Tripp Murphy had turned out to be a genuinely decent guy who, like most folks, had made some poor choices. Choices that were his response to being wrongfully accused of committing murder. If I lost years of my life sitting in jail for something I didn’t do, I would probably lash out worse than a few drunken bar brawls.

I once heard Pa say that Tripp had an unlucky knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Tripp had never met the teenage runaway he’d been accused of murdering, but he had been at the place where she was last seen. Witnesses at the bar said Tripp left only minutes after her, and so that was twisted into him following her. He was alone that night and had no alibi to discredit the claims, which easily made him the scapegoat for the crime.

Tripp not only lost years, but also his fiancée. She chose the public’s opinion instead of standing by Tripp’s declaration of being innocent. To add insult to injury, while he was in prison, she ran off with the friend who was supposed to be Tripp’s best man. Magnolia spread that news quicker than when he was acquitted.

Once he put the alcohol down with Pa’s help and got a job with the city, Tripp started performing yearly tree sweeps. He thoroughly checked each magnolia tree in town, using a rake, to make sure no secret would ever go uncovered again.

“Where’d you go, babe?” Vance trailed a fingertip along my sweaty neck.

I blinked and refocused on the handsome sweaty guy sitting beside me. “I was trying to teleport us to Antarctica, but it’s not working.”

Nearing midnight, the late hour hadn’t calmed the temperatures that were still hovering in the high eighties with the humidity at nearly 100 percent. The heat was palpable, making the skin weep in misery. There was no seeing the threat, but one certainly could feel it pressing down on all sides.

“You’d think up here would be cooler.” Vance nudged the opening of the loft’s upper window with his toes. We were both wearing shorts and T-shirts, but he suddenly fisted the back of his soaked shirt and whipped it over his head, revealing a glistening chest.

“Ugh. That is so not fair!” I pinched the collar of my shirt and fanned myself, but it did very little to alleviate my discomfort or tirade about to reach a boil.

Vance used his shirt to mop over his head and chest. “What’s unfair?”