When they were teenagers, Quinn MacGregor and Aaron Larsen fell in love over the course of one magical summer. It ended in bloodshed and tragedy. Now, ten years later, Quinn is back in Spruce Creek, Nevada, to inherit his family’s criminal cartel. His cousin Jimmy has been making friends -- and enemies -- in dangerous places, but that doesn’t mean he’s happy to hand over leadership to Quinn. And Jimmy might not be the only one who wants Quinn out of the way for good, especially if Quinn’s secret comes out. Aaron Larsen is back in Spruce Creek to sell his former family home. Aaron lost a leg in Afghanistan, and he’s drinking too much and battling depression and PTSD. The last thing he needs is for Quinn MacGregor to drop back into his miserable life. But when Quinn is shaken by the news that he left more behind in Spruce Creek than his bad memories, he turns to Aaron like it’s old times, and Aaron doesn’t know how to say no. The events of ten years ago cast a long shadow, and in a town where they can’t trust anyone else, Quinn and Aaron just might have to learn to trust each other again.

A Desperate Man

Quinn drove to Jimmy’s house, the house Quinn had grown up in. It was almost exactly between Karen and Ian’s place and Jimmy’s warehouse on the edge of town. Seeing the house as it was now weird. It sported a new, different color paint and even new windows, making it look nothing like the house where Robert had ruled first the household, then the whole town.


He needed to set some things straight with his cousin and he didn’t really want to do it in public. He knew Jimmy had his own crew, partially, but they all fell under the MacGregor umbrella. It was just that most of Ian’s guys had been Robert’s first, and they were starting to get older. Jimmy’s crew was his and Quinn’s age group; some of them had gone to school with them, too.


Chapter 30