Prologue

Marcus Armstrong gaped at his two younger brothers sitting on the other side of his desk, unable to believe his ears. "Is this a joke? The last thing we need in this town is women!"

Middle brother Kendall averted his gaze and wiped his hand over his mouth. But their younger brother Porter, always the hothead, leaped from his chair.

"This isn’t a joke, Marcus, and you’re being an idiot!"

Marcus planted his hands on his desk, then pushed to his feet. "Watch your mouth, little brother. I can still pin your ears back if I have a mind to."

Porter’s chin went up. "I’d like to see you try that."

Kendall stood and positioned himself between them, hands up. "That’s enough, you two. Let’s sit down and discuss this like businessmen—and brothers."

At Kendall’s calming tone, some of Marcus’s anger diffused, replaced by a twinge of guilt. Kendall had been playing referee all of their lives. Marcus conceded it was the only way the three of them had gotten as far as they had rebuilding their hometown of Sweetness, Georgia, which had been leveled by an F-5 tornado ten years ago.

By the grace of God, no lives had been lost, but with the infrastructure of the dying, remote mountain town obliterated, residents had abandoned their property and fled to safer and more prosperous ground. Of the three of them, only Porter had been around when the tornado had struck. After seeing their widowed mother settled in with her sister in Atlanta, he’d followed in the steps of his older brothers into the Armed Forces. Scattered to far ends of the world, they each had fulfilled stints of active duty in different branches, then, fortuitously, their tours had ended within a few months of each other and they’d returned to civilian life.

It had been Kendall’s idea to rebuild the town of Sweetness on the burgeoning industries of alternative energy and recycling. The recycling had made sense because there were tons of debris to clear before they could lay out roads and set the boundaries of the new town. Four months into the enormous undertaking, they were making progress and Marcus was pleased by the fact he and his brothers were seeing eye to eye on the reconstruction efforts…except, apparently, on one critical topic.

"Kendall," Marcus said, "surely you don’t support Porter’s cockamamie idea of bringing women here."

Kendall looked pained, then lifted his shoulders in a shrug. "The men are getting restless, Marcus—they’re young and…"

"Horny," Porter supplied.

"Right," Kendall said with a sigh. "They want some female companionship, or at least some feminine scenery."

"There’s Molly at the diner," Marcus pointed out.

"Molly is a fine woman," Kendall said, "but she’s old enough to be a grandmother to most of these men."

"Except she was a colonel," Porter added dryly. "So she’s not exactly the warm and fuzzy grandmotherly type. The other day she clocked me with a wooden spoon because I couldn’t finish that gruel she calls oatmeal."

"We’re lucky to have her here," Marcus said. "How else would we feed the men?"

"Marcus, she runs that place like a mess hall, and the food is terrible."

"It’s…edible," Marcus said in her defense. "And it’s good that she keeps the men in line."

"Molly is a blessing," Kendall conceded. "But surely you understand the men are more interested in having eligible, young women around."

Marcus scoffed. "These are mostly military guys—they’re used to being without female company."

"Sure, when they were in Iraq and Afghanistan!" Porter blurted. "But now that they’re back on American soil, they want to see some American beauties."

"We’re only a few hours from Atlanta," Marcus remarked.

"Four hours," Porter reminded him.

"The men don’t seem to mind the drive when they caravan into the city on the weekends."

Kendall made a thoughtful noise in his throat. "But invariably, some of them don’t come back Monday morning because they’re either in jail or in love."

Marcus pulled on his chin. Ten crews of twenty-five men each was the minimum number of bodies they needed to keep things moving forward. Admittedly, it was getting harder to recruit new workers to replace the men who went AWOL every week.

A commotion outside the office trailer caught their attention. Kendall looked out the window, then bolted for the door. "It’s another fight."

Marcus cursed and followed his brothers outside where a few hundred yards away, two men rolled in the red mud, fists flying, while other men stood around egging them on. Kendall and Porter rushed forward to pull the men apart, but wound up getting dragged down in the mud with them. Marcus rolled his eyes, then reached for a water hose coiled nearby and turned a stream full force on the fighting men. "Break it up!"

The men separated enough for Kendall and Porter to drag them to their feet and shove them in opposite directions.

"He started it!" one man yelled.

"That’s bullshit!" the other man yelled.

"Enough!" Marcus roared. "One more word and your pay will be docked!" He turned to address all the workers. "The next man who wants to fight will be fired on the spot, got it? Now get back to work!"

The men grumbled, but everyone made their way back to the mountainous pile of tires that were being sent through an industrial shredder, cleaned, and bagged as mulch. It was their first viable commercial product. Kendall, a natural salesman, had convinced several state parks and botanical gardens to switch from natural wood mulch to their reclaimed product that would last for decades. Everything was moving forward as planned…except for the constant interruptions of fighting among the men.

Kendall and Porter walked toward him, slinging mud from their arms. "It’s only going to get worse," Porter said. "These guys are together all the time, with no way to blow off steam."

"I have to agree, big brother," Kendall offered, picking up the hose to wash off the worst of the sticky red mud.

"C’mon, Marcus—having women here will help to grow the town faster," Porter urged. "We’re going to need retail stores and teachers and nurses—"

"And lawyers and doctors," Kendall broke in, giving Porter a chastising squirt with the hose.

"I don’t care what they do for a living," Porter said with a grin, "as long as they bring skirts and high heels and perfume. I don’t blame the men—I’m tired of being around a bunch of sweaty, ugly guys, too. And that includes you two."

Marcus pursed his mouth. "So this is really about you, Porter. You want us to import women for your own entertainment."

"No." Then Porter shrugged sheepishly. "But I don’t plan to sit on the sidelines. Unlike you, Marcus, I don’t hate women."

Marcus gritted his teeth. "I don’t hate women. I just know that bringing a bunch of female-types into this town prematurely will be a fustercluck of gigantic proportions." He gestured to the barren red-clay expanse of ground extending to a distant tree line. "Where are they supposed to live? In the men’s barracks?" The utilitarian rectangular building sat at the end of the work site, adding little to the landscape.

"We could build a boarding house across from the diner," Kendall offered, handing off the water hose to Porter. "It could be the start of our downtown."

"What about our dire water situation?" Marcus asked, jerking the hose out of Porter’s hand and turning it off before he could rinse himself.

"We’d need to repair the water tower sooner rather than later," Kendall admitted.

"But the sooner we make this place civilized," Porter piped up, "the sooner we can bring Mother back home to Sweetness."

A pang struck Marcus in his chest—Porter knew his soft spot. Their mother’s pining for her hometown had fueled their decision to rebuild Sweetness. With the whiff of defeat in the air, Marcus pulled his hand down his face. "And how do you propose we go about attracting women to a place where drinking water is at a premium, and the nearest mall is a helicopter ride away?"

Porter’s teeth were white in his mud-covered face. "I volunteer to go to Atlanta and start recruiting right away."

Marcus frowned. "At strip clubs and bars? No thanks."

"You have a better idea?" Porter asked.

"I think it’s a bad idea all the way around!" Marcus shouted, then glanced at Kendall, who was, as usual, standing poised to jump between them if necessary.

"But…I’ll go along with it," Marcus announced, then silenced Porter’s shout of victory with a raised hand. "If you’ll handle the logistics, Kendall."

Kendall’s eyes widened. "Me?"

"Yes, you. Porter can get the men started on building a rooming house and repairing the water tower while you figure out how to import the kind of women we’ll need to grow Sweetness."

Marcus turned and strode back toward the office, his muscles tense from a palpable sense of impending doom.

"Where are you going?" Kendall called behind him.

"To take cover," Marcus yelled over his shoulder. "Because you boys are about to unleash another natural disaster on this town."