For You

Chapter Eight Colt

I realized my mistake the minute I hit the kitchen the next morning.

I shot my wad too early with the frittata.

I should have saved it for something special. Our first week anniversary at least.

Not the first morning after.

Now I didn’t know what to make Colt for breakfast. Especially not after a night where he gave me three more Colt-induced orgasms. Three. I didn’t have to help at all, not even guidance with my hand or tilting my hips in a non-verbal cue or full-on verbal direction. Nothing.

The man knew what he was doing.

And a man who knew what he was doing deserved a good breakfast.

That man being Colt, looking like Colt, having a body like Colt’s, keeping me safe at the same time he could make me laugh, deserved a great breakfast.

As I searched the fridge and cupboards I saw Mom had shopped for Colt like she was fully stocking Julia Child’s larder. I concocted a recipe and went for it when I heard the shower switch off.

As I cooked, I thought of the day before.

Yesterday had been my first fun day in a long time. After making that list, calling Colt and handing it off to Mom suddenly I felt carefree. This was weird considering a psycho was on the loose, but it was true.

I had a bounce in my step and everyone could see it. Mom and Dad were obvious about being pleased as punch. Morrie eyed me all day, smiling slow and shaking his head knowing we didn’t have to have that talk about Colt and glad of it. Even Joe-Bob took one look at me and grinned huge.

I called Jessie before I did my yoga and sent her on a mall trawl but gave her specific directions. It had to be an outfit February Owens would wear, not Jessie Rourke. It had to look like I cared, but wasn’t trying too hard. And it had to be fit for a first date.

Jessie was beside herself with glee and called from practically every store she visited at the Fashion Mall at Keystone at the Crossing to tell me how her crusade was going. Then she came in the bar carrying a million bags and Mimi in tow and we went to the office and I tried them all on. Most of them were Jessie Rourke outfits (which meant she took them home with her). But she hit the nail on the head with the jeans skirt, boots and tight shirt. Perfect.

As we were doing this we giggled and gabbed and at the end I made up my face with makeup that I brought to work with me. It was like we were back in high school and didn’t have a care in the world except getting that Shakespeare play read for English class or writing the report for Psych.

Until then I had no idea how much I was holding back, even with my friends, and letting go again felt so good, it was beautiful.

I also shared. Not much but I did. I had to. For some reason, it was bubbling up inside of me and I had to get it out.

The thing was, when I did and with how everyone was acting around me, I didn’t feel like I was being stupid and I didn’t feel scared. I felt like I was doing right, not by them, by me, by Colt but, in the end, letting them off the hook because they were worried about the both of us and wanted us to be happy.

And I had been right and Colt was right last night. We couldn’t turn back the clock, go back and change things. We had life ahead of us; we needed to focus on that.

I just dropped the first slice of egged-up bread in the skillet when Colt hit the kitchen.

He didn’t go directly to the coffeepot. Instead, he came directly to me and put a hand at my hip and his mouth to my neck. He kissed me there and I felt his head come up.

“French toast?” he asked, sounding surprised.

“Stuffed French toast,” I corrected.

“You cook like this every morning?”

“No,” I answered, “only after I’ve had three orgasms I didn’t have to give myself.”

His arm shot around my belly to hold me tight to his long length at the same time he burst out laughing.

I dropped another slice of bread next to the first one and smiled but didn’t laugh with him. If I laughed with him, I wouldn’t be able to hear him doing it and it might take my mind off the feel of his body shaking with humor against mine.

I was unnecessarily scooting the bread around in the skillet when he stopped laughing and his arm gave me a squeeze.

“That happen a lot?” he asked, there was still humor in his voice, also a hint of curiosity and definitely an edge.

He shouldn’t have asked, men shouldn’t ask that shit. Still, I’d been gone a long time and although we weren’t living in the past anymore that didn’t mean we didn’t have catching up to do.

“Hmm, let me see,” I kept scooting the bread around, “that’s happened zero times. The big goose egg.”

His hand got tight on my waist and I twisted my neck to look at him.

His brows were raised. “Seriously?”

I tried not to get pissed. He was succeeding in both casually insulting me and being full of himself.

“Seriously,” I replied. “Firstly, because there weren’t that many guys I gave a shot. Secondly, because the ones I did either didn’t have the talent or they didn’t have the stamina.”

He grinned. “Shoulda picked better, baby.”

“I did all right in the end.”

He burst out laughing again, gave my neck another kiss and let me go.

Then he went to the coffeepot.

I flipped the toast while he poured.

“I’ll have to pull back,” he said, shoving the pot back in and turning to lean a hip on the counter beside the stove, “I don’t, I’ll put on fifty pounds.”

I turned to look at him. “You don’t get it, darlin’. I’m givin’ you the energy so you can work it off.”

He laughed again and moved away. I slid a piece of toast on a plate and started slathering it with cream cheese I’d beat up with powdered sugar, vanilla, slivered almonds and the zest of an orange.

“For the record February,” Colt said to my back, “I’ve had bad. I’ve had good. A couple who were great.” I slid the second piece of toast on top and turned to him, curious myself even though I didn’t want to be. He was sitting on the counter behind me and when my eyes hit his, he finished in a soft voice. “Now, I’ve had the best.”

I turned away quickly when I felt the heat rush my cheeks, ignoring the curl in my belly at his words that indicated what they meant to me. I dumped a pat of butter on top of the toast, slid it around while it melted and covered the whole thing with maple syrup that I’d nuked with a bit of orange juice mixed in. Then I turned to Colt again and handed him the plate.

“Now that we’ve established we’re sexually compatible –” I started, reaching to the side to pull out the cutlery drawer and grab him a fork.

“Sexually compatible?” he asked.

I shoved the drawer back in and handed him his fork.

“Extremely sexually compatible,” I amended.

He smiled and forked into his toast, muttering, “That’s better.”

I moved to lean a hip against his knee and asked, “What now?”

He took a huge, man-bite of toast and said around it, “What now?”

“This.”

His brows went up as he chewed.

“Us. Now. You and me,” I explained.

He swallowed and asked, “We gotta plan this shit out?”

“Well… no, not exactly,” I said as he forked in another bite.

I said that but I meant, yes, definitely.

Colt chewed, eyeing me like he knew what I meant wasn’t what I said then swallowed again. “How ‘bout we take this a day at a time, fix it so you don’t have some whack-job on the loose wreaking havoc for you and then we’ll see. Deal?”

That sounded like a plan.

I smiled at him. “Deal.” I watched him fork up another piece and asked, “You gonna want another?”

“Yeah.”

I made him more toast and then cleaned up after as he ate, liking his kitchen and moving around it while he was sitting on the counter eating food I cooked for him.

He finished, rinsed his dish and put it in the dishwasher while I was wiping down the counters. I tossed the sponge into the sink and dried my hands thinking he needed new dishtowels. Something yellow, bright and cheery.

“Feb, baby, got somethin’ to tell you.”

I turned to him and he moved into me. His face was serious and something about it made me brace. Bad news was coming and there were no longer thoughts of cheery, yellow dishtowels in my head even as he pulled the one I had out of my hands and threw it on the counter beside me.

He put both his hands to my neck, settling them where it met my shoulders and he gave me a squeeze.

“Suicide last night,” he said and stopped talking.

“Yeah?”

“It was someone you know.”

Oh no. No. Nonononono.

“Who?” I whispered.

His hands gave me another squeeze before he pulled the earth right out from under me.

“Amy Harris.”

For a second that lasted an hour, I couldn’t think.

Then I asked, “What?”

“Amy Harris. She hanged herself Monday. Her friend found her yesterday.”

Amy Harris. Shy, pretty, sweet Amy Harris. Shy, pretty, sweet Amy Harris who had, twenty-two years ago, taken everything from me.

Now I had it back and she hung herself.

“Oh my God,” I whispered.

“Feb –”

My eyes lifted to Colt’s. “It’s because of me.”

His brows snapped together just as his face grew strangely dark. “What?”

“Because of me,” I repeated then lifted a hand and pointed at myself then at him then back at me while saying, “because of me, you and me.”

“Why would you say that?”

I felt my own brows snap together. “And why would you ask that?”

His hands gave me another squeeze. “Fuck, Feb, we’re not goin’ there again.”

Then it dawned on me. Post-coital talk. Put the past behind us. Move forward. The whole while he knew Amy had offed herself.

I lifted my other hand and used both, pulling them up and separating them to rip his hands off my neck and I took a quick step back.

“You prick!” I screeched then turned on a foot and stomped out of the room.

He caught me in the living room with a hand on my arm, swinging me around to face him.

“Don’t walk away from me,” he clipped, edging toward angry.

“Fuck you!” I shouted, already beyond angry, twisting my arm from his grasp.

“What the fuck’s the matter with you?”

I felt my eyes get wide. “Now?” I asked. “Now, Colt? Are you still gonna play this game now? Now that Amy’s dead, dead because of you and me?”

“I don’t know how you figure that, honey, maybe you’d like to share.”

Sarcasm.

I felt my head explode and it exploded by me screaming, “You take the cake, Alexander Colton! You take it and eat it and go about your merry fucking way! A woman is dead!”

“I know that,” he shouted back, “I saw ‘em cuttin’ her down!”

“And you’re still playin’ this game?”

“Gotta know the game before I can play it, Feb.”

That’s when I let it loose. “Sherry and Sheila Eisenhower’s party, Colt. Cast your mind back. That was the night I caught you fucking Amy Harris!”

And after I said that, that’s when I watched a change come over Colt. A change that was terrifying to witness. A change that froze every centimeter of his body. A change that told me I still had earth under my feet, it had to be there because my world was about to rock.

Colt stared at Feb, even heard her call his name, but his mind was somewhere else.

It was at Sherry and Sheila Eisenhower’s party. A party he remembered clearly and at the same time didn’t remember at all.

It was like a lot of parties he’d been to in high school, in college and, before Feb grew out of them or, more precisely, broke up with him, a little while after college.

Sherry and Sheila’s folks were away. The girls got a couple six packs and asked their friends around. Their friends asked their friends who asked their friends. It was out of control within hours. A couple of people brought kegs. Some scored hard liquor. Others brought weed. Necking, fighting, laughing, puking, passing out, everything happened.

Colt remembered it because he woke up the day after alone in Sheila and Sherry’s parent’s bed. He didn’t remember getting there. He’d been drunker than he’d ever been in his life, before or since. So drunk, he didn’t remember a thing. He felt like an ass. It wasn’t a high school party but he’d been one of the few who was of age and waking up in someone’s parent’s bed was high school shit.

He’d been clothed when he woke up though, he remembered that, and hungover. Nasty hangover, again the worst he’d had in his life, before or since.

He remembered it too because the next day, Feb, cold as ice, broke up with him. She didn’t say why, she just said it was over. He felt such shit he remembered getting angry but not much. She could get in a snit, though she’d never broken up with him. He knew he’d talk her around.

He never did and, shortly after, she went wild.

With sudden clarity he remembered Amy Harris was at that party standing removed at wall and talking to her friend, Colt couldn’t recall the friend’s name. He remembered seeing Amy there, being vaguely surprised, smiling at her and she smiled back.

He’d always smiled at her, he remembered and even as shy as she was she always smiled back. Until after that party, now he was realizing, the rare times he’d see her, he’d smile but she didn’t smile back, she just hurried away. He never thought a thing of it considering her disposition but now he feared he knew why she’d changed.

That night though, that was it. As far as he remembered, he didn’t even speak to her.

And Denny Lowe was at that party too.

And Denny Lowe’s father was a pharmacist.

He felt Feb’s hand tug his and she called urgently, “Colt!”

His eyes focused on her.

His chest wasn’t cold and his gut wasn’t heavy. His whole body was frozen and he felt like he weighed a ton, as if he tried to move a leg, he’d put his foot down and the earth would shake.

“I didn’t fuck Amy Harris at that party,” he said softly.

Feb was watching him. He saw distractedly that she wasn’t angry anymore, she was something else.

“You did,” she said softly back. “I saw you.”

Christ. No.

Please, God, no.

“I didn’t,” he said.

“Colt, I saw you, you were moving on top of her and you were kissing.”

He closed his eyes and shook his head, stepping away, pulling his hand from hers.

He thought back to the party.

It’d be easy to slip someone a mickey. So many people, so much booze, pot, it was a crush, a daze. He had no doubt he’d set his drink somewhere and went back to it later. Or handed his glass to someone who was offering to get him a refill.

Date rape drugs weren’t prevalent back then but people had been finding ways to slip a mickey for over a hundred years, probably longer.

“Colt?”

He opened his eyes again. “You didn’t see that, Feb.”

“I did,” she whispered.

“You’re sure?”

“Colt, why are you acting this –?”

“Answer me,” he clipped.

She nodded. “I was looking for you, asking around. Craig Lansdon told me –”

Colt’s muscles got so tight he thought they’d snap.

“Craig Lansdon?”

He watched the color leak from her face. She remembered.

Craig Lansdon was Denny Lowe’s best friend.

“No.” She reeled back, her arm out, searching for purchase. Finding none, she kept going until her legs hit the couch and she stopped.

The whole time, her eyes stayed locked with his.

“I don’t remember anything that night,” Colt told her.

“You said that before,” she whispered, the weight of understanding heavy in her voice.

“Because it’s true.”

She was still whispering and tears were shimmering in her eyes when she said, “They slipped you something.”

“Amy too.”

He watched as she visibly started shaking.

“Amy too,” she nodded, “Amy too. Oh my God,” her hands went to her head, her fingers ripping into her hair, her palms resting against her forehead, “Amy,” her eyes were glued to him, “I thought it was weird, even then, thinking…” She stopped. “You looked at me like you could see through me. Amy looked…”

She stopped talking, pulled her hands out of her hair and started running. He bolted after her and caught her in the hall but she fought him and he had to pin her against the wall to get her under control, his hands at her wrists, her hands pressed to the wall at the side of her head.

“I asked Craig,” she shouted in his face, “where you were! He said he saw you upstairs, I should go upstairs. I’ll never forget it, he said to me, ‘He’s upstairs, Feb, saw Colt upstairs. Didn’t look right, you should check on him.’ He seemed concerned. That dick!”

“Feb –”

She struggled against his hold. “Sent me up after you. Him and Denny. Those fucking dicks!” She stopped struggling and stared at him. “Ruined my life. Broke my heart. Tore me apart,” she shrieked. “And you! And Amy!”

Amy.

Colt let her go and took a step away, a big one. He felt his shoulders hit the opposite wall.

Amy had had a child. She’d had his child.

“Holy fuck,” he whispered.

“What?” Feb snapped.

“Holy fuck.”

“Colt.”

He lifted his head and looked at her. “Amy had a kid, put him up for adoption.”

He watched Feb’s head jerked back with such force, her hair flew about her shoulders at the same time he saw her body jolt.

“What?” she whispered but he didn’t hear her because that’s when he lost control.

I watched as Colt stalked into the living room, straight to his gun holster on the dining room table.

I ran after him shouting, “Colt!”

“Call your father, get him to come over, lock up after me.”

Frantic, I got between him and the door. I’d seen his face in the second before he headed to the living room and I’d seen that look on his face before.

He’d just figured out he’d been drugged against his will, violated someone at the same time he’d been violated and apparently had a child. No way was I letting him out of the house.

“Colt, stay with me,” I begged, as he shrugged on the holster and reached for his jacket, “let’s talk this through.”

“Outta my way Feb.”

I was jockeying in front of him, hands up, eyes glued to him, trying to gauge which way he’d go to dodge me as he went toward the door.

He didn’t try to dodge me, he came straight at me, my hands hit his chest and he pushed me back as he kept moving.

“Colt, where you goin’?” I asked.

“Craig Lansdon.”

“No! Colt, no.”

My back hit the door, he reached around me, put his hand to the lock and I heard it click. “Call your Dad.”

“Colt, don’t.”

Colt shoved me out of the way. I came right back, sliding between him and the partially opened door. I pushed against it with my back, closing it again before I wrapped both arms around him, holding tight.

“Stay with me,” I pleaded.

“Got a kid. A boy.”

I shook my head, fast and rough, not able to think about that just yet. “Stay with me, babe.”

“He had a hand in it. He helped take you from me, do that to Amy, do that to me, he’s gonna answer for it.”

“Colt, calm down first. Let me call Dad.”

“Get away, baby, before I set you away.”

I squeezed him tight, hard as I could, got up on my toes so my face was close to his, and begged, “Don’t do this.”

He pulled back fast, out of my arms. Then he leaned down and put a shoulder to my belly. I was up over his shoulder and Colt was across the room in a flash. He dipped his shoulder, dropped me on the couch and before I got back up and was halfway across the room he was out the door.

I followed him.

“Colt, stop!” I shouted, running across the yard.

He was in his truck and slamming the door. I hit it with both hands up, still on the run then tried the handle. It was locked.

Colt started the truck, it roared to life, his foot heavy on the gas.

At the sound I jumped away from the truck. When he backed out of the drive, I turned tail and ran to the house, locked the door behind me and ran to my phone on the kitchen counter.

I called Morrie. It took me three goes to scroll down then up when I passed his name in my phonebook then down again, my hands were shaking so hard.

I put the cell to my ear.

“Whas’ up?” Morrie asked, I’d woken him.

“Morrie, you gotta get to Craig Lansdon. I don’t know where he is, but you gotta get to him. Call Sully. Colt’s gonna hurt him.”

“What?”

“Craig and Denny Lowe slipped him a mickey. I… it was… way back, at Sherry and Sheila’s party. He… something happened. They slipped one to Amy Harris too. They had sex.”

“What?”

“It doesn’t matter what!” I shouted. “Denny or Craig or both of them drugged him and Amy. I caught them in the act, I thought it was something else but they were out of it.”

“Holy shit.”

“Morrie!” I screeched, out of my mind.

“I’ll call Sully, Sis, we’ll find him. Just calm down.”

“Stop him, Morrie,” I begged.

“It’ll be okay, Baby Sister. Promise.”

Then he hung up.

Then I called Dad.

Then I heard Wilson meow at me. I looked down at my cat who was looking up at me, uncertain of the state of affairs.

I scooped him up, walked to the couch, sat on it and held him to me, staring at the wall, seeing nothing, thinking of Colt saying he saw them cut Amy Harris down. I was also thinking of Denny, ruining my life, ruining Colt’s, taking everything from me, from both of us. He’d led me to Pete. He’d ripped me off the golden course of my life and shoved me down a dark path where I didn’t want to be. I’d got lost, I’d wandered. It took me over two decades to find my way home.

And Amy? She had a kid, Colt’s kid. A little boy. If Colt didn’t remember, did she? Did she wonder why she was pregnant? Wonder if she’d been raped?

And Colt, all these years, he never knew, never knew what the fuck I was talking about. Because he didn’t. And now he found this out and that, somewhere out there, he had a kid.

“Oh my God,” I whispered and Wilson curled closer, “oh my God.”

I sat there on the couch cuddling Wilson and staring at the wall for awhile.

Dad walked in and I knew it was him but I didn’t look at him.

Mom walked in and I looked at her.

Then the tears started falling.

Wilson was gone and I was in her arms, the words pouring out of me through my hiccoughing breaths, coating my tongue with acid. Mom held me, tighter, tighter, swaying gently, cooing once in awhile, whispering “honey” but for once Mom didn’t help me. The tears didn’t stop coming, or the hiccups, or the words.

“Honey, you need to calm down,” she whispered, but I didn’t, I couldn’t.

I’d lost the beautiful life I’d been meant to lead. It had been torn from me but it was my fault that that rip was never mended and I knew it. Stupid Feb, keeping it all in, holding grudges.

Worse, Colt was out there, madder than hell and I knew what he could be like when he got that mad. Everyone did. If he got to Craig before Morrie or Sully, the rest of Colt’s life could be as bleak as his father’s.

“I’ll call Doc,” I heard Dad mutter because they knew, if Mom couldn’t calm me then I was inconsolable and they were right, I was.

If I’d been coherent I would have been surprised at how fast Doc got there. One second he wasn’t there, the next second Dad and Mom got me up off the couch and Dad and Doc guided me down the hall. They laid me in Colt’s bed and I cried to Doc, whispering now, telling him all my secrets, all of Colt’s, sharing way too late.

He injected me with something and it worked quickly. He sat next to me on the bed as the peace he gave me through a syringe stole over me. He pulled up the covers and slid the hair from my forehead.

“Like I said,” he mumbled, “the dog was dead. Shoulda left him buried.”

“Yeah,” I mumbled back, a calming darkness creeping in around me, “dog was dead, Doc. Denny killed it.”

Then I was out.

I woke up on my side, my legs curled up, Wilson in a ball in the crook of my hips.

I came out of it slowly as I lay listening, hearing the murmur of voices, knowing I wasn’t alone in the house. Too many voices, all of them speaking low but I knew there wouldn’t be that many and the tone wouldn’t be that calm if something bad had happened to Colt.

It was growing late, I knew from the feel of the day. I’d been out awhile. But I didn’t get up. I lifted my hand, stroked my cat and he started purring.

I had a lot of experience with animals. We’d had dogs and cats growing up. I’d learned a long time ago both canine and feline had one thing in common. They sensed a shit storm, they weren’t the type to go running. They stuck close. The worse it got, the closer they stuck.

So I lay in bed for a long time, kept my head clear and pet my cat.

Then I got up, went to the bathroom, brushed my teeth, splashed water on my face, pulled a brush through my hair and went to my bag, changed the yoga gear I’d put on that morning to a pair of jeans, belt, t-shirt.

Then I sucked in breath, went to the bed, lifted Wilson in my arms and walked out of the room.

Al was sitting at the bar, Meems beside him. The smell of Mom’s spaghetti sauce filled the air, she was at the pot stirring, Jessie had her head in the fridge.

I walked though the living room with Meems’s eyes on me. I looked to the left and saw all four of her kids lounging in front of a muted television set.

“Hey Auntie Feb!” Tyler called.

I dropped Wilson to his feet, waved at Tyler and smiled.

Kids, too, sensed shit storms and Tyler’s returning smile was cautionary. That kid loved me, all Meems’s kids did. This was because I spoiled the hell out of them and usually encouraged their bad behavior because it was never that bad and because Mimi and Al knew every kid had to have that one adult they trusted beyond anyone just in case life took them to a place where they’d need that trust and the wisdom only someone older could give. That was the brilliance of being the kidless best friend, you got all the good shit, never had to put up with the bad and the devotion that came from that was like a priceless treasure.

“Now Feb’s up, does that mean we can turn up the volume on the TV?” Meems’s oldest, Jeb, shouted.

“It’s Aunt Feb, Jeb,” Meems corrected, Jeb having decided he was now too old to call me “Aunt” and Meems having decided that she didn’t agree, a battle that obviously still raged. “And no,” Mimi finished.

“Aunt Feb, Jeb. Aunt Feb, Jeb,” Maisie chanted, most likely in an attempt to simultaneously annoy her mother and brother, her favorite pastime and one at which she excelled.

Maisie was Meems and Al’s third child, the long awaited daughter. First came Jeb then came Emmett then came Maisie. Meems had been so overjoyed she had a daughter she thought her luck had changed and broke her rule of only three kids (which meant breaking her rule of only two kids, she’d made the third attempt to get a girl) with the hopes of evening out the gender balance in the house. But along came Tyler.

Meems lucked out though, Maisie was as much of a girl as you could get. So much so, even though Al, Jeb, Emmett and Tyler were about as boy as you could get, Maisie still helped Meems settle the balance of the house with the sheer amount of nail polish she had lying around; not to mention her butterfly stickers which were stuck to everything; and her hair barrettes and ponytail holders with sparkled ribbons attached to them; her glitter pens littering every surface; and her bobby pins with bees and ladybugs on them laid here there and everywhere. Meems’s house looked like a little girl tornado swept through it. The odd GI Joe doll and baseball mitt didn’t stand a chance.

“Shut up, Maze,” Jeb snapped as I hit the kitchen.

“You shut up,” Maisie retorted.

“No, you shut up.”

“No, you shut up.”

Good God, I’d had that same argument with Morrie about a million times when we were kids. If my life wasn’t a certified disaster at that moment, I would have felt the beauty of a world that changed all around you in ways you couldn’t control but still stayed exactly the same in ways that were precious.

“Kids,” Al said and at that one word, both kids shut up.

I looked at Mom who was still stirring but was now looking at me.

“Where’s Colt?” I asked.

“You okay, sweetie?” she asked back.

I nodded and repeated, “Where’s Colt?”

She drew breath into her nostrils and looked at her sauce before answering, “With Sully.”

Something was wrong, she was holding back from me.

“Mom –”

“Girlie, let me get you a drink,” Jessie suggested but Mom’s head came up.

“No, not at least…” Mom paused and said, “Let me call Doc, see if it’s okay Feb has alcohol after that injection.”

“Good call,” Jessie muttered as Mom hit the phone.

I looked around at everyone and said again, “Where’s Colt?”

“With Sully, lovely,” Meems told me, “like your Mom said.”

She was holding back too.

“He okay?” I asked.

“Sure?” Meems asked back. Jessie threw her a look, Al dropped his head and I knew she’d exposed something, I just didn’t know what.

“Are you sure you’re sure?”

As Mom started talking into the phone, Al waded in. “Feb, darlin’, Colt’s okay, Craig Lansdon is okay, everyone’s okay.” There it was, they knew all about it, I couldn’t dwell on that because Al kept talking. “Just that, Morrie got to him and Colt didn’t feel like backin’ down. We all know what happens when those two disagree on somethin’ but it’s all right now.”

That meant Colt and Morrie got physical.

I closed my eyes and only opened them when Al said again, “February, it’s all right now.”

“Either of them get hurt?” I asked.

Al shook his head. “Morrie’s gonna have a shiner, Colt’s good. Morrie didn’t want to hurt him, just contain him, so he didn’t do the first and managed, when Sully showed, to do the last.”

Mom hung up and announced, “Doc says no booze, food. So let’s get you some spaghetti.”

I ignored Mom and asked, “When’s Colt coming home?”

More shared glances, more cagey behavior and I felt a chill slide along my skin.

“What?” I pushed.

“Colt’s gonna stay with Sully and Raine tonight, honey,” Mom said, turning the burner on under the water. I could see the oil floating in wet bubbles on top and the thought of Mom’s spaghetti, nearly as beloved as my frittata, made my stomach churn.

“Why?” I asked.

“Just needs some space, girlie,” Jessie answered, head in a cupboard and she came out with a bag of potato chips. “You want an appetizer?” she asked, shaking the bag which was the extent of Jessie’s ability to provide appetizers unless she called a caterer. Jessie wasn’t much of a cook.

I didn’t want chips. I wanted Colt.

But I knew, I didn’t act fast, I’d never have him. I knew, I didn’t act fast, that same seed that was planted in my soul hours ago and was taking root and growing strong even as I slept my hysteria away, had been planted in his too. But he’d been conscious during that time. He had time to work with it, fertilize it, help it grow.

I looked at Al. “Al, will you take me to Sully’s?”

Al looked at Mimi and, even edging toward frantic, this shocked me. Al was a man and by that I meant a man. He didn’t often look to Meems to make a decision about what he was going to do or when he was going to do it.

But Al knew, he fucked up right now with this situation, he’d live with that fuck up for the rest of his life and the panic I was feeling increased.

“Honey, I’m not sure –” Mom started but Meems nodded to her husband.

Al interrupted Mom by saying to me, “Sure, darlin’.”

“Al –” Mom began again but I was on the move.

I went to Colt’s room and pulled on socks then boots then a jeans jacket. Al was at the front door when I hit the living room and we were both out of the house before I gave in and looked around the room to measure their expressions. I didn’t have a lot of courage in me, I was holding onto a thin thread of strength that was stretched tight and could easily snap. I needed to do this now or I was never going to do it and then, again, I’d lose everything and it hurt enough the first time, it’d destroy me now.

I climbed in the passenger seat of Al’s truck, he started it up and we took off.

We rode in silence. Al wasn’t much of a talker, he spoke when he needed to and said as much as had to be said, though Mimi told me and Jessie he was a sweet nothin’s man. I loved knowing that about Al, though I’d never share it with him. My friend Mimi deserved sweet nothin’s and Al deserved to have a woman who he’d want to give them to.

I wanted to talk though. I wanted to ask him, being who he was, how he was, a lot like Colt, how I should handle the situation I was about to walk into. I wanted advice on how to bring Colt back to me, knowing he’d used the hours I slept in a drugged up unconscious to build a wedge between us. But I didn’t reckon Al had the answers I needed.

I was all on my own with this one.

Al parked in front of Sully’s house and Sully was out the door and halfway down the walk before I’d slammed the truck door. Lorraine appeared behind their storm door.

“Feb, sweetheart, I’m thinkin’ this isn’t a good idea,” Sully said, coming at me, hands up, palms out.

I walked right by him. Sully was a man, a good one. He wouldn’t do what he needed to do to stop me.

My obstacle, I knew, was Lorraine. She didn’t want me in her house, she didn’t want me near Colt; she’d be able to stop me.

I held my breath as I approached the house.

Lorraine reached to the handle, swung open the door, moved her body aside and held the door open for me.

“Thank you,” I whispered as I slid by her, tears lodged in my throat.

“Work magic in there, honey,” she whispered back, I swallowed and went in.

Colt was in the living room, seated in the middle of the couch, forearms to his knees, a glass of Jack, uncut, not even with ice, held in one hand between his knees. The bottle was in front of him on the coffee table, mostly empty. Only his eyes hit me, other than that, he didn’t move.

Sully drank beer and on occasion would spring for a shot of single malt if he was in the mood. Lorraine wasn’t a drinker at all, when she came to J&J’s she ordered strawberry daiquiris which was mildly annoying, they were a pain in the ass to make. Still, she got loopy on them quick and Lorraine loopy was hilarious enough to be worth the pain it was to make a daiquiri.

That Jack Daniels was in the house for when Colt came around. I couldn’t know how much he’d imbibed, he wasn’t moving or speaking so even though I had years of practice being around people who were drinking, I didn’t know what state of sober, or not, he was in.

What I did know was that Colt never drank his bourbon uncut. I knew Colt never drank vodka because both of his parents drank it and he also never drank his bourbon uncut. Usually, it was Coke he cut it with if not, some water or ice. This was an effort to prove he wasn’t like his folks who drank their liquor straight, always and often. Colt drinking straight bourbon was not good.

Colt not moving or saying a word, worse.

I stopped far enough away he could see me, not close enough to push it.

And when I started, I didn’t fuck around.

“I know you blame me,” I told him.

He didn’t move.

“I was there, I saw it, I coulda stopped it,” I went on.

He gave me nothing even his golden eyes didn’t flicker.

“Or I coulda said something after, so you’d understand, so Amy wouldn’t have had to –”

He moved then, barely, his body locked and I reckoned this was to keep himself in control and I stopped talking.

He knew like I knew, I said something even if it wasn’t during the act but after, it would have saved a lot of hurt. Colt, being Colt, would have done something. Dad, being Dad, and Mom, being Mom, would have had his back. Amy wouldn’t have suffered, she’d have had her son and Colt would have had him too. Colt, Dad and Mom would have made us all a family, somehow they’d have made it work. They’d have made it work so Colt and me would still have each other, Amy would have had us all and no one would be dead because it would have stopped Denny before the sick fully took hold.

I pulled in breath and whispered, “I have to live with that forever.” My voice dipped even lower, the bitter guilt germinating from that seed stark in my tone before I repeated, “I have to live with that forever.”

Colt still didn’t move, didn’t speak, didn’t lift his glass to his lips or throw it against the wall. He just kept his eyes on me and the blame was clear.

“I was twenty,” I continued, knowing it was weak but also knowing it was true, “she was everything I wasn’t and you were… you were…” I couldn’t find a word that said it all and what I used was just as weak but it’d have to do, “golden.”

Even hearing the wonder I had of him heavy in that word, Colt gave me nothing.

“You could have had anyone you wanted, in this town, out of it, anywhere you went, anyone you wanted. Why’d you want me?” I asked and, not surprisingly, Colt didn’t answer so I forged on. “She was sweet and quiet and shy. She was small and pretty and dark. I wasn’t any of that. I was loud, I was wild, I did crazy shit,” I explained. “That night I was drunk, I got home after seein’ you two and my mind played tricks on me. Tricks it’d been playin’ for a good long while.” I shook my head, knowing it was stupid now but thinking it was real back then and said, “You wouldn’t have sex with me.”

There it was, finally his hand twitched, the bourbon sloshing in his glass.

That was all he gave me but it was something.

“I was getting worried, Colt,” I whispered. “You seemed to want me but didn’t want me. I didn’t understand, even though you told me. You were a guy, I was willing to give it up, I made that clear, but you didn’t wanna take it and that didn’t make sense.”

I watched but he gave me nothing more.

I kept going. “So, seeing you with Amy, being drunk and twenty and wanting you and not getting all of you, seeing you with her, I know I was wrong now but then it seemed obvious to me.” I hurried on, having to get it out. “I know it was stupid, I know that now, I didn’t know it then, I couldn’t. All I knew was you gave her something you wouldn’t give me. How could I know that you’d both been drugged? That kind of shit never occurred to me.”

I waited and Colt just watched me, unmoving.

There it was. That was it. It was done and pain burned through me so blistering, so deep, my body started shaking trying to hold myself standing.

But if we went our separate ways for good, he deserved to go his way knowing it all.

“Pete took my virginity,” I told him and I watched his head jerk, surprise flashed across his features before they settled into disbelief.

“I know,” I went on, “what those guys said, I know all about it. I know everyone was talkin’ about me. I’m not denyin’ I went wild, got drunk, partied, smoked too much pot, fooled around. None of those guys got as far as you though, not near as far. You probably don’t believe me and why they said that shit, I don’t know and I didn’t care. I’d lost everything, my sole reason for being was tryin’ to numb the pain and everyone thought the worst of me, what did it matter? Why fight it?” I lifted a hand and pulled my hair away from my face, holding it at the back of my head, looking to the floor, talking to myself. “And in the end, I gave it to Pete. Fuck. Pete. So goddamned stupid, I was always so goddamned stupid.”

I dropped my hand and looked at him. He’d changed, I didn’t know how but he had. Though I saw it, the change didn’t register on me. I had my story to tell and I had to get out. I was done with it all. Colt was right, I couldn’t hack it and I was going to haul ass. But I was going to do this first, he deserved that.

“Far as I knew, my first boyfriend cheated on me, any guy I kissed lied about me and my husband beat me. I know you know this but that time you saw me wasn’t the only time he used his fists on me, it was just the worst,” I informed him, not looking at him, my eyes having wandered over his shoulder. “Then I took off and kept myself to myself. I was lonely but I didn’t care about that either. Lonely’s a different kind of pain, it doesn’t hurt as bad as heartbreak. I preferred it and embraced it ‘cause I reckoned it was one or the other. It took me five years to find Butch and there was no one between him and Pete. I was workin’ a bar in Georgetown and Butch came in. After that he came in as regular as he could for six months before he hired me at his bar. I worked there for two months before he got a date. We’d been together for four more before I let him fuck me and we’d been exclusive another six before I moved in with him. He was patient, worked at it hard and we had good times but the minute he got it, he threw it away. I shoulda known he would but I fell for it, fell for him. Stupid, stupid February.”

“Feb –” Colt said but by then I was still looking over his shoulder, unfocused, unseeing, lost in my memories of a man dead because of me and memories of my life, all those memories dead too, also because of me.

“Liars, cheaters, beaters. Who needs that shit?” I asked the wall.

“Feb –” Colt repeated but I talked right over him.

“After Butch, I was done. Met a guy, name’s Reece, worked a bar I was at, a drifter like me. We kept in touch, even apart if we found we were close, we’d get together. He’d have women between times, not me, no one. Reece was safe, he made no promises and didn’t mind I held everything back, preferred it that way. We both had one thing to give and we both took it. He cut through the lonely every once in awhile, which was good because by the time we’d hook up, I’d need a break. He had a bike, would take me for rides,” I closed my eyes, felt my lips form a half smile and finished on a whisper, “God, those rides… only times I ever felt free ‘cause they were the only times I’d let me be me.”

“Feb.”

My eyes shot open because my name was said close and I saw why. Colt, glass gone, was standing right in front of me. He was looking at my face not in my eyes and I knew what he was seeing. I realized then I had started crying somewhere down the line, so lost in my stupid tale of woe, I didn’t even know when.

That didn’t matter either. Nothing mattered anymore.

“Denny wins,” I whispered, my head tilted back, my eyes on Colt’s and when I spoke his eyes came to mine. “He wanted every piece of me? He’s got it. The fuck of it is; I helped him along the way.”

Colt lifted his hand and slid his fingers to curl around the back of my neck.

“Baby –” he murmured.

I jerked away from his hand and stepped away, I couldn’t take his touch. Not again. The memory of it was too sweet, so sweet, it made my jaws lock. I turned, done sharing, I’d not share again. It hurt too much. I felt something close down inside of me as I took my first step to the door then, during the second one, it locked. Seemed strange I’d lock someplace that was empty inside me, nothing treasured to keep safe inside but I locked it all the same.

I didn’t get the third step in.

Colt’s arm hooked around my stomach and he hauled me back. I hit his body and his other arm came around me, holding strong, locking me close, no way to escape even if I fought it which I didn’t, I had nothing left in me.

His mouth was at my ear when he said, “Only way Denny could win is if we let him, baby.”

I shook my head and said, “Colt, let me go, we both know we should have never started this again. We both know.”

His arms grew tighter. “You walk away from me, you let him win.”

“He’s already won.”

“He hasn’t, Feb.”

“He has and I helped. I got five lives on my soul, six, you count whatever happened to your son. No turning back the clock, right?”

His tight arms gave me a shake. “You aren’t responsible for that, any of it.”

“No?”

I felt his head shake. He was so close, his stubble caught at my hair. “None of it.”

“I don’t agree and when I walked in here you felt the same way.”

One of his arms left my belly and came up to lock around my upper chest.

“I was pissed, baby.”

I nodded. “Sure, now you feel bad, my sad story, you’re over it. You get pissed next week, next month, then where will I be?”

“Feb –”

“Right back where I was ten minutes ago, Colt.” I pressed against his arms. “Let me go.”

“Feb –”

“That’s not a life I’m willin’ to lead.”

“Feb –” “Colt, let me go.”

He gave me another shake, this one was rougher almost a jerk and I knew he wanted my attention at the same time he was losing control. I stopped pressing and Colt started talking.

“Honey, I did that twenty-two years ago and doin’ it again would mean me leading a life I’m not willin’ to lead.” He let my chest go but used my waist to whirl me to face him, his hands locked on either side of my neck, keeping me where I was and he dipped his face close to mine so he was all I could see. “You wanna play the blame game?” he asked. “We’ll play.”

This was said in a voice firm as steel and I braced because I’d heard that voice before. He talked to Susie like that except this time there was no ugly, just hard.

Colt kept talking. “You walked away and I was such a jackass, I let you go. The hurt happened on both sides and we both acted stupid and gave into it. I knew I didn’t do anything wrong but how hard did I try to convince you of that? You weren’t who all those guys said you were bein’, I knew it and I still believed it because I had to believe that new Feb was the one who broke up with me. We were both young, we were both stupid and we were both fucked over and we didn’t know it.” His fingers gave me a squeeze. “Now we know we’re bein’ fucked over and we let him do it again, we let him fuck us, we let him tear us apart, that’s when we really let him win.”

“Colt –”

“Only thing he wants is you,” Colt said. “Maybe only thing he ever wanted in this world. You give yourself to me, he can’t have it.” His hands gave me another squeeze. “Like it right now or not, Feb, coupla days ago, you gave yourself back to me. You think I’m lettin’ that go, think again because, baby, you’re fucking wrong.”

“Colt –”

“Hear me?”

“Colt –”

Another finger squeeze. “February, do you hear me?”

The tears came back, I felt them this time, pooling in my eyes and sliding down my cheeks with that sinister little tickle they always left in their wake.

I didn’t touch him, get closer, nothing, just looked in his eyes when I gave him the only thing I had left to give.

“Got a place inside me,” I whispered, “back then, way back then, I held it to me, don’t know why, maybe because I thought you were holding something back from me, but I never let you in.”

He dropped his forehead to mine and closed his eyes. “Honey –”

“You got in, Colt,” I said and watched, super close, as his eyes opened and his hands tightened on my neck, no squeeze this time, they stayed tight and I could feel the pad of every finger pressing into my skin. “Few days ago, you got in. I didn’t let you in, you just got in.” Finally I lifted my hands to his chest and bunched his shirt in my fingers. “I wanna lock you there,” I whispered, scared to death but sharing it all, hiding nothing, giving him everything, fighting the hitch in my voice that my tears were threatening. “Lock you up tight inside me, babe, and never let you out.”

His hands came to my face and his lips came to mine. “Don’t want out, Feb.”

“You say that but you don’t know what I mean.” My mouth moved under his. “I won’t let you out even if I make it so you want to leave.”

“Baby, I’ll never want to leave.”

My hands twisted in his shirt. “Promise me.”

He didn’t promise me, not then or, more to the point, not with words.

He kissed me, his mouth opening over mine, mine doing the same under his, his tongue spiking inside, his fingers gliding into my hair, fisting. I felt pain in my scalp but it didn’t register as I pressed into him, flattening my hands on his chest, caging them between us, caught up in a wordless promise that was the most beautiful thing I’d ever experienced, the most wondrous gift I’d ever been given in my life.

It was only after he lifted his head that he said the words he didn’t need to say anymore.

“I promise, February.”

I felt a weird, wonderful, warm whoosh flow through me, so much of it, whatever it was, I thought it had to start leaking out my pores, gushing right back out. Somehow, against the odds, my skin contained it and held it safe inside.

Once it settled, my hands glided up Colt’s chest, his neck and my fingers slid into his hair. I went up on my toes and I kissed him, giving him my own promise.

It was late when Colt closed the door behind Jimbo and Jessie, locked it and turned to the kitchen.

February and Jackie were in it, Feb drying a big stockpot with a kitchen towel, Jackie handwashing glasses and turning them upside down in the dish drainer.

At the sight something soothing slid through him, coating the rawness he’d felt all day. It didn’t do much to take the pain away, the pain of knowing what was done to him, to Amy, to Feb and the fact he had a son out there somewhere, but it helped, even just a little bit.

He knew that rawness would remain for a long time. He saw it in the eyes of a lot of people, rape victims who still had it stark on their faces months later while they sat on witness stands. Folks who’d been robbed who he’d see years later and he knew they now had dogs and alarms because that little sign was stuck in their yard warning those who might try again that they’d called Chip to install the system.

He couldn’t handle that now, trying to figure out what would heal the hurt, turn it to a scar, keep him from picking at it. Whatever happened earlier that night, and the shit of it was he didn’t help it by acting like a selfish ass; Feb was slipping through his fingers. She might have said she’d locked him tight but she was ready to bolt. Controlled panic was etched into her face and all along her frame and Colt had to put all his energy toward keeping his woman sane.

“Leave those to drip dry, baby girl,” Jackie said when Feb put away the stockpot and reached for a glass.

“Don’t like to face dishes in the morning,” Feb muttered and Jackie’s eyes moved to him.

He saw she was feeling what he was feeling but hers was double. All her energy was focused on keeping her daughter together and the same went for him. Two of her cubs got cornered under her watch and it tore at her.

Knowing Jackie was feeling that, Colt was struggling with his grip on justice, not knowing which was the better fate for Denny Lowe. Death riddled by bullets fired from the guns of an army of Feds or the rest of his life, rotting behind bars hopefully being gang raped at both ends.

It might make him sick but he decided instantly he preferred the last.

Colt shook his head at Jackie and she nodded. He wasn’t quite sure what he’d communicated to her but he was sure, whatever it was, she trusted it.

He walked to the couch and sat down, needing more than anything to take a load off while Jackie announced, “Welp, cookin’ for eleven people and cleanin’ up after them done wore me out. I’m hittin’ the hay.”

Feb kept drying glasses and reaching up to place them in the cupboard as she said, “You gonna be able to sleep in the midst of garlic smells and lingering paint fumes, Mamma Jamma?”

There it was, another balm, Feb calling Jackie “Mamma Jamma”, her nickname for her mother, something she used to say that also used to make him jealous, not having a mother he could nickname. Then his mother became Jackie and that jealousy slid clean away.

“So bushed, I could sleep while someone was painting around me,” Jackie said back, leaned into her daughter and kissed her cheek. “‘Night, my sweet child.”

Feb’s voice was rough when she replied, “‘Night, Mom.”

Jackie came to Colt, who’d put his feet up on the coffee table, crossed at the ankles and was too exhausted to move as she walked to him.

She didn’t mind. She just leaned down and put her hand to his face and kissed his opposite cheek.

“‘Sleep well, Jackie,” he muttered while she did this, thinking she’d move away but she stayed leaned over him, her hand on his face but her head came up and her eyes went to his.

“You know, long time ago, I looked it up,” she told him.

“What?” Colt asked.

“Your name,” she told him, her voice soft, her eyes on his unwavering and he held his breath, knowing what was coming was going to strike deep and he wasn’t wrong.

“‘Alexander’,” she said, “means warrior, defender. Colton, colt,” she smiled, “well, we all know a colt’s got so much energy, always beautiful little things, strong, fast, all of ‘em gonna grow up to be something magnificent.”

“Jackie –” Colt murmured, forgetting about that rawness. Her words, in that moment, swept it away.

“Can’t say much for your folks,” she whispered, “but in their miserable lives they did one thing right. They made you and after they gave you to this world, they gave you a name that fits. Don’t you think?”

He didn’t answer her and she didn’t wait for him to do it. She patted his face, straightened and walked quickly away.

Colt’s eyes followed her and a memory hit him as they did.

He heard her voice coming at him from a long time ago. It wasn’t soft, it wasn’t a whisper, it wasn’t like it was five seconds ago, filled with so much love, mixed with a mother’s longing to take away a hurt she couldn’t ease. It was filled with anger and determination.

He was sixteen and sitting on the side of an exam table in the ER. His nose was broken, a bandage across it, the cut under his eye stitched, his knuckles wrapped, his eye swollen shut. His father wasn’t stronger than him, not at that time, hard living had worn the strength right out of him and definitely not when he was as shitfaced as when he started it with Colt. But he was wily, he was mean and he didn’t have a problem not fighting fair. Colt gave him a good thrashing but his Dad got his licks in for certain.

Feb was sitting beside him. She’d hooked one of her feet around his calf and she was swinging their legs together. She had his hand wrapped tight in hers, palm against palm, both of them resting on her thigh and he could feel the muscles flexing as she swung their legs together. Her moving their legs jarred his body and it hurt his busted ribs but he didn’t say a word, he wouldn’t have stopped her if he was in agony.

Morrie was standing across from them, his shoulder against the wall, his eyes looking out a window, his thoughts unpleasant.

Jack and Jackie were out in the hall with Hobart Norris, the Chief of Police back then. Jack’s voice was a murmur, as was Hob’s, as was Jackie’s but suddenly Jackie’s voice grew louder.

“I don’t care, Hob, you hear me? Social Services be damned. You go back to that Station, you make your calls and you cut through your goddamned red tape.”

“Jackie,” Hob said, raising his voice too but trying to calm her.

“No, I see you don’t hear me, so I’ll explain. That boy in there’s not goin’ home to those two jackals. I been sending him back there for eleven years, each time it cut me to the quick. I also been talkin’ to you ‘til I’m blue in the face. I’m tellin’ you, he’s not goin’ back there again. You tell me right now he has to go, I’ll tell you right now I’ll pack my kids and my husband in our goddamned car and you’ll never see us again.”

“I’ll take it you mean Colt too when you talk about ‘your kids’,” Hob stated.

“Damn right I do,” Jackie returned, not missing a beat.

“Not a good idea to tell me your plan to kidnap Alec Colton, Jackie,” Hob was trying to joke.

This was not a good idea, Colt knew it, Feb knew it, Morrie knew it. They knew it because they heard it, heard it through something they’d never heard before.

They heard Jackie Owens shout.

“A sixteen year old boy is black and blue in there, Hob, and you joke?”

Jackie had a temper, it was lethal but it was quiet. None of her kids ever heard her shout.

But those words bounced around the hall, around the room Colt, Feb and Morrie were in, hell, they were probably heard throughout the hospital.

“Calm down, Jackie,” Hob warned.

“I’ll calm down when my boy puts his head down at night on a pillow under my roof!” Jackie shouted back.

That’s when Jackie laid claim to Colt at least in any official way. He might have felt like a cub wandering around, having never had a lioness who was there to protect him who was meant to keep him safe. But he wasn’t one. Or he would be one no longer.

“He’s not defenseless, woman,” Hob was losing patience, “you should see what he did to his father.”

“No, I shouldn’t. I did, I’d get the itch to finish the job Colt started,” Jackie shot back, Colt heard Morrie let out an amused snort and Feb squeezed his hand.

Hob tried a different tactic. “Jack, talk to your wife.”

“Why? She’s talkin’ sense, far’s I can see,” Jack said.

“Jack –”

“Cut through the red tape,” Jack interrupted.

“Impossible,” Hob replied.

“Then tonight’s your night to become a miracle worker,” Jack returned.

At that moment Feb dropped her head to his shoulder and Colt forgot about his night when she did, wondering, if he was living with Jack and Jackie, how they’d feel if he asked their daughter on a date.

He didn’t go home to his mother and father’s, never stepped foot over their threshold again. He didn’t know if Hob fixed it or Jack and Jackie just didn’t bother following the rules and he never asked.

Jack took his friends Hal Woodrow and Phil Everly to Colt’s house and he did it because both Hal and Phil were just as big and solid as Jack, they’d get no trouble. The three men packed up Colt’s shit and brought it back to Jack’s house.

Around about the time Colt was six and he was spending more nights at Morrie’s than he was at his own home, they bought Morrie and Colt bunk beds. Colt and Morrie used to fight over who would sleep on top, so they separated the beds, put them both on the floor at opposite walls. Then Colt and Morrie used to fight by throwing pillows and toys at each other from bed to bed. This would turn into a game where they’d eventually laugh themselves sick and Jack would shout through the walls from his and Jackie’s room, “Enough you two!” Then they’d hear Feb giggle from her room and Colt and Morrie would whisper to each other about all sorts of boy shit before they fell asleep.

Him moving officially into that room should have been no big thing, he’d had a bed in there for near as long as he had memories. Even so, his moving into that room was a big thing and everyone in the house knew it, most especially Colt.

He heard the cupboard close, his thoughts came back into the room and his head turned to see Feb running water over a sponge at the sink. He watched her turn off the water and wring out the sponge before she went to town on the counters and he was stunned when the rawness came back. Not that it was back just that Jackie had managed to take it away so soon, even for awhile. And also he was surprised that it didn’t seem so fucking raw anymore.

“Come here, baby,” he called and Feb’s head came up.

“I’ll be there in a sec, just let me finish cleaning the counters.”

She didn’t need to clean the counters. She’d done it while Jackie was washing out the pot and skillet. He had no clue why she was doing it again.

“Feb, no one’s gonna perform surgery on them. They’re ‘bout as clean as they can be.”

“I like to wake up to a clean kitchen,” she told him, still rubbing down the counters.

He let it lie. She liked a clean kitchen? Who was he to argue?

He let his head fall back to the couch and rubbed his face with his hands, thinking he’d never been so fucking tired in his whole fucking life. He left his hands where they were even after he heard the soft splat of the sponge hitting the sink and felt Feb getting close. He only dropped his hands and lifted his head when he felt her moving on top of him.

She straddled him, crotch to his crotch, knees and calves in the couch, ass to his thighs, her hands coming to rest where his head met his neck and having Feb astride him, her hands on him, Colt found he suddenly wasn’t the least bit tired anymore.

“I hate to ask,” she said softly, “but you need to tell me about Craig, babe.”

He knew he did. It fucking sucked and the fatigue slid right back because he knew he had to tell her and he might as well get it over with.

“How much do you know?” he asked.

“I know Morrie got to you and it got physical but everything was all right. That’s all I know.”

Colt nodded and put his hands to her hips then slid them back and over her ass and liking them there, he left them where they were.

“Craig works for his Dad’s farm supply shop, out on 36,” Colt told her, she nodded and he continued. “I was so out of it when I got there, didn’t note it until later, but the minute he saw me come in, it was like he knew.”

He watched her lips part slowly, like the skin didn’t want to separate, before she said, “Really? How weird.”

“Not weird when you know what I know.”

“What do you know?”

He ran his hands down her ass then up her back and around her ribs, the sides of his thumbs brushing the undersides of her breasts. Colt just wanted to touch her, remind himself she was real, this Feb sitting astride him, gazing at him, her face gentle, her hands warm. But his cock jerked when her lips parted again, this time in a different way, just as her eyes grew soft. She liked his touch a lot and she didn’t guard against showing it. Colt liked both knowing she liked it and that she wasn’t afraid of showing it.

He moved his hands down to the tops of her thighs. He wanted to fuck her but he wanted to fuck her when he knew Jackie was asleep, Jack was still at the bar, he had this shit out and he never had to speak of it again. She looked at him like that again he’d fuck her on the couch.

Therefore, his hands stopped moving and he kept talking. “I got there, he took one look at me, put his hands up and said immediately ‘I’ll tell you everything, Colt,’ I didn’t hear him, wanted to beat the shit out of him, that’s all that was on my mind. He backed up, tryin’ to calm me down, his Dad got between us, another farmer, that’s when Morrie got in, got me out, we were into it in the parking lot when Sully got there.”

One of her hands moved from his neck to his jaw then it lifted and she smoothed one of his eyebrows. Then both of her hands dropped to his chest.

Through this she didn’t say a word. She wanted it to help, he knew and it did, just not much.

When her hands settled, Colt kept talking. “Sully had called Chris and Chris got there fast. By this time I was calm enough to share what we’d figured out and Sully talked me into going with Chris to Frank’s for coffee. I went and Morrie and Sully went in to talk to Craig. They came to Frank’s after, relieved Chris and told me what they learned.”

“What’d they learn?”

Colt shook his head. He still couldn’t believe it even hearing it and repeating it, he couldn’t believe it.

“Craig couldn’t wait to talk,” he told Feb. “They barely got him in the office before he split wide open. Sully said Craig called it ‘livin’ under a thundercloud’.”

Her head tilted and she muttered, “I don’t get it.”

“He isn’t surprised about Denny, not in the slightest, Feb,” he informed her and he watched understanding dawn as he continued. “Says he was gonna come into the Station that day anyway, he’d heard about Denny, Marie, Amy, all the shit’s been goin’ down. He knew it’d come out and he didn’t want that shit to stick to him.”

“So, he was in on it.”

Colt shook his head but answered, “Yes and no. He said he thought it was going to be a joke, Denny convinced him of it. Said Denny talked him into going with him and they broke into his Dad’s pharmacy and got some shit, Denny knew what he wanted, where to find it, had it all planned out. They were gonna play games at the party. He said he didn’t know what Denny took or what it could do, not until after but he reckoned Denny knew. Then Denny slipped the shit to me, Craig saw him do it and couldn’t believe it. He freaked out because he knew if I found out I’d go ballistic. He just didn’t expect he’d have to wait a couple of decades for it to happen.”

She nodded and slid a hand up to where his neck met his shoulder, fingers digging into the muscle, massaging the tension there.

Her touch felt good and he finally felt the tension start to ebb as he kept going. “Once I started to stagger, Craig figured either Denny gave me too much or that this game wasn’t gonna be as fun as he thought. Denny told him the drug would make people high, make ‘em do or say stupid shit and wouldn’t last long. Denny told him it was all a lark and there were no side effects, folks would just laugh, it’d be a hoot. What he saw it did to me, Craig didn’t like so Craig says he stepped in. So no one would see me and I wouldn’t hurt myself, he says he took me upstairs and into Sherry and Sheila’s folks’ room.”

The bitterness was clear in Feb’s tone when she mumbled, “Nice of him.”

Colt gave her thighs a squeeze. “Pissed as I was this mornin’ Feb, I think he was tryin’ to do right.” She shook her head, not yet willing to believe and Colt went on. “Craig says he closed the door and later, when you asked him about me, he knew you’d take care of me so he told you where I was. Though he was a surprised when you came rocketing back down not five minutes after you went up. He knew by lookin’ at you something was not right but he couldn’t get to you to ask before you headed out.”

“I got out of there fast,” she whispered and Colt nodded.

She didn’t need to say more, they’d been there, that was done.

Earlier that night without his asking, she’d laid herself bare for him, handed him her life, her loneliness, the pain Denny had caused. After wishing for years for Feb to let him in, he found listening to her, after she cut through his anger, he didn’t want it anymore. Listening to her nearly made him come out of his skin. But he made himself listen because he knew she was offering him a gift. A gift he thought he needed but realized when she gave it to him, he didn’t want it even though it was a gift he felt honored that he received.

But they weren’t ever going there again, not ever again. No matter what happened, what fights they slid into, what she feared, he wasn’t going to throw that in her face because, no matter how she felt about herself, there was nothing to throw. He didn’t know about the lies, the betrayals, the blows he’d unwittingly landed when he didn’t make love to her. He didn’t know all that as the sickness that Denny planted years ago twisted in his gut that day. He didn’t know he should have never made her go there in the first place. It’d been tough to guide her back out. She seemed so broken he feared he might not be able to do it. He sure as fuck wasn’t going to take that chance again.

Colt lifted a hand, ran his fingers along her jaw and she twisted her neck, dipping her jaw to press against his fingers, accepting his unspoken apology or giving him her own. It didn’t matter which, both worked.

He dropped his hand back to her thigh and kept speaking. “So he went upstairs to see what was the matter,” Colt squeezed her thighs again before he said, “this is where it gets really ugly.”

She lifted her other hand to his shoulder and started massaging there too as she said gently, “Tell me.”

Colt didn’t hesitate, this was the part he needed to get through and be done with, his own hell, a hell he didn’t remember and didn’t understand but he had it all the same, a hell Denny had led him to.

“Denny was in the hall outside the door, actin’ weird. Craig wasn’t dumb to the knowledge that Denny had a thing for you, though he thought it was a crush, one that he was surprised after high school didn’t go away. He’s not a stupid guy and figured that’s why Denny targeted me with the drugs. Says he tried to confront Denny in the hall but Denny wasn’t listening to him. Denny was excited about somethin’.” Feb shook her head, a look of pain sliding into her face and settling there.

She stopped massaging his shoulders before she whispered, “Amy.”

Colt nodded his head and tried not to let the heat prickling his skin take over. “Denny said he gave Amy ‘just a little, enough to nudge her in the right direction’. Sully said those were the exact words, told me Craig said he’d never forget them. Said Denny looked like a crazy motherfucker uttering them and he knew he was when he found out Denny was playin’ his game with Amy and me. I’m learnin’ that Amy chooses her friends wrong and Denny was one of ‘em. She’d spent some time with him and Craig and, for some reason, she shared with both of them that she had a crush on me.”

The lines formed by Feb’s eyebrows and her eyes went hazy trying to call up memories as she stated, “I don’t remember them bein’ friends.”

“Me either but Craig says they were.”

Her head tilted as she fought for recall and failed. “Well, it’s not like I paid a lot of attention to them,” she muttered before she focused on him and said, “Bet Denny didn’t like hearing that from Amy.”

Colt nodded his head, agreeing before he said, “Craig said Denny opened the door and by this time the deed was done. Amy wasn’t blitzed, not like me, not according to Craig. She had enough of her shit together to pull the covers over us. Craig said she was rolled in a ball under the comforter, bawling like a baby and I was out cold.”

“Colt,” Feb whispered, squeezing his neck but Colt shook his head.

“I’m okay, baby.”

“No, you’re not.”

She spoke the truth, he wasn’t.

This shit seemed like a story to him, he didn’t remember so it felt like he wasn’t there. But the truth of the matter was, he was there, he was there and he was rendered helpless, likely acting on base instinct, God only knew, but in doing so he violated another person. The worst of it was, Amy wasn’t out of it, not like Colt. She knew what was happening to her and that knowledge cut deep and his helplessness to stop it pissed him off deeper.

Colt pulled in breath. “You’re right, I’m not.”

She licked her lips then sucked them between her teeth before asking, “You wanna go on?”

“I don’t, I won’t,” Colt answered, Feb nodded, started massaging his shoulders again and he continued. “Craig says Amy was hysterical. Part drunk, part high, babbling. Denny was laughing, thought it was all hilarious. Craig got pissed, pushed Denny out of the room down the hall. They had words and it hit Craig then that what Denny felt for you wasn’t healthy. He had bigger worries though, Amy. Denny took off in a huff, Craig went back to Amy. When he did, she was dressed, pulling the covers over me, still crying, sayin’ over and over again, ‘It’s all my fault, it’s all my fault.’ Craig got her out of there, in his car and drove her around until she passed out then took her home. Didn’t want her Mom and Dad to see her high. Said her father was shocked, this wasn’t somethin’ Amy would do, but he asked Craig to carry her to her room because her father wasn’t a big guy, wasn’t strong, he couldn’t do it. He says he felt like a shit because her father thanked him, even shook his hand, glad Craig had looked after his daughter. Told him he was a good friend.”

“Oh Lord,” Feb whispered, “I wonder if they thought… when Amy came up pregnant –”

“Craig wondered too,” Colt cut her off. “Said that’s when the thundercloud formed over him. You and me split, Amy got pregnant, she stopped speakin’ to him for a time, Denny was off to Northwestern scot free, leavin’ Craig here right under the bus. He kept his trap shut, hated it but did it because he thought Denny would implicate him, especially since he was in on stealing the stuff. Said Amy never said word one to him about it after and she and her parents remained friendly to him even though, on Amy’s part, it was distant.”

Feb’s eyes wandered to the wall behind him and she said, “You know, don’t think I ever saw Craig and Denny together after that.”

“You wouldn’t have. Craig said he confronted Denny one more time, said, since he felt so much for you he should at least tell you what went down so you could fix it with me but Denny told him to go fuck himself. Their friendship was over at that point but Craig never got the courage to act on his own and time goes fast, shit happens, eventually it was all too late.”

Feb’s eyes had come back to him while he spoke and she asked, “He willin’ to testify to this?”

For the first time since the shit hit that morning, Colt smiled. His Feb was far from dumb.

“He says absolutely.”

Her hands stopped massaging and she asked, “Do you think this’ll go to court?”

Colt shook his head before dropping it back to the couch, his story was done and the exhaustion he felt from just talking seemed to seep into his bones. He slid his hands from her thighs, up her sides, one arm going around her waist, the other one up her back, her neck, into her hair. He pressed her down until she was flat against him, her forehead in his neck.

After he did this, he answered, “No way of knowin’, Feb, how this’ll turn out. If they’ll bring him in or if he’ll fight and get himself killed. Or, if they bring him in, if he’ll confess. Just don’t know.”

“If it does, will I have to testify?” Before he could answer, her hand gripped his neck and she surprised Colt by saying, “Because, if it gets to that, I’m willing.” Her hand squeezed his neck and she went on. “You can tell them that.” She pressed against him, at his chest, her forehead moving deeper into his neck. “I want it on record, I don’t care where and if no one ever reads it, I want it on record what he did to us. I want to sit in a room and face him and tell him how he made me feel. I don’t care if it doesn’t penetrate that sick brain of his, I’m willin’ to do it and I want the opportunity to tell him how much I hate him.”

Colt was thinking that he might be wrong about Feb. Perhaps it wasn’t panic etched in her face, her frame. Perhaps the severity of emotion she was keeping hold of just barely was something else. Perhaps February Owens was made of something he didn’t expect. She’d been tested in the past and she’d failed. But that didn’t mean she didn’t learn from those failures.

She broke into his thoughts by asking, “You’ll let them know?”

He nodded and said, “Yeah, honey, I’ll let them know.”

She gave his neck another squeeze and wriggled closer before she whispered, “Good.”

Colt decided the time had come for them to move on to a more pleasant part of their evening and his arm at her waist dropped down so he could run his hand over her ass.

“All right, baby, I want my cock inside you but I’m wiped,” he felt her tense against him as he kept talking, “so, seein’ as you spent the whole day sleepin’, I figure you’re up for doin’ all the work.”

She lifted her head and looked at him. Her eyes were soft in that sexy way again and her lips were tipped up at the ends.

“Yeah,” she said, “I’m up for that.”

Colt lay on his back, his hand at Feb’s breast, his other hand over hers between her legs, feeling her circle her own clit with her finger, watching her ride him and he knew she was close but she wasn’t close enough. Watching her, feeling her, listening to her, he was closer and he was going to come before she did.

“Baby, hurry,” he groaned and her head, tipped back, tilted forward, her hair slid into her face, around her shoulders, down her chest and her eyes, soft and turned on, focused on his.

Christ, just looking at her face when it was like that took him nearer the edge.

She leaned forward, putting her free hand to the bed, giving herself leverage to ram herself down harder on his cock, faster, and that was exactly what he didn’t need. Fuck, now she was driving him over the edge and he was struggling to hold onto his control, to fight against her pull. He wanted her to come with him.

He rolled her nipple with his fingers and heard her moan, he liked the sound but he wanted it in his mouth.

“Feb –”

Her finger moved from her clit to become two fingers sliding around the root of his cock.

“God,” she whispered, “that’s you.”

“It’s me, baby.”

She dropped down so her chest was against his, her mouth at his neck, her finger going back to circle her clit, this time faster, pressing deeper.

“I’ve got you back,” she breathed against his neck.

“I’m right here.”

“You’re inside me.”

“Feb –”

“Locked deep.”

Fucking hell, she needed to fucking hurry. He was about to explode.

“Feb, honey –”

“Locked deep,” she repeated on a whisper, he felt her pussy convulse around his cock just as she sucked in breath against his neck. He took his hand from her breast and grasped her hair, using it to pull her face out of his neck and bring it to him, her mouth opening over his and he absorbed her moan as he bucked his hips, buried himself deep and came right along with her.

After they came down, he pulled her hand out from between them and her weight collapsed on him as he circled her with his arms. She pressed her face back into his neck, slid the fingers of one hand into the hair at the side of his head and she ground her hips into his cock.

Her actions tore the words, “Fuck, baby,” out of him because it felt so damned good.

“Locked deep,” she whispered again and his arms tightened before his hands slid down to cup her ass.

Best place to be, Colt thought, locked deep in Feb. He was thinking figuratively because he knew it was true literally. She was a natural at this shit, considering she’d only had four lovers and apparently a number of long, dry spells. Hell, she was so good, she could teach classes.

His mind turning to that, he decided when this was all over, there were a few men in the town he’d be having words with. Twenty-two years ago they spread lies about Feb. He’d see to it now the truth would come out. She was still carrying around a reputation she didn’t earn, not that anyone cared anymore except Feb, and Colt couldn’t allow her to continue carrying that burden. In this mess that was a wrong Colt had the power to do something about and he intended to set it right.

Her fingers glided through his hair and she tilted her head to kiss the underside of his jaw, taking his mind from his thoughts.

“You go to sleep, darlin’,” she encouraged.

His fingers tensed on her ass. “Not tired?” he asked.

She shook her head and he heard her hair brush the pillow, her necklaces clinking and felt her nose brush his neck, three things he automatically committed to memory.

“Feb –”

“It’s okay, I’ll watch you sleep.”

He moved a hand from her ass to wrap it in her hair and lifted her head up with a gentle tug so he could look at her.

“Watch me sleep?” he asked, trying not to smile.

“Yeah,” she said, her lips tipped up at the ends.

He lost the fight with his smile and remarked, “That’ll be fascinating.”

Her smile died and she told him, “I used to do it all the time. Watch you sleep, thinkin’ how lucky I was, I had you.”

Colt felt that warmth hit his chest with a force that knocked the wind out of him.

He didn’t know that, she’d never told him. He was beginning to think he was uncertain about this new Feb who shared. She kept sharing, she’d undo him.

“Now I can do it,” she whispered, moving her face closer, “thinkin’ how lucky I am havin’ you back.”

He couldn’t take anymore.

Colt rolled her to her back, pulling out, losing their connection but covering her with his body as he ordered, “Shut up, Feb.”

“What?” Her tone was confused but threaded with hurt.

“I said, shut up.”

Her head twitched and her eyes slid away as she mumbled, “Sorry, I –”

His hand still in her hair twisted. “Don’t say you’re sorry,” her eyes slid back to his as he went on, “got nothin’ to be sorry for. And you got nothin’ to feel lucky about.”

“Alec –”

“One person lucky in this bed, baby, and that person’s got a dick.”

Her lips parted again as she stared at him silent.

“You know the life I was born into.”

“Alec –”

“That life coulda taken me down a different road, but it led me to you.”

“Alec –”

He heard a phone ringing, a cell, Feb’s tone coming from the living room and he heard it so well he hoped to God Jackie was dead asleep because Feb was a moaner and when he was fucking her, she could get loud.

He ignored the noise and said to Feb, “Sucks, baby, what happened to us, what happened to you, what’s still happenin’ to you. But we’re back on track and, make no mistake, it isn’t you who’s lucky we are, it’s me who’s the lucky one.”

Her phone stopped ringing as she said, “Colt, it’s me who –”

He dropped his head, kissed her quiet and when he lifted his head again, he said, “Stop sharin’, Feb, can’t take it.”

He watched her eyes get big. “I thought you wanted me to share.”

He smiled at her. “I’m thinkin’ I was wrong.”

“But –”

He touched his lips to hers again and teased, “You’re too sweet, like candy, you keep goin’, you’ll rot my teeth.”

He heard her phone start ringing again and he lifted his head to listen to it.

“Alec –”

Quickly and distractedly, he ordered, “Quiet, Feb.”

“You’re very bossy,” she said on a mildly annoyed snap, one that said she didn’t mean it but she also kind of did.

Her phone stopped ringing and he focused back on her.

“February –” he started to close the conversation down but her phone started ringing yet again and the warmth Feb injected into his chest evaporated, the cold taking over, he watched her head twitch as she finally heard her cell.

“Fuck,” he cursed, pulling away from her and rolling off the bed.

He grabbed his jeans off the floor as she came up on an elbow, yanking the covers over her breasts, her head tilted as she listened to her phone stop ringing then, seconds later, it started again. Her eyes sliced to his as he tugged on his jeans. He watched her face paling before she threw off the covers, twisted her legs over the side, got up and grabbed his shirt.

“Let me take care of this,” he said to her as she shrugged his shirt on.

“Okay, but I’m coming with you.”

“Feb –” he began as she bent forward to nab her panties but shot back up to lock eyes with him.

“I’m comin’ with you.”

At her tone Colt felt it prudent not to argue.

The phone stopped ringing and started again by the time she had her underwear on and three buttons done up at her chest. They hit the living room and she turned on a lamp. Her purse was on his coffee table, the cell on top stopped ringing only to start again.

He grabbed it, looked at the display and it said “Unknown caller.”

Colt let it ring once more before he flipped it open and put it to his ear.

“Better be good, it’s fuckin’ midnight,” he said into the phone.

He got silence back and he watched Feb watching him.

“Someone there?” Colt prompted.

Nothing.

“Don’t piss me off,” he warned and that’s when he got it.

“She’s not supposed to be there,” a man’s voice, vibrating with emotion, probably anger, said into his ear. Colt couldn’t know for sure if it was Denny, if he’d ever actually spoken to the man, it hadn’t been in years but he still knew it was Denny.

“Lowe?” he asked, waving his hand at Feb, motioning to the bedroom, hoping she’d understand what he meant. She nodded and ran down the hall.

“No,” the man said.

“This isn’t Denny Lowe?”

“No,” the voice was getting agitated, “this is Lieutenant Alexander Colton.”

Colt felt a chill shaft down his spine.

Fucking shit. This guy was whacked.

“You’re wrong, seein’ as I’m Alec Colton,” Colt told him.

“No. No, you aren’t. She isn’t supposed to be there. Not without me.”

Colt had absolutely no idea how to play this and he also didn’t know if Feb was right now calling Sully.

He went with his gut, hoping Feb read his meaning and doing what he could to keep the sick bastard on the line. “She’s Feb, Denny, you know she’s meant to be with me.”

“She’s meant to be with me.”

“How do you know she’s here?”

“You can’t have her, she’s mine.”

“Sorry, Denny, you’re wrong. She’s mine, always has been and you know it.”

“You can’t have her. She and I are meant to be together.”

“How do you know she’s with me, Denny?”

“Stop callin’ me Denny!” he shouted as Feb hit the room, Colt’s cell in her hand, her eyes on Colt.

“Denny, listen to me, you aren’t doin’ right by her. What you’re doin’, Feb doesn’t want. You’re tearin’ her apart. Stop. Go to the nearest Police Station and turn yourself in.”

“Gotta make her safe. It’s my job. I’m the good guy. I’m the police. I gotta make her safe so no one can hurt her again.”

“You aren’t makin’ her safe, Denny, you’re hurting her, scaring her.”

“She knows it’s my job. She knows I’m doin’ it all for her.”

Colt tried something different. “How’d you get this number, Denny?”

“She gave it to me.”

“She didn’t. She hasn’t seen you in years.”

“I come into the bar all the time.”

“You do?”

“Yeah, I do. Sit at the end. She brings me beers. She watches me when she thinks I’m not lookin’.”

Holy fuck, he had eyes in that bar.

“Denny, I do that. You haven’t been in the bar since she’s been home.”

“I’m there all the time, ask Morrie, he’s seen me.”

“No, Morrie has seen me, Denny, you aren’t me,” Colt told him. “Turn yourself in.”

“Gotta make her safe so no one will hurt her again.”

“Do the right thing, turn yourself in.”

“Gotta make her safe.”

“Are you in town? Is that how you know she’s here?”

“Keep tabs on her, gotta keep her safe.”

Jesus, who was this guy’s eyes?

“Denny, don’t make this worse for Feb, for you. I’m tellin’ you, the best thing you can do is turn yourself in.”

“Got two more then she’ll be safe.”

Colt heard the disconnect and hissed, “Fuck!”

Two more. One was him, the other a wildcard.

“Colt?” he heard Feb call and looked at her to see Jackie was now with her, Jackie’s arm around Feb’s waist, holding her daughter close.

“It was Denny,” Colt confirmed and lifted his hand, indicating his phone. “You call Sully?”

Feb stepped away from her mother, came to him and handed him his phone, nodding. “Told him about the call, gave him my number.”

Colt flipped her phone shut and his open, scrolling to Sully, he hit the go button.

He listened to it ring once before Sully said, “Colt?”

“They get it?”

“Don’t know, gotta keep this line open for the call back.”

“I’ll let you go but you gotta know, he’s got eyes on the bar, Sul, and he knows she’s with me now.”

“Right.”

“Send someone to the bar, do a sweep, it may be cameras.”

“Your house?”

That chill shafted back up his spine. “My house too. I’ll do the sweep tonight.”

“Report in. Out.”

Colt flipped the phone closed and looked at Feb. “Put some clothes on, baby.”

“He’s watching?” she whispered.

“Don’t know, put some clothes on.”

She ran from the room.

“I’ll make coffee,” Jackie said and headed to the kitchen.

Colt followed Feb, he wanted to check the bedroom first and he wanted to do it wearing a t-shirt.

An hour later Colt sat on the couch, Feb curled into his side, her arm draped around his stomach, her legs bent and resting on his thigh. She was pressing in so close it felt like she wanted to graft herself to him.

Jackie was curled into the armchair angled at the side of the couch, her legs like her daughter’s, resting on the arm of the chair, her eyes on Colt.

He had his arm wound around Feb’s back, his hand resting lightly on her hip. He was trying to appear calm when he fucking wasn’t.

He had his cell to his ear and he heard it ring once.

“Colt.”

“House is clean, Sully.”

“Bar isn’t,” Sully replied. “Two eyes so far both pointed at the bar. They’re still lookin’ but they got some technical wizard who found the feed. They’re tracin’ it same time they’re preparin’ for a showdown.”

“Give me more,” Colt demanded when Sully stopped.

“Well the good news, it’s amateur, still brilliant but either dumb luck or lots of research. Probably got the instructions off the internet. Means they’re thinkin’ he did it himself and maybe the equipment has a print.”

“All right, what else?”

“Other good news is; the feed has to be close. He isn’t beaming it to the moon. If he’s watchin’, he’s close too.”

“Good.”

“Okay, Colt, the bad news is, he knows Feb’s there because he’s got a camera on the street pointed at your house. They’re now tracin’ that feed too but we suspect it’s goin’ to the same place.”

“So he’s either close and watchin’ or he’s got an accomplice who’s informing.”

“That’s right.”

“He called her phone, Sully,” Colt told him.

“Easy for him to find her number, seein’ as he spent time in her house. Her number’s on her phone bill. Called Chris, he said we got one of Lowe’s prints off the big plastic folder she keeps her paperwork in, stowed in the closet on the shelf by her journals.”

“Chris is a good man.”

“Gotta watch it, Colt, he’s after our jobs.” Sully was joking but he wasn’t wrong. Chris would make detective, he wanted it, he worked hard and he was fucking smart, so much so, he might even beat Colt’s record to the badge.

“All right, got something more for you, Sully,” Colt said, his fingers giving Feb a squeeze in an effort to give her strength before she heard what was going to come out of his mouth. “You need to give this to the Feds and their profilers. Guy’s more whacked than we thought. He thinks he’s me.”

Colt heard both mother and daughter suck in breath but he only felt Feb’s body get tight against his so he gave her another squeeze.

“He tell you that?”

“Identified himself as Lieutenant Alexander Colton.” He heard Feb’s whispered “Oh my God,” but kept on talking. “Got jacked up when I called him Denny. Says he’s the police and he’s doin’ all this to keep her safe.”

“Jesus.”

“Also said there were two more. I reckon he thinks one is me, the other…” he let that trail when Feb’s head dropped to his shoulder.

“They didn’t get time to triangulate the signal on the phone,” Sully told him.

“Bad news.”

“They’re now monitorin’ her phone, yours, your house phone and the bar.”

Too little too late but who would imagine that fucking guy would actually call. Stupid move, he was getting messy and that could mean bad things, though it could also mean good and Colt went with his last thought.

“We need to be in his face about this shit?” Colt asked. “Press a reaction?”

“I’m gonna get in his face,” Jackie whispered her threat and Colt couldn’t help it, he smiled into his phone. Jackie got a hold of him, hatchet or not, Denny Lowe didn’t stand a chance. A lioness was lethal when her cubs were under threat.

“Well, unless he gets close and starts watchin’ with his own eyes, that’ll be difficult,” Sully said. “They dismantled the cameras, all of them, even the one on the street. I’m learnin’ the Feds do not fuck around and somehow they got an army to throw at this shit. Warren says taking the cameras offline is their own way of pressin’ a reaction, pissin’ him off, forcin’ a move.”

That was unfortunate. Colt liked the idea of standing in his open front door and kissing Feb good-bye before he went about his day. He’d take his time, he’d make it thorough, he’d get that moan in his mouth and he’d put his hands on her ass. He’d drive Denny Lowe over the next bend as Colt forced him to watch Colt stake claim to what was his, what Denny almost succeeded in taking away from him and what Colt got back. The man had a single synapse firing correctly in his brain, Colt wanted to obliterate it.

“Keep me posted,” Colt told Sully.

“One other thing, man,” Sully said hurriedly, “Feds want you to consider protective custody, for you and Feb.”

Colt didn’t like it, for him or Feb, meant her being pent up and him being disempowered, but he’d sure as fuck consider it.

“We’ll talk, I’ll let you know.”

“Later, Colt.”

“Later.”

Colt flipped his phone shut and Feb lifted her head, opening her mouth to speak.

“One second, baby,” he muttered on another squeeze at her hip.

He scrolled down his phone, found the number he was looking for, hit the button and put it to his ear.

“‘Lo?” Chip said after ring four. Colt had woken him.

“Chip, it’s Colt, sorry to wake you but this is urgent.”

“Everything okay?” Chip asked, trying to shake the sleep from his voice.

“I know it’s late and I know your schedule’s busy, but I need you to bump your other customers for a priority job, first thing in the mornin’.”

“What job?”

“My house and I want a recon of J&J’s. You think you need to, I want you to up the security there.”

“This have to do with all the shit I been hearin’?” Chip asked.

“Exactly that.”

“You and Feb safe?”

“Not by a long shot.”

Chip didn’t hesitate when he said, “Be there at seven.”

“Later.”

He flipped his phone shut and looked at Jackie then at Feb.

Feb was stuck in time, Colt knew it when she asked, “He thinks he’s you?”

“He’s whacked.”

“I know that, but he thinks he’s you?”

Colt smiled, he couldn’t help it, her face was hilarious. His choices were either to smile, laugh or get up and put his fist through a wall.

“Okay, Feb, he’s seriously whacked.”

“Got that right,” Jackie put in on a mumble.

He didn’t want them to dwell, either of them, which meant shutting this down. You didn’t talk about this shit in the dead of night when the demons could attack because you were vulnerable. You talked about this shit in the light of day when you had your defenses up and your mind could fight back.

“Time for bed,” Colt announced, curling to get up and taking Feb with him.

“I couldn’t sleep, no way I could sleep,” Feb said, sliding both her arms around him when they got to their feet.

He looked down at her and smiled again. “All right, honey, then you can watch me doin’ it.”

Her head jerked, the cloud over her face cleared, she was fighting back the demons, just as her brows drew together and she said, “Okay, you’re right, no more sharing. I give you the ammunition I’ll never hear the end of it.”

He curled his arms around her and gave her a squeeze, the smile never leaving his face. “You know I’m teasin’, baby.”

“I know and I like it now about as much as I liked it when I was eight and you and Morrie chased me around, waving frogs at me.”

That memory was so hilarious; Feb screaming like a lunatic and running so fast her hair flew out straight behind her, Colt felt the memory simmer inside him and he couldn’t stop himself from bursting out laughing. Jackie felt it too because she did the same.

“My girl, always hated frogs,” Jackie stated when she’d controlled her hilarity.

“That’s right, Mom,” Feb leveled her irate eyes at her mother, “I’m a girl therefore I hate frogs. I’d get kicked out of the girl club if I didn’t. Ask Maisie, she’s got the rules memorized.”

Jackie laughed again before her eyes moved to Colt. “February. Always been a scaredy cat. Can’t even watch scary movies.”

“Oh Lord,” Feb mumbled.

“Gotta say, Jackie, it’s probably good my woman can hold her shit together when a psycho is on the loose. Thinkin’ that’s more important than her bein’ able to watch Freddie Krueger invading high school kids’ dreams in a movie.”

“Oh no,” Feb whispered, her brows had separated but her eyes were now wide, “now I’m thinkin’ about Freddie Krueger.”

Colt gave her another squeeze. “I’ll keep you safe, honey.”

“You can’t!” she snapped. “He gets to you in your dreams!”

There it was again, it hit his gut like a rocket and Colt couldn’t stop from laughing so hard he couldn’t hold his head up doing it so he bent his neck and shoved his face in her neck.

If someone had told Colt anytime during that day he’d laugh or smile or do them more than once, he’d have told you that you were fucking crazy.

But there it was. Owens magic.

Feb thought he was golden? He couldn’t say he didn’t like that she thought that.

But she and her mother were something else, something that glimmered far brighter than gold. Something that made you believe there was a God but he didn’t make miracles. He created beings and gave them the power to make miracles, miracles both great and small.