Something in him wanted to offer comfort. He labeled it foolishness and shoved it aside. He didn’t want anything to do with her. He hadn’t wanted anything to do with Lucy, but she had drawn him into her web like a black widow spider. He wanted this place, that was true enough, but he didn’t want this. He had plainly and purely hated Lucy MacAdam. Couldn’t figure why someone hadn’t shot her on purpose years before. The woman before him was her friend, another outsider, which made her tainted by both association and circumstance. The sooner he was rid of her, the better.

He steeled himself against her tears and settled his hat firmly on his head, an insult she would probably never fathom.

“Lucy didn’t go hunting,” she mumbled stupidly.

“It was an accident. Some damned city idiot shot without looking.”

Ten days ago. It seemed impossible to Mari that she could have lived ten days oblivious of the death of a friend. Shot. God. People moved to the country to avoid getting shot, to escape city violence. Lucy had come to paradise only to be gunned down. It was ludicrous.

Mari shook her head again, trying to clear the dizziness, only making it worse. “W-where is she?”

“Six feet under, I reckon,” he said brutally. “I wouldn’t know.”

“But you were her friend-”

“No, ma’am.”

He moved toward her slowly, deliberately, his expression dark and intense. He came too close. Close enough that she had to tilt her head back to look at him.

“We had sex,” he said bluntly, his voice low and rough. “Friendship never entered into it.”

Rafferty raised a hand and traced his thumb down her cheek to the corner of her mouth. “How about you, Mary Lee?” he whispered. “You want to give a cowboy a ride?”

He knew he was being a bastard. J.D. didn’t give a damn. If he was lucky he would scare her away from this place.

“How about it, Mary Lee?” he murmured. “I’ll let you be on top.”