But she didn’t even look my way. She opened it to see if there were shells, then snapped it shut, handling it like she knew what she was doing. Walking past me, she flung open the door and marched out of the room. I followed right on her heels, guests clearing a path for her.

She went over to her daddy’s casket, raised her arm and knocked the lid down with a resounding crack, then went through the open front doors.

Standing on the porch, she raised the shotgun like she was a skeet shooting champion and fired into the air. The boom shook the crystal in the chandelier over my head. There were a few screams, many gasps and some panic.

“Wake’s over,” she called. “Everyone out.”

People scurried out of her house like rats being caught in a spotlight. No one questioned a woman wielding a shotgun at her daddy’s wake.

Hell, no one questioned North Wainright.

She turned and looked over her shoulder, her gaze meeting mine as guests streamed past. “Except you.”

2

NORTH

“North, dear. What about the funeral?”

The minister must have felt good about his soul going to heaven because he didn’t leave with all the other townsfolk. As Jed had pointed out, they’d eaten my food and drank my liquor just to see the inside of the house. No doubt my bold action with my still-warm shotgun would make the rounds in town within the hour.

No one gave a shit about my father because he hadn’t cared about anyone but himself. Including me. I wasn’t sad he was dead. Far from it. I hated the man.

Having Jed Barnett here was a reminder of that. Of what Macon had done when I was seventeen. How he’d used me. He’d said he’d wanted to wait to finally put a kid to work for the company until I was eighteen, to bring me into his world, but the moment had been too good to pass up.

I took a deep breath, hoping the headache at the base of my skull would stop throbbing.

The minister was waiting for me to respond. He had to be sweating in the all-black outfit and tight white collar. Yet he seemed completely unruffled, as if firing shotguns at a wake happened every day. He was more concerned about getting the deceased buried.

I wanted my father’s body out of the house and six feet under just as much. Probably more.

“Three o’clock as planned,” I reassured him. This was one thing on my calendar I wasn’t going to forget.

I shifted the shotgun to my other arm, the barrel aimed at the floor. My shoulder was a little sore from the kick, but at least I felt it. Felt something.

Besides exhaustion. Stress. Anger. I’d been bitter for so long, I forgot what sweet felt like. My lips still tingled with it.