Canary Street Press
October 28, 2025

Cowboy, It’s Cold Outside

A favor owed. An Off-limits romance. Four Corners is in for the hottest Christmas it's ever seen.

Sheena Patrick has done well, all things considered. After her father’s death, she raised her sisters and did all she could to give them the best life possible. But they’re grown and gone now and Sheena is ready to do something for herself. But to accomplish her goals she needs Denver King.

Denver owes Sheena. He spent years watching from afar and making sure she was all right after his father’s illegal activities caused her father's death. So when Sheena rolls up to the ranch looking to call in the favor he promised, Denver can’t say no. He’ll help her get her axe-throwing bar up and running by Christmas, and consider his debt square. But as the snow falls, sparks fly between the two black sheep of Pyrite Falls. They might be all wrong for everyone else, but are they just right for each other?

Also In this Series:

Her First Christmas Cowboy

October 1, 2021
#.5
The Cowboy She Loves to Hate

December 1, 2021
#1.5
Unbridled Cowboy

May 24, 2022
#1
(Sawyer Garrett's Book)
Merry Christmas Cowboy

October 25, 2022
#2
(Violet Donnelly's Book)
Cowboy Wild

February 21, 2023
#3
(Elsie and Hunter's Book)
Her Cowboy Prince Charming

September 1, 2022
(Novella released in print in Merry Christmas Cowboy)
Her Wayward Cowboy

January 1, 2023
(Novella to be released in print with Cowboy Wild)
The Rough Rider

July 25, 2023
#4
(Gus's Book)
The Holiday Heartbreaker

September 26, 2023
#5
The Troublemaker

November 28, 2023
#6
The Rival

April 23, 2024
#7
A Summer to Claim Her Cowboy

October 15, 2023
(This is a novella in the Four Corners Series)
Wild Night Cowboy

August 1, 2023
(This novella is available in print in The Holiday Heartbreaker)
The Hometown Legend

July 23, 2024
Hero for the Holidays

October 22, 2024
(Landry and Fia's Book)
The Outsider

April 29, 2025
The Rogue

July 29, 2025

Excerpt

Denver King knew that it was a lofty goal for a man like him to avoid hellfire altogether. Given his lineage, it was easy to see why many people assumed that in the afterlife, he would be down south passing beers over a righteous flame with some questionable characters for company. But in truth, he had done his part to try and balance his moral scales a little bit.

But for his sins, hellfire was currently headed his way.

He was standing out in the brand-new, public area of King’s Crest. Where they had just opened their new event venue, and several places that were equipped for overnight stays.

That was when she appeared.

Dark hair flowing behind her, the twining ink vines visible from her shoulder down to her wrist thanks to the rather brief tank top she had on.

And it was freezing. But sure. A tank top. That seemed about right for Sheena Patrick.

But it wasn’t the tank top, the fierce look in her eye, her absolute smoke show of a body or the tattoos that caught his attention.

Tattoos he had often wondered about the intricacies of. The vine on her right arm disappeared beneath her tank top, and he felt it was human to wonder where it went from there.

But that wasn’t it. It was the bright red chip she held in her hand.

Lord almighty.

As she got closer, he could see she had a full face of makeup on at 8:00 a.m. He didn’t know if it was because she was coming off the bar shift the night before and hadn’t taken it off, or if she was ready for tonight. But the black liner made her green eyes glow, and the deep color on her lips was enough to make a saint consider what it might look like left behind on his skin.

And he was not a saint.

There was no denying that she was hot.

She was also 100 percent completely off-limits.

And Denver King did not push limits.

He had no interest in hellfire. Whatever form it took.

That was the thing.

She stopped right in front of him, lifting one dark brow, and holding the chip up just so it covered his view of her face. “I’ve come to cash in,” she said.

Her voice was smoky. Like a late night and a shot of whiskey.

He looked at the chip. He didn’t take it. “Have you?”

The truth was, he’d given out poker chips to any number of his father’s victims.

In the years since, many of them had come asking for money. And that was the point of it. An acknowledgment that he owed them. That they had the right to come to him and cash in. Nobody had actually brought the physical chip with them.

Nobody else had waited this long.

Any chip that hadn’t been cashed in so far belonged to dead men who had continued on in the rough life his father had been part of.

Sheena was the last holdout.

But then, he had been sending money to Sheena and her family ever since that botched job that had cost her dad his life all those years ago.

He held his father, Elias King, personally responsible for that. And it was up to him to make restitution for it. He had always seen it that way. It didn’t matter whether or not he had done it himself.

The sins of the father would be visited on the son. And God knew he meant to try and wipe that slate clean. He surely did.

“And what is it exactly that you want to collect?”

She lowered the chip. “I have a proposition for you.”

“Name a dollar amount.”

She shook her head. “I’m not after a dollar amount, King. It’s not that simple.”

He frowned. “Go on.”

“I have a business proposition.” There was something sharp and clear in her eyes and he had a feeling this was going to be a long talk.

“All right. It’s awfully cold. You want to go inside?”

She snorted. “Do I look like I’m shivering?”

No. She didn’t. But he had always thought that Sheena might be powered by a hidden fire in her belly. God knew she’d been fighting a hell of a lot harder than most for a hell of a lot longer. He respected her. That was the thing. When her dad had died she’d been left with three younger siblings to raise. And she had done a hell of a job.

She hadn’t allowed his family to fully take her in. But that didn’t surprise him. Not that he and Sheena knew each other. They didn’t. In fact, other than him ordering a beer from her on the occasional night out at Smokey’s, he didn’t have anything to do with her. Not directly.

He would go up, lay eyes on the place, make sure nothing had burned to the ground. Put an envelope of cash in the mailbox and go on.

They saw each other from a distance, if that.

This was the longest conversation they’d had in thirteen years.

“All right then. Tell me.”

“It doesn’t sit right with me,” she said. “Being in your debt. But I have an idea that’s going to help us both.”

“You’re not in my debt. Your father is dead because of mine. There’s no amount of money on earth that can make up for that.”

She snorted. “Your opinion, King, not mine. My dad was a worthless son of a bitch. Yeah. It was hard, being left without somebody bringing in money, but my dad himself wasn’t worth the carcass of a moth-eaten buzzard. I’m not sorry he’s gone. He did nothing but bring bullshit down on us. So no. It is not like you robbed us of our loving patriarch. And hell, you didn’t even have anything to do with it. Not directly.”

“Close enough,” he said.

He’d been drawn in by his dad. By his proclamations about how what he did, he did for the family. The truth was, Elias King didn’t care about his family. His wife had left him, and he’d painted it as a betrayal to their clan. He’d said he had to work even harder to make things right for the kids.

Denver had bought into it. But then their father’s facade had started to crumble. The treatment of his sister after her accident was a red flag he couldn’t ignore. And after that…the last job. The one where he’d really seen his dad. The violent man he could be.

And one thing Denver had learned that day for sure. Violence beget violence.

“All right,” she said. “That’s your opinion. But I’m not putting that on you. I want to pay you back. To that end, I want in on the expansion here at King’s Crest.”

He owed Sheena; that much was true. But the control freak inside him balked immediately at the thought of allowing anyone in.

“Is that so?”

“Yes. I have a business plan. You know I work over at Smokey’s.”

She knew full well he knew it. He had a feeling she’d said that to highlight the total separation in their lives. They knew each other. They kept it brusque and bare minimum like they didn’t.

“Yes,” he confirmed.

“And before that I was tending bar down in Mapleton. People need more to do. More nightlife. Smokey’s is fine, but it’s a very particular thing.”

“A meat market,” he commented.

She shrugged. “Sure. Everybody loves a little beef.”

He couldn’t tell if she was smirking or smiling. Or some combination of the two.

“All right. Go on.”

“Axe throwing.”

“Excuse me?”

“Axe throwing bars have begun to be a big deal. I hear you’re making beer down here. Add a little bit of food, and you’ve got Pyrite Falls’ newest hotspot.”

“Axe throwing.”

“Yeah. It’s fun. You let off steam, you hang out with friends. You fling deadly weapons around.”

“Sounds like a liability.”

“I didn’t take you for a bitch, King.”

“I didn’t think you took me for anything.”

“Nothing but an envelope in a mailbox. And this chip,” she said, brandishing it again. “Anyway. The point is, people do this all the time. It’s perfectly safe. I had the opportunity to go check one out when I went down to Medford recently. It’s a good time, and more importantly it’s packed. I’ve got a lot of data about it as a growing pastime. Also, I’m great at it. You know, not so much in bars, but I do it for fun at home.”

“They sound like hipster bullshit.”

“Do I look like hipster bullshit to you?” She put her hands on her hips, her dark hair sliding over her shoulder, shiny even in the overcast light.

“A little bit,” he said, looking over the tattoos. Really, it was like one continuous tattoo. Vines and flowers twined up her arm, down into the tank top, so where else it went, he didn’t know. He wondered, though.

“That just goes to show that you don’t know me.”

It was deliberate. The not knowing her. He had wanted to help her while leaving her as untouched by all of this as possible. It was different with Penny. Penny had been alone in the world. No one was coming to save her or take care of her. Sheena had her sisters.

She squared up with him, the determination on her face something no sane man would dismiss.

“I have a whole business plan,” she said. “This isn’t coming from nothing. Believe me when I tell you, my survival instinct is strong. I’m not a dreamer. I’m a planner. I think this is really something.”

“All right. Explain it to me.”

“That’s what I’ve been doing.”

She reached into a bag she had slung over her shoulder and pulled out a binder. It was black and plain, with no adornment. His sister-in-law Rue was fond of binders. But hers were always floral. With decorative stickers for whimsy. The only thing ornate about Sheena was the tattoo.

“This is quite a bit,” he said, opening up the binder and finding inside photos of different axe throwing facilities. A proposed menu, projected expenses.

“I thought it best to be thorough. You told me that you owed me. That was why you gave me the poker chip. You said that all I had to do was cash in. That’s what I aim to do. But further to that, I think it can be something that benefits both of us.”

“Why don’t you show me what you’ve got.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’ll tell you what. Let’s go throw some hatchets. And I’ll see what I think.”

Sheena hadn’t expected this to be easy. Denver King set himself up as being some kind of savior, but she had never seen it in that way. To her mind, letting Denver King near her property was a lot like letting a wolf offer protection.

They could protect you. But they could also decide to turn around and eat you. She wasn’t a fool. She didn’t buy into this whole idea that the Kings were so reformed. That Denver was entirely different from his dad. He earned his money gambling. She knew that. It was a fairly covert thing, but she kept her ear to the ground. Paid attention.

He had made big bucks in the professional poker circuit.

He might not have a bunch of illegal gambling happening on the property, but it was still an indicator that he was part of that world.

And she knew that she was playing it a little bit dangerous, wanting to join up with him to do business. But her options were limited. There were very few people out there who felt that they owed her. But he was one of them. And that meant she was going to take advantage of it as and when she could.

She was a thirty-one-year-old empty nester—for all intents and purposes—with her youngest sister off at college and moving on with her life. Sheena was still tending bar, and she was beginning to feel…

Left behind. Which was dumb, and she didn’t like it. So she’d taken a good look at that poker chip, and she’d decided asking for Denver’s help was better than languishing in dumb, useless feelings.

But she wasn’t asking for a handout—the only money she’d ever taken from him was for her sisters’ benefit, not hers—but using him to get a real business up and running? She’d made a bargain in her soul so she could handle that.

She was tough. She was happy to use people as they used her. That was life, and she’d accepted it.

As long as she went in eyes wide open with Denver, she could do it with him too.

She could admit she’d expected him to just agree. Which was strange because she’d say she didn’t trust Denver or anyone to do what they said, but he’d always indicated that he felt responsible for what happened to her father.

She also didn’t want to owe him. But needed him to feel he owed her.

She also didn’t want to rely on him or anyone, but had to.

She could appreciate the tightrope walk she was engaged in.

The red poker chip burned into her palm, and she squeezed her hand around it before putting it in her pocket.

“All right. You’ve got yourself a deal. What do I have to do? Outthrow you?” she asked.

“No. I think I just need to see the appeal. I’m the kind of man who needs to see something to really get a feel for it. To visualize it. I want to understand what it is you’re offering to people.”

“Well. That’s kind of lame. I was hoping this was some kind of Paul Bunyan thing. As long as I could out hatchet your man-made machine you would let me and my big blue ox have our way with the place.”

“Do you have a big blue ox?”

“The big blue ox is metaphorical. Do you have a place where we can throw an axe?”

“Sure.”

He moved in front of her, and she did her best not to pay too close attention to the fine masculine figure that he cut. He was tall. Very tall. And she noticed because she was a pretty tall woman. A lot of men made her feel large and unfeminine, she didn’t really mind that, actually. But Denver King made her feel dainty, which was as disorienting as it was unique.

He was at least six inches taller than her. His shoulders were broad, his chest well muscled, his arms massive. Men like that always thought they would be great at axe throwing. In her experience they tended to overdo it. Throw it so hard it bounced right out of the target. And it made them angry. She always enjoyed watching that.

He led her out to a space behind the shed, where a large axe was stuck into a round of wood. “I’ll take you over to where we shoot,” he said. “There’s a couple of targets that are still set up.”

“All right. Sounds good.”

She did her best to not notice the way that his forearm shifted as he picked up the large axe and slung it over his shoulder.

He was a fine specimen of a man; that much was true. But she didn’t have any use for men like him.

Sheena was in charge of her own life. In charge of her own destiny. And that’s why you’re here asking him for a favor?

Well. That little internal voice could shut its trap.

When it came to relationships, she didn’t do them. When it came to sex, she liked to be in charge.

She got what she wanted; the guy got what he wanted. No harm no foul.

She preferred men who didn’t have ties to the area. Tending bar in Mapleton had been more convenient from that standpoint.

It made scratching an itch feel a little bit less risky.

Denver King might as well have been wrapped in caution tape.

The first time she’d noticed he was hot, the cops had just loaded her father’s body into a coroner’s van.

To say the noticing of Denver King’s physical attributes was problematic was putting it lightly.

But also, it meant she was used to it.

He opened up the passenger door of an old blue truck, and she stared at it, and him.

“Get in,” he said.

“I was unaware this was a whole field trip.”

“We don’t shoot near the buildings.”

“Responsible,” she said.

She waited until he moved away from the door, and climbed up inside the truck.

Then he rounded to the driver’s side and got in.

He started up the engine, and she looked out the window. All the better to not look at him.

“How are the girls?”

Abigail, Whitney and Sarah were all off on their own now. Far away from this place. And good thing.

And if Sheena ached with loneliness sometimes, she dismissed it.

She could leave. She could start over somewhere else. When Whitney had moved out six months ago she’d fully had that realization. But the problem was, nobody else owed her a favor. And then there was a tangle of the fact that she also owed Denver. And that didn’t sit right with her. He might not feel like she needed to pay them back. But she wanted her personal ledger to be balanced up. It was important to her.

Because if she couldn’t ultimately be free of that past, then nothing she had done since then mattered. And yes, she was aware that made it somewhat ironic that she was looking to actually get into business with Denver.

But she had a plan. Eventually, she wouldn’t be here running the bar. She would open a second location elsewhere. Eventually, she would make her own way. Maybe somewhere closer to her sisters.

But after she got started. If there was one thing she was an expert at, it was surviving. But she wanted to be an expert at more than just that. She wanted to figure out how to thrive.

They didn’t speak while he drove them up to wherever that shooting range was. Somewhere out on the top of the ridge. It was beautiful.

But this whole place was beautiful. But she knew that even with all of the magnificent surroundings, it was all only as serene as the life that you were growing up in.

The Kings had this place. She didn’t deny it was possible that it might be a nice place that was shit to live in, given what she knew about their dad.

But she knew without a doubt her own growing-up years were worse.

Not only had she had her dad…

The house had been small and ramshackle. Instead of kitchen cabinets and counters they’d had tables lining a room, with a freestanding sink that leaked. She’d done her best to make that place a home after her dad’s death.

Hung fabric from the tables to sort of mimic a cabinet-and-counter look. Something to make it seem normal. With sisters ranging in age from four to fourteen it had been a struggle. And she’d only been eighteen herself. But they’d managed. For thirteen years, they’d managed.

And now it was her turn. To try and do something more than manage. To start the steps that she needed to build a life…somewhere else. A life that she had chosen. A life that was more than this.

It wasn’t that it was a bad life. She liked to think that she had taken something really awful and turned it into something pretty decent for the sake of her sisters. But it had left her…hard. She didn’t know another way to be. She was thankful for the resilience. She couldn’t resent it. It had kept her safe. But she wanted to find a way to live where she didn’t have to be this all the time.

An axe throwing bar was admittedly a little bit of a funny way to go about that. But she knew bar work. This had a slightly different focus. It wasn’t about getting drunk; it was about having a drink with friends, having a good time. A little bit of friendly competition.

She had been working the rough dive bars for years. She was ready for a change of scenery.

She had been waitressing early on, when the girls had been really little. But the money was just much better in bartending. So when she felt all right to leave them at night, tucked up into bed with the oldest well aware of how to use a shotgun if she needed it, and their trusty guard dog Hank on hand to create a ruckus if anyone should approach, she had started taking that night work. Down in Mapleton the amount of work she had been able to get, the size of the tips thanks to the size of her… Well.

Her mama hadn’t given her much of anything except her figure to hear tell of it. She was happy to make use of it. Consider it a gift from the woman who hadn’t stuck around to raise her. It was the only one she’d gotten.

There were two ways to handle men. She could put them under her spell using her looks, and she could scare the hell out of them using her strength. She was familiar with how to do both.

She would like it if she didn’t need to do it quite so often.

Being a business owner would be different than being a server.

Denver stopped the truck at the end of the dirt road. There was a view, spectacular, just behind a raised ridge of gravel with targets affixed to the front of it.

“Safety first,” he said.

“Sure,” she said. “Though, I don’t want to be flinging the axe over the top of the target and losing it down below in the draw.”

“I thought you were an expert.”

“Well, I am. I actually meant I don’t want you to lose your axe.”

“I’m good,” he said.

“All right. I’m going to demonstrate. And then I’ll let you have a couple of practice throws. We can do best out of five after that.”

He looked at her, and she could tell that she had greatly offended his delicate masculine pride by suggesting that he needed to warm up. And offer instruction of any kind.

“I think I can handle it,” he said.

“Just…based on your feelings?”

“Yeah.”

“Your feelings aren’t facts, chief. No matter how much you might want them to be,” she said.

“Based on my feelings and what I know about myself, I think I’m good.”

She affected a very innocent expression on her face, grabbed hold of the axe and slipped out of the truck.

Then she went to stand in front of the target. She squared up, and decided to go with a classic two-handed overhead throw. She lifted the axe over her head and drew it back.

“Don’t do anything foolish like hopping in front of me,” she said.

“Yeah, I think I can figure that one out, thank you.”

Then without overthinking it, she let the axe fly. She did her best to gauge the distance between herself and the unfamiliar target, and it flew end over end, landing with a satisfying thunk at the upper left of the target.

“That’s my favorite throw stance,” she said. “And it’s how I recommend you start.”

“It wasn’t a bull’s-eye,” he said.

She rolled her eyes and walked down the slight incline toward the target. She grabbed the axe and wrenched it out of the wood. “The next one will be.”

She walked back up, lifted the axe over her head and let fly again. This time, she was able to correct and get it right at the center of the target.

She pumped her fist, unable to stop herself from celebrating.

“There you go,” she said. She regarded the implement, and then looked at him. “This is a pretty big axe. You might need a smaller one.”

He lifted a brow. “I think I can figure out how to handle a big one.”

She bit the inside of her cheek, uncertain of whether or not the double entendre had been intentional. That was the problem. She really didn’t know him.

“The size of the axe doesn’t really matter, Denver.”

“That sounds like something people with small axes say.”

He took the axe from her easily and stood a couple of paces back from where she had been. Smart. He was going to naturally throw with a lot more strength so he needed to put distance between himself and the target. She decided to focus on that rather than the comment on big axes.

He was a big man. She assumed he was…proportional. Though, sometimes men could be a surprising disappointment. Sort of a theme in her life, she had found.

But that was why she didn’t depend on them for anything.

He pulled the axe back over his head, and his shirtsleeves came up, revealing the definition of his bicep, and she couldn’t help but look.

Instantly, for some reason, she took a moment to imagine Denver King throwing axes shirtless. Okay. She was done with that.

There was really no point mooning after a specific, nice-looking man. Because again, it was no guarantee they wouldn’t be disappointing.

He let the axe fly, with way too much force. It bounced off the wooden target and landed in the gravel below, the head sinking deep into the ground. “Deep stroke,” she said, her lips twitching.

He looked up at her, his face completely void of expression. “I’m known for that.”

She ignored the buzzy feeling between her legs.

“Go fetch your axe.”

“Got any tips for me?” he asked as he walked over to where the axe was buried in the dirt.

He pulled it out one-handed, with ease.

“Well,” she said dryly. “You don’t have to go so hard. It’s not a jackhammer.”

“Noted.”

Everything she said felt tainted by double entendre and she had no idea what to do about it.

“You could also do it one-handed.”

His lips went into a flat line. “Could I?”

“You could,” she returned, not taking her gaze off his. “Of course, using two hands gives you a little bit more control. And you know, it’s not the size of the axe, it’s the—” she lifted a brow “motion of the ocean, so to speak.”

“You’re mixing your metaphors.”

“Am I? Whoops.”

She shouldn’t be indulging in this. It made her blood feel a little bit fizzy. She was going to enter into a business partnership with him, and they didn’t need to go teasing each other like this.

If he was teasing. She genuinely couldn’t tell with him. He was inscrutable. Unknowable.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll try again with your top tips in mind.”

He stood back on the line, lifting the axe up over his head again. This time, he let it fly with a lot more control, and it hit the target with a satisfying thud. Her aim was still better. But he landed the shot.

“There you go. Now that you’ve found the sweet spot, you just have to keep throwing it at the same angle so that you can hit the same spot over and over again.”

This time, she saw a glimmer in his dark eyes. “Is that how you do it?”

“For optimum satisfaction, yes. If you find a good spot, you keep going.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

He went to the target and yanked the axe out again. Then she took it from him, and went to stand in the ready position. “Best out of five, Denver King. And when we’re done, you can tell me if you want to continue.”

“Okay. In the meantime, though, tell me a little about yourself. Like a job interview.”

“Well, that wasn’t part of the deal.”

“You aren’t setting all the terms, are you?”

“Okay,” she said, her teeth mildly set on edge. She drew the axe back and threw it, letting it fly true until it hit the edge of the target. She was distracted by him. Which was unacceptable.

“What is it you want to know?” she asked, turning to face him.

“I want to know where your sisters are.”

“Sarah is in college, so is Whitney. Abigail graduated. She got a job in Fresno.”

“Fresno. Wow. Sounds like hell.”

She felt defensive of her sister’s life choices, but he wasn’t wrong. “Yeah. It does to me too. But she’s happy. And she isn’t here.”

“Right. But you want to start a business here?”

“Not my end goal.”

She went and took the axe out of the wood. She handed it to him, and let him walk up to the line.

“Does this mean it’s my turn to ask you a question?”

He let the axe fly, and hit the outer edge of the target. Just barely in.

He didn’t tell her not to ask the question. He didn’t invite her to, but he didn’t tell her not to either. So.

“What’s your ultimate vision for King’s Crest?”

“I want it to be a little bit of a destination. I want to bring more tourism into the area. I want to benefit myself and my family. But I also want to…to do something worthwhile. My dad did nothing but break shit, as you well know.”

“I do.”

“I want to do better than that. That’s it. End of story.”

“My turn then?”

She put herself in the ready position, and let the axe fly. It went true, right in the center.

“Go for it,” she said.

“So you don’t want to stay here.”

“No. Not long-term. Wherever my sisters end up, I’d like to be a little bit closer to them. It’s possible that they’ll be far-flung. Maybe I won’t quite be able to pull that off. But I’m going to try. I don’t have a legacy here. Not one to fix. Not one to give even a single shit about. I lived here because this was where my dad decided to hunker down and get in bed with a criminal—that’s your dad. We didn’t have roots here.”

“But you want to start your business on my land.”

“I want to start a business, I want it to become profitable, I want to pay you back. And then I want to take some of what I made and open another location. I’ll leave you the place when I leave. And keep collecting some of the profits.”

“I see.”

“I don’t have happy memories here, Denver. I don’t have a reason to stay. It was…”

It was tangled. Complicated.

For many years, Denver had been the reason she’d stayed.

Oh, not him personally. Because she didn’t even know him personally. But that check he left in the mailbox.

And…in spite of herself she had to admit, that feeling that there was a wolf watching over them. Maybe even keeping them safe. Plus, things had been hard enough. Trying to figure out, as a teenager, how to put a house on the market, how to take her sisters and move them to a different school, all of it… It was just a little bit too much. Where she had lived, where she still lived, sat between Mapleton and Pyrite Falls. She split the difference between the two. Working in either one had always been about the same. And it might be kind of a pain sometimes, but it was familiar. And they could afford the cost of living.

In a city that wouldn’t be the case. And another small town would be just as difficult to navigate as this one.

So for years, it just hadn’t made any sense.

He went and got the axe. His turn again.

“You want me to help you get a grip on that big axe of yours?”

He snorted, but when he threw the axe, it went wide.

That made her stomach twist a little bit.

Well. It was a good thing to know. That he wasn’t immune.

He was just a dude, after all. Not really a wolf, or any of the other strange, fanciful things she had convinced herself he might be.

They didn’t ask each other any more questions, and she was the hands-down winner of the round.

“All right,” he said, plunking the axe head down on the dirt with a thud, his large hand wrapped around the base of the handle. “You got yourself a business proposition, Sheena Patrick.”

“Good. I look forward to doing business with you.”

She reached into her pocket, and took out the poker chip. Then she pressed it into his palm, and ignored the heat the transfer left behind on her fingertips. “Just let me know when you want to meet next.”

“Depends. Are you going to quit your job down at the bar?”

“I have to put in my two weeks’ notice a while ago, I don’t have much time left.”

“Fair. How about we talk after that.”

“I guess we will.”