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  PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF CARA McKENNA

  Give It All

  “Original and compelling. A rare treat. Those looking for an escape from the conventional should stop in Fortuity, Nevada, for a spell.”

  —RT Book Reviews (4½ stars)

  “An engrossing romantic thriller. McKenna’s deft plotting and endearingly flawed characters will keep readers coming back for more.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Featuring [a heroine] as tough, determined, and whip-smart as any you’re likely to find in contemporary romance today.”

  —Romance Novels for Feminists

  “Once again, Cara McKenna has completely won me over with her imperfect, flawed characters and a story that keeps on surprising me.”

  —Guilty Pleasures Book Reviews

  Lay It Down

  “Like a smooth shot of whiskey after a dry desert ride, Lay It Down quenched my thirst for wicked-hot romance. Cara McKenna knows how to write sexy-as-hell bad boys.”

  —New York Times bestselling author Jaci Burton

  “McKenna opens her Desert Dogs series on the perfect note, presenting readers with a story that is sizzling, intelligent, and completely absorbing.”

  —RT Book Reviews (4½ stars)

  “McKenna ratchets up sexual chemistry and danger in equal measure, and tension stays high to the end. Readers will eagerly turn pages to learn the outcome of both the mystery and the romance.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  Hard Time

  “Gritty and compelling. Cara McKenna is a master at capturing realistic situations and characters.”

  —#1 New York Times bestselling author Maya Banks

  “A lovely, heartfelt romance. . . . The letters, the sweetness, the tender eroticism made this book a recommended read for me.”

  —Dear Author (recommended read)

  “McKenna has crafted an intense, at times dark, heated romance.”

  —RT Book Reviews (4½ stars)

  “It’s different and sexy, and I love that Cara McKenna explores protagonists that . . . have more real, grittier lives.”

  —Smexy Books

  “Hard Time has gripping, emotional sections paired with some serious sexy times. . . . Fans of McKenna will be happy with her latest offering.”

  —Fiction Vixen

  Unbound

  “Beautifully written and brilliant. . . . If you’re looking for nuanced portrayals of complicated characters, I can’t recommend it enough.”

  —Dear Author

  “I’ve said this countless times . . . but I love Cara McKenna’s voice.”

  —Smexy Books

  “It’s a very happy day for me when I get to read a new Cara McKenna novel . . . a very emotional, tug-at-your-heartstrings type of book . . . so very good.”

  —Fiction Vixen

  “I appreciated the depth in this story and the raw emotion that McKenna brought to her characters. She treated the subject matter with great respect and allowed her characters to fully explore their sexuality in a way that sizzled the pages. I think my e-reader needs a cooldown period.”

  —The Book Pushers

  After Hours

  “Intense, funny, and perfectly dirty all at the same time. After Hours is a new favorite.”

  —Victoria Dahl, USA Today bestselling author of Fanning the Flames

  “After reading After Hours, I went on a Cara McKenna glom and read seven books in a row. This book is that good!”

  —Fiction Vixen

  “Exceptionally evocative writing . . . fascinating.”

  —Smart Bitches Trashy Books

  “A well-done, real-life, gritty erotic romance with a bossy, bossy hero and a heroine who can fight back.”

  —Smexy Books

  ALSO BY CARA MCKENNA

  The Desert Dogs Novels

  Lay It Down

  Give It All

  Drive It Deep

  The Sins in the City Novels

  Crosstown Crush

  Other Novels

  After Hours

  Unbound

  Hard Time

  SIGNET ECLIPSE

  Published by New American Library,

  an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

  This book is an original publication of New American Library.

  First Printing, November 2015

  Copyright © Cara McKenna, 2015

  Excerpt from Lay It Down copyright © Cara McKenna, 2014

  Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Signet Eclipse and the Signet Eclipse colophon are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  For more information about Penguin Random House, visit penguin.com.

  ISBN 978-0-698-40561-5

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  Contents

  Praise

  Also by Cara McKenna

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Excerpt from Lay It Down

  With thanks to Christina, Claire, and Laura. Gestating two books and a baby at the same time wasn’t easy, but you gals got me through.

  Chapter 1

  James Ware strolled into the prison yard alongside a couple hundred fellow inmates, welcoming the weak February sunshine on his shoulders and scalp. Normally the sensation would amount to a tease, a mere hour’s escape from the cinder block and noise of the inside, but this afternoon it felt different. Felt manageable.

  “Two days,” came a voice from behind him. It was the young guy everybody called Tugs, for reasons James didn’t care to know. He was skinny, hyper, a little too wide-eyed and loudmouthed for this place where bluster required muscle to command any respect. James didn’t mind him, though. They worked in the kitchen together, and the kid was all right.

  “Two fucking days,” James agreed, slowing until Tugs was at his side, the both of them heading to the far corner of the yard.

  “Lookit that wall, man.” Tugs pointed to the fourteen feet of concertina-capped brick that penned them. “Two days from right now, you’ll be on the other side. That’s gotta feel good.”

  “No doubt.” They reached the corner known as the gym—though a couple weight benches and a rusty collection of barbells weren’t exactly worth a membership. James snagged a bench and Tugs stood by, always eager to spot. Kid was like o
ne of those little fish that stuck close by a shark, grateful for scraps and a taste of protection.

  “What’ll you do, first thing after they let you out?” he asked James.

  “Pray to God my sister remembers to pick my ass up.” James hefted a thirty-pound dumbbell and began to curl. “Then eat a hot meal off an actual plate and get a decent cup of coffee.” No more plastic trays, no more brown sludge-water.

  “Bet you’re gonna get so shitfaced on Tuesday,” Tugs said wistfully.

  “Sure.” James didn’t drink, but neither did he go into details about his personal life. He didn’t need to drink, he thought, feeling the chemicals moving through his blood as his muscles woke up. His temper was a thrashing, snapping dog while he was stone-cold sober, and he kept it on a short leash. Get him drunk and that tether got real slippery, real quick. He hadn’t had so much as a beer in two years or more. And he hadn’t been as pissed as he was now in almost too long to remember.

  “Bet you got a girl waiting for you,” Tugs said. “Get wasted, get laid—that’s what I’m gonna do the second I get out of here.”

  James didn’t reply.

  Yeah, he had a girl waiting for him. Two of them. An ex and a daughter. A four-month-old daughter he’d never met, and hadn’t even known about until recently. He aimed to see her, as soon as he could track her down. And his ex . . . well, time would tell how difficult she might decide to make that for him. If the girl knew one thing, it was how to run.

  The last time he’d seen her . . .

  The last time, things had gotten out of control.

  The two of them had always been out of control, but that afternoon it had all boiled over. Their relationship had only ever been a messy, staggered succession of fucking and fighting. Normally James prided himself on resisting other people’s bait, but that girl could tempt his anger like nobody he’d ever known. She could rouse his softer side, too, and they’d had some good times. But that last blowout had rasped all the shine right off what they’d briefly had together in a roof-rattler of a fight that must’ve left them sounding like a pair of feral rednecks to the neighbors.

  She’d wanted that fight, too. She’d goaded him until he’d lost control enough to clasp her shoulders and shake her. She had poison inside her. Other people had put it there, but she knew just how to strike out and weaponize that shit. She’d also had their baby inside her, during that fight. Neither of them had known it then, but it had already been growing. Just a tiny little speck, invisible to the eye, yet since James had found out about it, it had grown big enough to eclipse the whole of his world.

  He’d never known a woman like Abilene. A seeming kitten, except catch her on a bad day, pet her wrong—she’d scratch and bite you like a fucking wolverine. She’d been all claws when they’d met, all claws when they’d parted less than three months later. In between there’d been good times, but stress had never brought out the best in her, and if a baby was one thing, it was stressful. If there were claws drawn now, he needed to know. Needed to see for himself that his kid was in safe hands.

  As his muscles worked and his blood thundered in his temples, anger flared with every pulse. He wasn’t a good man—there was no doubting that—but she was no saint herself. And if she decided he needed to be blocked out of his own daughter’s life, that he was the one that child needed protecting from . . .

  You’ve got a fucking nerve, you little bitch.

  And in two days’ time, he’d find her. In two days’ time he’d see his kid, come hell or high water, and he’d decide precisely what needed to be done about it all.

  Chapter 2

  “Motherfuck—”

  Casey froze, eyeing the baby asleep in his lap.

  “You didn’t hear that. Just keep sleeping. Sleeee-pinnng,” he pleaded, rising gingerly from the couch to reach for his ringing phone. He shifted Mercy’s weight to one arm and checked his screen.

  Unlisted—no shock there. He hit TALK. “Hello?”

  “Grossier?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s Emily. Why are you whispering?”

  “It’s three a.m., man.”

  “And this has been a problematic hour for talking business since when, exactly? Oh, wait.” He could hear a smile in her voice now. “You got a girl next to you?”

  Casey glanced down. “Sort of.”

  “I’ll keep it quick, but you’ll want to hear this—I’ve got the perfect job for you.”

  “I’m not taking any more contracts, Em. I told you that in October.”

  “There’s some policy bullshit on this one,” she went on, ignoring him. “Has to go down by March fifteenth.”

  “Em—”

  “Which is soon, I know, but it’s so fucking easy. Commercial, super remote, no neighbors for half a mile. You’re in and out and it’s all over before the good guys even get the call. You could do this in your sleep.”

  “No, I can’t—”

  “Your slice would be twenty, minimum.”

  Twenty thousand bucks? Casey wasn’t broke, but a payday like that would certainly make his life a hell of a lot easier . . . He felt sweat break out under his arms and at the small of his back. He eyed the mounted antelope head on the wall above the fireplace, feeling as frozen as that poor bastard.

  “Mi-ni-mum,” Emily repeated.

  Casey took a deep breath, glanced at Mercy, and screwed his head on straight. “I can’t. I’m in Nevada, for one.”

  “Vegas? That’s not far.”

  “No, fu—frigging way up near Idaho.”

  “Okay, so what? Get in your car and drive. You’re the best, but four weeks is tight, even for a cake job like this.”

  “Shit’s changed.” He eyed the baby again. Not shit—crap. Crap’s changed. “I have responsibilities now.”

  A pause. “You? Have responsibilities? What kind of responsibilities?”

  “I own a bar, for one.”

  “A bar? Do tell.”

  “Don’t even think about it. I’m not laundering a penny for you.”

  “Spoilsport.”

  The baby began to fuss. “No, no, no . . .”

  “Are you talking to someone else?”

  “No, I— Listen, I can’t. We had a great run, but I’m out. I can’t be doing that shit anymore. I’ve got a business partner to think about. I go down and it’s not just my ass on the line now.”

  “This doesn’t sound like the Casey Grossier I know. Plus you won’t go down—you’re too good.”

  “You’ve got other guys.”

  “None like you. Bunch of dumb-ass punks. But you—you’re a fucking artist, Case. Just this one job. Come on, please? For old times’ sake?”

  “I’m telling you,” he said, gently bouncing the now-pissed-off-looking baby, “I can’t.” Even as he said it, he pictured that money. Pictured the scene—smelled it, felt it . . .

  No. No fucking way.

  A sigh came through the line. “You’re breaking my heart, mister.”

  “I have to get out of that line of work sometime, Em. So do you, for that matter.”

  “Twenty grand says I can put off retirement for a few more weeks. And you—the Casey I know would have taken a job ten times trickier than this and for half the payout, just for the fun of it.”

  “Well, I guess I’m just not the—”

  Mercy woke, squawking and angry.

  “Is that a baby?”

  “It’s not mine. It’s complicated. Anyhow, I have to go. Nice working with you, Em.”

  “I’m keeping you in my Rolodex. I know you—you can’t quit that easy.”

  “Watch me.” Casey hit END and tossed his phone on the couch.

  “Shush,” he told the baby. “Shush your beautiful face, please. Your mom hasn’t slept in, like, three days . . .”

  At four months, the infant book had said, both Abilene and her daughter might soon be getting eight hours a night, but this baby clearly had no designs on higher achievement. Casey had spent a lot of time in Ve
gas, and he’d known alcoholic insomniac gamblers who were more lovable at three a.m. than this baby was.

  Above him, footsteps.

  “Shit. Please be Christine, please be Christine.”

  There was a chance it was—he was in Christine Church’s home, after all, and she often rose at ungodly hours. Christine and her husband, Don, and their son, Casey’s good friend Miah, lived in this big old farmhouse at the western edge of their cattle ranch. Casey was here about every other night, checking in on Abilene, helping with the baby as best he could, when he really ought to be home, in bed, asleep.

  Hell, I shouldn’t be in Fortuity at all.

  Or anyplace in Nevada, for that matter—not when he could be back in Texas, saying yes to that contract, looking forward to meeting Emily for a drink to go over the logistics, salivating to get the project going. He shouldn’t be co-owner of a bar. In the light of day, he was glad he was, but just now, when he was sleep deprived and missing his old paydays, his old freedom . . .

  Above, on the landing to the second-floor rooms, a door opened, spilling soft light. Shit, Abilene.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “We’re fine.”

  She padded down the steps and into the den in her sleep clothes—pajama pants with a pattern of stars and moons, an oversized and faded Dolly Parton concert tee. Her long, dark ponytail was all cockeyed, her normally wide eyes squinty and bleary. Cute as fuck, really.

  “Sorry,” Casey said, bouncing the angry baby. “I’ve got her. My phone rang. She’ll be back to sleep in no time,” he lied. He didn’t know much about babies, but he was steadily coming to understand this one, and when Mercy was pissed, she stayed pissed.

  “Give her here.”

  “No, go back upstairs.”

  “Try giving birth to a baby and then ignoring the sound of her crying,” Abilene countered. “Sit.”

  He dropped back on the couch and Abilene sat beside him. He passed the squirming bundle into her arms.

  Casey stretched his neck from side to side, feeling the hour. Feeling, as he often did these days, half-incompetent at most everything he was attempting to do—run a bar, help out with his family’s issues, care for an infant. The one thing he was truly exceptional at was off the table. He’d grown used to feeling capable, used to knowing without a doubt that he was the only man for the job. But with that job shelved, and maybe for good, he couldn’t say he much enjoyed the alternative. It roused an old, familiar restlessness in him, the same one that had driven him out of this town to begin with. His self-serving side wanted to run straight back to Texas, except he was all in now. For the first time in his life, he was neck-deep in responsibilities, with others seriously depending on him. Running wasn’t an option . . .