobody knew why that was, but I’d decided not to sweat it. If there was a reason, we’d find out soon enough. If it was just a byproduct of being in the line of fire either when Shelby’d gotten her angel magic or when she’d unleashed it, well, then I supposed the end result was still the same—we needed to get a handle on them regardless.
I was never one to borrow trouble, and I wasn’t going to start now.
“That sounds like a wonderful idea to me,” Hunter said as Kristen, one of my boarders, approached me leading Bones, a bay horse with a big star-shaped like a skull and crossbones on his forehead.
“Nice run!” she said, offering me a high five. “You’d have placed for sure if she hadn’t hit that deep sand at the second barrel.”
I grinned at her. “Yeah, I might have even knocked you guys out of a spot.” She and Bones hadn’t missed a show all season, and they were at the top of the club’s rankings for year-end awards.
“Maybe next time,” she said with a wink. “I’m just glad you decided to come. I’ll see you at the mud bogs in just a bit. I have to collect my ribbon.”
“Okay, see you there.”
I could hear the roar of motors from the other side of the fairgrounds and stepped up my pace a little. Sarah, a girl I’d become friends with back when I’d worked at Bobbie Sue’s barbecue, was competing in the mud bogging contest, and I didn’t want to miss it.
The barn was still humming with activity when I led Missy up, and both wash racks were full. I led her straight into her stall, then pulled off her bridle. She immediately stuck out a front leg and bent her neck to scratch her face on it. I smiled, grateful that for once, she hadn’t decided to use me as her personal rubbing post. Hunter filled her water bucket whi
le I unsaddled her and put her tack in the extra stall we’d reserved between mine and Kristen’s.
“Sarah’s first heat is in twenty minutes, so we have plenty of time to grab a hot dog and something to drink before it starts,” Hunter said, snapping the padlock on the tack stall shut. “I don’t think we have time to go back to the campground first, though.”
Just the thought of the big tent we’d set up earlier made me smile. I’d planned to spend the weekend cleaning up my upcycle shop so I could bring in some new material, but my dear friends had decided I needed to get out. For some reason, they were convinced I was wallowing and pining for Shelby, but I wasn’t. Well, not much, anyway.
Yes, I missed her like crazy, but I also knew she was having a blast at college and would be home in just a few weeks for Thanksgiving. Plus, she’d popped in and out magically like five times because she’d forgotten things. She never stayed, but I couldn’t say I hadn’t seen her. So, I wasn’t pining for her, exactly, though I was still a little in mourning for our old lives. Me as her big sister, her as my little one, living in the same house we’d grown up in, nitpicking and arguing and laughing and sharing meals and snarky insults, just as all families do. That’s what I was missing.
So, they’d convinced me to come to Redneck Country Club with them for the weekend. Now, before you even try to guess what that is, you probably have it at least half right, as long as you’re not picturin’ a bunch of guys with mullets and wife-beaters and girls in Daisy Dukes and tube tops playin’ golf. Because then you’re only half right. Or maybe a quarter.
There’s not a golf course in sight, but there are a handful or two of folks that meet the stereotype. Mostly though, The Redneck Country Club just has everything a country boy or girl needs to have a good time. Mud bogs, an arena for truck and tractor pulls, the horse arena, a campground set alongside the lake, trails for horses, ATVs, and dirt bikes—which we’d brought with us—and even a boat ramp and a place to rent kayaks and canoes.
Basically, it was exactly what the name said, and this weekend, I planned to enjoy every second of it.
“Let’s go watch some trucks get stuck in the mud,” Hunter said, wrapping his arms around me and giving me a quick kiss after I tossed a couple flakes of hay into Missy’s stall.
Just the sweet nothing every country girl wants whispered in her ear.
CHAPTER TWO
The smoky scent of meat cooking on charcoal mixed with the fruity smell of nitrous as we approached the mud bog, and a shiver of anticipation washed over me. I’d been pleasantly surprised to learn that Sarah had taken her love of watching the sport to competing in it. She and her Uncle Gary had been building their vehicle—a monster Jeep called the Green Monster—for months, and this was their maiden competition.
Sarah’d become a regular in our lives, and Hunter had turned a few wrenches with her and Gary on his evenings off. I’d been confident they had this competition in the bag, but now, as we walked past a long row of enormous trucks with giant knobby tires and stickers promoting big-name sponsors, I wasn’t too sure.
Hunter must have picked up on what I was thinking. “Those beasts aren’t in her class.” He pointed toward a group of twenty or so smaller—but still mean looking—vehicles. “Those are the ones she’ll be racing.”
A little of my confidence returned. They looked like they could handle some mud, but there was only fancy-looking one that I figured could give her a run for her money. I said as much, and Hunter laughed.
“Don’t be so sure. Remember the last time we went to the drag strip? When the rusty little Pinto with the giant supercharger beat all the muscle cars?”
“Oh, yeah,” I said, then took a closer look at some of the other trucks. There was one with a beat-up Ranger’s body. The hood was up, and a dark-haired guy wearing a greasy tee shirt and a NASCAR cap that had seen better days was making adjustments while a guy who had to be his brother revved the motor. The one under the hood glanced at his phone after each adjustment.
I’d had no idea there were actually apps you could use to adjust the tuning and fuel ratios on your vehicle until Sarah had enlightened me, but I should have known. After all, there was an app for everything else.
The shiniest—and obviously most expensive—one in the bunch stood out like a sore thumb. A blond dude wearing a clean pink polo shirt and a snake-oil smile was leaning against the shiny chrome bumper of a jacked-up, cherry-red Chevy with The Punisher scrawled across the sun strip on the top of the windshield. He had his arm around a track bunny wearing Daisy Dukes, a red checkered top that tied at her spray-tanned midriff, and heels so high they had no function other than to make her butt and boobs stick out. No way she could walk any distance in them, especially across the marshy ground. Her hair was tied back with a bandana that matched her top and come-hither-red lipstick, then teased to the point of defying gravity. The couple was posing as people snapped pictures.
I narrowed my eyes and took a closer look at all the vehicles in that area. “If I had to place a bet right now, I’d say the guys with the Ranger have the better vehicle, but the guy in the Chevy has enough extra parts in that big ole tent behind him to rebuild the whole truck at least once if need be.”
I recognized a scrubby figure in greasy jeans and a blue work shirt as he strode across the field and greeted the guys with the Ranger. I grinned when he glanced at the guy’s phone and shook his head. Skeeter, one of my oldest friends and owner of Skeeter’s Automotive and Appliance Repair, was the best mechanic in the tri-county area. If he was helping those guys out, I was definitely putting my money on them being Sarah’s biggest competition.
To be fair, though, Skeeter had put plenty of time in on Sarah’s Jeep, too. He was just an all-around good guy whose heart was in the sport rather than just the check at the end. To him, winning was always sweeter when it came down to who made it to the finish line first rather than who made it to the finish line at all.
“There’s Sarah,” Hunter said, pointing to a spot in the far corner. She and Gary were leaning against the front of the huge Army-green Jeep, smiling and taking in the sights.
“No last-minute tweaking?” I asked as we approached.
“Nope,” she replied, shaking her head so that her blonde ponytail swung from the loop in her ball cap. “We’ve tweaked it ad nauseam for two weeks. It’s as ready as it’s ever gonna be. Besides, Skeet’s just inspected it. I’m not allowed to touch it now that it’s passed. He’s doing the Ranger now.”
Once I looked closer, I realized he wasn’t working on the boys’ truck as I’d initially thought, but rather going over it with a flashlight.
“Okay, folks,” a man’s voice said over the crackling loudspeaker. “That’ll do it for the Superstock class. Fifteen-minute warning for the first heat of the Modified class. Up first, Sarah Davis and Ella Barker. Two of our top ladies goin’ head to head. This is a big class, everybody, so try to be ready so we can keep it goin’.”
“That’s you,” I said, shoulder bumping her. “You ready?”
She pulled in a deep breath and blew it out through her cheeks, then rolled her head. “Ready. I know Ella. She’s been really nice, helping me learn the ropes, but she’s all business on the track. It won’t be an easy win.”
Gary clapped her on the shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “You’ve been preparing for this for months. You’ve got this.”
I pulled a wooden nickel from my pocket and handed it to her. “For luck.”
She tilted her head and narrowed her eyes. “It’s not ... you know, spelled, is it?”
I smiled sheepishly. “Maybe a little. But only to keep you safe. Nothing else.” I held up my hand. “Scout’s honor.”
She laughed and shook her head. “I’ll take that, then. Even though I know for a fact you were never a girl scout.”
Sarah’d known I was a witch for years, ever since she’d caught me magically marrying the ketchup bottles at closing time at the restaurant. Of course, seeing it for herself only
confirmed it. Most of Keyhole had speculated about my family for decades, but very few of them knew anything for sure.
“Well, thank God,” she’d said at the time. “Get the mustard goin’, too.”
There was nothing like sitting down and letting the side work do itself after ten or twelve long hours of serving food to cranky, demanding customers.
A man’s yelling brought me back to the present, and I turned to see the two country boys who’d been working on the Jeep arguing with Mr. Moneybags. Since it was taking place in front of the old Ranger, I figured the guys with Skeet had been minding their own business until the rich guy came over and stirred the pot.
I listened for a few seconds, but it must have been the continuation of an earlier discussion because all they were really doing was casting aspersions on each other’s characters. And mamas.
Hunter sighed when it kept escalating. “And here I thought for sure I’d have some actual time off.”
As the local sheriff, personal time was a rare commodity, and it irritated me that people couldn’t play nice for just one weekend.
“Let’s go deal with it so we don’t miss the race,” I huffed when one of the brothers shoved Jerkface so hard he landed on his backside. Skeet stepped between them. The smug look on the rich guy’s face was enough to make me want to pop him, and I didn’t even have a dog in the fight. It seemed weird to me that he was smirking when he was the one on his backside.
“What seems to be the problem, gentleman?” Hunter asked, flipping open his badge when we got close enough.
The brothers glanced back and forth at each other but didn’t say anything, and neither did Skeet.
“Nothin’ at all, Sheriff,” Polo Shirt said, barely concealing the sneer on his face. “We’re just funnin’ around, ain’t that right, boys? No need to get the law involved.”
The brother who’d shoved him jerked his shoulder out from underneath Skeet’s hand and scowled first at the nitwit on the ground, then toward his truck. The bottle blonde who’d been posing with the guy on the ground earlier was making a point of looking anywhere but toward us. I took a closer look and realized her nose and the shape of her eyes was awful similar to the two angry brothers’, and I tilted my head, trying to imagine her with the dark hair that matched her roots. The puzzle pieces clicked into place.