Chapter 1

1

Something felt wrong tonight.

Everything was chaos. And nowhere was really safe.

Nowhere, no one. At any time.

Meyra Talley had learned that lesson well. Nothing had been the same since what had happened in the hotel dining room back in November. Everything had felt just…different in the four months since. She was still trying to figure out why.

Maybe it had been cleaning the blood off the front of the buffet table she had refilled thousands of times since she was fourteen that had done it. Changed her.

Or watching the police and the coroner wheel the dead body past where she had been standing. She had already known someone was going to be hurt while she was running out of the back door.

She had known some of the people she loved most in the world were trapped inside.

She had known it was going to be bad inside.

And it had been.

The inn where she'd spent most of her life just didn't feel safe anymore. Her entire view of the world was different now.

Meyra had helped her cousin Dixie, a nurse, clean the blood off the front of their buffet bar and from the kitchen floor two days later, once the authorities were finished doing whatever it was they had done. It had taken the family a while to adjust after that.

How could it not? Her cousin Dylan had been shot—it was Dylan's blood that had stained the kitchen tile. No amount of scrubbing had erased it from Meyra's memories. Her cousin Devaney had been abducted.

A hitman had escaped the police and was still out there.

Her cousin Dusty had been abducted by Meyra's own uncle. Dusty's father. He'd been trying to protect Dusty that night.

It didn't even sound real in her own head.

Stuff like that just didn't happen in Masterson County every day. But it seemed to be happening far more often than Meyra wanted to think about.

Masterson just didn't feel safe now. She didn't know what to do about it.

"You can't hide in the kitchen your entire life," a woman said behind her. Meyra turned—to look into green eyes the same shade as her own. Her oldest sister, Miranda, was there, a smirk on her face. Miranda was usually laughing about something.

Sometimes Meyra couldn't figure out the joke. Her sister didn't always tell her either. Miranda could be difficult sometimes.

"I'm not hiding. I'm just…grounding myself. There are too many people in the dining room tonight. It's noisy." She liked that from a business perspective, but from the perspective of how she felt about dealing with people, well, Meyra knew herself well enough to know that wasn't something she would ever be comfortable with.

Meyra didn't like people. People were just too overwhelming. So was noise. Noise…was like needles in her head.

Her entire family's way of life was welcoming people into their worlds. Their home. It had taken her a long time to be okay with the fact that it wasn't as easy for her as it was her older sisters and her cousins.

She hadn't felt like the rest of them. She was getting over that, though. Learning to accept who she was—and how different she was.

It wasn't easy for all of them either. Some struggled even more than she did. "Is Dahlia okay today?"

Dahlia was twenty-one years old. She had been one of the four kids that Uncle Arthur and Aunt Geena had had after they had run away twenty-three years ago. Meyra had just met her in November. Dahlia had never officially been diagnosed with autism—but everyone in the family suspected she was on the spectrum.

Just like Meyra was.

Dahlia acted a lot like Meyra had when she was younger. Meyra had made a point of helping her younger cousin navigate the world at the Talley Inn. It could be complicated; Dahlia was even worse with crowds than Meyra, and hostessing wasn't very easy for her at all. Sometimes Dahlia just couldn't handle it even a little bit. Meyra at least looked like she did.

Meyra had gotten very good at masking how much she struggled. Girls and women with autism tended to mask socially sometimes. Meyra had done a lot of research on autism and what it actually meant—for her, her dad, and Dahlia, too. So she could understand. Autism was different in everyone—that was something she tried to remember.

Her experience wasn't necessarily everyone else's.

"She's doing okay. Daisy is keeping her close. I don't think Dahlia will ever be easy in the dining room. But she's doing her turn. Just like we all did. And when I send my kid back here when he's old enough, I expect him to do the same," Miranda said. "Still, you all might want to reorganize things so she can just bus tables until she's ready for more. Like you did. Ease her in."

"It's the Talley way." The family had run the Talley Inn for ninety-nine years. Guests of the inn were used to seeing Meyra's family there. Talleys ran the Talley Inn.

It was changing a little. They had four more cousins who'd been discovered when the hitman had come for her aunt Geena, her cousin Dusty was only working around ten hours a week hostessing now—and living across the road with her fiancé, Ben, Charlotte was in Finley Creek, Texas, most of the time now, Miranda and her little boy lived in St. Louis, they had second cousins on their father's side who were old enough to work at the inn and diner, too. Since Dusty had moved in with Ben, those cousins had started working more hours than before. So had Dusty's newly discovered four little sisters.

It was…different.

Meyra wasn't so good when things changed. Different was one of her least favorite concepts.

"That it is. And I miss it so much when I'm gone." Miranda patted Meyra on the shoulder but didn't try to hug her. Meyra didn't always like people in her personal space. Her family knew that. "When I retire from the FBI, I am buying a tiny plot of land off that Barratt guy and building a cabin right behind the inn. I'm going to sit in my rocking chair and just enjoy until I get old and ornery."

"You are already planning your retirement. At not quite thirty-two." Meyra had a few plans for her life, but they mostly included what she wanted to do in the diner and dining room. She had a lot of creative freedom when it came to her cooking. Her sister Marin did the business part of the food services division. But Marin always listened to Meyra's ideas. Her family —they worked together. Where one was weak, someone else was there to help.

As for any other future plans—Meyra would like to fall in love someday, get married, and have children. She wanted a family of her own. Kids that would grow up being Talleys of the Talley Inn, just like she, her sisters, and her cousins had.

"Just wishful thinking. I don't plan to do the FBI forever, Mey. Just until I'm forty, maybe. Bentley will be a teenager then. I'll probably have to seriously ride herd on him. I'd rather he be a teenager here than in St. Louis, I think. We'll visit Jac and Max and their kids on a regular basis. I'll just write true crime or psych books to pay our way if the inn and diner aren't enough."

Meyra didn't think her sister meant it, but there was a look in Miranda's eyes Meyra didn't really understand. It was kind of like…sad. Miranda saw the worst parts of humanity; their sister Marin had told Meyra before—and that hurt her sister down in her soul. Meyra had asked Marin why their sister did it.

Marin had said it was because someone had to. And Miranda had the skills to do it. That Miranda was trying to make a difference in her own way. Just like their father had in his work as a US diplomat. Meyra could understand that, but she still worried.

Meyra worried for Miranda all the time. Her job with the FBI was incredibly dangerous. They had all learned that before when Miranda had been working a case involving the Biese family. They were from Masterson. One of the people Miranda had been after had broken into their kitchen—and nearly killed Miranda and Dixie. That case had spawned another related one—and the mayor of Masterson had ended up shooting Marin.

And another man. Brandt Barratt.

That man. Him.

That man was the reason Meyra felt so off-center tonight. He had changed everything about her world, too.

Thoughts of that man were what had had her disappearing into the kitchen when she wasn't scheduled to be there. The main kitchen at the inn had always been one of her safe places at the inn. The place where she could think best.

She had a lot to think about tonight.

Brandt Barratt was back.

And that man…

Her lips tingled. As she remembered the last time she had seen him. He had kissed her. Like she hadn't been kissed in a really long time.

Just kissed her. Right there in the back garden. A few days before what had happened in the dining room.

He'd said he just couldn't take it anymore. Like he was angry or upset or something.

She still didn't understand what he couldn't take. The man had never explained.

He'd just kissed her and left like that .

Going back down to Texas where he had come from.

She hadn't seen him since. He had just kissed her and left without a word of explanation. Everything had felt unfinished between them ever since. She'd thought she was resolved where he was concerned—it had been months, after all. She'd thought it was just an aberration, really.

A random thing.

Even a mistake that he regretted, that had embarrassed him.

Meyra had thought she had put it behind her.

Including the anger and confusion from him just leaving her after doing that. Then tonight, she'd heard…

Brandt Barratt was back. And she had realized one thing.

She wasn't resolved about Brandt Barratt at all. Not one bit.

She still hadn't figured him out. She probably never would, and that scared her. Confused her.

"Knock, knock. Earth to Meyra. You are zoning out on me again."

"Sorry. I just have a lot on my mind." That man had been on her mind for months now. Through Thanksgiving, through Christmas. And through the winter.

Even…Valentine's Day and the three beautiful roses that had arrived at her diner. For her. From him. Just three roses. No note. Three ceramic roses, hand painted, and beautiful. She had them on her dresser. Where she could see them every day.

She'd thought she'd put him and that kiss behind her weeks ago. But he just kept creeping back in. She'd even dreamed about him and that kiss six separate times.

Meyra didn't understand it at all.

She'd kissed other men before. But none had stuck like this.

It was March now. Four months. He'd kissed her, and she'd not heard a word from him in four months. Except that stupid message on her phone the next day. Sorry I had to leave, little one. There was an emergency with my parents. I'll be back as soon as I can. We'll talk then. I promise.

He'd been back to town once or twice since then.

But she hadn't seen him.

No. He'd been on his property right behind the inn each time. Taking care of things. She'd heard all about it. There had been a lot of problems with his new property, including storm damage. Meyra had heard all about it from her friend Fallon Preston. Fallon and her two sisters and Fallon's eight-year-old baby brother had inherited three properties forty miles from town. But they weren't ready to move into them. Not until after their father's criminal trial started. Morris Preston was a horrible man who had killed people—and almost killed Ben's brother and his wife. They were too scared to be out there alone. In case some of their father's enemies came after them for revenge.

Fallon had told Meyra that herself. She had been telling Meyra all about how Brandt Barratt was letting them stay in their current house even though he owned it now. And that Brandt was in and out of the house next door that he'd also bought from Fallon's father—before that evil man was arrested and everything.

Fallon had a lot to say about Brandt, and how she found him hot. Meyra thought Fallon had a crush or something even though Fallon said she didn't.

Fallon thought Brandt was the hottest man in Masterson County. Fallon's sister Molly agreed. He'd been in and out of town multiple times. His own sister had stayed at the inn over Christmas.

Yet not once had Brandt Barratt even gotten close enough to Meyra to say hello, let alone tell her why he had kissed her the way he had. Like maybe he was sorry he had, or something. And just hadn't known how to tell her?

So why had he sent her three ceramic roses, if that was the case?

The man had her so confused.

No man had ever made her feel that way with a kiss before. Meyra didn't like it either. He should have at least explained what he meant. Not left her hanging with so many questions.

That wasn't how romance worked. Didn't he know that? A guy didn't just kiss a girl and then run all the way to Texas like that. Not if he was serious, anyway.

Meyra was just as confused now as she was then. And it was all his fault.

She hadn't felt this way months after Calloway Grady had kissed her. And Calloway was one of the hottest, sexiest, most successful, genuinely nicest men in Masterson County.

So why had kissing Brandt Barratt felt so different? Still felt so different?

That was a question she thought about after her sister left to find her son and make sure he was behaving. Bentley liked to run around the game room area of the inn when he wasn't supposed to.

Something about Brandt was different.

And if he never came back to the inn, how was she supposed to figure it out?