“Thank you.” He turned around and Parker marched double time down the driveway, through the wash crossing, and up to the house.

The minute she walked in the door, Scout jumped to his feet. Parker retrieved her “snake fork,” checked to make sure it was loaded, and walked back out the door. Scout bounced at her side.

With a shotgun over her shoulder, she walked the long path to the other side of the property and used a remote to open the gate so Mr. Hudson could drive inside.

The white public works truck had a light bar on top and all the fancy stickers on the door.

If Colin Hudson was a Ted Bundy wannabe, he was going through some serious effort to appear otherwise.

He stepped out of his truck and lowered his sunglasses enough to look over the rim. “I can come back later,” he said, looking at the gun. Scout ran around his feet demanding attention.

“It’s for snakes, Mr. Hudson. Are you a snake?”

“My junior high school girlfriend said I was.”

Parker tried not to smile.

The grin on his face said she’d failed.

“We kill five or six rattlers every year. A requirement of living this close to Mother Nature.”

“You shoot them?”

“I usually use a flat head shovel, but that’s a little harder with the rocks.” The wash was littered with them.

“You use a shovel?”

“If you tell me you’re one of those ‘save the snake’ people, I’m gonna have to ask you to leave.”

He shook his head, amusement danced in his eyes. “Nope. Hate snakes. Shoot ’em. Have fun.”

He was teasing her.

Parker called the dog and turned and walked away, confident that Mr. Hudson was following her. “You can see the burn line,” she started.

“That’s your house?”

“Yeah.” From the midpoint of the wash, they were still five hundred yards from the base of the driveway and slope of the actual house.

“Looks like the fire came close.”

“Took out the fence six feet from the east side.”

“Were you here?”

She blinked, picturing the flames, felt the heat of them, the smell of them. “We were.”

He was quiet for a minute. When she looked up, those kind eyes searched hers. “The house doesn’t look to be in any danger of taking on mud.”

Parker pushed away memories of flames. “I’m not concerned my house is going to float away. It’s the damage to the property, the lack of being able to get in and out.” She pointed to the culverts that were under the Arizona crossing through the wash. “I’ve seen these culverts fill up. When they do, it takes a lot of work to get them clear. We park a car on this side of the wash and use the footbridge, but doing that for long periods of time is a royal pain.”

He cocked his head to the side and stared at her. “How long have you lived here?”

She opened her mouth to answer and saw Austin driving his car down the long drive. He rolled down his window as both she and Mr. Hudson stepped to the side.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“Will’s house.”

“When are you coming home?”

Austin looked at the man standing beside her. “I don’t know. Who’s this?”

Parker didn’t bother with his name, Austin wouldn’t care. “He’s with the city—”

“County,” he corrected her.

She waved him off. “He’s here looking at the wash.”

Her brother gave a single nod. “Cool.” He switched his eyes to hers. “We haven’t seen a single snake since the fire.”

Parker moved the weapon to her other hand. “Doesn’t mean they’re not out here.”

“Whatever.” He started to roll up his window.

“Call if you’re staying the night.”

“I will.”

“If you’re drinking, stay there or call me.”

Austin rolled his eyes. “Yes, Mom.”

She laughed. Austin didn’t drink all that often, and when he did, he told her about it. The courts would take custody away in a heartbeat if Austin started getting in any trouble. None of them wanted that. Especially this close to Austin’s eighteenth birthday.

She stepped out of the way of his car as he drove past.

“He’s not really your son . . . right?”

His question made her pause. “I’m pretty sure I look like crap right now, but I doubt I look old enough to be his mother.”

“He called you Mom.”

It was her turn to roll her eyes. “Older sister.”

“So this is your parents’ home?” He seemed relieved with the information. Like a weight had lifted from his brain.

“Was. Our parents died two years ago. So if I seem a little paranoid”—she lifted the gun as if paranoid was written on the barrel—“it’s because I’m responsible for taking care of him and my sister.” And that’s all she wanted to say about that. “Now tell me about the wash. What can you guys do to control the mud?”

CHAPTER FOUR

Annie Oakley.

No makeup.

Soot smudged on at least three places on her face.

Light brown hair sticking out of a half-cocked ponytail and a gun slung over her shoulder as if that were a thing.

Colin followed her across the dry creek and past the fenced portion of the property.

Annie was tall.

Long legs, short shorts.

He tore his gaze away. “I’m sorry, but I didn’t get your name,” he said, distracting himself.

“Parker.”

Was that her first name?

“Parker Sinclair,” she told him as if she knew he was about to ask if that was her last name.

The shotgun moved from her shoulder to her hand as she jumped down into the wash and started to march. She was girl-next-door beautiful despite the messy state she was in.

“How long have you lived here?”

“As long as I can remember. Minus a couple years of college.” She hiked a leg up onto a rock and kept moving along the blackened path the fire had ravaged. “My parents moved here when I was two.”

He was trying to calculate her age in his head but he couldn’t quite figure it out. “I can see why. It’s beautiful.”

She huffed a breath. “It was.”

Colin looked at the blackened hillside . . . the soot. “It’s peaceful.”

Parker glanced over her shoulder, didn’t meet his eyes, and said nothing.

He felt, more than saw, the weight of the property on her shoulders. He couldn’t imagine how anyone kept their crap together after losing their parents. Yet she was marching around, jumping off rocks, and juggling that shotgun as if it were second nature. Whoever Parker Sinclair was, she was the most atypical California girl he’d ever met.

Several yards away, she paused. “This is where our property ends.”

Colin looked behind them, confused. “The fence is back there.”

“Yeah, well. My father bought this piece of land years ago and left it undeveloped. He didn’t like neighbors.”

In front of them stood a massive debris basin that appeared as if it had been constructed forty years ago.