For You

Chapter Ten Reece

Colt’s phone rang, I knew it from the tone and it jarred me awake.

Keeping me at his side, he reached for it and I snuggled closer as he started talking.

“Colton.” Pause. “Yeah, right.” Pause. “Where?” Pause. “Got it. Gotta get someone in for Feb then I’ll be there. Yeah. Later.”

I lifted up to an elbow, pulled my hair out of my face and watched as he used his thumb on his phone, the light of the display illuminating his face.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Robbery,” he answered, hit a button and put the phone to his ear.

I settled back into him, resting my head on his shoulder and draping my arm around his stomach, mumbling, “Bummer.”

I was half asleep when he flipped his phone closed, moved and then I heard buttons being pressed.

I slid my cheek along his skin to look up at him as he put the phone to his ear.

“What?” I asked.

“Your Dad’s not pickin’ up, phone’s probably not close or he’s out,” Colt replied then he said, “Darryl?”

I got back up on my elbow and stared at him.

“Yeah, listen, I gotta go out on a call and Jack’s not answering. Morrie closed and I know you’re just in too but they need a break from this business and someone’s gotta look after Feb. You think Phy would be cool with you comin’ over and crashin’ on my couch for a few hours?” Colt paused and I not only wondered what the answer would be but also when Darryl had been added onto Colt’s Person Who I Trust to Protect Feb List.

Phylenda, Darryl’s wife, was a good woman, a strong one and chock full of attitude. She had to be, she knew anytime her man could fall off the wagon, do something stupid and, with a strike three, be gone for a good long time so she’d be responsible for taking care of two kids who lived with the knowledge that their Dad was in prison again. She knew this because she’d done it before.

She didn’t come into the bar much because their kids were seven and nine and couldn’t come with her. Not to mention she had a full-time job too and, with Darryl’s hours, did most of the child rearing. And lastly, she didn’t have people close to help out and she tended to keep herself to herself. Though I saw her, just not often. We closed the bar annually for a staff Christmas party where family was invited and we gave out bonuses to Darryl, Ruthie and Fritzi. At the Christmas party, as a grand finale, Morrie disappeared (Dad used to do this) and came out as Santa Claus and gave all their kids gifts, or, in Fritzi’s case, her grandkids. We’d also close when we had our summer barbeque for close friends and the staff was always there. Dad did it for years and Morrie carried on the tradition. Not to mention, I was one of the few people Phy would let watch her kids. Not that I did it often, sometimes when Darryl got his shit together and took her out and other times when she’d had enough and needed to go by herself to a movie.

I understood her and I liked her. She liked me back and there were not many of those kinds of folks on her list so I’d always felt honored by it. Still, I wasn’t sure she’d want Darryl to get pulled into this shit.

“Thanks, Darryl, see you soon.”

There it was. Phy didn’t mind Darryl being pulled into this shit. Another indication about how they both felt about me.

“Hope the bar keeps this turnover,” I said to Colt as he flipped shut what I saw now was my phone likely because he didn’t have Darryl programmed into his. “I’m thinkin’ bonuses should be a lot bigger this year.”

Colt didn’t answer. He just curled up, taking me with him then he twisted and put me down on my back.

Then he touched his lips to mine and said, “Go back to sleep, Feb. I won’t leave before Darryl gets here but, when I do, I’ll be gone awhile.”

My hand aimed at his neck, I had good aim luckily so my fingers curled around it before I whispered, “Okay.”

He touched his lips to mine again then moved to pull away. I dropped my hand before he twisted back and looked down at me.

He didn’t say anything so I asked, “What?”

“This happens a lot, honey, crime doesn’t occur just nine to five.”

I felt what he was saying to me like each word wrapped around me, twining me in velvet lined rope.

He was telling me my future, what it’ll be like, me being in his life.

God, I hoped that rope never dropped away.

“Bars aren’t open just nine to five either, Alec,” I said quietly.

I watched his shadowed head nod before he bent and gave me another kiss.

“We’ll work it out,” he murmured.

Then he exited the bed and I settled into it. It was just coming up to five in the morning and I was dog tired but I still listened to him moving around, getting dressed, going into the living room. Wilson was following him around, I knew, because Wilson was meowing. It was early for his breakfast but I knew Colt gave it to him because Wilson shut up. I also knew Colt gave it to him probably to shut him up.

I couldn’t know for sure, but I think I fell asleep smiling.

Hours later I was standing at the counter on the kitchen side of Colt’s bar, one of Meems’s coffees half-drunk in front of me, the remains of one of her blueberry muffins to my side. I was wearing a pair of cutoff, faded jeans shorts with a hem so frayed, they should probably be tossed but I’d had them so long, I didn’t have the heart to do it. I put on one of my older Harley tees, also faded, with my shorts and some slouchy socks. The mid-March weather had been a bit on the warmer side than usual but I still had on my socks because I always wore socks or slippers on my feet when I was in comfort mode.

Jessie was sitting on a stool opposite next to Josie Judd, their own Meems’s detritus in front of them. Chip, Josie’s husband and one of Chip’s workers, Brad, were in the den positioning motion detectors in the corners.

Jessie had run into Josie at the Coffee House when she was on her way over and had stopped to pick up breakfast for her and me. Josie, being a friend, knowing her husband was working at Colt’s house (and therefore being curious), hooked up with Jessie and came with her. We’d been nattering for half an hour while Chip and Brad put the finishing touches on Colt’s new security system, playing double duty as bodyguards to me. When they got there, Darryl dragged his ass off the couch and went home.

Through the window I saw Colt head down the walk that ran the front of his house and I was watching the door when he came through it.

Jessie and Josie twisted on their stools and I straightened, pushing off my forearms which I was resting on the counter. Colt got four, “Hey Colts,” and he returned the greetings but I was giving him the jaw-tilt and not only did his eyes never leave me, he came directly to me.

I turned to him when he hit the kitchen and got close. Instead of smiling at me, he put a hand to the side of my neck and used it to pull me toward him and up. I went on my toes and he touched his mouth to mine. I heard, straight out, Josie’s loud sigh and I nearly rolled my eyes but that might make Colt do more than a lip touch and I liked Josie, I didn’t want her to expire from delight in Colt’s dining area.

“You catch ‘em?” I asked when he lifted his head.

“Baby, I just left the crime scene.”

“So? I thought you were Superman.”

He grinned and his grin communicated two things. One, he thought I was funny. Two, he was remembering our conversation last night. I felt warmth hit my cheeks and other more intimate places and found that, two minutes before I was happy for all the company I had. Just then, I wished they’d all go away.

His fingers at my neck gave me a squeeze and he said, “Gotta hit the shower and get back to the Station.”

At the thought of Colt in the shower, Josie sighed again, this time louder.

He let me go, slid a glance across a grinning Jessie and a stars-in-her-eyes Josie and walked out of the kitchen and through the living room. Jessie, Josie and I watched him go. I was concentrating so hard on watching him move, I didn’t note where their eyes were fixed. Personally, I was having trouble deciding where to put my own. Colt was a big guy and there was a lot to see, all of it good. He’d need to walk down a football field for you to have time to get it all in.

I turned, opened the cupboard, grabbed a mug and poured him some joe before following him with a, “Be back in a sec,” aimed at the girls.

When I hit the bedroom, Colt was standing by the bed and staring at the large pile of black clothes Jessie had brought over for me to go through in an effort to find something respectable to wear to Amy’s funeral. Wilson was curled into a ball in the middle of the pile and he was ignoring Colt and me. It was morning naptime which fed naturally into afternoon naptime after which there was a short period of energy during the evening where sometimes he’d run around the house like a mad cat and others he’d just wander around meowing for no reason before it was time to bed down for the night.

“They’re Jessie’s,” I told Colt, explaining the pile of clothes and handing him the mug of coffee.

“She movin’ in too?” Colt asked, eyes still on the clothes, lifting the coffee to his lips but I had stopped breathing.

What did he mean “too”?

Was I moving in? Did he want me to move in? Did I want to move in?

We’d been back together for four days. I thought that was pretty much the definition of “too soon”. Then again, we’d known each other for thirty-nine years and that was undeniably the definition of “about fucking time”.

“Feb,” Colt called and my body jolted before I focused on him.

“What?”

“You were starin’ at me like I’d grown a second head.”

“Um…” I started then decided to shy away from the subject, “I asked Jessie to bring them over. I only own bar clothes. I don’t have anything to wear to the funeral.”

“You looked nice in that jeans skirt the other night.”

“I can’t wear a jeans skirt to a funeral,” I informed him, though I knew this was a wasted effort. Women shouldn’t bother saying things to men about the intricate rules of clothing, such as what was appropriate to wear and when. It wasn’t that men didn’t listen. It was that they were genetically programmed not to process such statements, “And anyway, I bought that to go with you to Costa’s. That’s my Costa’s with Colt Skirt.”

“You bought it to go to Costa’s?”

“Well, I didn’t. I sent Jessie on a mission.”

I was not monitoring what I was saying, I was still freaking out about the “movin’ in too” comment. If I was, I would have never told him I sent Jessie on a mission to buy an outfit for a date with him. It exposed too much.

He grinned again. This grin communicated two things too. One, he thought I was funny. Two, he knew I liked him, a lot, and he was feeling full of himself.

“Don’t you need to take a shower?” I asked.

He kept grinning through the word, “Yeah.”

I motioned to the bathroom with my head before I started to turn, saying, “Well, there’s crime to be fought, get a move on.”

I didn’t get to the door before he caught me, pulled me back into his body and bent his head to kiss my neck.

Then in my ear, he said, “I remember everything about you and I remember all the reasons why I loved you. Never could forget even when I tried.” I sucked in breath, unprepared for this stealth attack, while he went on. “Who knows, baby? We had all that time together, I coulda got used to it, learned to take it for granted.” His arms gave me a squeeze. “Now, that’ll never happen.”

I felt tears hit my eyes and there were a lot of things I wanted to do. Turn and kiss him. Wrap him in my arms so tight his body would be forced to absorb mine. Rip off his clothes and show him how much I loved him using my hands and my mouth. Or simply tell him I loved him, I had since the moment I set eyes on him and I never stopped.

Instead of any of these, I warned, “Colt, it’s eight forty-five and I haven’t cried yet today. I got a funeral to go to this afternoon. Don’t spoil my run early.”

He ignored me.

“We’ll settle this now,” he said and I braced because I didn’t know what we were settling. It was a good idea to brace because what we were settling rocked my world. “Call your landlord today, tell ‘im you’re givin’ up your lease. You gotta sublet for awhile, fine.”

“Colt –”

“Your Dad, Morrie and I’ll get your shit gradually. Spend some time today sorting it and mark the stuff priority that you need over here.”

“Colt –”

“I don’t give a shit where you put my stuff, what we’ve got double, what you decide to throw away.”

Well, that would mean he’d have matching mugs. I’d travelled light for fifteen years but indulged on a killer set of stoneware when I moved home. It cost a whack and I wasn’t home much to use it but I liked knowing I had it.

I didn’t share this, I said, “Colt –”

“Just don’t move the jerseys or the Harry’s print.”

“Colt –”

“And find some way to lose that fuckin’ picture of flowers your mother put in the second bedroom.”

“Colt –”

“It isn’t me or you.”

He obviously had been so focused on the picture he hadn’t seen the be-flowered sheets and comforter Mom put on the bed or, clearly, the very ruffled dust ruffle. They weren’t me or Colt either, by a long shot.

“Colt!”

“What?”

I turned in his arms and looked up at him. “Are you telling me to move in?”

“You got a problem with that?”

This was an excellent question, one to which the only answer was “no” yet, even so, I couldn’t utter that word.

Instead, I said, “Only people probably gonna use that room are Mom and Dad. She wants to sleep under flowers? What do we care?”

He smiled again and this smile only communicated one thing and that one thing made the tears prick my eyes again.

His voice was a lot less pushy and a lot more gentle when he said, “I gotta look at it every day.”

“Then close the door.”

His arms grew tighter, pulling me closer, before he whispered, “I’m gonna say this once and let it go.”

Oh Lord, what now? He was relentless, I couldn’t hack it.

“I missed you, February.”

I was right. I couldn’t hack it. The tears I was fighting back slid from my eyes and I felt my body start trembling in his arms.

“I’ll take those tears this time, seein’ as they’re for me.”

“Alec –” I whispered.

He talked over me, his gaze going from my cheeks to my eyes. “Today, you gotta worry about your funeral outfit, packin’ your shit and one more thing.”

What now?

He didn’t make me wait. “Feds wanna put us in protective custody. They offered it the other night. I’m puttin’ in the security system which’ll help with peace of mind. They protect us, it’s a guarantee this shit goes away without us feelin’ it. This isn’t a decision I can make, you gotta make it, honey. You wanna go away and wait this out, I’ll be with you. You wanna stay and live your life as normal as you can, I’ll do what I can to protect you.”

“Colt –”

“Take the day and tell me tonight.”

As what was going on finally permeated, I tipped my head to the side and stopped crying before I asked, “Is this entire conversation gonna be one-sided or are you gonna let me speak?”

“I gotta get this out and get to the Station. You speakin’ means the first one will take longer, delayin’ the second one.”

There was my answer; this conversation was going to be one-sided.

I decided to communicate non-verbally which I did, by glaring at him. He read it, it bothered him not even a little bit and I knew this because he smiled, gave me a squeeze and dropped his arms.

Then I found myself pissed that he’d just told me I was moving in with him, pretty much told me he still loved me, definitely told me he missed me and then he just let me go without kissing me.

“That’s it?” I asked as he shrugged off his blazer and threw it on the bed.

He turned his head to look at me as he pulled the badge off his belt. “What’s it?”

I looked at the ceiling and asked it, “Is it me, or was that just a momentous occasion?”

The ceiling had no answer but Colt chuckled and I glared at him again while he tossed his shoulder holster on his blazer.

“Did you ask Jessie to get muffin for me?” he asked.

I blinked, stupefied at the change of subject.

“Yes,” I replied and of course I did. I had no idea when he would be home but I knew he’d eventually be home and Jessie was going to Meems’s. No one missed out on Mimi’s muffins if they could help it. It was a crime against nature.

“Blueberry?” he asked.

Mimi made a lot of different muffins but the way she made her blueberry ones, with the crunchy sprinkles on top, made them the only way to go.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Split it in half, baby, butter it and nuke it. I’ll be out in a minute.”

I watched, frozen, as he moved to collect the coffee cup he’d put on my nightstand before he’d grabbed me earlier. He took a sip, his golden eyes on me over the rim then put it back down.

“Feb. Muffin?”

I came out of my deep freeze with a jerk and asked, “What am I? Your waitress?”

“Honey, last night, the least I earned was an omelet and you know it,” he said as he started to unbutton his shirt. “This mornin’, you can butter and nuke a muffin for me.”

This was, unfortunately, true. My Omelet a la Feb was awesome. Though it was more that he earned a waffle. My waffles were killer. The orgasm last night he’d given me while holding me up and pinned against the wall – definitely waffle material. I could butter and nuke a muffin for him.

Even so, I turned to the door, muttering, “I’m rethinking breakfast payback.”

I was two feet away from the door before his arm came around me again, I saw his other arm shoot out then I saw the door slam shut then I was turned and my body slammed against it. I lifted my chin to look at him and, a half a second later, Colt’s mouth was on mine.

In the seconds I could think clearly before the kiss took all my concentration, I knew he’d been fucking with me. That kiss was wet, hard, long and involved a goodly deal of hand exploration, both his and mine (his, mostly at my ass, mine, the same on his ass). It was the kind of kiss you had to celebrate a momentous occasion. It was the kind of kiss you never forgot your whole life.

When he broke the connection of our mouths, he rested his forehead to mine and whispered, “I’ll look forward to you making my house ours, Feb.”

Then he let me go, leaving me against the door. He walked to the nightstand, grabbed his coffee and then hit the bathroom, closing the door halfway.

I watched this whole thing, unable to move. I didn’t know what I was feeling because I never felt it in my entire life. Never. Not when we were together before. Not anytime while I grew up in a happy house with a family I loved who looked out for me. Never. I wasn’t even certain there was a word for it but, like the kiss that came just before, I knew I’d ever forget standing there at Colt’s bedroom door, feeling that startlingly miraculous feeling.

After I pulled myself together, wiped my face with my hands, turned, opened and walked out the door, I took a few deep breaths as I walked down the hall.

Jessie and Josie watched my progress but I was too busy freaking out at the same time trying to stop myself from doing cartwheels and maybe a few girlie, cheerleader jumps in the air with my arms straight up, waving imaginary pom poms to pay any attention to them.

“You were in there a lot longer than it took to hand Colt a mug of coffee,” Jessie, always nosy, remarked.

I resumed my place at the counter about the same time my eyes hit hers, not together enough to remind myself that I usually kept myself to myself, even sometimes with friends, and I shared, “Colt’s decided I’m moving in with him, I think he still loves me, he told me he missed me, the Feds have offered us protective custody and it’s my decision if we go away while this all goes down.”

Jessie stared at me eyes wide for three beats then she said, “You weren’t in there long enough for all that.”

“Colt’s focused. He has to get to the Station.”

“Are you moving in with him?” Josie asked and I looked at her.

“You didn’t hear me. Colt’s decided I’m moving in with him and he’s focused. He didn’t actually open it up for discussion.”

“He told you to move in with him?” Jessie asked, her eyebrows so far up, half her forehead disappeared. It was clear by the look on her face she couldn’t wrap her mind around this concept. I doubt Jimbo ever told Jessie to do anything. Then again, I also doubted Jimbo was up for the task of holding her by her ass with her back pressed against the wall while he fucked her, hard, until she had a mind-boggling orgasm.

“Pretty much,” I said.

“I repeat, are you moving in with him?” Josie asked again.

I looked at Josie, so did Jessie. We all knew the history, too well. And anyway, we’d all just watched him walk through the living room. Half the women alive on earth who saw him walk through the living room wouldn’t quibble if he told them to move in with him. He’d capped it with that kiss, which I wasn’t going to share, that was Colt’s and mine.

“He has a nice kitchen,” I said by way of explanation and we all burst out laughing.

“Women,” Brad muttered under his breath as he walked through the living room and we all turned to look at Brad.

He was probably twenty-three, twenty-four and he spent a lot of time at J&J’s playing pool with his buddies intermingled with trying to score. He wasn’t a bad looking guy, great body, not exactly tall, not short either, but very fit, though he needed some fashion direction. By my estimation, considering I didn’t keep close tabs, he was half and half with the ladies, hit and miss. It wasn’t that he struck out often; it was just that he’d do a lot better with practice.

He was nowhere near experienced enough to mutter the word “women” like that. However, I had learned from a lot of practice at keeping my mouth shut at the shit I heard at the bar to do exactly that. Keep my mouth shut.

Jessie never kept her mouth shut.

“Bradley Goins, learn quick, little man. You’re in the abode of the master. You pay attention, you too can someday tell a hot chick she’s gonna move in with you and she won’t talk back.”

Chip chuckled as he bent over his big tool box. I shook my head. Brad mumbled, “Whatever.” Josie pulled her cell out of her purse, expertly flipped it open with one hand, hit a button and put it to her ear.

“Heidi? Get this. Listen.” She held her phone toward the living room for a second, then put it back to her ear and asked, “You hear that?” She paused as my eyes slid to Jessie who was grinning so huge I thought her face would split in half. “No? Well that’s a shower goin’ and in that shower is Alec Colton and I’m in his livin’ room.” She paused again while I heard a loud squeal come from her phone. “Yeah, that’s right, sister. I’m about two rooms away from a naked Alec Colton.”

“Jesus,” Chip muttered and Jessie and I started laughing.

“Yeah, you got it,” Josie continued, “a naked and wet Alec Colton.”

“Bet you forgot this part,” Jessie said to me, still laughing.

“What part?”

“Every woman in town pantin’ after your man.”

I didn’t forget it. I just forgot that feeling of not worrying about it. Once my brain led me to the path of worrying about it when Colt wouldn’t have sex with me, it was all I could think of. I scanned my emotions and tried to find a hint of anxiety. When I couldn’t find it, I shrugged to Jessie and grabbed the white bag with Colt’s muffin in it. I put the muffin on a plate, split it in half with a knife, smothered it in butter and set it in the microwave, ready to nuke when he came out of the shower.

“By the way,” Josie said into her phone when I closed the door on the microwave, “I got it official, was right here when it went down. Colt and Feb are baaaaaaaaaaaack.”

“Jesus, that shit’ll be all over town in half an hour,” Chip muttered again but, hearing Josie’s happiness at relating this news, I felt something get tight in my chest. It didn’t feel bad because I knew Colt had been right. People never stopped liking me. Not Josie, her sister Heidi, her husband Chip, Joe-Bob, Lorraine and the dozens upon dozens of people who didn’t stop coming to the bar when it became mine or when trouble hit. People who didn’t stop talking to me, smiling at me, laughing when I told a joke. People who were coming now to watch the Colt and Feb Show only partly because they were curious but mostly because they cared, not just about Colt, but about me.

I hid the sudden emotion this knowledge welled up inside me behind a sip of my now-cold Meems’s latte. It was a struggle to get the sip down, not because it didn’t still taste good, but because I had a huge lump on my throat.

Josie got off the phone and Chip and Brad started testing sensors, beeping going on and off everywhere and I nearly missed the shower going off because of it. I still managed to time nuking the muffin just right and the microwave pinged about four seconds after Colt threw his holster and blazer on the dining room table under the watchful and varying degrees of lustful eyes of three women. Jessie’s eyes were only a tad lustful, knowing it would never be and not bothered by that fact. Josie’s eyes were more lustful, wondering how it would be. My eyes were probably seriously lustful, knowing how it was.

Unfortunately my family had good timing too and they hit the front door about the time I was sliding Colt’s muffin from the microwave.

“Hey Dad, Mamma Jamma, Morrie,” I called as Morrie closed the door behind them and security beeping went on and off again.

“Shit, I didn’t get enough muffins,” Jessie muttered.

“Chip, take a break,” Dad ordered curtly instead of greeting us and I kept my eyes glued on him but felt Colt’s head come around at Dad’s words and tone.

“What’s up?” Colt asked as I put the muffin plate down on the counter.

“Family meetin’,” Dad replied, Mom hit the kitchen and went straight to the mug cupboard and Morrie moved in behind Jessie.

“Maybe I should go,” Josie mumbled.

“You’re fine, sweetie,” Mom said to Josie, Josie gave me a look to ascertain my agreement and I nodded though I wasn’t sure I should have.

“Jack, I need to get to the Station,” Colt said and Dad stopped dead center across the bar and leveled his eyes on Colt.

“Son,” he said softly, “I said ‘family meetin’’. Your work’s important but there’s nothin’ more important than family.”

Colt was behind me and I didn’t see his response to this mainly because he moved in closer. I was standing at the counter, slightly twisted from it, my hand resting on it. Colt got in close and rested his weight into his hand which he set so close to mine he was touching me. I figured, since he was settling in, he agreed with Dad.

“I’m thinkin’,” Dad began, “since things are as they are, that this is good.” He nodded to Colt and my hands on the counter. “That said, I’m not a big fan of you callin’ boys out at the bar,” he said to Colt.

Oh Lord, Dad was talking to Colt like he talked to Colt when Colt was fifteen. I hadn’t heard him talk to Colt like that in donkey’s years and I was not thinking this was good. In fact, I was thinking, since Colt wasn’t anywhere near fifteen and definitely now was his own man, this was probably very bad.

“Jack, it was under my control,” Colt replied.

“Lotta boys talked nonsense about Feb back in the day, you gonna call them all out?”

This statement shocked me. I watched Dad’s face trying to determine if he thought it was nonsense now, or if he knew it was nonsense then. It came to me in a flash that he knew it was nonsense then and the respect he lost for me was not because he thought I was running around, but that I wasn’t defending myself. Instead, I was allowing myself to get buried under it and then making more stupid decisions, like marrying Pete, getting messed up by him and then leaving, instead of sorting it out with Colt, losing all that was me along the way. Dad, nor Mom, meddled, hardly ever. They advised, usually when you asked for it, but they let you go your own way, make your own mistakes and they hoped you learned from them. The past two decades must have been a living hell for them and maybe not just because of me and the path I chose, but also because of Colt and that he chose not to yank me off of it.

“They come to the bar and have a mind to mess with me or Feb, absolutely,” Colt answered, his voice firm but slipping toward pissed. He didn’t have time for this conversation but, even if he did, he still wouldn’t have time for this conversation.

“Dad, only asshole who’d do that is Stew and Colt made things clear to Stew last night,” Morrie put in.

Dad changed the subject and asked bluntly, “How solid are you two?”

I felt my head jerk then my muscles went stiff.

Things were getting more and more solid with Colt and that made me want to do cartwheels and cheerleader jumps but that was in my head. Out loud, in front of my family, Jessie, Josie, Chip and Brad, not to mention Colt, I did not want to be having this conversation.

Colt’s hand came to my hip and he said, “Jack, due respect, let Feb and me work this out.”

“Colt, due respect, you two are caught up in one in-tense situation. That situation is gonna go away, what I wanna know is, where will you two be after it’s over?”

“Dad, please,” I said.

“Like I said, Jack, we’re workin’ it out,” Colt replied.

“And like I asked, Colt, how solid are you?”

“Jack –” Colt started.

“I watched two of the four people I love most in this world fall apart twenty years ago and I stood by while doin’ it. This time, I’m askin’, how solid are you?”

Colt’s fingers gripped my hip hard and he declared, “Speakin for me, like a rock.”

I closed my eyes tight, fighting back cartwheels and cheerleader jumps by pulling in breath.

“Feb,” Dad called and I opened my eyes.

I hadn’t even talked to Colt about this, now…

“Feb,” Dad called again.

“Dad –”

“Feb –”

I stared at my father in the eyes and cut him off by repeating Colt’s words. “Like a rock.”

Dad smiled, I felt Colt’s body touch mine as he came even closer behind me but I wasn’t done.

“Which I would have liked to have told Colt without an audience, preferably at Costa’s or, if not at some romantic locale, then at least one of the seconds we actually have alone, which are a fair few, so now, due respect and all that, you’ve pissed me off.”

“I can handle that,” Dad returned immediately, still smiling, moving forward, settling in between an also smiling Jessie and Josie and saying, “Jackie, need coffee, woman.”

“Yeesh, I’m like a handmaid,” Mom muttered but got Dad coffee. In Mom’s actions I saw my future and it both scared and elated me. Colt gave my hip a squeeze just as his hand at the counter moved to fully cover mine.

This felt good, immeasurably good, but I wasn’t done being mad and I kept myself stiff and gave my father the daughter death stare I’d been perfecting since my life began.

“Shut it down, February, and get over it, meetin’s not done,” Dad said to me.

“What now? Got no more heartfelt declarations to give to the day,” I returned.

“Then shut up and listen,” Dad replied and I heard Colt laugh softly behind me which made me grow all the stiffer regardless that he’d just declared we were solid as a rock which, normally, would be news worthy of etching into my journal with a gold-tipped pen.

I felt his lips at my ear before Colt asked, “Romantic locale?”

I rolled my eyes.

“Feb just rolled her eyes,” Jessie told Colt helpfully and I transferred my death glare to her.

Colt’s arm slid fully around my waist and I couldn’t hear his laughter anymore but I sure could feel it.

“Maybe we’re not solid,” I announced to the room. “Maybe we’re very, very shaky.”

That’s when I heard Colt’s laughter come back.

“Earthquake!” I declared loudly and it couldn’t be missed, angrily. Regardless, Colt, and pretty much everyone else, burst out laughing.

“Feb, quit messin’ around, Colt’s gotta get to the Station,” Dad said after he quit laughing.

I decided not to inform my father that I wasn’t messing around and instead felt slightly embarrassed but highly emotional and I didn’t need that shit, definitely not facing a day with Amy’s funeral looming and Denny out there wreaking havoc, but also not anytime.

Dad took a sip of coffee, Colt took his hand from mine on the counter, leaned into me to nab half of the muffin but kept his arm around me when his hand disappeared and I knew he was eating it. I kept up my grudge because I was good at it, known for it and, anyway, by my way of thinking, they all deserved it.

Dad started talking again. “Morrison and Delilah have worked things out. He’s movin’ back in and Jackie and me are movin’ to his place for awhile.”

“You can have your pick,” Josie told them. “Feb’s apartment will be open, seein’ as she’s movin’ in with Colt.”

I felt Mom, Dad and Morrie’s eyes hit me and Colt, all at the same time.

“Josie!” Chip snapped.

“What?” Josie snapped back with narrowed eyes. “Jackie said it was okay, me bein’ in on the family meetin’ and all.”

“Shit, woman, that doesn’t mean you can participate,” Chip returned.

“You’re movin’ in with Colt?” Morrie asked me before Josie could reply, which was good, Josie could be a ball-buster. She was also not a woman who would be told what to do, not like Jessie, who knew the art of compromise (though, it should be said, Jessie knew it existed, she didn’t utilize it much). Josie was so much not that kind of woman, she was a little bit scary. It was lucky she found Chip, who was as easygoing as they come. No matter that Josie was super pretty, not many men would put up with her being like that.

“Yes,” I said sharply, deciding to officially tell Morrie later I was happy for him and Dee. “Now, can we move on?”

“You told Josie and Jessie?” Colt asked from behind me, giving me a squeeze to get my attention at the same time reaching for the second half of his muffin.

“Yes,” I replied again.

“Baby, we decided, like, ten minutes ago.”

I twisted my neck to look at him and said, “Correction, Colt, you told me to move in ten minutes ago.”

He grinned through chewing and then, also through chewing, he said, “Yeah. Right.” He swallowed and said, “Still, didn’t ‘spect you to announce it so soon.” Then he took the last man-bite of his muffin, which was to say, shoving the rest of it in his mouth.

“I’m uncertain how this is moving the family meeting along so you can get to the Station,” I told him.

He chewed then swallowed again and said through another smile, “Just pleased you’re so excited, honey.”

“Do you have a hatchet?” I asked him.

“Got a mind to use it?” he asked back.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Then, no,” he said back.

“Kids, can we focus?” Mom asked and I twisted back but also tried to pull out of Colt’s arm. It tightened which meant I failed so, instead, I crossed my arms on my chest.

“Like I was sayin’, we’re movin’ into Morrie’s, a bit more room, Feb,” Dad’s eyes came to me then he went on. “‘Cause Dee’s gonna give notice today and try her hand at the bar. We’re gonna be around to help at the bar and with the kids while she’s gettin’ on her feet.”

This, I suspected from what happened last night and it also made me want to shout with glee. But, as I mentioned, I was good with a grudge so I kept my trap shut.

“It’d be good you could spell Feb too so she can get settled here and we can have some time together,” Colt put in.

“Oh!” Jessie cried. “You two should take a vacation.”

“Good idea,” Mom said.

“Colt and Morrie just went fishin’ and I’m fine without a vacation,” I declared then put in for good measure, “and I’m good with my schedule at work.”

“You work more’n me anyway, Feb,” Morrie spoke the truth. “With Dee helpin’, we’ll work somethin’ out to make things more even and, in the meantime, you can take a breather.”

“I like my hours,” I asserted again.

“You’ll have somethin’ to fit in those hours now,” Dad reminded me, another fact that made me quietly happy but I was damn well not going to show it.

“Hmm,” I muttered and Colt gave me another squeeze.

“That settled?” Dad asked like he expected an answer rather than made his pronouncement and we were all supposed to fall in line which was the way it always was and the way it always would be.

Of course, if I wasn’t pissed and holding my grudge, this would have all made me pretty happy. I did like my hours but I liked them in a time when I could work them and pretend I wasn’t working them so I wouldn’t remember I was so damn lonely all the time. Now, I wouldn’t know lonely if it bit me on the ass and, God knew, I could use a breather. Not to mention, the idea of a vacation with Colt sounded fucking awesome.

Then again, I’d be happier to wait until it was warmer and have that vacation somewhere we could take his boat.

I was not, of course, going to offer this piece of information to anyone at that present time, however.

“Walk me to the door,” Colt said in my ear and I decided to do what he didn’t exactly ask seeing as I’d already acted uppity in front of Chip, who I didn’t know all that well, and Brad, who I didn’t know hardly at all, and my Momma raised me right and she was right there besides. Jessie obviously didn’t count because she was family and Josie was practically family so she also pretty much didn’t count but still.

Colt said his good-byes as he put on his holster and blazer and then he stopped at the door and turned to me.

At the door, he said, “You got until two thirty, when I come home to change and take you to the funeral, to get over your snit.”

Snit? Did he say snit?

I felt my eyes narrow and my brows furrow and my foot itched to kick him.

He went on, totally ignoring my look. “‘Til then, baby, get your studio sorted, yeah?”

“You do know that I’m letting you boss me around because we have an audience,” I informed him.

He got closer and his voice dipped quiet, only for me to hear. “You’re letting me boss you around because you know what I gave you last night, and the night before, and you probably got a good idea what I’ll give you tonight.”

Okay, so he was right, but I wasn’t going to tell him so I stayed silent.

He got even closer, his face changed, something came over it, something that corresponded with the feeling I felt standing at his bedroom door not so long ago.

He put his hand to my neck and said even quieter, “And because we’re solid.”

I liked that look on his face, a face which had been a constant in my life in one way or another since I could remember. A face I’d seen many expressions glide through over the years. But I liked this one, a lot, better than any other, so much I figured I’d never forget it either.

Even so, I was Feb and he was Colt, and we were now back to the way we were always meant to be so I told him, “We’ll stay solid if you quit bossing me around.”

He grinned, then he kissed me lightly before he said, “Nothin’s gonna shake us, Feb. Not again.” He gave me a squeeze before his grin changed to something else, the intensity slid from his expression and he whispered, “Really like those shorts, baby.”

Then he took his hand from my neck, put it to my belly, pushed me back a foot, opened and walked out the door, shutting it behind him.

“Lock it, February!” he shouted from the outside.

“There’s a million people in here!” I shouted back from the inside.

“Lock!” he shouted back to my shout.

I locked it then I watched through the window as Colt walked to his truck, got in, started it up, backed out of the drive and drove away and something about doing this made my “snit” melt away.

“Seriously?” Josie called from behind me. “Willie Clapton is a shit kisser?”

I turned to see Josie looking at me, Morrie grinning at me, Mom refilling her coffee cup, Dad with his head in the fridge and Jessie with her head tilted toward me, waiting for an answer.

I opened my mouth and the security beeps went off.

That afternoon, somewhere around two thirty, Colt arrived in the doorway of his bathroom while I was standing at the mirror over his sink, finishing up roller drying my hair. His eyes hit me, did a slide from the top of my head, where I was holding a hank of hair pulled straight up, juicing it with heat, down my body, which was in a t-shirt of his I’d confiscated because it was huge, old, the lettering faded, and, most importantly, super soft, to my slouchy sock-clad feet.

Then his eyes came to mine and he said, “Baby, seriously?”

“What?” I asked, releasing my hair which fell mostly in my face.

“You’re not ready?”

“I’m borderline ready,” I replied, pushing the hair out of my eyes.

“You’re doin’ your hair and wearin’ a t-shirt,” he told me like I wasn’t aware of these facts.

“Give me a break. I’ve been busy,” I said then promised, “I’ll be ready in a jiffy.”

His gaze lifted to my hair, where I was wrapping another huge hank around the roller brush, he sighed then disappeared from the doorway.

I looked at myself in the mirror.

I wasn’t lying, I had been busy. After my morning drama, Dad, Mom and I went to my studio and Jessie went to the grocery store to pick up boxes. Dad righted the bed and furniture while Mom tidied and I prioritized my stuff. Jessie showed with the boxes and I packed in my clothes, my CDs and the stoneware for the first wave. One could argue the stoneware was not a priority, since Colt had plates and such. Still, I liked it, it cost a fortune so I should use it as much as I could and it’d go in his kitchen so I decided it took precedence.

While Dad was taking the boxes to my car, a car he and Mom were using while in town since I didn’t seem to be needing it, Mom, Jessie and I packed stuff for the second wave. We closed the boxes and stacked them by the door.

I realized while we were doing this that the third wave would be light and seeing this slightly shifted the feeling of contentment that was settling in my soul and a twitchy feeling slid in its place.

I didn’t have much stuff, never had, and, at that moment, I found it embarrassing that I’d lived as long as I had with so little to show for it. Even when I made my home with Pete for that short while, I hadn’t accumulated much, probably knowing in the back of my mind somewhere that Pete and my arrangement would be temporary.

But all those years I lived light because it was easier to take off when the spirit moved me, which was often.

I hadn’t known then and never thought about it, whether, when I took off, I was running from something or searching for it. I knew now I was hiding from it and “it” was the knowledge that I fucked up my life. I kept on the move so I couldn’t settle into the understanding that the decisions I made, and kept making, weren’t the right ones.

Now I was forty-two years old and never owned a home. I’d always rented furnished places and bought my first furniture, a bed, armchair and dinette set, two years before. I owned stoneware, some clothes, music, kitchen utensils, a box of journals, a yoga mat and some framed photos. My life didn’t amount to much but a few boxes which could be carted across town in three trips. I had a retirement fund, which I started feeding into five years ago. I also had a bunch of savings bonds and certificates of deposit, which I’d been buying for years and were now worth a fair bit, seeing as I didn’t spend money on much. And I had a cat. Other than that, nothing. I didn’t have a house, a couch, a pool table and definitely not a boat.

As I was wondering how Colt would feel about how little I made of my life, we all carried the boxes into Colt’s house.

This would obviously freak me out, but it should have been in a happy way. Instead, I started to get worried and, therefore, I let my guard down and made a mistake.

While unpacking the stoneware and Mom and Jessie rotated Colt’s old stuff to a box to be taken to Goodwill, I told them that I thought Colt needed new dishtowels.

This wasn’t a mistake for me, exactly, more for Dad. Without us finishing with the boxes, Jessie and Mom, both master shoppers, pressed Dad into taking us to the nearest mall where we bought dishtowels and, while we were at it, four new full sets of bath towels that were super thick and luxury soft to replace the ones Colt had in his bathrooms.

Jessie also guided us to her favorite shoe store under Dad’s visibly growing annoyance, and we bought me a pair of black heels to wear to the funeral. I could almost, if I sat down carefully and didn’t move too quickly, fit my ass and tits in her clothes. Shoes, no go. My feet were two sizes bigger than hers and I had nothing but a pair of black cowboy boots and black motorcycle boots and, of the two, I was going to go for the cowboy boots but Jessie said they wouldn’t do. Since we were there, Jessie also talked me into a pair of high-heeled boots she said would go better with my Costa’s with Colt jeans skirt and those boots were so hot, I knew she wasn’t wrong.

Needless to say, we got home at a time where there was no way for me not to run late in preparations for the funeral.

I finished with my hair and was gunking it up with shit that cost a fortune but was worth every penny because it did wonders to my hair when I heard Mom and Dad call out their good-byes. I shouted mine back and wondered what they’d been doing while I was getting ready. I figured, knowing Mom, there weren’t any boxes left and the new towels were probably in the wash in preparation to be used. Hell, by this time, they were probably in the dryer.

I walked into the bedroom and saw Colt’s blazer was on the bed but the rest of the clothes he wore that day were on the floor. This might have irritated me normally, but since he was wearing a pair of suit trousers in dark gray, a tailored shirt in a gray only two shades lighter than the suit, had a tie hanging around his neck that was black but had a subtle pattern of lighter gray, blue and green and he looked really good in all this, I didn’t mention his clothes on the floor.

He looked at me, saw me staring at him unmoving and said, “Feb, get a move on.”

“Right,” I replied, walking to the dresser where I’d commandeered two drawers which meant serious reorganization since it was apparent that Colt had collected t-shirts since he was fourteen and never threw a single one away. After some time spent on this endeavor, I managed the task of fitting his t-shirts into two drawers rather than the four he used because, folded neatly, rather than shoved in in bunches, they took a lot less room.

I pulled out undies and a bra and tugged on the panties under the t-shirt, then yanked off the tee, tossed it on the bed and put on my bra.

I was spritzing with perfume when Colt’s hands hit my waist, slid in, crossed paths, and went up, one palming my breast, the other one wrapping around my side, his fingertips trailing along the bra line under my armpit. I stopped moving except to shiver, mainly because I liked his hands on me and I felt it necessary to concentrate on that feeling.

“Is it sick you can make me hard before we go to a funeral?” he asked in my ear and showed me what he meant by pressing his hips into my ass.

I figured weddings and funerals put you in the mood. The first, because they were romantic and hopeful. The last, because they reminded you that life was short and you should spend as much of your time on the good stuff as you could while you had that time.

“I’m thinkin’ it’s natural,” I told him, the flat of his palm did a circle against my nipple and it felt so good, without me willing it to do so, my head fell to his shoulder. Still, I said, “Colt, remember? We’re runnin’ late.”

“Fuck,” he muttered into my neck and let me go.

He walked to the bathroom while I started the process of getting dressed. I watched through the door as he stood in front of the mirror and did up the last buttons of his shirt at the collar then lifted up his chin and tied his tie. I had to quit watching because this seemed weird to me in a glorious way and it struck me just then that all those years, this was what I was hiding from. The knowledge that I’d lost a life where I could watch Colt casually getting dressed in the bathroom. I’d never needed a romantic fairytale of princes and castles because I always knew my prince was Colt and I didn’t need a castle. I’d be satisfied anywhere, a crackerbox house or a cardboard box, just as long as Colt was there.

And, through those years, Colt wasn’t there.

I shook off these thoughts in order to get dressed and had successfully smoothed on a pair of black hose, something I hadn’t worn in so long I forgot how much I detested them and the act of putting them on, and shimmied into the pencil skirt of Jessie’s I chose mainly because it fit, but barely, when Colt walked out of the bathroom. I was shrugging on the black, satin blouse, which also fit snug, when Colt got close.

“Meet you in the living room,” he said and I nodded at him.

His eyes watched me doing up buttons for awhile before he walked to the closet, nabbed his suit jacket and headed out the door.

I finished dressing and wondered how long it would be before my new spike heels would start killing my feet. I got my answer two seconds later when they started killing my feet. I put on my watch and a pair of diamond stud earrings that Reece bought me on what I thought, at the time, was a lark. I thought this because Reece made his usual show of acting like it was no big thing, even though they cost some serious cake. Now I knew it was a sign neither he nor I cottoned onto until it was too late.

I hit the living room and saw Colt, now wearing his suit jacket and looking even better than before, through the opening over the kitchen bar. His eyes were aimed at the counter but his head came up when he caught my movement and I nearly slid off the side of my heel when his gaze hit me.

“Ready,” I announced and he grinned.

“I can see that.”

I stopped in the living room but he didn’t move nor did he take his eyes from me.

“We going or what?”

“Give me a minute, Feb. Don’t get this view very often. In fact, never.”

“It’s just a skirt,” I said.

“And heels.”

“It’s just a skirt and heels.”

“A tight skirt.”

“Jessie’s smaller than me.”

“And high heels.”

“Colt –”

“Sexy as hell high heels.”

I put my hands to my hips which made the blouse stretch tighter at my breasts and I knew Colt saw it because his eyes moved directly there.

“We’re going to a funeral,” I reminded him.

He looked at my face again but I could tell it cost him. “I take you to Costa’s, you ditch the jeans skirt and wear that.”

“This is too fancy, even for Costa’s.”

“Don’t care.”

“If I eat wearin’ this outfit, I’ll explode out of it like The Hulk.”

He liked this idea, I knew it because he smiled, slow and sexy.

In order to get a move on, I decided to throw him a bone. “I bought new boots for when we go to Costa’s.”

“Don’t care about that either.”

“You’ll like them, they’re high heels and, even bein’ a girl, I think they’re sexy.”

“Costa’s, tomorrow night,” Colt said instantly and I couldn’t help but smile.

“You’ll never get a reservation at Costa’s on a Saturday night.”

“Watch me.”

My smile got wider but I prompted, “Are we gonna go?”

His head tipped down to indicate the counter. “What’s this?”

“What?” I asked.

“Looks like a pile of your mail.”

“Mom, Dad, Jessie and I got a start on me movin’ in. I grabbed my mail while I was there.”

He looked down at the counter again and seemed to slip away to a place that he didn’t like so I walked to the bar.

“Colt?”

His head came up and he said, “We haven’t touched your mail, didn’t fuckin’ think of it. He could be communicatin’ with you.”

Although the specter of Denny was ever present, I still had managed to ignore it just enough to be able deal with it and I liked it that way. I peered over the bar at the stack of mail which had a small parcel in it. I hadn’t even sifted through it because I never got any good mail. I’d set it on the counter to go through when I had a bit of time. Now it seemed I was staring at a ticking bomb with a counter closing in on zero.

I looked back at Colt and asked quietly, “Can we deal with Amy first and that later?”

I needed him to say yes. I couldn’t face Amy’s parents and her funeral if I knew something from Denny came through the post. I could barely deal with it anyway.

“Yeah, baby,” he said and relief filled me. “Let’s go.”

I nodded and we went to his truck. I had forgotten about the truck and if I hadn’t I might have chosen a different outfit, something stretchy. As I stood in the passenger side door, my mind flew through strategies of how I was going to heft my ass into the seat without ripping the skirt at the seams.

“Feb, honey, get in,” Colt said from where he was standing in the driver’s side door watching me with mild irritation at another delay.

I looked at him and said, “I can’t.”

“Baby, we gotta –”

“No,” I cut him off, “I mean, my skirt’s too tight and my heels are too high, I can’t –” I stopped talking when he shook his head and moved out of the driver’s side door.

He approached me and bent, sliding an arm behind my knees, one at my waist, and he lifted me and put me in the seat. I held my breath while he did this for two reasons. One, it would hopefully suck in my flesh so the material wouldn’t tear and two, because I didn’t hold much hope it would suck in my flesh so the material wouldn’t tear. Hope won and the material didn’t tear.

“Thanks,” I said when his arms slid away.

He was looking at me and grinning and I knew he thought I was a nut.

“Do I amuse you?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he answered and then moved away.

He’d backed out and we were on the road when my mind went to places I didn’t want it to go. Places that would torture me and places that made my pronouncement of Colt and me being solid as a rock a lie. I knew this shit with Denny, all we’d learned and all that we’d lost, would fuck with my head. I just didn’t know how to fight it.

I was looking out the window, thinking of stuff I knew I should let go when I felt Colt’s hand take mine. He laced our fingers together and pulled them to rest on his thigh.

“What’s in your head?” he asked and I looked at him.

“Nothin’,” I lied.

“Bullshit,” he replied, it wasn’t mean, it was real and I wondered if there would come a day when I was able to lie to him successfully and I doubted it.

“It’s nothin’,” I said again and his hand squeezed mine.

“Amy?” he asked.

“No.” Even though it kind of was.

“The mail?”

“No.” Even though it kind of was that too.

His hand squeezed mine again and he prompted, “Feb –”

I sighed, he wouldn’t let it go and the days where I kept myself to myself were long gone and, I realized then, they should have been long gone a long, long time ago.

So, I said, “It’s just that… this is all a lot.”

“I know it is, baby.”

“It’ll take awhile to get used to it.”

“I know.”

“And get over what we’ve lost.”

He gave me another hand squeeze and said, “Honey –”

“Colt, you don’t really know me.”

“I know you.”

“Not really.”

“I know you, Feb.”

I looked out the passenger side window and tried to pull my hand from his but his grip just got tighter so I gave up.

Then I told him, “You got a good job, a home, a life. While I was gone, I didn’t create any of that.”

“So?”

I looked back at him. “So, doesn’t say much for me.”

“How’s that?”

“It just doesn’t.”

He let my hand go but only so he could maneuver the truck into the parking lot behind the funeral home and pull into an open slot. Then he turned off the truck and turned to me.

When he did, he asked, “How do I make this better?”

Yes, he asked, straight out.

“What?”

“You’re doin’ your own head in, how do I stop that?”

I shook my head, not certain how to answer.

“I… I don’t know,” I stammered.

“You know it and you aren’t gonna like me remindin’ you of it but twice this shit happened to me. You, dealin’ with shit in your head and not sharin’ and Melanie, dealin’ with her own shit and not sharin’. Both of you let it eat you and both of you pulled away from me. Now, I’m not dickin’ around with it again, tryin’ to figure out a way in. So, I’m askin’ the only person who can tell me, how do I stop this?”

“I don’t think you can,” I told him the truth even though it killed me to do it.

I watched him start to get pissed before he said, “So, you’re sayin’ I just watch it eat at you?”

“No, I’m sayin’, only person who can stop it is me.”

“What if you don’t?”

“I –” I started but he turned his head away to look out the window.

“Fuck,” he hissed to the windscreen and I was right, he was getting pissed but now he just plain was pissed.

“Colt –”

“We’ll talk about it later.”

“Colt –”

He looked at me again, clearly done with our conversation and I knew this with what he said next, “Do you need help gettin’ out?”

I leaned forward, the skirt bit in but I ignored it and put my hand to his neck.

“Babe,” I whispered, “it’d help me stop it if you don’t give up on me.”

I didn’t know I had the answer until I gave it to him. He had no reply, he just stared at me and I had no idea what was going on in his brain. All I knew was, I upset him with my shit, which was just what it was, shit, and for then I needed to let it go. He was facing Amy’s funeral too and he wanted to attend it just as much as I did, which meant not at all.

So I lifted my hand from his neck, ran my fingers around the curve of his ear before I settled them at his neck again to give him a squeeze.

Then I said, “I think I can hop down but it wouldn’t hurt if you were there to spot me.”

He closed his eyes, wet his bottom lip and when he opened his eyes again, they weren’t pissed anymore. Instead, they were telling me without words he’d always be there to spot me.

I gave his neck a squeeze and whispered, “Love you, babe.”

Without hesitation, his hand shot out and tagged me behind the neck, yanking me forward and testing the limits of the material of my outfit.

I didn’t care because he kissed me, it was a hard kiss, closed-mouthed but I liked it all the same. When he was done with my mouth, his lips went away but his hand slid into my hair, tilted my head down and he kissed my forehead before he pulled away.

“Let’s get this done,” he murmured, I nodded and Colt got out, rounded the hood, opened my door for me and I hopped out of the cab with his hands at my hips, spotting me.

Colt watched Feb work her magic the minute she hit the funeral home. Gone was whatever was eating her in the truck. She flipped on the February Owens light, the old one that he remembered so well and the new one that seemed to shine even brighter. It was a light that lit her from the inside out and she shone it on all around.

First was Craig Lansdon who was standing alone inside the door and caught their eyes the minute they walked in. Colt watched as Craig manned up immediately and headed to Feb and Colt, his eyes skittering between the two of them, knowing he needed to do what he did but not liking it all the same.

“Feb, I –” he started but Feb moved into him, put her hand on his shoulder and cut him off.

“He played you, same as Colt, Amy and me.”

“I shoulda –”

Feb interrupted him, “We were all young and stupid, Craig. None of us played it right.”

He looked away, his jaw tensing. “Lotsa people are dead.”

At that point Colt entered the conversation by asking, “And you coulda stopped that how?”

Craig looked back and replied, “I don’t know, I knew him better’n anyone.”

“He tell you, in a coupla decades, he was plannin’ on headin’ out on a killin’ spree?” Colt asked.

Something about that struck Craig as funny, his lips moved, biting back a smile and he said, “We used to get pretty drunk but I ‘spect I’d remember him sayin’ somethin’ like that.”

Feb gave his shoulder a squeeze before she dropped her hand and moved into Colt, so close the side of her body hit his dead on and she stayed there.

Then she suggested, “How about we let that be all we give Denny Lowe during this occasion?” Craig nodded and Feb went on. “Or ever, Craig, how ‘bout we let that be all we ever give Denny Lowe?”

The humor in Craig’s eyes died, he swallowed and nodded again. Feb reached out and grabbed his hand, gave it a squeeze and smiled at him. Craig smiled back.

Colt put a hand to her waist and saw the Harrises, standing alone up by the closed casket, watching them.

Colt was pleased they’d chosen a closed casket. It was an occupational hazard that he’d seen more death than most and it was never pretty. He didn’t get the idea of willfully exposing a dead body before burial. Dead was dead, it was unattractive, no matter who did the makeup or what outfit you chose and how much satin lined the casket. Colt thought viewing a dead body at a funeral home was one, last, but forced, indignity and he hated it.

“Baby, the Harrises,” he murmured to Feb.

She looked up at him and tipped her head to the side before she looked back at Craig and said something which stated her meaning clearly, “We’ll see you in J&J’s?”

“You bet,” Craig replied quietly.

Colt gave him a nod which Craig returned and they moved away through the milling, murmuring live bodies to the Harrises. While they did this, Feb caught people’s eyes. Automatically and unknowingly assuming the mantle of Princess of Hearts, she smiled small and nodded, communicating like her mother, sharing understanding and peace with her eyes.

“Mr. and Mrs. Harris,” Colt said as they arrived.

He shook Mr. Harris’s hand, gave Mrs. Harris his cheek while Feb introduced herself and kissed them both on the cheek.

Then she moved into him, close again but she slid her arm around his waist and plastered herself to his side. Not done with her show to the Harrises that Amy didn’t die in vain, she turned into him and rested her hand on his stomach. He reciprocated the gesture, sliding an arm along her waist.

Then Feb started talking in “we’s”.

“We’re very sorry about Amy,” she told them, “truly.”

Mrs. Harris was taking in Feb’s hand at his stomach while Mr. Harris murmured, “Thank you.”

“She… well, she was lovely,” Feb went on, “and very sweet. We both liked her. It’s… we just don’t know what to say.”

“Nothing to say during times like these, dear,” Mrs. Harris replied.

“We want you to know, you and Amy, you’re in our thoughts,” Feb continued talking for the both of them as if they were a unit, one mind, one body, and Mrs. and Mr. Harris both nodded.

She caught sight of someone approaching and finished, “We’ll leave you to your guests.”

“Thank you for coming, Alexander, February,” Mr. Harris said.

The return of Colt and Feb firmly established for the Harrises, Colt led Feb away.

When they were out of earshot, Colt asked, “You okay?”

“Feel stupid,” she muttered. “What do you say?”

“What you said.”

Her head tipped back to look up at him, she gazed at him a moment and then she smiled. It wasn’t big, but it was enough and Colt decided, if they were still watching, he’d give the Harrises a bonus. He stopped Feb, bent his head and touched his mouth to hers. When he lifted his head, she curled into him and gave him a hug, a hug that wasn’t for the Harrises, it was for Colt and Colt alone. He hated being there and he hated why he was there but he sure as fuck liked that hug.

Beyond them, standing by herself, Colt saw Julie McCall. She wasn’t quick enough to avert her eyes before he saw her taking them in, avarice and hunger plain as day on her face.

Colt also saw an end to her days more bitter than even Amy’s. Amy hadn’t asked for her hand to be pulled away and reshuffled and couldn’t do much with the cards she’d eventually been dealt. But Julie McCall kept calling for new cards instead of playing the ones she already had. Good or bad, she wanted more, not understanding she should raise, call or bluff, because the next hand was coming her way and it could be a hand where she won big. Instead, by asking for new cards, she kept giving it all away.

“Colt?” Feb called and he saw she was looking up at him, he was still in her arms and she twisted her neck and looked over her shoulder to see Julie slide into a seat. “Who’s that?”

“Friend of Amy’s.”

“You know her?”

“Yeah, she found Amy.”

Feb studied Julie. “I’ve seen her around.”

“Probably, she works at County Bank.”

“Oh,” Feb muttered then she looked at Colt and asked, “Do you want to say hey?”

“Nope.”

Feb tilted her head to the side and opened her mouth to speak but Colt kept talking. “She asked me out after she found Amy’s body.”

Feb’s eyes grew twice their size, she leaned into him and whispered, “What?”

“No joke.”

“She asked you out?”

“Yep.”

“After she found Amy?”

“Not right after, she waited about half an hour.”

Feb’s mouth dropped open and she looked back at Julie. “Wow, Amy really didn’t chose friends very good.”

“Nope.”

Feb’s gaze came back to him. “What’d you say when she asked you out?”

“She asked if I’d meet her for a drink later and I said I’d be with my girlfriend.”

Feb pressed her lips together but a brightness lit her eyes and Colt reckoned the lip press was to stop her from bursting out laughing.

Then she mumbled, “I shouldn’t laugh, it’s not nice, her gettin’ shot down and all, not to mention we’re at a funeral, but, for some reason, I think I’m gonna laugh.”

Colt gave her a squeeze and advised, “It isn’t nice and neither is she but save it, baby. You can laugh later.”

Feb kept pressing her lips together but now she was nodding.

Her eyes went over his shoulder and she pulled partially away, keeping on arm around him, whispering, “Dave Connolly’s headed our way.”

Colt turned in her arm and saw Dave moving in their direction. He noted instantly that Dave had learned the lesson that the drama seemed exciting until it became real and people were dead. Dave looked crushed.

“Colt, Feb,” Dave said when he hit them.

“Dave,” Colt replied.

“You all right?” Feb asked.

“She worked for me,” Dave told Feb like she didn’t know. He looked at the casket and continued, “Amy,” then he looked back at them and finished, “what a waste.”

Feb took a small step forward and grabbed his hand, giving it a little squeeze before she dropped it again.

“Never find someone like her to work a station,” Dave muttered. “These days, folks don’t have Amy’s work ethic. They sneeze, they take three days off. Findin’ someone will be a pain in the ass.”

Feb pressed her lips together again and tipped her head back to look at Colt. Like Colt, she was uncertain how to react to someone who considered the loss of a human life a “waste” because it was an inconvenience to them.

Feb looked back to Dave and said, “Hopefully, you’ll luck out.”

“Yeah,” Dave muttered, saw folks moving to seats, nodded to them with a small wave of his hand and said, “Later,” before he headed toward Julie.

Feb exchanged another glance with him, it communicated volumes and Colt communicated back without words, instead he shook his head.

Then he guided Feb to a seat and whispered, “You gonna be able to sit down?”

“Just be prepared to offer me your jacket if this skirt gives way.”

She took her time aiming her ass into the seat while she held her breath and Colt couldn’t stop his smile even as he held back his own laughter. Once she accomplished this feat, he sat beside her and slid an arm around the back of her chair. She cautiously let her weight fall to the side until it hit him and she settled with her hand on his thigh.

The pastor headed to the podium but Colt’s eyes caught on something and he looked to his left.

Mrs. Harris was turned in her seat. She didn’t smile, she didn’t nod, she didn’t do anything, just looked at him and Feb. Then he watched her turn back when the pastor started talking and he wondered what was on her mind. Colt and Feb being back together was no balm to her soul, he knew, nothing would be.

Colt’s eyes moved to a casket containing the body of a woman who lived half a life. Pressed to his side was a breathing woman who’d done the same. Both, he figured, in one way or another, did this because of Denny.

He lifted his arm from the back of Feb’s seat, curled his fingers around her shoulder and bent his head so his mouth was at her ear.

“Love you, baby,” he whispered, her head tilted back, her eyes caught his and then, with that February Owens light pouring out, she smiled.

Doc waited until after the funeral and everyone was walking to their cars from the graveside to make his approach.

Colt stopped Feb at the passenger side of the truck and waited for the old man to arrive.

“Colt, February,” Doc said when he made it, his face showing this wasn’t a friendly visit. He had something on his mind.

“Doc,” Feb smiled at him and Doc smiled back, then his eyes went to Colt.

“Let the dead dog alone, Doc,” Colt told him, he felt Feb’s body jerk in surprise at his side but he didn’t look away from Doc.

“I see, you two together, you worked it out. And you two here, I figure you found it in your hearts –”

“Nothin’ to find, Doc, let it lie.”

Doc stared at him then he looked at Feb then back at Colt before he said, “Boy–”

“She told you it was me,” Colt said.

Doc closed his eyes, opened them and said, “I know, man like you, even the man you were then, you’d –”

“She didn’t do anything to me, Doc. Let it lie.”

Doc got closer and his eyes slid to Feb and back to Colt and Colt knew what he was communicating.

Softly, he informed him, “The baby she had wasn’t mine.”

“Colt –”

“It wasn’t mine, Doc, let it lie.”

“She told me –”

“Let it lie.”

“Boy, you know now, I know you do, no denyin’ it, you got a son.”

“The baby was Denny’s.”

Colt watched as Doc took a step back, his face showing surprise.

“I reckon,” Colt went on, “she didn’t wanna tell you because either she was in denial herself or, if she told you she’d been raped, she expected you’d try to get her to report it, something she didn’t have the strength to see through. She picked me because she knew you’d let that slide and she picked Craig for the birth certificate because she wanted me and Feb to have no more harm. Now the bones are exposed Doc, let’s all let them lie.”

“I had no idea,” Doc whispered, pain stark in his voice.

“She didn’t want you to,” Colt told him.

“I coulda helped her.”

“We all could have, Doc, like I said, let it lie.”

“Rape?” Doc was still whispering but looking away, the pain now stark on his face.

Feb moved forward and gathered the old man in her arms and, to Colt’s surprise, he let her. He was old, that much was obvious, but he never acted it. Now he looked like a hundred years of life had settled in his soul.

“You couldn’t fix what you didn’t know was broken,” Feb said softly to him. “But you gave her the peace of mind she was askin’ for at the time.” She pulled back and looked at him before she asked, “And that’s a good thing, right?”

“Never easy livin’ with the knowledge that you could have done more, February.”

“Nope, you’re right,” Feb replied. “So you’ll have to live with the fact that you did what she asked, kept her secret, and, in a time when she was scared as hell, you gave her a little bit of feelin’ safe.”

Doc moved out of Feb’s arms and lifted a hand to pat her shoulder but his mind was active behind his eyes, sifting through memories, trying to figure out what he missed, where he’d gone wrong and what more he could have done.

Colt decided to put a stop to it. “Denny Lowe started to wage war awhile ago, Doc, with a lot of casualties along the way.” Doc looked at him and Colt continued. “None of us even knew he was doin’ it and comin’ out victorious. Don’t give him another victory, not standing yards from the grave of one he brought low. Amy wouldn’t want that for the rest of us left standin’. In fact, she died so that we could all let it go.”

Doc looked at him for a long time and he looked at him hard.

Then he said, “You were always a smart lil’ bugger.”

“Yeah, I think you mentioned that when I was about five and a fair few times since,” Colt told him.

Doc kept looking at him then he turned to Feb. “How’re you sleepin’, February?”

Feb moved into Colt, slid her arm around his waist and put her head to his shoulder before she whispered, “Sleepin’ good, Doc.”

Doc took them both in and said, “Two weeks ago, you asked me, I’da said I never thought I’d see this end for you two.”

“Drink it in,” Colt suggested, as he lifted his arm and curled it around Feb’s shoulders.

The pall on the day was lifting because the funeral was over, he was taking Feb to a home she was moving her shit into and he thought it was highly likely he had something to do with her sleeping well. All was not well with the world, but at least it was better.

Feb leaned forward and whispered again, this time loudly, “He’s very full of himself, Doc.”

“A good woman gives him her love, that’ll do that to a man, February,” Doc whispered back, also loudly.

Feb’s chin gave a startled jerk but Doc didn’t give her time to let his compliment sink in. He lifted his hand and then let it fall before he turned and walked away.

Colt watched him and saw his shoulders were drooped, his gait was slow and Colt knew his thoughts were heavy. He’d always liked and admired the man but this feeling grew watching Doc shoulder a dead burden that wasn’t really his. But, Colt thought, no good shepherd would let a member of his flock wander into danger without blaming himself for neglect, no matter if that flock was large and the lamb who wandered was acting out of his control.

Feb was watching him too as he got in his car, started it up and drove away.

She turned and looked up at him. “Do you think he’ll be all right?”

Colt reckoned Doc, being Doc, carried more burdens than anyone Colt knew because Doc collected them. Death for Doc would be a gift because, after, a man like him would be sitting right next to God.

“Yeah, he’ll be okay,” he answered Feb, tore his gaze from the road and looked down at his woman. “You need me to lift you into the truck again?”

She glanced around and then nodded. “But wait, like at the funeral home. I don’t want anyone to see you doing it.”

He wanted to hang out at a cemetery a lot less than he wanted to hang out and wait for all the cars to leave the funeral home, which was to say he didn’t want to hang out at all.

Therefore he picked her up, she gave a small, muted scream, grabbed onto his shoulders, he opened the passenger side door and deposited her in the seat.

“Colt!” she hissed, her eyes darting around.

He put his hand to her knee, gave her a firm squeeze and her eyes shot to his.

“Baby, let’s just get home.”

The anger budding in her eyes died away before she whispered, “Okay.”

Colt stepped back, slammed her door and headed to the driver’s side.

Feb went directly to the stereo while Colt went directly to the alarm panel to stop the beeping.

“Can I put on a CD?” she asked as she hit the overflowing CD cabinets around the stereo, cabinets that had been overflowing before but now he saw CDs stacked on top and at the sides and he made a note to buy more cabinets when this shit was over.

“You can make that the last time you ask if you can do somethin’ in this house,” Colt replied when he successfully stopped the beeping.

She turned and stared at him before asking, “What if you aren’t in a music mood?”

Colt started to the kitchen, shrugging off his jacket along the way, saying, “Feb, my ass is in a recliner, a game on or I’m watchin’ a show, the stereo is off. Other than that, you got free rein with music.”

She liked music, always did. When she was a teenager she drove Jack and Jackie up the wall, playing her music as loud as she did and as often as she did it. When she was in a car, you could always hear her coming. Even now, when she was forty-two, Colt heard her rock blaring from her car stereo speakers, she was known for it. And he’d seen her move her ass behind the bar when a song came on the jukebox that she liked. Hell, if he was honest, in the last two years he couldn’t count the times he fought the urge to hit the box and select Mellencamp’s “R.O.C.K. in the USA” or the Doobie Brothers’ “Jesus Is Just Alright”, two of a dozen songs he’d noticed she particularly liked, just so he could watch her move.

He swung his jacket over the back of a dining table chair when she announced, “There’s somethin’ you should know about me.”

He turned his head to see she was still standing by the stereo watching him.

“Yeah?”

“I’ve taken to listening to Gregorian chants. I find it soothing.”

Colt burst out laughing and went into the kitchen. She was so full of shit.

“I’m serious,” she called.

The girl he took to a Springsteen concert over twenty years ago, who screamed out every word to “Born to Run” and “Born in the USA” and the woman he’d seen not a month ago in her car with Jessie, both of their lips moving to Nickelback’s “Something in Your Mouth” while the car windows shook with the sound did not listen to Gregorian chants.

“You feel like somethin’ soothin’, baby, go for it,” he called back and stared at her mail.

He had to check in at the Station and it was likely she’d want to get to the bar but they needed to get her mail out of the way before they did it.

He heard Fleetwood Mac’s “Monday Morning” fill the room and he smiled. Gregorian chants his ass.

He’d pulled loose his tie so it was hanging around his neck, undone the top three buttons of was shirt and was sorting through what appeared to be mostly a big pile of junk mail when he heard her heels clicking on the tiles of the kitchen floor.

She had her hands to one of her ears and her eyes on the mail when she stopped beside him.

“Not feelin’ in the mood to be soothed?” he teased.

“‘Dreams’ comes on after this song, then ‘Rhiannon’,” Feb offered as explanation, setting her earring beside the mound of jewelry she left in the kitchen last night and she went for the other one.

“‘The Very Best of’?” Colt asked, watching her put the back on the earring and drop it next to the other.

“Yeah,” she answered, picking up a flier for something, flipping it back to front without reading it, then setting it aside.

“Stevie Nicks, I reckon, is more soothing then Gregorian monks,” Colt told her.

Her eyes came to his. “You called my bluff, babe. Now be a good sport.”

He returned his attention to the mail but he did it smiling.

She reached into the pile and pulled out a small package, a bubble wrap envelope. Colt watched it slide across the counter before she lifted it up. In that time he saw the postal stamp and he dropped the catalogue he was setting aside and nabbed the package.

“Colt –”

He looked at the stamp, shut his eyes and bit his lip.

“Colt.”

That time she said his name quieter and a tremor slid through it.

He opened his eyes and looked at her.

“Stamped Colorado,” he told her and she looked down at the package. “You want me to open it?”

Her arms crossed her front and she grabbed her biceps, like Cheryl, protective. She did this never tearing her gaze from the package.

“Feb –”

“Open it,” she whispered.

He did and he slid out of the bubble envelope something wrapped and taped carefully in layers of tissue. He tore it away, cautious to keep tissue around his fingers and he looked at a frame which held a picture of Feb with a man he’d only seen dead in crime scene photos, tall, dark-haired, blue-eyed, good-looking. They were standing behind a bar and she had her arms around his middle, her front pressed to his side. He had his arm around her shoulders, tight, keeping her close. She had her head tipped back, her long hair splayed along his arm and running down her back and her lips were pressed to the underside of his jaw but, even so, she was smiling. He was smiling too, big and broad, straight at the camera, a man who, by the expression on his face, had everything he’d ever need held tight in the curve of his arm.

Across the glass written in black marker were the words, For you.

Colt felt his stomach roil and his blood heat as he turned it upside down and put it on the counter.

When he looked at her, Feb was staring at it.

“You don’t need to see that, baby,” he said softly.

She shook her head but said, “I know what it is, Butch kept that frame on his nightstand. It was there before I moved in and I left it there when I hauled ass.”

“February –”

Her eyes never moved when she cut him off, whispering, “He kept it.”

“Feb –”

“He kept it,” she repeated.

Colt slid his hand under her hair and wrapped it around the back of her neck, giving her a squeeze and her eyes lifted to his. Her face was bleak with pain and confusion.

“Baby,” he muttered.

“Why’d he cheat on me if he’d keep it?”

“I don’t know.” And Colt didn’t. The man in that photo was holding Feb like he’d fight to the death before he let her go. Some men were weak, like Cory, Colt knew it, he’d seen it time and again. They loved their wives, their partners, but they still played around. Maybe they wondered if the grass was greener. Maybe they preferred the thrill of the chase or liked the excitement when a fuck was fresh and new. Maybe they wanted something their partner refused to give. Maybe they were just assholes. Though, the likes of Cory’s wife Bethany were no Feb, still, maybe Butch was one of those but Colt sure as fuck wasn’t going to point that out to Feb.

She closed her eyes and turned her face away.

“This needs to go to the Station, get processed,” he told her.

She didn’t open her eyes or turn to him when she said, “Okay.”

He gave her neck a squeeze but she still didn’t give him her attention.

“You want, baby, once it’s processed, I’ll get a copy made for you before it goes into evidence.”

Her eyes came to him, her lips were parted and she just stared.

“You loved him,” Colt said, it took a fuckuva lot out of him but he said it.

“Yes,” she whispered and he knew that word took a fuckuva lot out of her too.

“You have that photo?” he asked.

“No.”

“You want it?”

“Colt –”

He squeezed her neck again and repeated, “Do you want it?”

Those dents formed above her nose, by her brows, before she asked, “You don’t mind?”

“Baby, he’s a dead man.” Her eyes closed again but she opened them when he used his hand at her neck to pull her closer. “I’m sorry, honey, that was harsh. The point is, he was dead to you long before Denny killed him. He’s no threat to me but he meant somethin’ to you. You want the memory in that photo, you should have it.”

Feb stared at him for what seemed a long time before she whispered, “I want it.”

“Then you’ll have it.”

She nodded and swallowed, her eyes flicking down to the counter before coming back to his.

“Can you…” she started and stopped, sucked in breath and said, “will you go through the rest of my mail? Open anything you want. I need to get out of these clothes and my feet are killin’ me.”

“You got it.”

She pulled in another breath then fell forward, the top of her head hitting his chest and her hands coming to his waist. He felt her bunch his shirt there and listened to her take in more breaths, each one deeper than the last. He kept his hand at her neck while she fought for control. Then she pushed away and tipped her head back to look at him again.

“See, ‘Dreams’,” she whispered the name of the song playing. “Soothing,” she finished and then tilted her head back further, got close and kissed the underside of his jaw, like he saw her do to the man in the photo except without the smile.

She pushed away, walked away and Colt watched, doing a scan of his feelings after she kissed him like that, put her mouth on him the same way she’d done to another man.

He found he didn’t feel jealous, resentful or angry.

He felt lucky.

“The picture came up clean,” Sully said to Colt, sliding into his chair at his desk across from Colt’s.

“No prints?”

“Wiped clean, nothin’.”

Colt sat back in his chair and gave Sully his full attention.

“This shit gonna end soon, Sul?”

“It’s all wrappin’ up in neat package tied with a bow, all we gotta do his catch this fucker,” Sully told Colt. “You were right. Got the bank records and Marie made some withdrawals from her trust fund in Chicago. Total, twenty Gs since last February when Denny took on Cheryl. Talked to Carly, the neighbor, she said Marie told her Denny was askin’ for money, Carly didn’t know why because Marie didn’t know why. Likely, this was part of Marie gettin’ fed up and psyching herself up for the confrontation.”

Colt nodded and Sully continued.

“Money adds up to what Ryan and Cheryl said he gave them, includin’ equipment, gifts, shit like that. Incidental withdrawals from their joint account increased along the way. Nothin’ big, a few hundred dollars here and there but he was yanking money more often, ‘specially the last six months.”

“He pay Ryan and Cheryl in cash?”

“Always.”

“The fifteen K?” Colt asked.

“Gave Cheryl five of it before he left to cover her Fed Ex deliveries and emergency expenses, Cheryl said.”

“Five large is a lot for Fed Ex deliveries,” Colt remarked.

“Big spender,” Sully replied. “Cheryl said he was always generous.”

Colt figured Cheryl wouldn’t miss Denny but, the life she led, she couldn’t help but miss his money.

“He couldn’t have been plannin’ a spree when he withdrew that money,” Colt noted.

“No tellin’ what he was plannin’.”

This made Colt’s blood run cold but he ignored it and carried on.

“He’s in New Mexico, got a package there. Anything?”

“Zip. Guy’s a ghost.”

“We got the car he’s drivin’, photos of him out on the wire, we know where he is and who he’s after. How the fuck can he be a ghost?”

“Colt –”

“Jesus, Sully, this shit’s relentless. We got a boatload of evidence to nail this guy and we fuckin’ know where he is and he’s in the wind?”

“We have more on him, if you’re interested.” Colt didn’t speak so Sully continued. “You asked me to activate the Lorraine gossip tree and we’ll have to make a note to do that in future. Her women were a font of information. One of ‘em, married to a bank officer, knew all about Amy, the baby, the adoption, everything, ‘cept the rape and who the daddy was. Another knows Emily Hope.”

“Emily Hope?”

“Yeah, she was Amy’s best friend back in the day. She lives in Carmel now. She heard about Amy’s death from the Lorraine gossip tree and she heard a helluva lot more from it too. She came in this mornin’ before she went to the funeral.”

Emily Hope. Hearing her name and associating it with Amy’s friend, Colt remembered the name and the girl. He scanned his recent memories of the funeral and he tried to place the girl Amy used to spend time with there. He didn’t know her back then but he had a thing for faces and he didn’t recognize hers at the funeral.

“She’s who I think she is, she wasn’t at the funeral,” Colt told Sully.

“Was she big as a house back in the day?”

Colt called her up and remembered her as being passably pretty and nowhere near fat. In fact, she was flat-chested, slim-hipped and almost had the body of a boy. A skinny boy.

“Nope.”

“Bitch is huge now, Colt. Huge.”

“Sully.”

“No, seriously, couldn’t sit in a chair with arms. We had to bring her in one special. Enormous.”

“All right, she’s gained weight, what’d she say?”

“She said she always knew Denny was bad news, he always gave her a crap feelin’. She said she knew Denny raped Amy, told us without us askin’. Apparently, Emily was the only one she told and Amy swore her to secrecy. She said she hates Denny mainly because he raped Amy, obviously, but also because Amy, ‘faded away’, her words, after the incident. They lost touch when Emily moved to Carmel, Amy doin’ it, not returnin’ calls or, if they made plans to meet up, Amy would cancel. Emily eventually quit tryin’ and feels like shit now. She says she remembers the night Amy was drugged ‘like it was yesterday’, her words again and she’s the one who brought it up, I didn’t feed her nothin’. She remembers it because she just knew Denny slipped Amy somethin’. She’s willin’ to testify to the rape or anything we want her to testify to, hell, she’d try to convince a jury she was there when he hacked away at Marie, she’s so ready to testify. She’s pretty pissed Amy’s dead, probably feels some guilt. According to her, she has it figured out and her finger is pointed firmly in Denny’s direction.”

“Hearsay. She won’t help much.”

“Corroborate the note Amy wrote, should we need to use it.”

This was true.

“Also got a hit on the Audi,” Sully went on.

“Yeah?”

“Boys went over it, nothing there, totally clean, ‘cept it was so clean they figured he’d had it done professional-like so they did the rounds. Hit on a valet service on the other side of Indianapolis, out of his way, not close to here, not close to Cheryl.”

“Thinks to put us off the scent,” Colt noted.

“Yeah, ‘cept the Feds are persistent, they needed to, they’d check every professional car wash from here to Louisville, up to Chicago, over to Springfield and across to Cincinnati if they had to.”

“So they found something?”

“Yeah, man. He’d done a job on it himself but, as you could imagine, they found blood and not a little of it. They remembered it and were freaked by it but he gave them the same ole with the whole, ‘I’m Lieutenant Colton’ business, flashed a badge and told them he’d been injured in the line of duty or some crap.”

Colt felt his jaw grow tight before he stated, “That shit’s gettin’ old.”

“I can imagine,” Sully muttered, feeling his pain, then went on. “Identified him in a photo. Evidence is washed away but witness who cleaned is willin’ to testify to what he saw, or, more to the point, cleaned.”

“At least it’s somethin’.”

“We got more.”

Colt looked at his friend and Sully continued.

“Feds had some expert compare the note Denny sent to Amy and some writing we found at his house and the writing on the back of the high school note from Angie to Feb. Denny wasn’t bein’ so careful years ago when he sent his threat to Amy after she fell pregnant, he wrote it out long hand. Expert says all the writing matched. They’re sendin’ the glass from the frame to be analyzed.”

“He goes to trial, we’re not tryin’ him for rape, Sully.”

“Just fittin’ the puzzle pieces together and they’re all formin’ one picture.” Colt just stared at him and Sully asked, “You want more?”

“You got it?”

“Yeah, or, Chris got it. He went to Skipp’s, pickin’ up somethin’, who knows what, Chris is always workin’ on his house. He saw that Skipp carries three different kinds of hatchets, two types of axes. One of the hatchets looks real familiar to Chris so he asks Skipp about the hatchets and Denny. Skipp, now, this’ll surprise you, the old fart keeps everything. Every invoice for every nut and bolt he’s sold since 1977 when he opened the shop. All organized, all at hand. Skipp remembers Denny, as you would, a man in expensive clothes buyin’ a bunch of hatchets. He starts sortin’ through his little file drawers and pulls out the invoices. Four different trips, Denny bought all three hatchets and both axes. One of those hatchets, same make as the one found in the alley by Angie’s body. None of the remaining was found in the house.”

“He took ‘em with him.”

“Did Miller with one of ‘em, I reckon.”

“Any way Skipp can trace the hatchet in evidence to his shop?” Colt asked.

Sully shook his head. “But, with all the rest of it, a defense attorney would have a helluva job passin’ that off as coincidence, ‘specially if the other four are recovered and that one’s missin’.”

This, fortunately, was true.

Sully took in breath through his nostrils and then said, “Now I got some bad news.”

Colt slowly closed his eyes before he opened them and asked, “And that would be?”

“Monica Merriweather.”

“Fuck,” Colt clipped, he knew what was coming.

“She heard news of Pete, wasn’t hard to put that together with Angie and then snoop around and find Butch. Not to mention Marie and rumor flyin’ around. She came in today too, askin’ questions. The Feds are pissed. They’ve kept the media from linking these cases and they don’t want it out. The idea of some irritatin’ woman who thinks she’s Woodward and Bernstein and works for small town weekly paper breakin’ this story has them in fits.”

“You talk to her?”

Sully nodded but said, “She wants to talk to you.”

Colt leaned back deep in his chair, pointed his face to the ceiling and put both his palms to his forehead.

Only person Sully couldn’t sweet talk or swing to his way of thinking was Monica Merriweather. That was because, if she asked and was persistent enough, she could get to Colt and she liked getting to Colt. She also liked getting into his space and touching him a lot. When he first met her, he thought she was just a toucher. Later, when he saw her around other people, he noticed she saved that just for him.

Colt dropped his hands and looked at Sully. “You tell her I’m not workin’ this case?”

“Seein’ as you were first on the scene, I’m your partner and I am workin’ this case, this is our town, but we still got a task force made up of boys from every department in the county, not to mention the frickin’ Ef Bee Eye, I didn’t share that morsel with her because she’d know somethin’ was up if I did.”

Christ, he hated it when Sully was smarter than him.

“Feds would appreciate it, you have a word with her,” Sully said.

He had no choice and that pissed him off.

“I’ll have a word with her,” Colt replied.

“Got much on the robbery?” Sully asked.

“Got everything on it. Asshole didn’t wear gloves, prints everywhere and he made a mess. He pinged huge when we ran his prints. Junkie from the city, what he’s doin’ out in the sticks is anyone’s guess but riper pickin’s, likely. Figure they got lucky on timing, the family had a redeye back up from vacationing in Florida. Big house, lotsa shit. He probably wouldn’t of cared they were home or not and, if he’s jonesin’ and they confronted him, no tellin’ what he’d do.”

“You run him down?”

“Called into IMPD to check what they know about him and Drew and Sean headed into the city because Feb and I had to go to Amy’s funeral. Drew reports, not surprisingly, he’s not home. His woman says he disappears a lot.”

“Bet he does.”

“Drew and Sean also ran down a couple of his known hangouts but he’s gone. He’s scored and he’s not sharin’ so he’s disappeared.”

“Anything show up in pawn shops?”

“Not yet, least not the ones he’s known to use.”

“So I’m guessin’ IMPD Vice know him.”

“They say he asks for his favorite cell when they bring him in.”

“Jesus,” Sully muttered. “City’s closin’ in on us, Colt.”

“Funny, that,” Colt replied. “City’s closin’ in and the worst crime we ever had was one of our own against our own.”

“Yeah,” Sully said softly, “funny.”

Twenty minutes later, Colt walked into J&J’s.

It was Friday night and the place was a crush. Everyone was on, Ruthie and Jackie working tables, Darryl clearing them, Morrie, Jack and Feb behind the bar.

The minute he walked in, Feb’s eyes came to the door and he got the impression her eyes went to the door every time it opened that night, waiting for him. When she caught sight of him, he saw it, even in the dim light, her face got soft, her eyes especially, her lips tipped up at the ends and she did the jaw tilt.

That was new, her face getting soft like that. He liked it so he smiled at her, even though he would have smiled at her anyway.

Her eyes slid away and she smiled at the floor before she turned to the cash register.

He headed to his seat which was, as ever, empty and saw Lore sitting on the stool next to it.

He slid on his, Lore turned his head to him and asked, “We good?”

“You apologize to Feb?” Colt asked back.

“Yeah, and I bought her a shot.”

“She drink it?”

“She gave it to Joe-Bob, but said, ‘No offense, Lore, I’m workin’.’ So I’m thinkin’ she’s good.”

Colt’s eyes found February and saw she was giving someone change.

“She’s learnin’ the art of forgiveness,” Colt muttered to Lore.

“Lucky me,” Lore muttered back as Feb headed their way.

“Hey babe, off duty?” she asked when she arrived.

“Yeah, honey, beer tonight.”

“Gotcha.”

She got him a beer, opened it and instead of putting it on the bar in front of him, she handed it to him. He took it and then drew in a long pull.

“Ruthie’s holdin’ on you gettin’ here to put our orders into Shanghai Salon,” she told him when he put the bottle on the bar.

“We practicin’ for when we move to China?” he asked, she smiled and he allowed himself a moment to enjoy sharing an inside joke with Feb. It’d been a long fucking time.

“You’re movin’ to China?” Lore asked and Feb burst out laughing.

Neither Feb nor Colt answered but they didn’t have to. Tina Blackstone sidled by, eyes darting from Lore to Colt, opening herself to either one of them had a mind to slip in.

Colt looked away.

Lore muttered, “Catch ya later,” and slid away.

“Honest to God, she’s a nerve, comin’ into my bar,” Feb said and Colt looked at her to see her eyes following Tina.

“She pay for her drinks?” Colt asked and Feb’s eyes moved to him.

“Yeah.”

“Good, then you can buy yourself more heels.”

She grinned at him then said, “Find Ruthie, tell her your order, we’re all hungry.”

She started to move away but stopped and turned back at his call.

“You’re hungry, baby, don’t wait for me,” Colt told her.

She tipped her head to the side and replied, “You said you’d be in.”

“Yeah, but my schedule’s always uncertain. You’re hungry, get food, I’ll sort myself out.”

She leaned into her forearms on the bar and got close. “But, you’re Colt. That means we’ll wait, or at least I will.” Then she leaned in further and touched her mouth to his before she pushed back and walked away.

Colt watched, his vision filled with the movement of Feb’s ass, his mind filled with memories of her standing in his bathroom in nothing but his t-shirt, solving the mystery of how she smoothed out her hair. Both made him smile.

He found Ruthie and as he had Shanghai Salon’s menu memorized much like practically every citizen in town, he gave her his order.

“You got it, Colt,” Ruthie said and headed to the office to call in the order.

Colt returned to his beer and his stool and watched his family work their bar and the way they did it. You have a few drinks, you got the money to pay for them, you enjoy yourself but keep yourself in line, it was like you were at a party at their home; welcome and they hoped you’d stay awhile. Dee being there would make life complete. Colt was pleased she’d made that choice, taken that chance and he hoped it worked out for her and Morrie.

On that thought, his phone rang, he pulled it out of the pocket of his suit jacket and looked at the display. A number came up he didn’t recognize but he flipped it open and put it to his ear, covering his other ear with his hand.

“Colton.”

There was a pause and then, “Um… Colt?”

Colt turned toward the wall to focus and he felt his gut get heavy. “Cheryl?”

“Yeah.”

“You okay?”

“Yeah, I just…” she hesitated, “I don’t know if you want to know this.”

“Know what?”

“Just that…” another hesitation, “me and Ethan made it to Ohio okay. We’re here. Ethan’s sleepin’. He was excited all day. Thinks were on vacation.”

Colt closed his eyes taking in a breath and opened them on an exhale, feeling that weight lighten.

“That’s good,” he said. “Feds know where you are?”

“Called ‘em before I called you.”

“You hangin’ in there?” Colt asked.

“Could be better, seein’ as my boss didn’t take me hightailin’ outta town with no notice too good and fired my ass.”

“Cheryl –”

“It’s okay, I hated that job anyway and hated my boss worse. I still got a shitload of that asshole’s money and sold all that fuckin’ silver he gave me, which, by the way, wasn’t worth much. At least it was somethin’ so I got a nest egg that’ll last me and Ethan for awhile.”

Colt turned back to the bar and watched Jack laugh at something Joe-Bob said. Then his eyes slid to Feb and he watched her fill an order while she talked to her Mom. Then he saw Morrie take some beer bottles from Darryl and toss them in the bin, Darryl talking and Morrie grinning at whatever he was saying.

Then he thought of Morrie letting go his place, Feb letting go hers and Jack and Jackie off to Florida after Dee got settled in. Fridays and Saturdays, Darryl, Ruthie, Morrie and Feb always were working, on their feet and busy from five thirty until closing.

Then he thought about how he didn’t want Feb on her feet and closing the bar day in and day out like she’d been doing for two years. It was then he acutely felt Dee’s pain. If Colt was out of the house at some ungodly hour in the morning, which didn’t happen often but happened enough, and Feb dragged in at three in the morning, they’d have a few hours of sleep together and most of the time he saw her would be sitting exactly where he was, watching her move around the back of the bar.

Therefore, he said to Cheryl, “You get back, you come to Feb’s bar.”

She hesitated before she asked, “Why?”

“I know some people who’re good at takin’ care of people and you’re people.”

“Colt –”

“You come, it could be me buyin’ you a drink, it could be me talkin’ my woman into givin’ you a job. I’m not makin’ any promises but there’re far worse places you could be for either.”

“I –”

“Either way, it won’t take much of your time and it’ll be worth it.”

“But I –”

Colt cut her off. “In the meantime, I want you checkin’ in.”

“But –”

“Regular.”

“To you or the Feds?”

“Both.”

She hesitated again before she said, “All right.”

“See you in J&J’s.”

“Yeah.”

“Take care of that kid.”

“Always.”

“And yourself.”

“Not so good at that.”

“You’re young, you’ll learn.”She didn’t answer so Colt said, “Later.”

“Colt?”

“Yeah?”

There was another hesitation before she said, “Thanks.”

Then she disconnected.

“Who’s that?” Feb asked and Colt, who was twisted to put his phone back in his suit jacket pocket. He turned to see she was standing behind the bar right in front of him and he could tell by her face that she was preparing for whatever his answer would be, benign or malignant.

“Cheryl.”

“Cheryl who?”

“Cheryl one of the names at the bottom of the list of people Denny Lowe fucked over.”

“Oh,” Feb muttered, her eyes gliding away, her thoughts unhappy, malignant it was and it was lucky she prepared, “that Cheryl.”

“She’s safe in Ohio with her kid but her boss canned her for takin’ an unscheduled vacation.”

Feb’s eyes shot back, her unhappy thoughts gone, new unhappy thoughts in their place, she leaned forward so close she had to put her forearms on the bar and she hissed, “But she’s on the run from a murderer.”

“Don’t know any but not sure men who run strip clubs worry about that shit. Think they worry more about losin’ money.”

Feb leaned back slightly and snapped, “Oh my God, that sucks.” Her eyes were on his and the feeling behind them, mostly anger, was intense. “She’s got a kid! And she’d just been royally screwed! What a dick.” She shook her head and looked away, saying, “Poor Cheryl, she just needs this to deal with after learnin’ about Denny.”

Colt was finding it hard not to laugh but he didn’t try not to smile.

“Good you feel that way, honey, since I essentially told her, she gets back and comes in, you’ll give her a job.”

Her gaze cut back to him then her brows drew together, she still looked pissed but he figured she wasn’t pissed at some unknown strip club owner anymore.

Then she asked, “You did what?”

“Your monthly expenses are gonna change, movin’ in with me. Morrie’s overhead is gonna reduce significantly, bein’ back home, and you need the help.”

“Dee’s gonna be comin’ in.”

“And Dee’s gonna wanna work until three o’clock in the mornin’ about as much as I’m gonna want you doin’ it.”

“Cheryl’s got a kid, how’s she gonna work until three?”

“Baby, she was a stripper.”

He had her there. He knew it because she straightened, put her hands to her hips and stared at him without saying a word.

Then she found the words she wanted to say. “You gonna offer a job at J&J’s to every stray that wanders your way?”

“Only the ones been fucked over by Denny Lowe.”

He had her there too. Like it or not, Cheryl was in their club. A club they didn’t ask to join but they were stuck together in it all the same.

Feb proved he had her when she asked, “She know how to make a drink?”

“She doesn’t, reckon she can be taught, same as Dee.”

“She got her shit together?”

“Does Darryl?”

Feb’s eyes slid to Darryl then they hit the floor and she whispered, “Fuck me.”

“That’s later.”

She looked at him and her face cracked. She didn’t want to smile and she didn’t want to laugh but she was having a hard time not doing either.

When she won her struggle against her humor, she declared, “I take her on, then you’ll owe me.”

“I’ll pay.”

She shook her head before she tipped it to his beer. “Ready for another?”

“When Shanghai gets here.”

“All right, babe,” she said and turned away and again Colt watched her ass when she did.

It was after they shared their food while sitting in the office and shooting the shit during Feb’s break, all of which lasted less than twenty minutes.

It was after the crush hit the red zone, everyone in town buzzing and wanting to be out. Spring was there, weather was turning warmer, days were longer and dead bodies were being found. It was time, if you were alive, to be alive and get your ass to J&J’s, have a drink, see your friends and neighbors and have a good time.

It was when Colt was feeling a fatigue he hadn’t felt in a long time, with stress and broken sleep, all through riding an emotional roller coaster. He just wanted to go home and go to bed with Feb and, yes, with her damned cat draped on their feet.

It was when he thought this that he saw Feb slide through the crowd toward the jukebox. She found her song, put in a coin and pressed buttons. He’d seen her do that on occasion in the last two years. She did it more before, when she would be home visiting and wasn’t working.

It was when she turned and headed toward a table where they were calling her name, Colt decided he could stay awhile. If Feb was in the mood for some of her music then Colt wasn’t too tired to sit on a stool, drink his beer and watch her enjoy it.

It took five songs for Feb’s to come on. She was behind the bar at the other end but Colt still knew it was hers. It wasn’t what he was expecting or anyone would expect. The music came loud because the box was set loud, but it wasn’t rowdy Friday night bar music by a long shot.

The minute he heard the guitar his eyes went to her to see hers come to him. Then she dipped her chin, looking away while she tucked her hair behind her ear, bashful at showing her emotion.

And that’s when Colt knew it wasn’t Feb’s song. It was the song Feb chose for him, or the song she chose to say the things she couldn’t say.

A lump hit his throat, he looked down at his hand wrapped around his beer which was sitting on the bar and he paid attention to the lyrics to a song he’d heard time and again, lyrics he knew and could likely recite if asked. Lyrics he’d never paid any real attention to in his life.

Staring at his beer, his hand tightening on the bottle, fighting that lump in his throat, he listened to Stevie Nicks singing “Landslide”.

Colt’d always liked it, it was a great song. Listening to it then he thought it was the most beautiful fucking song he’d ever heard in his whole fucking life.

He saw her hand wrap around his wrist the second Stevie quit singing and his head came up.

She leaned in close and whispered, “Go home, baby, get to bed. Someone’ll drop me home later.”

She didn’t want to make a big deal of it, what she’d just given him, but her face was soft, her eyes especially, her lips tipped up at the ends, just slightly but it was all there, nothing held back, everything she felt for him showing clear on her face.

He wanted to go home, he definitely wanted to go home, but only if he was taking Feb home.

But that wasn’t the way she wanted to play it and she just handed him everything, he could give her this.

“Whoever brings you home walks you in,” he ordered, she nodded and he said, “all the way in, Feb.”

“Gotcha.”

He lifted his beer and her hand fell away. He took one last pull and put it on the bar before he tagged her around the back of her head, leaned in and brought her mouth to his.

“Later, baby,” he said against her mouth when he finished giving her his kiss.

“Later, Alec.”

He pulled away but his hand slid through her hair to her cheek, taking hair with it but he didn’t care and neither did she. She pressed her cheek into his hand as he ran his thumb along her cheekbone. Then his hand dropped away and he turned away before he did something asinine like carry her out of the bar over his shoulder.

Calling his good-byes to a dozen people as he went, Colt exited J&J’s, walked to the Station, got in his truck and went home.

He saw Melanie’s car parked out front as he turned into his street. He drew in an annoyed breath and decided his first order of business the next morning was putting in for vacation time. He’d just had time off but he didn’t give a fuck, he’d take it unpaid if he had to.

He parked the truck in the drive and by the time he slid out of it she was walking across the yard toward him.

“Melly, it’s then thirty at night,” he said when she was four feet away.

“Gotta talk, Colt.”

Fucking hell.

“Mel, I’m wiped. Seriously.”

She glanced at the house then to him and asked, “Feb livin’ here?”

Fucking, fucking hell.

He looked into the night then at his ex-wife. Melanie was everything Feb wasn’t, dark-haired, quiet, thoughtful, patient. She didn’t dance because she was worried people were watching and more worried about what they’d think. It took her weeks to come to a decision about anything, no matter how large or small because she didn’t take risks, she treaded cautiously. He’d liked all that about her when he fell in love with her, he thought it was cute and it was. Until she took her time making the decision about leaving him, pulling away the whole time she took to make it. Then it wasn’t fucking cute.

“Come into the house,” he said. He didn’t want to but he also didn’t want to have this conversation at ten thirty at night in his yard.

He led the way, hearing Melanie’s feet hit the turf as she walked beside him and partly behind him something else she’d always done and something he never understood, why she’d never walk right beside him.

He unlocked the door and went to the security panel.

When he made the beeping stop, he walked to the lamp by the couch as she asked, “You have an alarm?”

“Yeah,” he said, turning on the lamp.

In the light, she took him in, saying, “You’re in a suit.”

“Funeral today.”

They both heard the meow and their eyes went to Wilson who Colt could swear was standing in the doorway to the hall staring at Melanie with indictment in his eyes.

“You have a cat?” Melanie asked.

“Mel –”

She cut him off. “You hate cats.”

Colt expelled a breath and Melanie’s face crumpled as understanding dawned.

“It’s her cat,” she whispered.

He did not need this now. Actually, he didn’t need this at all but particularly not now.

With less patience than he would normally use with her, he reminded her, “You left me, Mel.”

She closed her eyes and shook her head, small shakes, like she couldn’t even commit to the decision to show that emotion. Then her eyes opened and she looked around the space, trying to find hints of Feb, evidence of a betrayal it wasn’t hers to claim. They’d bought that house together, intending to use it to build a life and she’d left him behind in it to live alone.

“You’re here to say something,” Colt prompted, “so say it.”

Her eyes shot to his and he saw the sting his words caused. He’d always been tolerant with the quirks in her personality mostly because, in the beginning, he thought they were sweet. After that, he did it out of habit. She’d been gone a good while and he was out of the habit.

“She told everyone to stop talkin’ about us,” Melanie said.

“What?”

“Feb,” she explained, “when people heard about… when I called… you know how people talk.”

“I do.”

“Well, she… Feb, told them to quit talkin’ about us.”

“You mean you,” Colt said honestly and Melanie sucked in her cheeks. “Feb told folks to stop talkin’ about you.”

She’d do that, Feb would. She might not tell folks to stop talking about her, or her and Colt, but she wouldn’t stand and listen to folks talking about Melanie.

“I should have never said anything to Marla,” Melanie stated quietly.

Marla Webster was Melanie’s best friend and a pain in the ass. She had a big mouth, for one. For another, her mouth was loud, always nearly shouting even in a one-on-one conversation like she was talking to someone mostly deaf. Unfortunately, since she talked so damned much, you could never get a word in to tell her to quit yelling. One thing Colt didn’t miss when Melanie left was Marla.

“I kept telling you, Melly, Marla’s a pain in the ass.”

Pain flashed through her face at the reminder of a time when Colt told her anything and the little patience Colt had left, he was losing.

She’d left him, he didn’t ask her to leave, didn’t fucking want her to leave, but she left. That decision was on her. What happened after was not her business. He couldn’t say what would go down if this was happening and Melanie was in his life. The pull of Feb was so strong, he might have buckled and been drawn in by her. Then again, he’d loved his wife so he might not. But, all this shit was going down when he luckily didn’t have a wife. And it was luck that he’d been free, he knew it in his bones and that might not say good things about him but he didn’t give a shit.

Melanie’s eyes came to his and he could see the tears threatening there.

“Is she living here?” she asked.

Colt told her the truth. “She’s been stayin’ here and, yeah, she’s movin’ in.”

“So, if I asked –”

Colt shook his head. “Don’t ask.”

“But –”

“Don’t ask, Mel.”

And he knew it, he knew it then. He knew she’d been thinking about this since Feb came home, trying to make the decision of whether she should approach for reconciliation. Fretting over it for years and timing it too late.

But even if she’d come to him earlier, with Feb home he knew what his answer would have been even thinking he was finished with Feb. He knew it and Melanie knew it. She stayed strong and true to him, there would have been no problem. But she hadn’t and with Feb in town he wouldn’t have taken her back to live under the cloud she brought. Those glances she always threw Feb’s way, the times they’d all be together and he’d catch her studying him as if trying to read a hidden infidelity written on his soul. Why she was making this play now, he didn’t have a clue and he didn’t like it. It wasn’t sweet, it wasn’t cute. It was straight out selfish.

She nodded and looked to the floor, taking in a breath that hitched before she lifted her eyes to his again.

“Tell me one thing.”

And he knew where she was going so he stopped her. “Don’t ask that either.”

“Colt –”

“We split and we did it amicably. You ask that shit, it’ll piss me off.”

She leaned forward and her voice went higher when she said, “I have to know.”

Colt crossed his arms on his chest and leaned back, asking, “You think I’d fuck around on you?”

“She’s Feb.”

“We’re not talkin’ ‘bout Feb now, we’re talkin’ about me and you think I’d fuck around on you?”

She threw her arm out. “She’s back in town and then,” she snapped her fingers, “she’s livin’ in my house.”

Okay, now he was pissed off.

“It’s my house, Melanie, been my house and my house alone now for years.”

“We bought it together.”

“I remember, I also remember you leavin’ me in it alone.”

She hid her hurt behind burgeoning anger. “Well, it’s a good thing for you now Feb’s back I did that.”

“You act like she drove into town yesterday. Feb’s been back years.”

“Yeah, you’re right, so I guess I’m surprised it took this long.”

“I’m not surprised, Mel. At this point, I’m kickin’ myself in the ass for waitin’ that long.”

She reared back and clamped her mouth shut so hard, he could hear her teeth crash together.

“This what you came to do?” Colt asked. “Piss me off?”

“No, of course not.”

“Well, that’s what you did.”

She shook her head again and started, “I just…” then stopped, still shaking her head.

Colt turned, walking to the table, pulling off his suit jacket and hooking it on the back of a dining table chair then he turned back to her.

“Mel, there’s been a string of homicides, two of ‘em to be exact. A robbery last night. I been awake and on the go since before five and I’m fuckin’ dog tired.”

She looked at him and her face went from upset to gentle with memories. “That used to happen a lot.”

Colt didn’t feel like reminiscing so when he spoke his words were short and clipped. “Still does. Never stopped.”

She sucked in her cheeks again before she nodded. “I shouldn’t have come.”

No, she fucking shouldn’t have.

“We done?” he asked and he’d used the wrong words. They stung too; he watched her flinch with the sudden, acute pain. It wasn’t that he didn’t care it just wasn’t his place to care anymore, he’d gotten used to that, he’d gotten over it and he’d moved on. She obviously hadn’t. He had enough problems. He wasn’t going to add hers to them.

“We’re done,” she said softly.

He walked to the door, opened it and held it for her.

She stopped and tilted her head back to look at him before she whispered, “It was nice of her… to try and stop people from talkin’.”

“That’s Feb,” he said because it was.

She nodded again and said, “Take care, Colt. Sorry about…” she trailed off and made a gesture with her hand.

“You got a long drive, Melanie,” he replied, “be safe doin’ it.”

She watched his face a moment before she dropped her head and walked out the door. He stood in its frame and waited until she made her way across the yard, got in her car, started it up and drove away.

Then he closed and locked the door, went to his suit jacket, pulled out his phone, flipped it opened and called Feb. He didn’t know if Tina Blackstone or anyone on his street was watching and he wasn’t having that shit hit Feb’s ears before he explained it.

“Hello?” she answered, the bar noise loud in the background.

“Baby, you got two minutes?”

“Everything okay?” The noises were changing behind her and he knew she was on the move.

“In the grand scheme of things, yeah. Just wanted you to know that Melanie was sittin’ outside in her car when I got home. She wanted a few words, I gave them to her and she just left.”

There was no response and then the bar noise significantly muted. She was in the office.

Then, she asked, “Melanie?”

“Yeah.”

“She okay?”

“My guess? No.”

Again no response before she asked, “You okay?”

“Be better around three when you crawl in bed with me.”

His name was soft and sweet when she said it. “Colt.”

He wanted to explore that soft and sweet but she couldn’t and he didn’t want to fall asleep halfway through doing it.

“I gotta hit it, honey, practically asleep on my feet.”

“Okay.”

“Later, baby.”

“Later, Colt.”

He flipped his phone shut, armed the alarm for windows and doors, took his gun and phone to the bedroom, got ready for bed and he fell asleep about five seconds after her cat, laying on his chest with Colt’s hand scratching his ruff, started purring.

The alarm beeps jarred Colt awake and he laid in the dark listening to them, instantly alert, his hand moving toward his gun on the nightstand, trying to hear anything that came with the beeps, something that wasn’t supposed to.

Then he heard, “Jesus, Feb, shut it off.”

Morrie.

Then the alarm beeps came faster and louder.

“Fucking shit,” Feb whispered loudly, “I got it wrong.”

“Do it again,” Morrie advised.

There was more beeping and then it stopped.

Colt’s hand dropped and Wilson, who woke up too, got up from where he was curled into Colt’s hip and jumped off the bed.

“You good?” Morrie asked.

“Yeah, thanks for walkin’ me in,” Feb whispered again.

“Gotta make certain my baby sister is safe,” Morrie replied, Colt listened to silence for awhile, the front door closing and then he heard more beeps, Feb pressing the buttons on the panel to re-arm the alarm.

There was more silence then he heard Feb whispering yet again, “Whose belly is that? Is it Mr. Purrsie Purrs’s belly?”

Christ, she was petting Wilson and calling him that idiotic nickname again. Poor fucking cat.

Colt smiled into the dark.

She hit the room and Colt heard the cat’s purrs when she did. He didn’t move as she dropped her cat, walked to the nightstand and he heard the soft thud of her cell hitting it then she went to the bureau and stopped. He heard her jewelry clinking as she placed it on the top and then he heard clothing rustle, more soft thuds as her boots hit the floor, all the while he watched her shadow moving and hopping around.

She nabbed something off the end of the bed and went to the bathroom not turning on the light until the door was firmly closed. He heard the sink go on and off, on and off, washing her face, brushing her teeth. The light went off before she opened the door.

She moved the covers, pulling them back before her knee hit the bed. He was about to turn to her when he saw her shadow didn’t move to lie down, she was on all fours, crawling in a direct line toward him.

Her hand went to the covers at his stomach then down then her mouth was on his stomach then that went down too.

“Feb –” he started.

“Hush,” she whispered against his skin.

He heard her necklaces clink together as she wrapped her hand around his cock and he felt her tongue rolling around the tip.

Jesus, her sweet, wet tongue felt fucking great.

Blood rushed to his cock and he thought he might have made a world’s record for getting hard.

“Feb –”

She slid him all the way in.

His hand went to her body which was now curled on the bed, her ass to her ankles, her stomach pressed to her thighs, him in her mouth while her other hand slid along the skin of his chest.

When he touched her he was annoyed to find she’d left on her underwear and it felt like she had on his tee that she was wearing earlier that day. He slid his hand over the curve of her ass when her head started moving and he wasn’t annoyed anymore. He was something else a whole lot different.

“Baby,” he groaned.

As Feb worked his cock with her mouth, Colt hauled her lower body toward him. He had her underwear pulled over her ass and his hand between the legs she spread for him, she was rocking against his fingers and moaning around his cock when her phone rang on the nightstand.

His hand froze and her head shot up.

“You have got to be fucking shitting me,” Colt clipped and in that moment, he swore to God, if he saw Denny Lowe he’d rip the fuckwad’s head off with his own hands.

Feb still had her hand wrapped around his cock but her head was turned to him and she whispered, “Colt –”

But he moved, yanking up her underwear. She let him go and he reached toward the light coming from her cell display, dragging himself up to sitting once he grabbed it.

When he saw who was on the display he changed his mind about whose head he was going to rip off.

His eyes went to her to see her shadow up on her knees and she looked like she was arranging her underwear.

He flipped open the phone, put it to his ear and growled, “This better fuckin’ be good.”

There was a moment of silence then, “I’m in the hospital with forty stitches in my fuckin’ shoulder, closin’ a fuckin’ hatchet wound, that good enough?”

Colt felt his chest depress from the inside and he reached toward the lamp when his phone started ringing.

He ignored it, turned on the lamp and looked at Feb. She was on her knees but her ass had dropped to her calves and her face was white as a sheet.

“Talk to me,” he said to Reece, not tearing his eyes from Feb.

“Bastard got away.”

“God dammit!” Colt snarled.

“I’m in fuckin’ Texas. Asshole tailed me, broke into my goddamned hotel room.”

“You okay?”

“Did I not mention the forty fuckin’ stitches?”

“Other than that, you okay?”

“I was on the move when he delivered the blow, thank fuck, or I’d not have a goddamned arm, but, yeah, other than that, I’m okay.”

Colt’s phone had stopped ringing but instantly it rang again and he looked at Feb, pointed to the phone and then held his palm out, telling her he wanted her to give it to him.

“The police with you?” he asked Reece as he watched Feb crawl over his body and then across the bed on her hands and knees to get his phone.

“Yeah, they’re here. One just got off the phone which is why I ‘spect your phone’s ringing.”

Feb had come back and put his phone in his hand and he looked at the display. Sully.

He let his phone go to voicemail and asked Reece, “What happened?”

“Didn’t hear him workin’ the lock but there’s a streetlight just outside. It shone in bright when he got in the door, woke me up, thank Christ. I hauled ass outta bed and he came at me swinging. That’s when he nailed me. I got a few licks in while yellin’ blue bloody murder. Fucker’s not a fighter, he’s not wieldin’ a hatchet, he’s got nothin’. I got the hatchet away from him and he turned tail and ran. I went after him but he nearly ran me over with his goddamned car. Didn’t think to grab my keys, seein’ as some fuckwit was after me with a hatchet and I was bleedin’ like piss.”

“You call the cops?” Colt asked.

“Yeah, I called the cops,” Reece answered like Colt had a screw loose.

“Cops go after him?”

“Got to the scene in less than ten minutes. Set up roadblocks, nothin’. He’s vanished.”

“Jesus Christ,” Colt clipped.

“Feds want me in protective custody until they get him. I need to talk to Feb.”

Colt looked at Feb to see she was deep breathing again, her eyes locked on him unblinking.

“Give me a second,” Colt told Reece.

“What’s your name?” Reece asked suddenly.

“Colton,” Colt replied automatically.

Reece’s voice changed from hacked off to soft. “All right, Colton, break it to her gentle.”

Colt took the phone from his ear and put his palm over it.

“Baby, come closer.” She immediately slid forward on her knees until those knees were pressed to his hip, her eyes still unblinking and fixed on him. Colt leaned into her and wrapped his hand around the back of her neck. “He’s okay but Denny got to Reece tonight. Reece’s got some stitches but he’s okay. Denny got away.”

He watched as she closed her eyes tight and turned her face away. She allowed herself about a half a second to have this reaction before she opened her eyes and looked at him again, lifting her hand, palm up, for the phone.

He handed it to her and she put it to her ear, her eyes dropping to the bed.

“Reece?” she waited. “Yeah,” She paused and listened. “You okay?” She closed her eyes again and shook her head then opened them but didn’t lift them. “I’m so sorry.” Another pause and then quickly, “I know I don’t have to –” She was obviously cut off and she waited a moment before she said, “Okay. Yeah. You can’t check in?” She nodded, listened then said, “That makes sense. You’ll call when this is done?” She listened again, more nodding then she whispered, “Okay, honey.”

Colt fucking hated hearing her call another man “honey”. She’d done it the night before too, he didn’t like it then and he didn’t like it now.

Then again, five minutes ago she had her mouth around his cock and he had his finger inside her and she was currently on her knees in his bed while wearing his t-shirt while Reece was in Texas, didn’t have a prayer in the world with Feb and Colt doubted she’d ever given Reece something like “Landslide”. If she had, the bastard would never in a million years watch her walk away so Colt decided he had nothing to complain about.

“Stay safe, okay?” she asked, was quiet a moment and then her eyes moved to Colt before they went back to the bed. “Yeah, I’ll be okay.” She bit her lip before saying, “He’s a cop, Reece. He knows what he’s doin’.” She went silent and then she smiled. “Yeah, a cop.” She gave a soft laugh, listened then whispered, “He’s a good man, honey, he’ll take care of me.”

Colt’s fingers pressed into her neck and she looked at him.

“What?” she said into the phone then those dents came to the insides of her brows and her face went unfocused. “Um… okay, he’s right here.” She waited. “Yeah. You too. Later, honey.” Then she held out the phone to Colt and said, “He wants a word.”

Colt took the phone, gave her another squeeze with his fingers before he took his hand away.

“Yeah?” he said when he put the phone to his ear.

“Goes without sayin’, cop or not, this motherfucker even breathes in her space, I’m holdin’ you responsible.”

“I can understand that,” Colt said to him.

“That’s good we understand each other.”

“We do.”

“You know what you got?” Reece asked and Colt’s eyes went to Feb on her knees, in his bed, in his t-shirt.

Shit yeah, he knew what he had.

“Yeah,” he told Reece.

“Take care of it,” Reece said then Colt heard the disconnect.

He flipped her phone closed and tossed it on the nightstand while Feb asked, “Everything all right?”

Colt looked at her. “He’s worried about you.”

“Well, I didn’t have Denny Lowe and his hatchet in my bedroom tonight.”

Thank Christ for that.

Colt decided it was time to have a certain conversation.

“We didn’t talk about protective custody tonight, baby.”

Her body gave a small jerk but after she recovered she held herself completely still.

“Feb?”

“Do you want us to go into protective custody?” she asked.

“It’d be smart.”

She tilted her head to the side and he saw her eyes were active. She’d been thinking about this, a lot.

Her voice was quiet when she asked, “Doesn’t it mean he wins, even a little bit, we go into hiding?”

“We’re on top, he ends this in jail and we come out safe.”

She looked away for a few seconds before she looked back to him and then came closer, putting her hands on his chest.

“Okay, listen to me, Alec, okay?” she asked and he nodded, sliding his arms around her and pulling her closer as she went on. “I know this is gonna sound crazy but, he already took a lot of my life. We go away, we’re together and we’re breathin’ but we’re in limbo. Life’s gonna go on but we won’t really be livin’ it.”

“Honey –”

She lifted her hand and put her fingers to his lips before she whispered, “I wanna watch you get dressed in the bathroom. Your bathroom. I wanna make you breakfast in the kitchen. Your kitchen. I want you to come into the bar when you’re off duty and I wanna get you a beer. I wanna fall asleep in your big bed with my cat on our feet. I want us to have the life we were meant to have. I want us to live the life we should have been living.” She got closer and her voice dropped even quieter. “Baby, I don’t want to miss another minute and it’d be even worse knownin’ he took it away.” Her hand slid from his mouth, down his jaw to his neck. “Is that crazy?”

No, it was far from crazy.

“It isn’t crazy,” he told her.

“Is it stupid?”

It wasn’t crazy, the jury was out if it was stupid.

He didn’t tell her that, instead, he said, “I’ll keep you safe, Feb.”

She nodded then ducked her head and pressed it into his neck. “I know you will. I’m countin’ on it.”

He pushed up until his back was to the wall and he pulled her close, into his lap and she snuggled even closer, wrapping her arms around him.

“Gotta call Sully, baby.”

She nodded against his neck.

He flipped his phone open and made the call.

“I’m halfway to your house.” Sully used this statement as a greeting.

“I was on the phone with Reece.”

“You know then.”

“Yeah, they get anything at all?”

“They got a hatchet and an attempted homicide with a coherent witness who identified his attacker immediately puttin’ the last piece into the puzzle which’ll nail this jackass to the wall.”

“That’d make me feel better if he wasn’t still out there.”

“Half the east Texas police and probably every Fed in the Lone Star State is searchin’ for him, Colt.”

“Yeah, searchin’. Call me minute he’s found.”

“Gotcha,” Sully said then he called, “Colt?”

“Yeah?”

“Without Reece as a target, he gets away, he’ll be comin’ after you.”

“I know.”

“Stay alert.” The worry was clear in Sully’s tone.

“You got it.”

Colt flipped the phone shut and tossed it on the nightstand with Feb’s.

He held her for awhile and it seemed she liked the quiet and peace of it, left to her own thoughts, so he gave it to her. When he felt it was time, he started to move to the lamp but her hand moved down his stomach.

“Feb –”

“No, Alec,” she said against his neck as her mouth travelled south. “He’s gone now. Now it’s just you and me and the life we were meant to have.”

Then her body moved so her mouth could get where it wanted to go and Colt saw her curl herself between his legs then she sucked his cock while his hands held her hair away from her face so he could watch the show. Then, when he decided he wanted her pussy and not her mouth, he yanked her up, tore down her panties and planted her astride him. Then he watched her ride him while he fingered her clit until she came and then he watched her ride him more, until he couldn’t watch because he came.

The light was out, he’d pulled the covers over them, she was pressed to his side, her leg thrown over his thigh and he could feel his wetness sliding out of her as she pushed in closer and Wilson hopped up and settled at their ankles.

“Love you, babe,” she whispered into his chest.

He gave her a squeeze with his arm around her waist. “Love you too, Feb.”

After awhile, her weight grew heavier as did her breathing and he knew she was out.

He was hearing Stevie Nicks singing in his head when Colt fell asleep in the bed, in the house, with the woman at his side that life meant him to have.

After waiting for forty-four years, for the fifth night in a row, Alexander Colton was finally living the life he was meant to be living.