Untamed. JoAnn Ross

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      Trace shrugged. “We’ve got some spare pieces of plywood hanging around after replacing the damage last month’s storm did to the jail roof. No point in it going to waste. As for J.D., I don’t think he’d mind doing the job off the books.”

      This was another thing Gavin liked about small towns. In the city, such a suggestion would call for innumerable oversight committees, public hearings, newspaper editorials and Lord knows what else. Here in Whiskey River, things were definitely more laid-back. The live-and-let-live attitude was one of the reasons he’d chosen to settle here.

      “Thanks for the offer, but I don’t mind replacing the windows. Mostly I was just blowing off steam.”

      Trace eyed him over the rim of the coffee mug. “You know, Brigid Delaney’s windows aren’t your responsibility, either.”

      “That’s what I keep telling myself,” Gavin said.

      “And?”

      “And for some reason I can’t make myself believe it.”

      “Maybe she cast a spell on you,” Trace joked.

      “That’s one answer. Of course to believe it, I’d have to also believe that the old lady was a witch.”

      “So are you saying she was a fraud? Or a liar?”

      “Neither. Not exactly.” Gavin frowned into the thick black depths of his coffee as he framed his response. “I think she honestly believed that she possessed special powers. And from the business her mail-order herb catalog brought in, it’s obvious a lot of other people around the country thought so, too. But I’ve just never bought into the notion of ghosts and goblins and things that go bump in the night.”

      “Yet the heroine of all your books is a witch.”

      Gavin was grateful when Trace referred to them as books and not comics. Not many people bothered to make the distinction.

      “I created Morganna to fill a niche,” he said. “And to fill all those hours when I was behind bars.” Gavin’s scowl darkened as it always did when he thought back to his imprisonment. “Just when I thought for sure I’d go stir-crazy, I read about Wicca being one of the fastest growing religions in the country and decided to cash in on a trend.”

      And cash in he did. The success of Morganna, Mistress of the Night, had been nothing short of phenomenal.

      “If you ask me,” Trace said in a drawl that harkened back to the Texas roots he shared with Gavin, “Morganna’s success has as much to do with her crime-fighting outfit as it does her sorcery.”

      Because the comment came from a man Gavin considered a good friend, a man whose dogged devotion to the truth had eventually earned him his freedom, Gavin didn’t take offense. Especially since it happened to be true.

      “Got a point there,” he said agreeably. His quick grin faded as his thoughts returned to Brigid’s house. “Although I never believed Brigid was a witch, unfortunately the kids in town do. Which is why they seem determined to break every window in the damn house.”

      “I wish I had the resources to put a man on the place for a few nights,” Trace mused. “The problem with teenage vandalism is that it can lead down a rocky path straight to a jail cell.”

      Knowing that the former big-city cop had put in his own time on the wrong side of the bars in the juvenile justice system, Gavin figured Trace knew what he was talking about.

      “You know,” he said, “that’s not a bad idea. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me sooner.” The more he thought about it, the more he liked it. “I could do that.”

      “Do what?”

      “I could spend a couple of nights in the house. Wait for the kids to break a window, catch them in the act, then bring them to you for the scared-straight lecture.”

      Trace’s expression was decidedly doubtful as he considered the proposed plan. “You’re not talking about being armed or anything?”

      “Hell, Trace, you know I’ve never owned any guns. I just want those kids to leave the old lady’s house alone.”

      “I hadn’t realized you were that close.”

      “Neither had I,” Gavin admitted. “Until she was gone. Then I realized that somehow, when I wasn’t looking, she became the closest thing to a real family I’ve had in years.” He put some money on the table and stood. “Give Mariah a hug for me.”

      Trace smiled at the mention of his wife’s name. Not a day went by that he didn’t consider himself the luckiest man on the face of the planet to have had such a gorgeous, sexy, intelligent, talented woman fall in love with him.

      “She’s been away for four days wheeling and dealing in L.A., and as soon as she gets back tonight I intend to give her a lot more than a hug,” he said. “But I doubt your name will come up.”

      Gavin laughed. “You’re a lucky man, Trace.”

      “That’s what Mariah keeps telling me.” Trace grinned back. “You know, marriage isn’t such a bad institution, pal.”

      “That’s what you keep telling me. And call me crazy, but having already experienced life in an institution, I think I’ll pass.”

      “I’m serious.” Sober gunmetal gray eyes echoed Trace’s words. “From what I can tell, you spend all your time working.”

      “When you love what you’re doing, it isn’t work,” Gavin automatically responded with the answer he usually gave to interviewers who remarked on his apparent lack of any life outside his work.

      “Yeah, I read that quote in Newsweek.” Trace waved the words away with his left hand, his simple woven-gold wedding band gleaming in the buttery morning light. “I didn’t buy it then and I don’t now. The way it looks to me, all you’ve done is change your prison stripes for a denim jacket.”

      “What’s that supposed to mean?”

      “It means that the trappings may have changed. But although you’ve said that one of the reasons you came to Whiskey River was to enjoy life, you might as well still be spending your days behind bars.”

      Gavin frowned. “That’s not a real attractive image you’re painting there, Trace.”

      “If the boot fits,” Trace said mildly. “Mariah has asked you to dinner six times in the past month. And each time you’ve said you had to work.”

      “I was up against a deadline.”

      “That’s what you said. But you also just told me you mailed the new book off to your publisher this morning. So how about steaks tonight?”

      “If Mariah’s been in L.A. for four days, the last thing you two need is me crashing your reunion.”

      “Tomorrow, then.”

      “I have this idea I thought I’d flesh out. About Morganna taking on a bunch of gang bangers—”

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