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Chapter One

Sometimes a man needed to mind his own damn business

Seth Stallard kept telling hi even as he walked across his lawn and ducked under the split-rail fence that inevitably led to the high grass adjoining Lindsey Leland’s front yard Each step he took was one step closer to facing a spitfire of a woht back the same way he came

Still, he kept right on lutton for punishht concerned

Sheriff Crass Ass, better known as Sheriff Lenny Ray, had been at Lindsey’s place the week before Threats had been exchanged, and from what Seth’s brother Beck had said, Lindsey only had a short period of tiain with orders to remove her from the property

Far held the note on the place The suits behind the business acted like they wanted to help her, but in truth, they wanted her far an extra hand

Now, Crass Ass had returned His deputies with their nondescript white box-style sedans were lined up in her driveway Hell, it looked like they were there for a lynching They didn’t have an ounce of discretion, but they sure carried that pound of judgment

They wanted everyone in their small East Tennessee town to know They were there to seize They were there to take If anyone held power in their small town, or in the whole state for that matter, it was Sheriff Ray and his boys

What a joke

Seth and his brother were e community, and if Seth had seen it once, he’d witnessed it a dozen times These cops with their twenty-five-thousand-dollar annual incouns they seldom dreould suddenly become ten feet tall and bulletproof, all because they were able to serve the orders that stripped one man—or woman—of the place they called home

If Seth had learned one important lesson in life, it was this—people were basically bad If soood heart or desirable trait, they had to peel away the layers of crud and peer underneath a mountain of stone They needed to work after it

The local sheriff and his dutiful soldiers swar a mix of “We know you’re in there, Miss Leland!” to “Coot our orders!”

Orders, hell

Seth took longer strides If they wanted Lindsey, they’d go through him first

The sheriff saw hi and tried to block his path “Now Seth, I knohat you’re thinkin’, but back on up, son”