later, there it is again.”
“As fascinating as I find it to learn that you struggle with chin hairs, we have more important things to talk about.”
“Like how those shoes look like they cost more than my car?”
“You’re going to give me fashion advice? You look like the before picture of a makeover segment.”
“This man bothering you, Livvie?” A man with a barrel chest and a bad knee ambled toward them from one of the outbuildings, wiping his hands on a grease-stained towel. His buzzed hair and steely eyes spoke of a life spent in positions of authority. A limp said he was past his prime.
“Your boyfriend?” Mack whispered.
Liv glared up at Mack before answering the man. “Very much,” she said. “Can you make him go away?”
Mack strode forward, hand extended. Behind them, Liv snorted. “Don’t. You might mess up your manicure.”
“Braden Mack,” he said.
The man accepted the handshake with a stronger-than-necessary grip. “Earl Hopkins.”
“We call him Hop,” Liv said, joining them. She nodded toward Mack. “And I call him Chin Hair.”
Hop sized him up. “Ever serve?”
“Time or in the military?”
“Either.”
“Nope.”
Hop snorted and looked Mack up and down once more, stopping with a smirk at the bloody, ripped shin of his jeans. He glanced at Liv, eyebrow raised. “Randy get him?”
Liv smiled.
Hop nodded. “Rooster’s good for something, at least.”
“You named it Randy?”
Liv rolled her eyes. “It’s okay, Hop. Tell Rosie I’ll be in in a few minutes to help finish dinner.”
Hop nodded at Mack. “He eating with us?”
Liv and Mack spoke at the same time.
“No.”
“I’d love to.”
Liv glared at him. “You’re not staying for dinner.”
“What’re we having?”
“Whatever you’re allergic to.”
Hop gave another snort and wandered toward the main house.
“Quite a life you’ve got here, Liv.”
“Feel free to leave anytime.”
“Come on, seriously. Why the hell do you live here?”
She stomped up the same path that Hop had taken without answering.
“Perhaps you didn’t notice,” Mack said, scrambling to catch up. “But I’m bleeding.”
“You’ll survive.”
“Who knows what kinds of diseases that thing has?”
“You’re right. You should leave and head straight to the emergency room and tell them exactly what happened.”
He was ready with a quick retort, but it died on his lips because ten feet away, on the other side of the fence, Randy jumped on the back of a hen and—“What the hell is he doing to that chicken?”
“Didn’t spend much time in the country as a kid, did you?”
“Sure. Spent a whole day at a one-room schoolhouse where we shoved a stick into a rotten apple and called it a doll. There was never a murderous rooster in any of our lessons.”
Randy jumped off the hen’s back. “Jesus. That was fast.”
“The male of every species is trash.”
“I’m not. I’m one of the good guys.”
Liv snorted as she opened the back door. She let the screen go, and it damn near smacked in him the face.
“Thanks,” he said, ducking in just in time. He followed her into a mudroom and down a short hallway that led into a spacious farmhouse kitchen where a woman with a long gray braid stood at the stove, stirring something that smelled awesome in a large red pot.
“I found a stray,” Liv said, heading for the fridge. “Randy got him.”
The woman turned around, wiping her hands on a dish towel. “And who might you be?”
Mack flashed his signature grin and held out his hand. “Braden Mack, ma’am. Pleasure to meet you.”
He threw in a wink for good measure, and the woman smiled as she shook his hand. “Well, it sure is pleasure to meet you too.”
“Seriously?” Liv said, putting her Chinese food in the fridge. “Even you?”
“Sorry to intrude at dinnertime, Ms. . . .” He let the sentence hang.
“Call me Rosie,” she said, waving her hand at the formality. “And it’s not an intrusion at all. We have plenty. We’re having pot roast.”
Mack patted his stomach and winked again. “My favorite.”
Liv made a gagging noise, which earned her a scathing look from Rosie.
“Liv, where are your manners?” Rosie chided, nodding toward the hallway. “Go help him clean that cut.”
Liv let out a sigh like a kid who’d just been told to watch her little brothers while the grown-ups played cards. “Fine. Come on.”
Mack followed her to a small downstairs bathroom. He sat down on the edge of the white porcelain tub and stretched his legs out. They spanned the entire distance between the bathtub and the pedestal sink, where Liv was wetting a wash cloth.
She turned around with a bottle of something sinister-looking. “Roll up your pant