Bourbon & Lies

Grant races toward an abandoned tobacco mill after Officer Fiona Delaney—his secret lover, his colleague, his best friend's daughter—ignores his warning and enters alone on a call about potential human trafficking.

Grant races toward an abandoned tobacco mill after Officer Fiona Delaney—his secret lover, his colleague, his best friend's daughter—ignores his warning and enters alone on a call about potential human trafficking. He hears shots fired. By the time he reaches her in the grass beyond the property, her carotid artery has been nicked with surgical precision, her side shredded. He pulls her from her father Del's arms, tells her he loves her, presses his palm against the wound that's already stopped pulsing. She's gone. The whole department learns about their relationship in the worst possible way. Grant will carry the weight of arriving too late for five years—until a stranger with strawberry hair crashes into his world and refuses to leave.

A U.S. Marshall deposits a fugitive witness at Kentucky's finest distillery

Five years after Fiona's death, U.S. Marshall Bea Harper drives through the night with Laney Shaw—newly dyed red hair, a Target bag of essentials, and a fabricated identity as Laney Young from Colorado. Laney witnessed a horrific crime in a New York storage facility: she heard a woman screaming, ran toward it, dragged a mutilated victim to safety, and triggered a fire alarm. The perpetrator is in custody but has no name, no fingerprints in any system, and Bea doesn't trust official channels. She deposits Laney at the estate of Atticus 'Ace' Foxx, eldest brother of a bourbon dynasty in Fiasco, Kentucky. Ace resists, but Bea calls in a favor. Grandfather Griz welcomes Laney with hundred-year-old bourbon and a simple toast to her arrival.

Grant rides up on horseback to find a woman who won't flinch

Morning dew still clings to the grass when Laney steps outside to explore horse paddocks, vast fields, and air that smells like baking bread. A rider crests the hill, his dog sprinting beside him. Grant Foxx, the youngest brother, pulls his horse to a stop and glares at the stranger wearing nothing but an oversized t-shirt. He assumes she's another of Ace's overnight women. Laney fires back that she's not wearing underwear—a brazen lie that makes his jaw twitch. She scratches his dog Julep behind the ears and asks whether the cowboy is still staring. He rides off without giving his name, whipping her hair across her face with the horse's speed. Something electric has already started between them, disguised entirely as antagonism.