3. Chapter 3

Taylor's The Man blasts through my AirPods, blocking out every other sound in the empty field behind the Auto Sh. From twenty-five feet away, I zero in on my target, wishing it were an actual bad guy and not a drawing of one. My trigger finger is itchy as I get the perp in my sights, but my pistol is holstered to my ankle, so a golf club and balls have to do. I square my hips, swing the club backwards, and whack the ball as hard as I can.

The ball—and an icy chunk of snow—sails in a high arc. The ice hits the ground long before the ball does, which continues its flight ten feet over and beyond my paper target. Despite being secured tightly to a target stand, the picture of a man holding a woman hostage won't keep still in the wind blowing across the field, which throws off my aim.

If I'd used my gun, I would have hit him right between the eyes.

Or maybe I wouldn't have.

Everything feels off.

Everything is off. My job. My future. My purpose in life.

But I set up another ball and take a second shot… And miss again.

When I'm working a case and can't make the dots connect, target practice helps me refocus my thoughts and put the pieces together. Successfully hitting the exact point I'm aiming for triggers connections between the more important targets I have in my head.

Normally, I'd be at my squad's shooting range in LA—the sun shining and palm trees swaying outside—joking around with my partner, Carlos, while he tries to beat my record for clean shots. I hit my mark—whether it's a bullseye or a paper bad guy—more often than I miss.

But there's no shooting range in Paradise where I can work out the questions gnawing at my brain. I'm not familiar enough with the area to know where I can safely set up my own target practice. So, I'm standing in the middle of a frozen field with an old golf club and a bucket of balls, shaking with cold while trying to hit a target flapping in the wind.

It's not the weather I'm bitter about. I've been thinking about leaving the force and LA for a while now, but I want it to be my choice. Not Captain Markham's. He's the reason my life is off the course I've carefully planned over the past decade. So it's his face I picture both on the target I'm aiming for and the ball I'm driving toward it.

Shooting a gun today would have been better for my clarity and direction. Watching a bullet pierce through paper would have helped me figure out if I really want to give up my entire life—everything I know in the one place I've ever lived—to take a chance on opening a bookstore—something I know nothing about—in a town with fewer people than the high school I went to in LA.

Instead, I'm swinging at golf balls, trying to get Markham's smirk out of my head and missing my target by a mile.

Don't get me wrong. If I can't have a gun in my hand, a golf club is my second choice. Playing golf paid for my college education with a scholarship to Cal State LA. Which makes it even more frustrating I can't hit my pretend bad guy. It's bad enough I don't have my gun, but my swing is all wonky too. To be fair, I've never played in twenty-degree weather with wind-blown flakes of snow hitting me in the face.

I set up another ball as the song switches to mad woman on my Raging Female playlist. I picture Captain Markham's face and take another swing. This one hits the target, but the wrong person. My female hostage takes it right in the face.

That tracks, given my life right now.

The face on the hostage might as well be mine. Markham's had a target on me since I reported him for gender discrimination and harassment.

I should have waited until I knew for sure I was ready to turn in my badge, but I lost my temper last week when he cornered me—again—and said, "You think you've got what it takes to be more than a pretty face?" Then dared me to prove it.

So I did.

I pushed him against the wall. "Never talk to me like that again," I told him with my forearm against his throat.

He smirked, and I lost what little hold I had on him.

"I'm your superior. It's my job to motivate you," he'd said when I dropped my arm back to my side.

I filed a report against him that same day before he could report me for insubordination. I was too late. By the next morning, my Deputy Chief suggested I take some vacation days, effective immediately. I couldn't stay in LA, waiting to hear whether my claims will be investigated, so I asked Georgia if I could visit her.

On paper, nothing Markham has said could be construed as harassment. It's the way he says the things he does that feels akin to harassment or discrimination. Sometimes both. But he says them with no one else around and in a voice that could be him coming onto me, or… it could be me imagining things—being oversensitive, because I'm a woman as Markham says.

I honestly don't know anymore.

Lucky for me, I've got plenty of time to obsess about what's going to happen to my career while I wait to hear from the division handling my complaint.

I step away from the tee and practice my swing, focusing on controlling the motion of my arms in order to control where the club hits the ball. There's no swinging and missing when I'm in control of my thoughts and emotions. When I'm laser-focused on what's important.

Except, that's my problem. So many things I used to consider important don't feel that way anymore. Especially after three days in this small town where life is slower, people know each other, and quiet is easier to find. I not only have time to read, I'm able to sink into the stillness that makes reading peaceful and restorative.

Even before I lost it with Markham, it wasn't just him getting to me. It was the job itself. The days I work, I leave feeling depleted and wondering what I did that made a difference. On days off, I can't leave the work behind. I can't find the stillness I need to make it through my next shift.

I just don't think I love police work anymore.

Except now if I decide to leave, Markham will believe he's won, when really it's what I wanted all along.

I tee a ball, then face the target and point my club at it.

"I'm coming for you," I say loud enough for my bad guy to hear—if he were a real person.

I position myself perfectly, lining up my club with the ball. I'm just about to swing when someone taps my shoulder. Instinct kicks in and my hand goes to my hip, but of course my gun isn't there. I swing around—golf club raised—to find a giant, bearded man standing behind me, his dog at his heels.

Bear Thomsen.

The last giant on Earth I want to see right now.

To be fair, there are very few men I want to see right now—giant, regular-sized, or little. But Bear is right under Markham on that list.

"What are you doing here?" I yell, pulling my AirPods from my ears while scanning the area to see if he's caught me alone again. At the same time, Molly jumps on me, getting muddy paw prints all over a second pair of my pants.

I push Molly away harder than I mean to, and she yelps. And maybe I was louder than I intended because Bear winces as if I've slapped him, then drops to his knees to make sure Molly is okay. He scratches her ears and coos to her while also giving me a glimpse of the teddy bear everyone keeps telling me he is.

An apology is on the tip of my tongue when Bear faces me, his eyes narrowed.

"What am I doing here? I live here," he growls and stands with Molly close at his side.

So, he wants to play the intimidation game? Make me feel like I don't belong here? Like I should go home?

Well, he doesn't know who he's dealing with. I've spent the past two years getting pushed around by Captain Markham. If I haven't caved under his intimidation tactics, I'm not shrinking from Bear's either.

I meet his glare with one of my own, ready to fire back. Molly's happy yip and panting stop me. Suddenly I realize I reacted out of fear, and Bear reacted out of worry. So I choose to de-escalate.

"You live here? In this field?" Humor usually does the trick of bringing down the temperature of a hostile situation, but this time it backfires.

A look of confusion flits across Bear's face, and I feel a flicker of regret. Then the glower I remember from Georgia and Zach's wedding returns, extinguishing any feeling of regret.

"You know what I mean. You don't have to be rude." His tone is hard and cold as steel. And now I'm confused because I'm not the one who's been rude.

But I guess we'll have to agree to disagree about that because I don't want to keep fighting with this guy.

I loosen my grip on my club, run my tongue over my lips, and offer the bare minimum about why I'm here. "I'm just hitting golf balls. The course is closed."

"It's winter." For half a second, Bear's eyes drop to my mouth before darting to a spot over my shoulder.

"Yeah, I noticed."

"Probably easier to golf in California than Idaho in the winter. Were you trying to hit that target?" Now his eyes return to mine, as if he's actually trying to make conversation, but he looks through me, not at me.

"I'm having an off day." I stare through him, the same way he is me, ignoring thoughts about his eyes being the same variegated shade of blue of Smuk Lake that struck me as so beautiful the first time I came to Paradise.

"Might be easier to hit with a gun. If you know how to shoot, that is." He steps around me and walks toward my target, then says over his shoulder. "I'll help you take down the target."

I have no choice but to follow. "I'm LAPD. I know how to shoot a gun—probably better than you do—and I'm still using the target."

As if Bear and his comments weren't annoying enough, I can barely keep up with him. The ground is hard and uneven, and I'm not as sure-footed as he is walking over the inch deep ice-crusted snow.

"Probably. I don't shoot much. Or golf. Especially in places I don't have permission to be."

"I have permission to be here." Mostly. Zach told me where I could hit golf balls when I asked.

Bear walks faster, and I scramble to keep up with him. Our footsteps echo through the winter-crisp air, which would be a lovely sound under different circumstances. As it is, I'm not sure what he's doing or why he cares that I'm here.

He reaches my target and stops in front of it before turning back to me. Of course, out of the billions of people in the world, I'm face-to-face with one of the few who has a height advantage over me. Our eyes lock in a glare, and for a microsecond, thoughts about how blue his eyes are slip into my consciousness.

Then he turns slightly and points to the hostage. "Is this who you meant to hit? I would have gone for the bad guy." His lip twitches in an almost smile, and his stupid blue eyes dance.

But it's not funny.

"Thanks for the tip, Bjorn." My lip doesn't twitch. There is no smile trying to break free on my face. "Like I said, I have permission to be here—from your brother, in fact, and I'd like to get back to what I was doing."

Bear's shoulders tense, and he looks to the target, then back at me with an expression that says exactly how important he thinks what I'm doing is. Not very.

"Funny. Last time I checked, my brother didn't own this field," Bear says casually, while straightening to his full height to look down at me, reminding me again he's capable of a feat most people aren't.

"Who gave you permission to be here?" I hate backing down from an argument, even when I know I've lost. But if Bear isn't swayed by the fact his older brother technically gave me permission, then I've got to find a different tactic to trip him up.

"Lynette Baker, that's who. She owns all these fields and the pond." He points to the same area slated for development that Georgia pointed out the other day. "I've got hockey practice here every Tuesday and Thursday, so you need to take your stuff and go." He crosses his arms and sticks out his chest.

His biceps bulge against the sleeves of his light puffer jacket, as if he's attempting to intimidate me with his muscles and his ability to withstand the cold without the many layers I'm wearing.

"There's another field over there." I point to the area on the other side of the pond. "Plenty of room for you and your friends to play hockey there and me to hit golf balls here."

I stop myself from asking what kind of bros play hockey in the middle of winter when the field is frozen. He may give off the same chauvinist vibes I've been dealing with in the department since I got promoted to detective, but I'm the one playing golf in a frozen field.

"We're not playing on the field. We're playing there." He points at the pond, which I notice is also frozen and big enough to serve as an ice hockey rink.

And also only ten feet behind my target. Which is super annoying because he's right. It's not safe for me to keep my target where it is.

"Fine. I'll move." I step around him to pull up my target without his help, but I've done too good a job hammering the stake into the hard ground. "I'll switch directions, so I'm not pointed toward you. That okay? Or will you turn me in for trespassing?"

My words come out in huffs as I tug the immovable post.

"Not okay." He says behind me. "You've got to pack it up."

I let go of my target and face him, missing my uniform and badge. I could use some backup right now to push back this bully.

I don't have a problem taking orders—it's part of my job—but those orders have to make sense. Which Bear's don't. Nobody is in danger of getting hit by a ball if I'm not facing them. My target will be fifty feet away. It's physically impossible for a ball to ricochet off paper, sail fifty feet in the opposite direction, and hit a moving target.

He's being ridiculous and punitive, which I'm about to point out to him when I remember something.

"Wait a minute… Lynette? That's who owns this land? The one who wears tinfoil hats and feeds all the squirrels in town?" I drop my hands from my hips and take the casual stance I use when I've got a suspect right where I want him.

Bear shifts his weight and leans away from me, giving me ground. "Yeah… so?"

I cock my head to the side. "I doubt she'll care I'm here, but why don't you call her and ask? We can clear this up right now."

We both know that won't happen. Georgia's told me all about Lynette and her conspiracy theories regarding aliens and cell phones. She doesn't own one. She doesn't even have a land line. Follow the squirrels. That's how you find Lynette, according to Georgia.

I know that, and before this trip, I'd only spent two weeks of my life—total—in Paradise. Bear's lived here his whole life. Pretty sure we both know he's not getting hold of Lynette in the next five minutes.

His jaw works back and forth before he takes a breath. "You buying Grandpa's shop means my team only has a few weeks left to practice here before the pond is sold too," he says with measured calm. "We have no rink after that. Do you understand that? So, why don't you let us have the little time we have left while we still have it?"

My chest softens, and for a second I'm ready to give in, if only on this.

Until Bear mutters, "Before everything's ruined."

I blink, making sure I've heard him right. Then I take a step closer, so we're inches apart. "Because of me? I've ruined everything—that's what you mean?"

This is not a fight I'm backing down from now, the way I've had to every time Markham's implied women are holding back the whole department.

My anger is too big to contain. "You think I'm ruining everything because I want to buy a shop you've had years to buy and haven't? Because I have the money to do it and you don't?"

Seconds pass with no response from Bear, so I fill the silence.

"News flash, Bjorn. It's not my fault you don't know how to buy a business your grandpa practically dropped in your lap. That's on you."

That was ugly. I know. Sometimes my mouth gets ahead of my brain, especially lately when I've got a lot to be mad about. I don't know why Bear hasn't bought the shop, but I do know it's not his fault my captain is a sexist pig any more than it's my fault he can't buy the shop.

When I can't stand to look at the surprise on his face anymore, I turn away to tug at my target again. But I can't make it budge. I'm too worked up. I've let my emotions get the best of me, which is the worst thing a cop can do.

Bear reaches past me and wraps both hands around the post, and in one swift motion, yanks it out of the ground. "We have practice for ninety minutes. You can come back when we're done, but you can't be here right now. I need my team to focus for the time we have, not wonder why some… out-of-towner is hitting golf balls out here."

Without another word, he holds the target out to me.

Hot fury surges through my veins, but I stay calm. Seething inside, but calm outside. Instead of taking the target, I slowly tuck the hair that's escaped my ponytail behind my ear.

I'm about to tell him to set it back up—I'm just that stubborn—when Molly takes off barking, running full speed toward the auto shop. Seconds later, the reason for her excitement appears. Kids in hockey helmets and pads, with skates and sticks slung over their shoulders, spill out the back door of the shop, trudging the hundred feet toward the frozen pond.

So… he's trying to protect a bunch of kids from any errant golf balls. Not a gang of frat boys.

And now I feel silly.

I open my mouth to apologize but close it when he raises an eyebrow and points to my Dodge Charger parked on the side of the road.

"You need help? Or are you better at carrying a target than hitting it?" He thrusts the stand at me, and I swallow my apology.

I can respect his overabundance of caution around kids, but not enough to justify his treating me like a little girl he can order around and dismiss with a metaphorical pat on the head the same way Captain Markham had.

"I'll be back in ninety minutes." I grab the target, letting out an involuntary huff that sounds way too close to a little kid's.

"Might want to bring a light," he says to my back. "Sun is going down, and you had a hard enough time hitting your target in broad daylight."

I stop, gripping my stand, and turn around to say something. I don't know what; I only know this boy needs to be put in his place.

But Bear is already jogging across the field, waving as the kids call "Coach Bear!"

And I know I should look away, but I take full advantage of the view before I do. I may never want to see Bear's face again, but the memory of his backside is going to stay with me for a while.