October's Bad Boy Cullen

Read the first pages

From Chapter 1

After two days fighting a wildfire, Cullen gets summoned by Ruby. She isn't alone.

When I pulled up in front of the Merc, my truck rattled as I killed the engine, like it was just as tired as I was. I pushed through the front door. The scent of coffee brewing hit me first, followed by cinnamon rolls in the oven, and that mix of sugar and soap that always clung to Ruby’s place. Every stool at the counter in back was full. Conversations hummed around me, bits of gossip rising and falling. The Merc had always been the heart of Mustang Mountain, and Ruby Nelson had always been the one who kept it beating.

She sat at a table in the back corner, in a pumpkin-orange cardigan. Her silver hair was pulled into its usual no-nonsense twist, and her eyes fixed on me like she’d been waiting for this exact moment all day.

But she wasn’t alone.

A woman I didn’t recognize sat across from her. She had on a black suit jacket with a crisp, collared shirt underneath. Everything about her screamed that she was from out of town, from her ramrod-straight spine to the fancy messenger bag hanging from the back of her chair. Between the two of them, a baby carrier sat on one of those wooden frames I’d seen people use at the cafe. The handle was in the air, and a pink blanket patterned with tiny flowers draped over the top.

My throat tightened. Whatever was about to happen, it wasn’t going to end well.

Ruby lifted her chin in a way that told me not to argue because it wouldn’t do me a damn bit of good.

I walked over, each step heavier than the last. “You wanted to see me?”

“Sit down,” Ruby said as she slid a mug of coffee toward me. “You look like death warmed over.”

Find out what happens next tonight.