Chapter 1

• Beau Walker had spent most of his life on this patch of dirt that smelled like diesel and sweet feed and sweat — a smell he’d swear he’d miss the day he was put in the ground.
• The barn was half-rotted on the south side, the same spot he always leaned when he needed to dodge Cade Lawson’s big brother orders. He had a cold beer in one hand, sweat running down his bare back in crooked lines that made the hay stick when he sat. It was late July — the heat thick enough to make a man stupid.
• He heard her boots crunching gravel before he saw her. That soft scuff he’d know anywhere — light but stompy, like she didn’t care if she pissed off every rooster in the yard. Bug. Nobody else walked like that.
• Beau tipped his hat up and squinted at the yard. Sure enough, there she was. Sadie Sparrow Lawson, in her brother’s old sweatpants that pooled at her ankles, tank top slung loose, glasses crooked on her nose. Hair in a bun so messy half of it was threatening to mutiny.
• She looked like the world’s cutest stray dog. And Beau would’ve laughed — he nearly did — except she wasn’t throwing pebbles at his boots like she usually did.
• She just stood there.
• “Hey there, Bug,” he called, voice rough from the heat and that old country drawl that stuck in his teeth. “You forget how doors work or you come to stand around lookin’ pitiful?”
• She shuffled her foot in the dirt. He watched her bite her bottom lip — the one thing that made her look girly when the rest of her screamed tomboy and trouble.
• “You busy?” she asked.
• “Doin’ important things,” he said, holding up his beer. “Hydratin’. Think Cade’d fire me if I died of thirst in July.”
• She snorted, rolled her eyes. God, that sound. He’d swear he could bottle it and fix a drought.
• “Can I talk to you, Beau?”
• She never used his name like that. It poked at something low in his gut — just for a second.
• He patted the hay bale next to him. She hesitated like there was a snake coiled on it, then climbed up, folding skinny legs under her. She smelled like dust and soap and the heat off the fields. Same old Bug.
• They sat quiet a minute, looking out at Cade’s pickup half-buried in junk. The hum of bugs in the grass. The rustle of the corn.
• Then she said it. Voice small. “Why don’t boys look at me?”
• Beau turned his head slow, blinked at her through the sweat dripping down his brow. “What?”
• She picked at her knee. “Boys. Guys. Hell, men. They don’t… y’know… look at me. Not like they look at those girls at Rowdy’s. Not like they look at them cheer girls. Or the ones you bring around.”
• He barked a laugh — short and sharp. “Jesus, Bug. Where’d that come from?”
• She shot him a look that could’ve lit the barn on fire. “Don’t laugh. You know what I mean. Don’t act stupid.”
• Beau rubbed a palm over his jaw. Felt the sweat collect in his beard. “Ain’t nothin’ wrong with you.”
• “Well, you’d know, wouldn’t you?” she snapped. “You look at every damn pair of tits that walks into Rowdy’s. Hell, you oughta have a PhD in ass by now.”
• He nearly spit his beer at that. “Bug, Christ—”
• She talked over him. “You always say you like girls who dress a certain way, do their hair this way, wear jeans like that. I remember every dumb thing you ever said standin’ right here talkin’ big to my brothers.”
• Beau shifted on the hay, feeling the weight of her eyes crawl up his neck. He was about to crack a joke when a voice hollered from the barn doors.
• “Sadie! You beggin’ Beau to be your boyfriend now?” It was Beck — the youngest Lawson brother besides her, grinning like a fox. “Lord knows no one else is lining up for that shit.”
• Beau felt her stiffen beside him. He cut Beck a look that would’ve made a rattler back up. But Beck just laughed and kept walking.
• Sadie didn’t say anything. She looked at her knee like she’d drill a hole clean through it.
• Beau stared at her. Really looked. At the smudge of dirt on her cheek. The way her lashes tangled at the ends. The little scar on her chin from when she’d been ten, climbed the fence she wasn’t supposed to and face-planted in the gravel. He’d carried her then, too. Wiped the blood off. Called her Bug because she wouldn’t stop crying and snotting all over his shoulder.
• He reached out now without thinking, caught her chin with his thumb. “Hey.”
• She met his eyes, those big brown eyes that still had trouble in ‘em.
• He used the pad of his thumb to brush the dirt from her cheek, same way he always had. It made her blink too fast.
• “Ain’t nothin’ wrong with you, Bug. Never was,” he said, voice softer than he liked. “Beck’s a dumbass.”
• She sniffed. “He ain’t wrong.”
• “Hell he ain’t.”
• She squared her shoulders. “Then help me.”
• “Help you what?”
• “Help me be… better. Different. Pretty.” The word tasted funny in her mouth — he could hear it. “Teach me what you like. What men like.”
• He snorted. “Men? Hell, you want men or you want boys sniffin’ around you all damn day?”
• “Maybe I want one to,” she snapped. “Maybe I don’t wanna be your little Bug all my damn life.”
• Beau opened his mouth to say something — anything — but her words hit him like a shovel to the ribs. Your little Bug. Not Cade’s sister. Yours.
• She shoved him before he could answer. Hopped off the hay bale, boots kicking up dust.
• “Forget it,” she muttered. “You’re useless.”
• He caught her wrist. “Sadie—”
• She turned, glared at him, glasses crooked. “Don’t call me Sadie. You don’t get to call me that.”
• He swallowed. “Fine. Bug.”
• She yanked her arm free. He let her go. Watched her stomp across the yard, cussing under her breath — filthy, vicious little country curses that made him laugh and want to knock Beck’s teeth out at the same time.
• Beau tipped his beer back and watched her go.
• Somewhere between that dirt-smudge on her cheek and that cuss on her lips, Beau Walker made up his mind to help her.
• Not for her. For him.
• Because someday, some dumb boy’d look at her the wrong way — and Beau would have to kill him for it.