Chapter One

Della Munroe hadn’t known it was possible to become a virgin again. And then she’d moved to Credence and discovered just how wrong a woman could be. Between her overprotective brother and every single citizen wrapping her in Bubble Wrap, she was going to die in this town with her hymen fully regrown.

Yes, a few years ago she’d have been happy to never have sex again. Yes, the three years since had been an emotional roller coaster of recovery. And yes, she was probably always going to have some hang-ups.

But…didn’t people with hang-ups also deserve a sex life?

At twenty-five, being horny was a revelation. She vaguely remembered what it felt like before her libido had turned to dust. But ever since the Credence municipal council had sent out a nationwide invitation, via Facebook, to single women to come and set up home here last summer, there was just something in the air.

She’d been in Annie’s on New Year’s Eve when local rancher Joshua Grady had declared his feelings for New York artist Suzanne St. Michelle. They’d looked at each other with so much love—but also so much heat—it had stirred something long forgotten inside her body.

A crushing kind of yearning for something she’d never had but she wanted.

Something more primal.

She’d wanted a man to look at her like that. Like he wanted to devour her and it was only the rules of polite society that were stopping him from sweeping her up in his arms and taking her somewhere private.

Della’s ex had guarded her like a junkyard dog. Like she was property. She wanted a man who treated her like she was number one on his to-do list.

Which is why she was joining Tinder.

She needed to cast a broader net, and going to Denver every other week for her shrink sessions gave her the perfect opportunity. There were plenty of men in Denver, so Tinder made sense. Because one thing was for sure, she wasn’t going to find anyone here in Credence. Thanks to Arlo—said overprotective brother—who also just so happened to be the local police chief, nobody in this town, where men dramatically outnumbered women, was looking in her direction.

In Credence, Colorado, her hymen, it seemed, was holy.

Arlo brought her to Credence because she’d been lost and hadn’t known where to go, who to turn to, or who to trust. She’d had no money, no family or even friends to speak of. She’d had nothing but the clothes on her back. She’d been scared and alone, and she’d wanted as far away from her old life as possible.

But three years later, things were so much better. She was so much better. Thanks to therapy, she’d come a long way. Was it so wrong to want to lead a normal life?

Pushing open the heavy doors to The Lumberjack—or Jack’s, as it was known around town—Della took a moment to let the warmth seep into her bones. It might be bright sunshine out there, but they were having a bitterly cold February in eastern Colorado.

Shutting her eyes, she let the familiar glow of neon and that wonderfully beery smell she’d come to associate with Jack’s envelop her like a great bit ol’hug. Every bit of her was cold, but this place felt like a hot tub on the ski slopes.

On a satisfied sigh, she opened her eyes, only to meet the whiskey-gold depths of Tucker Daniels’s gaze taking her to another place entirely.

To the jungle. To the equator. To the center of a volcano.

To hometown hero and ex–Bronco quarterback Wade Carter’s wedding a few months ago, when Tucker had been in a dark suit and tie and so damn…she didn’t even know what…everything, and she’d been thinking about Tinder ever since.

He was behind the bar, as usual, and for a few beats suspended in time, their eyes locked. Tucker Daniels was a looker, there was no denying. He was tall and broad and built. Not in a gym-junkie way or in the lean athleticism of a runner. The kind of build that comes with big bones, a large frame, and lugging around kegs of beer. Solid slabs of muscles packed in around arms and thighs and the scaffolding of his torso.

More lumberjack—appropriate, really—than Mr. Universe.

His sandy-blond hair was short all over with a slight crinkle. It was usually longer—shaggier and less kempt—the crinkle tending to curls. But he’d cut it for the wedding and kept it that way, and she couldn’t decide which way she liked it better. Short was hot in a first responder, Action Man, yes ma’am kind of way. Longer was hot in a Greek god, you-know-nothing-Jon-Snow kind of way.

On another man it might have looked girly. But on this guy it worked because, basically, he was all hot. Especially his mouth. Just looking at that mouth made her ears warm. And when he smiled, it was punctuated on either side by two perfect dimples.

Not that he was smiling now.

He tended to be more contained around her, circumspect and polite—teeth-achingly polite—whenever she pushed through his doors. Also, a little guarded. Despite that, he, of all Arlo’s friends, had been the one to treat her most like a fully-grown adult with complete agency over her life. Especially that first difficult year, when she’d sat herself down on his barstool—a little too often—looking for some alcoholic fortification.

He’d poured but hadn’t pushed, as if he understood there were many ways to slay demons.

Which made the fact she had a…crush on him even more sad and pathetic. They were never going to happen. He was one of her brother’s closest friends. That made him so far out of her orbit he might as well have been Pluto. The man just didn’t look at her like that.

Tinder. She really needed to go on Tinder.

Della started the de-layering process, dragging off the bright pink pussy hat that had been knitted for her by Mrs. Winchester from the old folks’ home. Della had tried to tell the skilled knitter that the hats were more about protest than warmth, but she’d insisted, and Della hadn’t had the heart not to wear it to and from work every day.

No wonder her head felt like a block of ice by the time she’d walked home.

She stuffed the hat in her coat pocket, along with the thick lamb’s wool–lined gloves. Her scarf was next. It had been knitted by another one of the oldies, a Mr. Curran, who only knew how to knit one, purl one but was prolific with it because he appreciated how the activity kept his arthritic old hands warmed up.

Della unwound it, then shrugged out of her jacket, hanging it and the scarf on the rack just inside the door. All that remained was the dark green scrubs she wore to work and the white Henley she wore underneath her top to keep her arms warm. She wouldn’t ordinarily wear her work clothes to Jack’s, but it was on her way home and it’d been too damn cold to continue, especially when she was coming straight back to meet her friends Molly and Marley anyway.

Yeah, she was a little early, but she had things to be getting on with—like Tinder.

Jack’s was pretty much deserted at three on a Thursday afternoon. There were some people out back playing pool, because she could hear the click of the balls over the low croon of Zac Brown Band on the jukebox, but no one was at the bar or in the booths.

It was just her. And Tucker.

Her stomach gave a little flip, and, for a nanosecond, Della contemplated grabbing a booth, but she dismissed the idea immediately. Making him walk over to her when the place was completely empty would be weird.

And besides, Tucker could help her with the Tinder thing.

He acknowledged her presence with a head nod as she sat, his gaze flicking to her hat hair for a quick moment. It probably looked like she’d been attacked by a flock of angry birds, and Della patted it self-consciously.

“What’ll it be?”

For some reason—maybe the fact she was thinking about him in that suit again or his quick, dismissive once-over of her hair—his polite facade ticked her off more than it had ever done.

His polite, brotherly facade.

The man looked at her like she was some distant cousin that he tolerated because she was family. Whereas her heart always beat just a little bit faster whenever Tucker was nearby.

Exactly like it was now.

“Strawberry daiquiri.” Jack’s never used to serve pink froufrou drinks, but Tucker had put them on the menu when the women had come to town thanks to that Facebook campaign.

With no further comment, he set about fixing her drink, and Della was tempted to watch and enjoy the shift of pecs and biceps beneath the firm stretch of his shirt and the way his worn, faded Levi’s hugged his hips. But she didn’t need to add any more fuel to the bonfire of horny raging in her loins.

She opened her phone and downloaded the Tinder app instead.

By the time Tucker had returned with her drink, Della was trying to decide on her profile picture. She wasn’t exactly flush with choices. She was probably the only millennial on the planet who wasn’t on Facebook, and she wasn’t much of a selfie taker. There were a few she could use, but she didn’t think any of them were Tinder-worthy.

Which begged the question—what was Tinder-worthy? What kind of picture interested guys? Something that showcased her big, friendly smile, or something sultry? Lipstick and tumbled-down hair with the top two buttons of her shirt undone? She didn’t have one of those, but she supposed she could take one. Or get Marley or Molly to take it, anyway? After they’d magicked up some kind of Fairy Godmother makeover.

Even the thought of posing for something like that gave Della a delicious kind of thrill in places best not thought about while in the company of Credence’s hottie bartender.

“One strawberry daiquiri.” Hottie bartender set the creation down.

Della glanced at him speculatively. Tucker was a guy. Ignoring the drink, she scrolled to the images stored in her camera. “Which picture do you prefer?” She held up the phone. “This one?”

The picture on the screen was a selfie that Arlo had taken of both of them mucking around. She was mid–belly laugh. After giving him a couple of seconds to view it, she scrolled to the second choice. “Or this one?”

It was a candid shot snapped at work. She’d been feeding Mr. Weiner his lunch and had obviously zoned out for a moment, her stare fixed somewhere in the distance.

It was very…Mona Lisa.

“Why?”

“I’m using it as a profile pic,” she said, toggling between the two.

“What for?”

Della sighed, exasperated. “Does it matter?”

“Of course. If it’s for an employment profile, I’d go for number two. If it’s for Instagram, I’d advise number one. Maybe crop your brother’s ugly mug out of it, though.”

He sent her a wisp of a smile, and Della’s mouth curved upward, despite her annoyance at his complete indifference to her as a woman. “It’s for Tinder.”

“Tinder?”

His voice was carefully neutral, as were his features, but Della had studied Tucker’s face often enough to know when he was alarmed. She nodded. “I’ve just joined.”

“Oh, okay…” He nodded with a forced kind of casualness. “How’d Arlo take that?”

Della stiffened. She’d cut Arlo a lot of slack since that terrible day he’d found her three years ago. Thanks to family secrets, they’d only met for the first time a few days beforehand, but he’d swooped in and taken charge of the situation. Given the state of her and what had gone down, she’d been grateful for her newfound brother’s intervention and protection. Grateful for him providing it every day since.

Arlo’s steady shielding had given Della the space and time she’d needed to work through all her stuff, of which there had been a mountain. But now that her wings were aching to stretch? It was becoming a bit too much.

And she really needed to have a conversation with her brother.

“You let me worry about Arlo.” She waggled the cell phone at him again. “Which one.”

He frowned, obviously uncomfortable with the situation. “They’re both fine.”

Della blinked. “Gee…thanks.” She’d gone from feeling invisible to feeling like a sack of potatoes.

“What do you want me to say, Della?”

He sounded crotchety, which made Della crotchety. “I want to know what you think. As a man. Would you swipe right on this face?”

He sighed. “Della.”

“Tucker.” She stared him down because he was giving her that you-know-I-don’t-think-of-you-like-that look and it made her madder. “You are a man, aren’t you? Surely you have an opinion?”

Saying Tucker Daniels was a man was like saying water was wet. He was the very definition of a man. He was a man’s man. He was a manly man. Della would bet her last nickel that if she opened the dictionary to the word man, Tucker’s face would be there.

“Why do you want to join Tinder?”

“To meet men. To get a life.”

“Okay, sure.” He nodded. “But have you thought about another platform? Like eHarmony, maybe?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m twenty-five, not fifty-five.”

“Yeah, but you’re probably not going to find a guy to get serious about on Tinder. It’s for people who want to keep things more…casual.”

Yes. Exactly. She didn’t know if she could pull it off, but she sure as hell wanted to try.

“Well, that’s good, because I’m only after casual.”

“Oh.” His brows drew together. “You are?”

“Yes.” Della didn’t bother to hide her exasperation. “Look…I got married young, and that was…well, you know what that was. I missed out on a lot. I didn’t get to date and experiment and just have some fun playing the field. I’m not after anything serious. I’m not after a relationship. I don’t want to settle down. Ever. I’m done with all that.”

The truth was, she was just too…damaged for happily ever afters. She’d been working with Selena, her psychotherapist, to slay her demons, but there were some things that were too big. How exactly was she going to settle down, maybe have a family, when she couldn’t even turn the light out to go to sleep? What man was going to want to be with a woman who needed a night-light?

She’d already come to terms with the fact that a serious relationship wasn’t in her future. In fact, she was fine with it. So Tinder was perfect.

“When I say casual, what I mean is…well, basically, it’s a…hookup app.”

He was looking at her like she was a particularly dense toddler to whom he was teaching the alphabet. “I know that. I’m not an idiot.”

“Okay.”

Della snatched the phone back at his okay, which sounded a little too judgy for her liking. “What business is it of yours if I want to hook up with every man in the continental United States?” She clicked on the Mona Lisa picture, and it uploaded. “I have needs, too, Tucker.”

His whiskey eyes searched hers for a long, drawn-out moment. He looked like he wanted to clap his hands over his ears and chant la-la-la-not-listening. Damn it. She hadn’t meant to be so…forthright, but she did have needs.

“Of course.” The way he swallowed betrayed the calm in his voice. “But you know there won’t be anybody around here on Tinder, right? Folks in these parts believe in old-fashioned courting. Dinner and a movie. Opening car doors. Holding hands. Chaste good-night kisses on the cheek. Not hookup apps and one-night stands.”

Della didn’t think for a moment she’d find anyone from Credence on the app, but Denver was a different story, and she was just about to tell Tucker exactly that when the registration process completed and the first potential Tinder match appeared on her screen.

She blinked at it incredulously. Tucker freaking Daniels.

He was a few years younger, and his hair was the full Botticelli angel, but it was definitely him. Her heart did its silly speeding-up thing just looking at the image. The location down at the bottom told her he was less than one mile away.

No shit, Sherlock.

“Apparently not all folks,” Della said, showing him his image.

Tucker’s face contorted into a series of double takes. He reached for the phone, then abandoned the idea, grabbing his instead. “I thought I’d paused it,” he muttered as he swiped at his screen.

Della read out his very brief bio. “I aim to please.” God…the ambiguity of that was delicious. With the devil riding her, she hit the little green heart on the screen to confirm a match.

Tucker scowled at her as she picked up the daiquiri glass, the condensation cool and wet against the pads of her fingers, and took a sip.

“I used it a year ago, when I was in New York,” he said. Like he owed her some kind of explanation. “There.” He threw his phone down on the bar. “Paused.”

“And did you hold many hands?” Della kept her voice sweet, even though she was beset with images of confident city women enamored with all his yes ma’am, no ma’am country-boy charm.

“I went on a couple of dates.”

A hot spike of something not very pleasant ripped through her middle. “So, you get to hook up, but I don’t?”

He shoved his hands on his hips. “No. Of course not.”

The action drew attention to just how well his jeans fit in that area. But Della refused to be distracted. “You know I’m right about this.”

“Yeah…” He sighed. “I know.” The expression on his face told her he’d rather be out in the woods wrestling a bear than here having this conversation with her, but he squared his shoulders anyway. “But… Why now? Why…suddenly?”

It wasn’t suddenly. It had been stirring for a while, starting with busloads of women descending on Credence and going into hyperdrive at Tucker in a suit. Yep, that suit had pushed things to warp speed. A supersonic estrogen rocket straight to her libido.

“Because I’m ready. And it’s time. I’ve come out of a long dark tunnel, and I’m in the light, and I want to live, Tucker.”

“It’s just…we remember what you were like.” His voice was low and gentle. “When you first came here.”

“You think I don’t think about that woman every single day of my life?”

She’d been a shell. A timid little mouse with a head full of scars, frightened of her own shadow. And Credence had rallied around her, giving her a place to recover.

“But I’ve come a long way. I’m not her anymore, Tucker, and I want to move on. I want more than making minimum wage at the old folks’ home and turning into some spinster living on my brother’s charity like some tragic Jane Austen heroine. I want to go to college, and I want to travel, and, yes, I want to date and have some fun for once.”

Not that many years ago, she’d have included falling in love, getting married, and having a family of her own on that list. But she was a little too broken for a serious relationship now.

“Fair enough.”

He hesitated like he wanted to say something more, but he didn’t, his lips settling into a grim line instead as he crossed his arms. A smiling Tucker Daniels, with those dimples of his, always caused a tiny flutter in her chest compartment, but there was something about the brooding Tucker that caused a different kind of flutter in her downstairs compartment.

It was so damn…Heathcliff. And Heathcliff was a jackass.

“So…” Della picked up her phone to view the next image Tinder had provided. “Do you think I should go for mister I’m well-hung and know where the clit is?” She swiped to the next candidate. “Or mister the thicker the chick, the harder my dick?”

Tucker winced. “Oh God, neither. Left, swipe left.”

Della swiped left, but there were date-worthy guys here somewhere, and she was determined to make some matches…whether Tucker approved or not.

…

A gaggle of female laughter from the corner booth formed the soundtrack to Tucker’s endeavors as he cut up way too many lemons, wishing they were Well-Hung’s balls. Seriously, what a douche. If a dude had to state for the record the size of his package and cite his anatomical knowledge, chances were he had nuts the size of raisins and had only just recently found that magic little bundle because some poor woman had finally become exasperated enough to draw him a goddamn map.

With a giant fucking X to mark the spot.

I have needs, too, Tucker.

Fuck…the way Della had said those words had caused a bolt of lightning to his junk. And he would not think about Arlo’s sister in relation to his junk. Arlo’s little sister. She was eleven years younger than him, for fuck’s sake. An entire decade. Which might not seem a big deal to some people, but it was still a mental hurdle for him on top of everything else. And he’d spent the last three years not thinking about her like that because both Arlo and Della had trusted Tucker with her sometimes-quite-fragile state.

She’d needed safety, security, and TLC more than she’d needed anything else.

And he’d provided them all, letting her sit quietly at his bar losing herself in shots of tequila or piña coladas with three maraschino cherries—just the way she liked them. Chatting if she wanted, leaving her be if she didn’t. Giving her space as she found solace in liquor and an aching kind of solitude.

Then, about a year ago, things had started to change. She’d gotten a job at the old folks’ home, and Tucker had watched as she’d slowly come out of her shell. She started to talk more, smile more, laugh more. She drank less and had started to eat with gusto, as if she’d suddenly found flavors again. She put on some weight and added some color to her cheeks. Ruth, one of her work colleagues, had become a true friend.

Yep, watching Della come out of that tunnel she’d mentioned had put a smile on every damn face in town. But Tinder?

He’d just…assumed, given what she’d been through, that Della wouldn’t want a man anywhere near her ever again.

The knife paused on the lemon peel as Tucker shut his eyes, trying not to think about the things Arlo had told him one night not long after he’d brought Della to Credence. He’d been drunk and angry and so guilt ridden about what had happened to his sister it had slipped out unchecked, as if he just had to get it off his chest.

A problem shared was a problem halved and all that crap.

But Tucker would give anything to be able to exorcise that information from his brain, because it made him ill to his bones and so fucking furious. He’d certainly lost zero sleep when her ex had fallen down a staircase and died in a Kentucky jail where he’d been serving a sentence for the attempted murder of a Colorado state police officer—AKA Arlo—and multiple sentences for sexual violence.

Which was why Tucker was worried about the whole Tinder thing. He would support her—of course he would—because it was what she wanted, even if he had to watch her hook up with every guy in the continental United States.

That had been a revelation. Both that she was only after casual and that she never wanted to settle down again. He understood why she wanted to get herself out there. Marrying young meant she had missed out on a lot, and, yeah, she had as much right as the next woman to make up for lost time. She’d been adamant, and he totally got that. But he wondered if there were deeper reasons for her not wanting anything beyond casual. Something inside that her ex had broken that could never really be healed.

Maybe she didn’t believe herself worthy of a second chance at true love and thought that hookups were her only option.

The thought grabbed around his gut and squeezed hard. He hoped not, he really hoped not, because Tinder could be such a cesspool, full of bottom-feeders. Guys who frequently lied about their situations, deliberately embellished their bios, and had no qualms about dumping a woman who didn’t put out on the first date.

Not to mention how many douchebags sent unsolicited dick pics.

Tucker shuddered at the thought as he sliced viciously through the lemon. Which was nothing compared to how Arlo was going to react. Arlo was going to be pissed about Tinder.

“Hey man.”

Tucker turned to find Drew, one of his oldest friends, sitting at the bar, grinning at him. He raised an eyebrow when he saw the gigantic pile of cut lemons at Tucker’s elbow. “You opening a lemonade stand I don’t know about?”

Glancing at the mound, Tucker grimaced. He wasn’t going to need to cut any more until next week. “Hey.” Throwing the knife down, he wiped his hands on the short black apron tied low on his hips. “You done for the day?”

“Yep.”

“How goes it at the funeral home?”

Drew frowned. “I’m thinking of changing the name to life celebration home.”

Tucker laughed. For the last little while, Drew had been trying to modernize the terminology surrounding what he did for a living. Poor guy found it hard enough to get laid when every woman he ever met friendzoned him. Add in the burden of his occupation and, well…

Undertaker just wasn’t sexy.

“Bob Downey won’t be happy,” Tucker said.

Bob had been mayor about forty years ago and lived at the old folks’ home. He still kept his fingers in all the town pies and thought modernizing anything was for pussies.

“The man’s in his eighties. Reckon he might come around the closer he gets to meeting his maker.”

Tucker doubted it as he pulled Drew’s draft beer of choice. People had been waiting for the old coot to give up the ghost for a long time, and he was still kicking. He set the beer down in front of Drew. “Bob’s going to outlive us all.”

“Ain’t that the truth?”

Tucker laughed. It felt good to laugh—a welcome distraction from the whole Della getting herself on Tinder thing. Thinking about that was fraught, whereas laughing with one of his oldest friends was always easy. He, Drew, and Arlo had all gone to school together. Tucker and Arlo had hightailed it out of town for a while after high school before eventually finding their way back to Credence, but Drew had never left.

A burst of raucous laughter coming from the direction of the only occupied booth snuffed Tucker’s laughter right out as Drew looked over his shoulder. Della and Ruth, along with Molly and Marley, who were on the other side of the booth, were huddled around Della’s phone, having a hilarious time as they sipped on their daiquiris. The women opposite—twins from New York—had come to town during the Facebook campaign over the summer, and their friendship had also helped to bring Della out of her shell.

“What’s so funny over there?” Drew asked, returning his attention to Tucker.

Tucker sighed, the words heavy in his throat. “Della’s joined Tinder.”

“Jesus.” Drew whistled under his breath. “Arlo’s going to be mighty bent out of shape.”

Bent out of shape? Drew always did have a knack for understatement. Arlo was going to go all pretzel on their asses when he was told. “Yep.”

“Do you think she’s ready for something like that?”

Tucker shrugged. “She says she is.” And the woman ought to know.

“So…that’s a good thing, right? That she’s feeling well enough to put herself out there.”

“Yep.” Tucker tried really hard to sound upbeat.

Drew shrugged. “Where else is she going to find a guy?”

“There are plenty of single men around town.” That was Credence’s problem—too many dudes, not enough women.

“You think any of them are going to look at her sideways with Arlo cockblocking at every opportunity? Jimmy Hutchins bought her a drink here last Saturday night, and since then Arlo’s got him twice for speeding and once for failure to come to a complete stop at the stop sign on the way out of town.”

Tucker shouldn’t find that funny. It wasn’t funny. And to be fair to Arlo, Jimmy was known for his lead foot. For damn sure he’d end up wrapped around a tree someday if he didn’t learn to ease up on the gas. But he wished he’d been there to see Jimmy’s face that third time.

“I heard he was thinking of moving to the next county,” Drew added, and they both laughed. Tucker was still laughing when Arlo walked in moments later. He was in his uniform, the limp from his prosthesis barely perceptible as he approached.

“What’s so funny?” he asked, perennially suspicious of anyone having a good time. He sat his ass on the stool next to Drew.

He did resting cop face better than anyone.

“Jimmy Hutchins,” Tucker said.

One corner of Arlo’s mouth hitched upward. “Speeding kills.”

Tucker grinned. “You off the clock? Want a beer?”

Arlo nodded. “Yes, please.”

Tucker grabbed a Bud Light from the long bar fridge set into the back counter because, the reality was, the chief of police was never off the clock in a small town.

“How’s the funeral business?” Arlo asked, twisting the lid off his beer as it was handed over.

Tucker shot Arlo a mock serious look. “I think you mean life-celebration business.”

Arlo laugh-snorted and took a swig of his beer as he looked at Drew. “And you’re what? Some kind of…life celebrant?”

“I prefer afterlife liaison.”

Both Tucker and Arlo lost it at this announcement. “That makes you sound like one of those woo-woo psychic nutjobs,” Arlo finally said when he’d stopped laughing.

“Yeah.” Drew nodded as he took a sip of his beer. “You may have a point.”

Another burst of laughter from the booth had Arlo glancing over his shoulder, spotting his sister. She appeared oblivious to his scrutiny, however, preoccupied with her friends and her phone. “What’s going on over there?” he asked as he turned back around.

Drew, clearly no longer contemplating euphemisms for undertaker, slid a look at Tucker, who tensed and contemplated playing dumb. But the truth was, Arlo was going to find out sooner or later. Maybe it was best for him to be prewarned.

Maybe they could talk Arlo off the ledge preemptively.

Tucker pulled the cloth from his belt and absently wiped the bar top, which did not need wiping. It was such a clichéd barkeep from a Wild West saloon thing to do, but it gave him time to think. After a beat or two, his hand stilled, and he met Arlo’s gaze. “I’m going to tell you something, but you need to stay calm.”

Arlo’s jaw turned to granite. “It’s Jimmy fucking Hutchins, isn’t it?”

Tucker shook his head swiftly. “No.” It was on the tip of his tongue to tell Arlo it was way fucking worse than Jimmy Hutchins, but he was determined to be upbeat.

Maybe Arlo would follow suit.

“It’s not bad.” Tucker forced a smile. “It’s a good thing.”

“If you don’t tell me what’s up in the next five seconds, I’ll throw your ass in jail.”

Or maybe not…

“Della’s joined Tinder,” Drew said. He’d always been a rip-the-Band-Aid-off-quickly kinda guy.

If Arlo had been someone else, Tucker might have found the quick change of his expressions comical. From what the fuck to over my dead body in two point five seconds. Arlo stared at Drew for a long time, as if deciding which of his guns he was going to use to shoot the messenger, before he shifted his gaze to Tucker.

“I need you to tell me this guy who used to be my friend is joking. And if not, I need you to help me bury his body.”

Drew didn’t look too perturbed by Arlo’s hyperbole. “Arlo.” Tucker sighed. “She’s twenty-five. You don’t get a say.”

“Goddamn it,” he hissed, his eyes flashing, his jaw tightening so hard Tucker worried it might shatter. “She’s not your average twenty-five-year-old.”

“But she wants to be, Arlo, and you stomping around like fucking Conan the Barbarian is not going to change that.”

Drew nodded in vigorous agreement. “You gotta let out the rope, dude. Any one of my sisters would have junk-punched me by now for even having an opinion about this.” Drew had four sisters—he spoke from obvious experience.

“It’s a hookup app!” he ground out through clenched teeth. “She’s not ready for that testosterone swamp.”

“She says she is.” Tucker’s voice sounded surprisingly calm. Della being on Tinder made him want to cut up a truckload of lemons, but what she needed from him—from all of them—was support. And that’s what she’d get.

Arlo looked between his friends, from one to the other. “So you both think it’s okay for her to be…getting out there again?” he demanded.

Theoretically, Tucker was fine with it. It wasn’t his life, and it sure as hell wasn’t his or Drew’s or Arlo’s business. Whatever Arlo’s justification for trying to keep Della wrapped up safe—it was null and void. She was a grown woman who was in control of her life. Just because she’d handed that control over for a while didn’t mean it wasn’t hers to take back.

And she clearly wanted it back.

“It doesn’t matter whether we are or not,” Drew reiterated, echoing Tucker’s thoughts. “It’s got nothing to do with us. Or you.”

“I know, I know. I just can’t…” For a second, Arlo seemed to be at a loss, and he couldn’t hide the flash of distress distorting his spare features. “I can’t get that night out of my head.”

Tucker knew how he felt. Just the secondhand knowledge of it was bad enough. “She’s not that woman anymore,” Tucker said, trying to appeal to what he knew was a large vein of fairness hidden behind Arlo’s tough-guy exterior. “And not all men are like her ex. You’ve done all the right things as a brother—to make her feel safe, to provide for her while she worked through her trauma. But she’s had three years of therapy, and she’s telling you she’s ready, and it’s time to step back.”

The erect line of Arlo’s shoulders gave a little as he exhaled on a loud sigh. “I wasn’t there for the first twenty-two years of her life. Is it so wrong to want to be there for her now?”

“Only when you carry a gun and can throw people in jail,” Drew said pointedly.

Arlo shrugged. “Says you.”

Tucker sighed. “This isn’t the Wild West. Your sister does not need your permission to talk to a man or go on a date or join Tinder.”

Arlo grumbled something under his breath about modern times—sounding suspiciously like Bob Downey. “What if she’s not as ready as she thinks? What if it…sets her back?” A deep crease of concern marred his forehead.

“Then she has you and her shrink and me—” Tucker faltered a little, feeling suddenly conspicuous. “Us.” He pointed between him and Drew. “Hell, she’s got this whole damn town to turn to if she needs us.”

Arlo chugged his beer in one long continuous swallow. “Hit me again,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand as he placed the empty bottle down.

Tucker exchanged another look with Drew. They’d obviously given Arlo something to think about, but it was in his nature to be protective. It was what made him such a good cop. And how he’d lost his leg.

Grabbing another Bud, he opened it and handed it over.

“Just…try to be open and supportive when she tells you, is all,” Drew reasoned. “If you’re encouraging and positive, she’ll be more likely to talk to you about the guys she’s meeting online and ask you for your advice. Maybe you could even encourage her to find a less-toxic platform to meet someone? But she’s not going to listen to you if you go all bad cop on her. You need to…create a dialogue.”

Arlo peered at Drew through slitted eyes. “Since when did you turn into Dr. Phil?”

Drew gave a soft snort. “Please. I see dead people for a living. I can out-Phil Dr. Phil any day.”

Tucker laughed, but Arlo barely raised a smile. “I just…didn’t expect this to happen. I thought I’d have to encourage her to start dating again at some point, like I had to encourage her to take the job at the old folks’ home. I’d have thought she’d be scared shitless of men forever.”

Tucker’s sentiments exactly. But Della’s recovery and how she was fighting for a normal life were the bravest damn things Tucker had ever seen. It was tempting to still think of Della as the frightened little bird that Arlo had ushered into town, but today she’d made a stand, and, as much as he worried, he was also full of admiration.

“She has needs,” Tucker said absently, that word still affecting him in ways he really wished it wouldn’t.

Arlo’s eyebrows leaped on his forehead before they pulled down low on his brow again. “I beg your pardon?”

Tucker realized he’d spoken out loud. “It’s what she said…when she was at the bar earlier. That she had needs.”

Arlo winced, looking discomforted. Drew, he of the four sisters, did not. “She does know there are ways to…meet needs that don’t require the assistance of a man, right? Maybe you can stop in at Frieda’s Palace on your way to Denver next time.”

Tucker could tell Arlo would rather be staked out on an anthill and covered in honey than take his sister to a sex shop. “Christ.” Arlo shook his head. “You Dr. Ruth now?”

Drew just grinned, and, as another burst of female laughter rang through the air, Arlo drained his second beer. Tucker was half tempted to join him as thoughts of Della finding something at Frieda’s to meet her needs were way more disturbing than was good for his mental health.