The Pretenders of Copper County (Copper County, #1)

by May Archer

wearing thick boots, cargo pants, and a flannel shirt she’d cropped herself last week with her pocket knife,

because the extra material was “freaking killing my range of motion,

Her messy hair, which looked like it had been hacked off with the same knife, framed a pre...

Nothing worse than a man who can’t take a joke, Uncle Danny always said.

It had taken me less than six months in Vermont to become a small-town urban legend.

I was fairly certain this wasn’t what Uncle Danny had in mind when he’d sent me north to stay with Van to “relax awhile” and “find myself” while helping his old army buddy out.

According to town gossip, four out of the five brothers were gorgeous, green-eyed, gargantuan lumberjacks, even the one who worked in Washington as an accountant or something.

I blinked down to find that I’d overfilled Mrs. Graber’s glass by an ounce or two… or twenty… and the excess had run all over the bar and down my jeans.

Oh, frick. Oh, mother-clucking cluckballs.

For half a second, when Van inhaled, he looked almost angry, but his expression cleared so quickly I was sure I’d imagined it.

Crys had invited me to go ax throwing.

she’d invited me gorge jumping, which, to my shock, involved jumping into actual gorges.

But your Uncle Danny was also so stressed about work and… other stuff, his heart went wonky at fifty-nine.

when I’d tried Grindr just to see how it worked, I hadn’t even uploaded a profile picture before five messages popped up, four demanding dick pics and one inviting me to a nearby stranger’s home to “rail his horny ass through the mattress.” I’d panic-deleted the app instantly.

You ask too many questions, Christoforo, and you ruin life’s surprises. Don’t argue. Be calm.

the parade of nosy neighbors who remembered me from my motherless, paste-eating elementary school days,

due to my forced administrative leave, the future of my job was tenuous at best—a

You’re literally the only agent on the books in this office without an assignment, which is why the guys upstairs are willing to overlook your recent failure and reinstate you without a hearing.

Your way back into the Division’s good graces. So don’t fuck it up.

Fake plastic birds were staked across the entire front yard in tidy rows, like a strange crop ready for harvesting.

Another flock climbed the trellis

And one lone bird perched on the roof like it was surveyin...

Was this early onset Stockholm syndrome?

Do you have any specials tonight?” I asked politely.

“The burger’s real special. You want special cheese with that?”

She is a whole B****

“Because you might think this whole ‘sweet and lovable’ act makes me think you’re innocent, but it just makes me think you’re stupid.”

WOW, THANKS

I’d started to notice that the chairs were really wobbly two shots ago, but I didn’t want to say anything about it in case that was rude.

A man in a golf shirt was thrown across Amber’s table,

No piece of ass, no matter how sweet or fascinating, was worth that.

So infuriatingly stubborn, and stubbornly cheerful, and cheerfully infuriating.

shouldn’t the universe have limits on the number of times a person can mortify himself in one day?”

and I was scrambling to keep up with two men forged in the same giant mold,

while my stomach begged me to leave it behind and carry on without it.

the more Reed Sunday told me to do something, the less I wanted to do it.

Reed sounded about as enthusiastic as I would if invited to go free climbing. Naked. In a blizzard.

like the wacky coincidence that my uncle was on a never-ending vacation cut off from all communication at the same time Reed claimed he was in witness protection,

the way those bikers last night had known my uncle’s name and feared it, which I couldn’t explain away.

He’d been borderline rude to every one of the guys who’d struck up a conversation with me that day.

the pursed-lipped, roll-eyed glare that I was coming to think of as Chris’s “Bossiness is Unattractive, Reed” look.

brown eyes went all soft and gooey every time a handsome local man (and Jesus fuck, there were a statistically unlikely number of them)

“Talk to me,” I commanded. “Tell me you’re okay. Baby, please.”

“S-so b-b-bossy,” Chris complained softly, and I nearly sobbed from the relief of it.

the one thought my panicked brain had latched onto was that I refused to die before Reed Sunday kissed me again.

I bet being there feels like… like putting on a sweater from when you were a kid. It’s too big in some places, because someone knit it for you to grow into and you never did,

and too tight in other places

Knit your own identity so you know it’ll fit.”

my fingers itched to find every person who’d ever hurt him and show them the error of their ways. Slowly.

“You ‘blooming’ might not bother me so much if every man in this town didn’t seem so interested in pollination,” I muttered.

The town had its charms,

Maybe it was growing on me… Like a zombie virus.