Sweat trickled down my back, but I shivered. Shivered? Why did my shoulders feel as if an icy finger had just tapped for my attention? Dread gripped my spine. Something awful was coming. I was sure of it.

Thatch frowned at me. “You okay, Ellison?”

“Fine. A goose walked over my grave.” If I explained my premonition to Thatch or Graham, really to any man but Anarchy, they’d pat my hand and tell me I was being silly. Or emotional. Or both. Few men had faith in women’s intuition. Their mistake.

“Pull.”

Graham clipped his clay, and he flashed Thatch a wily grin. “That’s a hundred to me.”

Had Graham missed his early shots on purpose? The sense of dread was near stifling, and I crossed my arms over my chest. I had so much to lose, I couldn’t help but shudder.

Anarchy and I were housed in the second to last of six log cabins. Each had a tiny front porch and a screened porch off the back. Each stood in a clearing surrounded by shade trees.

Mother would call the tiny cabin primitive. And she'd be right.

A braided rag rug covered the knotty pine floors. There was also a bed, a dresser, two chairs pushed in at a scarred oak table, a tiny kitchenette, a tinier bathroom, and a window unit air conditioner that made enough noise to drown out a full-scale military operation.

My best friend Libba, who’d joined me for a cocktail, frowned at the offending unit. "I can’t hear myself think."

“I can turn it off, but the temperature in here will be stifling within twenty minutes.”

She glanced at her watch. "We're due at dinner soon. Turn it off."

I stood and jabbed the unit’s red button. The resulting silence was deafening. At least to me.

Libba breathed a relieved sigh. “How will you sleep with that thing running? Oh, wait. Newlyweds.” She waggled her brows suggestively. “You don’t sleep.”

I rolled my eyes at her.

“When will your new husband be here?” she asked.

Anarchy was wrapping up a case and hadn’t been able to leave work until late in the day. Instead of having me wait for him, he’d insisted Libba and I make the drive together. “I’m not sure.”

“How was shooting?”

“Thatch and Graham were...” I searched for the right word.

“Swaggering?”

“Yes.”

“Competitive?”

“They bet a hundred per clay.”

She barked a laugh. “How did that work out?”

“Thatch hustled Graham, and Graham hustled Thatch. They morphed from men who couldn’t hit a thing to half-decent shots. I watched them.”

“How many did they hit?”

“Thirteen each.”

“So, a wash?”