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bare feet pressing against the pedals. It had felt strange the first few times she’d done it, and she always suspected she’d hear about it if a cop pulled her over while she was driving barefoot, but there was no way she could keep her shoes on for another minute after she’d gotten them off. And she was pretty sure it wasn’t actually illegal. Plus, she’d know Sheriff Thomas since she was a baby; she’d babysat his kids. She could talk her way out of a ticket if she really ever had to.
     
    She should have been scared of what had happened with the Doe. She should have been panicked. She’d totally lost control of herself in there. She’d almost kissed him, a stranger, and a patient. Hell, if she was being honest, she might have done a lot more than kiss him if he hadn’t stopped her. The pull had been so intense. So deep.
     
    Roxanne had always been fairly careful choosing her lovers. She had decided early on that she wasn’t going to wait for marriage—as Izzy said, you tried a pair of jeans on before you bought them, and they were only supposed to last for a couple of years at best—but she also hadn’t enjoyed the random hook-ups that some of her friends seemed to thrive on. But she’d always been too busy to invest in full-on relationships, a fact that had been making her friend Matt frustrated for years. He was the marrying kind, and Roxanne—at twenty-eight years old, she was starting to suspect that she really and truly was not.
     
    She sighed to think of it. It wasn’t that she didn’t like men; she did, very much. She enjoyed sex, and she enjoyed the men she’d slept with over the years. She was still friends with several of her exes, but she also suspected that they’d all say the same thing about her if anyone asked them why they broke up. It got too serious for Roxie , they’d tell whoever asked. She always had somewhere else to be when things got intense.
     
    Putting her finger on why was a trick. Her parents loved each other and had a good relationship, even if a little traditional and a little conservative for her tastes. They treated each other well, supported each other, and Roxanne had always had a good relationship with both of them. She cared about a lot of the men she’d been with, had even felt like she loved a couple of them. But when push came to shove, she’d chosen school, her career, or even staying home with a good book over them. She’d given the “it’s not you, it’s me” speech a few more times than she cared to count.
     
    Once, in college, she’d tried women just to see if that was the missing spark. She’d had an excellent time with one of her sorority sisters, come more times than she ever had in one night in her life, but in the morning, she didn’t feel any more inclined to stay than she ever did.
     
    Maybe it was just how she was. Some people were gay, some people were straight, some people were bi. Maybe she’d end up being one of those serial monogamists. She’d have an excellent, exciting life, with lots of travel, and when she was old, she’d write a memoir about all the places she’d been and all the expensive and exciting men she’d screwed.
     
    Just thinking of it made her chuckle. Mama would probably need a Xanax if she thought about it, but Gram would have told her to enjoy herself.
     
    She sighed again, thinking of Gram. The kind of tough old bird that seemed to grow extra leathery in the Texas sun, Gram had left her husband when he’d beaten her one time too many. She’d left when it was a thing that was definitely not done, but she’d gotten her kids away from him and never gone back. She’d put herself through enough school to run the farm on her own, and she’d sent her son—Roxanne’s Daddy—to college. It was her money that had put Roxanne’s through school, and when she’d passed away two years back, she’d left the house to her only granddaughter who showed any spunk. Or, at least, that’s what she’d said in the