Chapter 1

Ashley

I hate this fucking place. I grew up in it and I'd have sworn on a stack of Bibles I'd never be there again. It's ironic that it was my dad's substance abuse that landed me in the shithole of Dixie Plaza the first time and it's his sobriety that brought me back.

There's one undeniable truth about Brian "Doogie" Douglas. He's an asshole either way. High enough to sit on Wednesday and see both Sundays or sober as a judge, he's still a megalomaniacal asshole.

Sitting in the literal last place I want to be and staring at the mountain of work still ahead of me, I know I ought to be grateful. Yes, it's a trailer that was manufactured before I was even born. Yes, it's been the hideout for some less than hygienic squatters for the last few months, but it's a roof over my head and that's more than my dad has left me with.

Instead of just feeling sorry for myself because he sold my grandmother's house out from under me, I need to focus on making my current space livable. I drag myself up off the floor and head for the hallway that leads to the two remaining bedrooms that have not yet been touched.

As I start down the hall, a noise stops me dead in my tracks. It's not a sound I recognize. This trailer is old and beat to hell, but it's solid. The creaking, groaning noise makes it sound like the whole place is coming down around my ears—it's disconcerting, to say the least. But not nearly as disconcerting as what comes next. The frantic scrabbling of claws on metal echoes through the still furniture-less space. And then I see the vent cover move. One corner of it pops up and the little metal slats are clanging. Then it moves again and a paw emerges from beneath it.

"I'm out. I'm out. I am not Steve Irwin and this shit is not gonna happen," I say heading straight for the door. A glance over my shoulder and I see that it was one hundred percent the right decision. The vent cover is completely off now, and something is trying to pull itself up through my floorboard. Whatever it is, it's fat and stuck. For how long, that could be anyone's guess.

I grab my car keys and hit the door wide open, only to run smack into something very solid. Something that is solid and smells amazing. God, I've been scrubbing this damn place so long I forgot what clean smelled like. Cause no matter how much I scrub, the decades of cigarette smoke and cat pee are winning the battle.

"Easy there, speedy. What the hell are you running from?"

I look up into a pair of eyes so dark they're almost black. I know who he is. Every woman in town knows who he is. Ford Gambrel. Trouble. Capital T, capital R, capital OUBLE. He's better looking than I remembered and still has that edge, that "I'm dangerous but sensitive" edge that makes every good girl make bad decisions. My grandmother's voice is ringing in my memories. Child, that man is too pretty for anything but regrets.

When I realize he's still standing in front of me waiting for some kind of answer, I pull myself together. "I'm not exactly sure, but it's coming up through the vent and I didn't feel like hanging out to ask questions."

"Groundhog," he says.

"What?" It's like we're speaking two different languages.

"Groundhog. Chunky little fucker too. I've seen him going in and out beneath the underpinning," he explains. "Why don't you wait in your car, and I'll go back to my house and get a live trap."

"Can't you just kill it?" I realize that's not the right thing to say. I know it's awful. Little buddy is just trying to live his best groundhog life, but I'd really appreciate it if he didn't try to do it in my living room.

"With what? My bare hands. I'm not exactly prepared for exterminating duties. Besides, I'm not cleaning up the rodent crime scene. Are you?"

Right. That would be a complication because I would puke and pass out. "Live trap it is. I'll just be in my car."

An hour later, the groundhog is locked up, the vent cover is back on, and Ford Gambrel thinks I'm a dumbass. No. Correction. He thinks I'm a hysterical dumbass. If there was a hole I could crawl in, preferably not occupied by a groundhog, I'd be in it.

When he's done loading the live trap into the back of his truck, he walks over to my car and taps on the glass. I hit the button and the window slides down. It's one of the few things on my car that actually works the way it's supposed to. I'd been saving money for a new one and that money—now that I'm unemployed and transforming my rat trap of a trailer into a home—is what I'll be living on. Piece‐of‐shit car will have to stick around for a while.

"You should be good to go now. I'll take him down by the river and turn him loose. This weekend, I'll try to get up under there and fix the underpinning so he doesn't come back," Ford says.

"You don't have to do that," I protest. "You've already done way too much."

"I've not done that much, Ashley. I caught a groundhog. Not a freaking bear."

There are hard truths about my current situation. The first, I have no idea how to fix this myself. The second, I can't afford to pay someone to fix it. So if this super hot guy wants to make temporary abode safe from rodents, why the fuck am I fighting him about it? "I appreciate it. Really, you have no idea how much, but that's too much to ask as a favor and I can't afford to pay you."

He's looking at me with those deep, dark eyes and his expression is one I can't quite get a bead on. I can't tell if he's interested, annoyed or just thinks I'm a complete dingbat and wants to be anywhere but here.

"You're not paying me shit. Besides, you didn't ask," he finally says. "I offered. And I'm not the kind to do things I don't want to do. I'll see you around, Ashley."

And just like that, my white knight in faded denim disappears into his own aging mobile home. But I take a long, hard look at it and I realize a couple of things. It might not be new, but it's immaculate. The grass is cut to precision. The deck and outside have been pressure washed until they gleam. And in the window, pink lacy curtains are hanging there that I know belong to his little girl. I don't know her name, but I know she's pretty and well‐behaved. She's way too young not to have her mother around and that man is doing the absolute best he can … which is already a hundred times more than my dad ever did for me.

"He's still trouble," I whisper to myself. But now he seems like the kind of trouble who just might be worth it. If I were in the market for trouble and if I wasn't already ass deep in more problems than I can shake a stick at. But just like Mamaw always said, wish in one hand and shit in the other—see which one fills up faster.

But even as I'm telling myself not to get tangled up in it, not to get tangled up with him and a sad‐eyed little girl who could probably break my heart even more than he could, I can't stop myself from glancing at the backdoor of his trailer which faces mine and wishing I could get another glimpse of him.