Page 2 of Good at Being Bad (Rock Canyon, Idaho 8)

One Lucky Hero

Hero of Mine

Holding Out for a Hero

Bear Mountain Rescue

Hot Winter Nights

Sexy Summer Flings

Standalones

How to be a Heartbreaker

The Something Borrowed Series

Don’t Call Me Sweetheart (August 2017)

Kiss Me, Sweetheart (February 2018)

Be Mine, Sweetheart (August 2018)

Dedicated to

Natanya Wheeler for being absolutely fabulous and taking care of all my NYLA releases! You are a sweetheart!

Chapter One

Eleanor Willis might be turning over a new leaf, but that didn’t mean she’d retired her bitchy side.

As she walked down Oak Avenue, she silently rehearsed the phone call she was going to make as soon as she got home. She’d taken her stupid failing laptop to Twin Falls for repair two weeks ago. The guy’d had plenty of time to work on it and when she picked it up yesterday, he’d had told her he’d fixed the problem.

Fixed was complete bullshit. The screen fell completely blank the moment she powered it up and now she had a few choice words for him. So much for taking a recommendation that started with “he’s a good guy.” Those words never worked out for her. Nice or good guy were code words for “appearances can be deceiving.”

Half the guys in Rock Canyon were perpetrated to be good guys and they’d all turned out to be dick holes. Every. Last. One. Didn’t leave her with a lot of faith in men in general.

Ellie turned the corner, heading down to Bits and Pieces Computer Repair. The owner, Mike Stevens, was another good guy, but at least she knew from experience that he could fix a motherboard. The guy didn’t like her and the feeling was completely mutual. He thought she was a troublemaking drama queen. A dumb kid.

At least, that’s what he’d called her the one-time she’d come on to him.

Almost two years ago, back when she was still drinking heavily and partying hard, she’d been at Buck’s, drunk out of her skull, and spotted Mike sitting at the bar alone. He’d looked damn good through the whisky haze, so she’d sidled up to him and asked him if he’d wanted to buy her a drink.

She hadn’t expected him to curtly ask if she was old enough to be there.

So she’d said the only logical retort that had come to her blitzed mind: “Can’t you tell a grown ass woman when you see one?”

“All I see is a dumb kid trying to get into trouble. Go home.”

She’d left, all right, but she hadn’t driven. She’d learned that lesson far too well, and set her sights on an easy lay. She’d gone home with Rip Colotta and took her frustrations out on him in the best way possible.

Mike’s words had stuck in her craw, though, especially after everything she’d put her sister, Caroline, and Caroline’s boyfriend, Gabe Moriarty, through. She’d hit another car when she’d driven home drunk from a party. She was under age and scared, and she’d taken off. When she confessed everything to a guy she’d grown up with, he’d blackmailed her into collecting shady secrets about her dad. She’d gone along with it at first, but as he became more violent and demanding, she’d shut him down.

Then he’d beaten her bloody and only stopped because she’d agreed she would name Gabe as her attacker.

Ellie had done it to keep her secret, but watching Caroline’s pain had been unbearable. She’d come forward, complied with court-ordered house arrest and community service, and had been trying like hell to clean up her act since. She’d almost lost her sister and put an innocent man in jail, albeit temporarily. Still, the four days Gabe had sat in the cell ate at her, especially since he had a record, must have been awful for him and nothing she did or said would ever fully make up for that. She could make amends for a thousand years and still it would not be enough.

Even though she worked nights at Buck’s Shot Bar and had alcohol literally at her fingertips, she abstained. Most of the friends she’d grown up with had drifted away from her because she wasn’t fun anymore. She’d started throwing herself into helping the town of Rock Canyon. She’d been cleanup crew at every function over the last year, and volunteered at the domestic violence shelter on Pine Ave.

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