Page 3 of Between a Rock and a Hard Cowboy

“So the key doesn’t fit. Call a locksmith. Or can’t you pick the lock?”

Eva glanced up to see Olivia had directed that question at her. “Why would you ask me that?”

Olivia’s deer caught in headlights expression was accompanied by an incoherent, “Uh…”

“It’s just that if any of us would be clever enough to be able to pick a lock, it would be you, obviously,” Poppy said, swooping in to Olivia’s rescue.

“Mm-hm.” Eva pulled her mouth to one side and glared at them through narrowed lids. She knew they all thought she lived life on the dark side…or at least earned a living there.

The problem was, they weren’t too far from the truth. That didn’t mean she was going to support their theory.

Neither confirm nor deny…

“So? Can you call a locksmith?” Olivia asked.

“Or pick the lock?” Poppy added.

“That way we’ll know what’s in there and it doesn’t matter that the key didn’t fit,” Olivia said.

Eva drew in a breath, more annoyed with herself than with them for tag-teaming her.

She should have thought of picking the lock herself. Her one excuse was that the key was the focus.

Her inability to think had nothing to do with the sensation of Linc literally breathing down her neck. Or how he smelled like horses and leather and pine. Or that he looked like a damn lumberjack, with the hard body of a twenty-something who worked outdoors. Or that she was having trouble remembering the last time she’d seen a man naked. Mostly because she’d pushed that visual out of her mind because that man had been less than stellar in the bod department.

Nope. It was none of that.

Finding where the key that Wyatt, Ethan and Linc’s grandfather had reportedly carried with him every day of his life was the concern here. The mystery that needed to be solved. More than what was in the drawer that the key didn’t fit.

Still, a secret compartment that no living Wilder knew existed was also exciting and she couldn’t believe she wasn’t down there picking that lock right now. Because yes, she had the skills. She also had the tools, although they were back at the apartment above Rosie’s Cafe with the rest of the stuff she’d brought with her to Bitter End, Tennessee from New York.

The apartment she kind of sort of shared with Poppy.

Her roommate now had a suite at the big fancy Wilder Inn as part of her position as management there, but Eva suspected Poppy and Ethan used that mostly for lunchtime quickies. Which was fine with her. It kept Ethan from trailing around the apartment after Poppy like a puppy.

Eva could count on Poppy being there quite a bit of the time. She’d sleep in the apartment most nights of the week.

She’d be there when she needed to vent and when she needed a cinnamon-dusted cappuccino and a sweet treat from Rosie’s. When she needed that purse, or shirt, or fill in the blank of some overpriced designer fashion item stored there. Half the girl’s stuff was still in the apartment. Apparently socialites didn’t pack light.

It was the perfect situation. Eva had enough peace and quiet and privacy to satisfy her. And Poppy was there often enough to keep the apartment from feeling empty or lonely.

Eva drew in a breath and glanced at the bedside clock next to her pregnant friend who was supposed to be resting, not hosting a mystery hunt. Besides, she had some work to get done tonight. Actual money-making work.

“I’m heading back to Rosie’s so Livvie can rest. You coming back there or spending the night at the hotel?” she asked Poppy.

For the first time ever, Poppy seemed to be at a loss for words. She glanced at Olivia, then back to Eva. “Um. So, I have something to tell you.”

No sentence in the history of the world, delivered in that tone, and with that expression, had been good news. Eva folded her arms and braced herself for the worst.

She was thinking it had something to do with Poppy’s rich mom and dad in New York. Something along the lines of they’d offered to buy her a mansion to go along with the vintage Alfa Romeo waiting for her at their Hamptons beach house if she came back to civilization and abandoned the idea of living in Bitter End.

“A couple of days ago…Ethan asked me to move in,” Poppy spilled that news on a burst of breath.

Olivia’s eyes widened. “In here?”

“Yes.” Poppy cringed. “Is that okay. I mean it’s Wyatt’s house. And yours. And with Darcy and the new baby and Wyatt’s father all living here…”

“It’s amazing. Of course I want you here,” Olivia squealed with joy. Eva did not.

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