Leaving my lights on, I grab a couple of flashlights, toss her one, and follow her in the barn. Cicadas trill, frogs sing, and leaves rustle in the quiet. A man could get used to the peacefulness of it.

“You gonna murder me out here in the middle of nowhere?”

“And bury you in the cow pasture. They’ll never find you.” She laughs and turns around, watching me as she walks backward inside the depths of the barn. She flicks on a switch, and the buzz of fluorescent lighting reverberates, the glow dim but adequate. The place is big, airy, and mostly clean, hay stacked in the corner, a tractor parked to the side. Various tools hang on the walls.

“This place belong to your family?”

“Mine.” She smiles. “Elena got the big fancy house in town, and I got the farm.”

“How much is the land worth?” Real estate is pricey in Nashville, and Daisy is close.

“I’ll never sell. I grew up here, rode horses, and followed my dad around. He used to farm, mostly as a hobby. We kept these two emus until they died of old age. The true farmer was his dad. Someday, I’ll build a house out here and have ten kids.”

“Hemsworth. I’m starting to hate him and his damn villa.”

“You keep bringing him up.”

I do? Whatever.

My gaze snags on a faded circle of flowers hanging on a hay bale. “Is that a black wreath? What did you do there? Satanic rituals?”

When I look back at her, she’s on her knees beside some boxes, her flashlight at her neck, eyes crossed, teeth bared. “Death is here,” she growls in a deep voice. “Prepare to be sacrificed!”

I flinch. “Jesus!”

She bursts out laughing, dabbing at her eyes as she gets up and walks over to the wreath, patting me on the shoulder as she sashays past. “If I’d known you were that easy to scare, I would have been jumping out at you when you walk out of your bedroom.”

“I might jump back.”

She bites her lip, amusement in her eyes as she fingers the obviously spray-painted dried flowers. “No satanic demons. This sad wreath is in memory of my twentieth-birthday debacle.” She crosses herself. “May the curse be broken soon.”

I laugh, spellbound by her theatrics. I’m discovering her, layer by layer, every little piece, and I crave more, every tiny detail of who she is. “I sense a good Giselle story. Ugly black wreath, a barn . . .”

She leans against the wall nonchalantly. “It’s a horror story. You might get scared.”

“Giselle Riley, please, what happened here?”

She flashes a cheeky grin, clearly wanting to tell me. “Rascal. You really want to know?”

I want to know every fucking thing. “Yes.”

“Bobby Ray Williams met me here three days before my birthday for a tryst. He drove his four-wheeler.”

“There’s a country song there.”

“I’d made up my mind. He was the one. I liked him; he was sweet, a good guy who wouldn’t gossip about me to his buddies. His daddy owns some of the land adjacent to ours, and we spent summers together.”

Real jealousy rides me, and I kick it down. “Uh-huh.”

“So that night, he comes in the barn, and things get hot and heavy. Lights are off, Coldplay is singing ‘Magic,’ and I can feel it in the air—this is it; it’s gonna happen. He’d brought a blanket, and we put it over some hay bales. We’re mostly naked, and things are going good; I’m all in, and he’s fumbling around—he was a virgin too. And he thinks he sticks it in, but he didn’t; he’s screwing the blanket and the curve of my ass—”

I rear back. “Say it isn’t so.”

She grimaces. “Yeah. Before I could say, Hey, you missed your target, an owl flew in—how, I don’t know. It headed straight for Bobby Ray, clawed him good—I mean sunk into his back like it was never going to let go. He rolled off me, fell off the bale, and hit his head on a rake. Thank God the tines were down, but he blacked out for a few seconds, maybe from the blood. He comes to and is puking and yelling, and I’m running from the owl. Finally, I get the doors open, and it flies off. I tell him he has a concussion, and we spend ten minutes just trying to get his pants on—that was fun—then hop on his four-wheeler. On the way to his house, I could barely see and steered us off into a pond.”

My mouth gapes. “You’re making this up.”

“Sadly, no. Dragged a hundred-and-eighty-pound grown man from the pond, nearly carried him back to my car—why didn’t we take it in the first place? I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking clearly, and neither was he. Just thought we’d get to his house faster cutting across the field. Anyway, I’m almost to his house when a cop pulls me over for speeding. Well, Bobby Ray gave me a bloody nose when I was pulling his flailing body out of the water, so the cop took one look at the mess in the car—and us—and called an ambulance. Spent the night in the ER.”

She gives the wreath a sad look.

“He’s married now with a baby, so I guess he figured out where the vagina is. What’s really funny, and now I can find the comedy, is I never told him he did it wrong. He still thinks to this day that he took my V-card.” She giggles. “Your face is killing me. Let it out, Dev.”

My face splits in a grin, laughter spilling out as I try to talk in between breaths. “That’s the worst . . . almost-sex story . . . I’ve ever heard,” I gasp, clutching my sides. “Cursed is right. You need to see someone.”

She executes a curtsy. “I’m here every birthday for your entertainment. When was your first time?”

“At the drive-in, in the bed of my old truck, with a girl three years older than me. The place was closed, but I had keys to the gate.”

“Good experience?” Her tone is wistful.

Honestly, I can barely remember, except that I came too soon but went in again. “Yours will be, Giselle. With a guy who cares about you. Don’t get in a hurry.”

She stares at the wreath for several beats, her jaw working. “So you’ve said.” She swings her flashlight as she walks over to several container boxes, tearing them open and pulling out dishes.

“Here, carry this.” She points to a box she’s set some in, and I pick it up and follow her back out, then set the box down in front of a stump by the door.

She pulls a pair of goggles out from the box while “Body Like a Back Road” blares, and she hums along. “Get that club from the Hummer. Shit is about to get real.”

I do as she says, swinging the club as I walk back to her, wondering what the hell she’s going to do.

“Here, hold my beer.”

“Said every redneck before they wake up in the hospital.” I chuckle as I take it, and she slides on her goggles, sets a white mug on the stump, and picks up the club.

“Stand clear,” she says. After backing up a few paces, she arches her back, her stance confident and sure as she grips the club.

“This one is for my asshole advisor. The one who thinks women aren’t as good as men.” Swift and sure, she swings the club. Crack! The cup shatters, the pieces flying through the air.

I whistle, watching the glass fall. “Damn.”

A satisfied grunt comes from her as she snatches an old blue vase and slams it on the stump. “This is for Preston. Cheating sonofabitch,” she yells as she connects. The ceramic bursts as it sails across the field.