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  His face dipped close and I saw his eyes were now full on lit with his amusement. “And right now, darlin’, you’re just holdin’ on to hold on and we both know it.”

  Damn. He was right.

  I held his eyes.

  Then I tried a different tactic.

  “I can’t do this now. I’ve got a cake to finish decorating. I need to change my shirt because now that icing is on me. And I have a baby shower to get to,” I informed him and his lips tipped up as his hand at my head became fingers that slid through my hair. Then it moved down and around so he was holding me in both arms.

  Damn, I missed this. He could be sweet, a lot. When he got in a good mood it was the best, the best ever. And he could be touchy, a lot. He held me. He held me close. He held me loose. He held me while he laughed. He held me while I laughed. He held me while he kissed me. And he held me just because.

  And I missed it.

  Damn.

  “When’re you gonna be home?” he asked.

  “Later,” I answered.

  “When later?” he pressed.

  “Later, later,” I evaded.

  His arms gave me a squeeze and he said low, “Tess.”

  Crap.

  “I don’t know. Later. Seven? Eight?”

  “I’ll be back at nine,” he declared.

  Damn.

  “Why don’t we make a date to meet for coffee?” I suggested.

  “Maybe because I’m not stupid?”

  Damn!

  I was totally going to bail on coffee and he knew it.

  He kept speaking. “But right now you’re gonna tell me why you put your house on the market.”

  “I need a change,” I told him.

  “Yeah.” His arms gave me a squeeze. “I see this. You’ve shifted ten pounds that looked better when it was on your ass and tits. You’re in a tee and jeans and not your fancy-ass clothes and heels. You lost the glasses and got contacts. The only thing I like, babe, is the hair. Looks good longer and lighter.”

  He liked my hair.

  I tried not to let that make me feel tingly but it ended up more like me pretending I didn’t feel the tingles that made me feel.

  “Brock, seriously, can we talk about this later?”

  “Where you movin’?” he asked, telling me that no, we couldn’t talk about it later.

  “I haven’t decided yet,” I lied, and the pulsing hum of his humor and good mood went flat as his eyes narrowed.

  “Christ, Tess, did the three months you spent lickin’ your fuckin’ wounds erase the four months we spent together so you don’t remember you can’t pull shit over on me?”

  My eyes narrowed too and I informed him, “That was not cool.”

  “No, what was not cool was you taking three fuckin’ months to lick your wounds and makin’ me haul my ass to you, but we’ll talk about that tonight.”

  I felt my body go stiff. “If that’s why you’re coming over tonight then don’t bother.”

  “Okay, no,” he said on a low rumble. “I see this shit shook out some sass in you, babe. My Tess was sugar sweet from the minute my eyes hit her to the minute I kissed her good night. I know what happened was fucked and it fucked with your head, so I’m willin’ to ride that with you. But you gotta know now, once we clear a bump, you’re not draggin’ us back time and again so we become intimately acquainted with it. We’re over the bump. We move the fuck on. We’re agreed I’m over tonight, nine o’clock. We sort shit out we shoulda sorted out three months ago and see where we are. But right now, you’re tellin’ me where you’re movin’.”

  “We didn’t agree to anything, Brock. You said you were coming over. I want to have coffee.”

  “Don’t shit me, Tess. You’ll bag on coffee.”

  “See!” I cried. “Is this sinking in that maybe I’m trying to move on in a variety of ways, including moving on from Jake Knox slash Brock Lucas?”

  Way, way, way wrong thing to say.

  I knew this when one of his arms got tight, the other one slanted up my back, his hand cupping the back of my head as he leaned deep into me, pressing me over the counter, and his face got in mine.

  “I was observing,” he snarled. “Calhoun promised he’d handle you with care. I was keepin’ an eye on him ’cause, he didn’t, I told him I’d rip his fuckin’ throat out and I wanted to make sure, he fucked with you, I didn’t fuckin’ delay.”

  My body froze except my lips, which parted, and my eyes, which I felt grow round.

  Brock kept talking.

  “He didn’t. He pushed and you broke and what you said when you broke, babe, I didn’t know. Calhoun didn’t know. No one fuckin’ knew. But I’ll tell you this. Those four words you said I’ll never fuckin’ forget. Those four fuckin’ words soldered themselves deep in the walls of my gut in a way they’ll never be cut loose. They had to drag me outta there so I didn’t go after him or try and get to you.”

  I continued to stare up at him, stunned.

  “Then you walked away and I knew you needed that even as it pissed me off you did it and broke your promise to me when you did. But you needed it. Then you stayed away and I see now you took that time to build your wall but I don’t give a fuck. That night, I found out my woman had been violated and for three fuckin’ months I’ve lived with that and I’m done livin’ with it and lyin’ awake wonderin’ where your head is at. I’m done, Tess. So tonight, at nine, I’m back, we’re talkin’ shit through, and then we’re gonna see where we’re at. You’re clear of Heller. You don’t know dick. You aren’t a part of that investigation. We’re free and clear and we’re gonna explore that. But now… now darlin’, you’re gonna tell me why you got a goddamned for-sale sign in your yard when you told me you love this house so much you didn’t mind livin’ in it until you die.”

  “The crash,” I found my mouth whispering and I watched him blink.

  “What?” he bit out.

  “During… when Agent Calhoun… when I…” I stopped and licked my lips. “There was a crash outside the interrogation room. That was you.”

  “Yeah, babe, that was me throwing a chair against the wall.”

  That was him throwing a chair against the wall.

  That was him.

  That was him throwing a chair against the wall.

  I closed my eyes and did a face-plant into his chest as my body relaxed in his arms.

  That was Brock throwing a chair against the wall when he heard me admit to being raped.

  As this knowledge flowed through me, it did it like a warm gush of clean water wiping away years of filth.

  Oh my.

  “Tess,” he called as his hand at my head tensed and his arm around me gave me a squeeze.

  I opened my eyes and saw tee.

  “Is this really your favorite tee?” I whispered against the fabric.

  I felt his body still for a brief moment before I felt his whiskers pull at my hair as he slid his jaw down the side of my head.

  Then he whispered in my ear, “Yeah.”

  “It’s old and ratty-assed,” I informed him.

  “Exactly,” he informed me.

  I closed my eyes again. Then I smiled. The smile faded from my lips as I opened my eyes and tilted my head back. His came up with mine and I looked into his quicksilver eyes.

  “Do you want me to stop by the store and pick up some Bud on the way home from the shower?” I asked softly and the mood shifted in the room again. It got warm and heavy, sultry, sweet.

  My favorite mood of his. Bar none.

  Damn, I missed that too.

  “Yeah, baby,” he answered softly.

  “Okay,” I whispered.

  He closed his eyes and then he opened them and dipped his head.

  He kissed me, light and gentle at first, then warm, heavy, sultry, and sweet.

  My toes curled and my fingers did too, right into his ratty-assed tee at his back.

  Okay, okay. Seriously.

  I missed this most of all.

 
; He lifted his head and his hand at mine shifted around to the side of my neck, taking my hair with it, his thumb moving out to catch me under the chin and keep me facing him.

  “Where you movin’, darlin’?”

  “Kentucky.”

  He did a slow blink. Then he asked, “Kentucky?”

  I shrugged.

  He grinned.

  Then he said quietly, “All right, baby, we’ll talk about that later too.”

  “Okay,” I said quietly back.

  His eyes moved over my face before his hand shifted up so his thumb could glide over my cheek, my lips. He dipped his head and put his lips where his thumb was for a brief touch and pulled away.

  “Later, babe,” he whispered.

  “Later, Slim.”

  That got me a full-blown, striking white smile.

  My toes curled again.

  Then he was gone.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Committed to His Job

  “THIS CAKE IS so beautiful it’s a shame to cut it!” Ada cried right before she dug right into the huge cake I’d made for her shower.

  I smiled a polite smile as the abundance of women tittered around me excitedly at the thought of getting their free slice of a Tessa O’Hara cake. Not to brag or anything but my cakes and cupcakes had been written up in the local papers because they looked as good as they tasted. My bakery was shoulder to shoulder from open to close, ten to seven, seven days a week. That cake was homemade yellow cake with vanilla buttercream frosting. Simple but a winner. Even I knew they were in for a treat.

  That titter changed as they watched Ada cut miniscule slivers and put them on the paper plates with the big blue teddy bear on them.

  There you go.

  That was Ada.

  She told me how many people were coming so I made a fourteen-inch, four-layer cake, plenty for everyone to have a nice thick slice. But Ada was cutting slivers so she could have half a cake as leftovers for her and Vic.

  I sighed, wondering what the heck I was doing there at all since three years ago, when Ada met Vic, and because she was thirty-six and her biological clock was ticking so loudly the personnel at NORAD were tracking it, she immediately dedicated herself to the sacred quest of making him her fiancé. Then her husband. Now the man who was the father of her unborn child. Through this, Ada pretty much checked out of my life.

  She called me to make the cake for her engagement party then for her bridal shower, her wedding, and now this. Only two of those cakes she paid me for and she asked for (and stupid me, I gave her) a discount on both.

  I’d only seen her on those occasions and all of them required me bringing a present.

  Other than that, Ada was all about sculpting (with chisel and hammer if she had to) Vic into the perfect suburban husband, through wedding planning, house hunting, house decorating, and baby making. She didn’t have time to be a friend unless it was to call on all of us to buy her presents and celebrate milestones of her life.

  I didn’t even think she sent me a Christmas card last year.

  And I had my own milestone to think about. I didn’t need to be here.

  Okay, maybe it wasn’t a milestone. But whatever it was, it was a big, huge, stinking deal because no way that scene with Brock “Slim” Lucas in my kitchen was not a big, huge stinking deal.

  I knew it.

  I started thinking about how and when I could get out of there while handing around plates with slivers of cake and baby-blue plastic forks on them.

  But when I gave one to the woman sitting beside me, she muttered an annoyed “Muthafucka.”

  As it would, this surprised me. So I looked at her, to see her staring down at her nearly transparent slice of cake and I was right. She appeared annoyed.

  I didn’t know her but had met her that day. Her name was Elvira, mocha skin, hair in stylish crop with blonde highlights at the long bangs, fabulous tangerine top that showed even more fabulous cleavage, skintight skirt that showed this baby had back, and she would have been shorter than me if she wasn’t wearing four-inch killer stiletto-heeled sandals. She came to the party with a cadre of beauties, all of whom I’d met in passing before at Ada’s milestone celebrate-me celebrations. A knockout blonde named Gwen, a tall, svelte, modelesque blonde named Tracy, and another modelesque, tall, svelte African American named Camille.

  But I’d never met Elvira.

  “How do you know Ada?” I asked and her eyes came to me.

  “Don’t know the bitch and don’t wanna know a bitch who puts out bowls of peanuts, no honey roast, no salt, just motherfuckin’ peanuts with the motherfuckin’ skins still on them, and some corn chips for a party. Then she gives me a sliver of cake. Shit. What? Crazy,” she replied and I stared at her mainly because her answer was crazy. Honest, but crazy.

  Then I asked, “You crashed a baby shower?”

  “No. Got dragged here by Beanpole.” She jerked her head at the tall, svelte, modelesque Tracy. “She didn’t wanna come alone. Gwen and Cam didn’t wanna come at all. I’m seein’ now why. Trace has got a heart of gold but no capacity to get it when people walk all over her, even when they’re doin’ it in high heels. She talked us into it with promises of employee discounts at her store. She works at Neiman’s.”

  “Mm-hmm,” I mumbled, thinking that would do it. There was a time in my life when I’d go to a really bad baby shower with the promise of an employee discount at Neiman’s. That time was over, though. As I had done frequently through the years, starting at around age six, I’d entered a new phase in my life. This one was one where Christian Louboutin didn’t factor, but Harley-Davidson did.

  As I was thinking this, she suddenly and bizarrely announced, “Done with this shit. Let’s have cocktails.”

  Before I could open my mouth, she shot up to standing, grabbed her enormous purse that clunked and clinked when she did, hefted it up on her shoulder, grabbed my hand, and pulled me out of the couch.

  When she had me up, she declared loudly, “Smoke break!”

  Everyone’s eyes came to us, some of them shocked, seeing as these days you could light up a doobie and no one would blink, but if you lit up a smoke, you courted being publicly stoned to death. But most of the eyes were envious and probably not because they smoked. Probably because they, like me and obviously Elvira, wanted to escape.

  “Smoke break?” Ada asked, her face twisted in revulsion.

  “Yeah, back deck, okay?” Elvira asked, but didn’t wait for an answer. She started tugging me to the sliding-glass doors at the back of Ada’s picture-perfect suburban home while jerking her chin at her posse.

  I had no choice but to go but I did manage to bug my eyes out at Martha as I went—my nonverbal invitation for her to get her ass up and follow.

  I’d known Martha since we were in fifth grade. I moved out to Denver to be with Martha. Before marrying Damian, I lived with Martha. After leaving Damian, I again lived with Martha. Therefore, Martha read my nonverbal invitation and got her ass up.

  “Ice,” I heard Elvira order.

  Tracy nodded and peeled off as Elvira tugged me out the door.

  She let my hand go and sashayed to the picture-perfect lawn furniture on the deck, and folded then shoved my slice of cake into her mouth all in one go (though, it was so small, this wasn’t hard). Then she dropped the plate to the table and plonked down her massive purse, which again clinked and clunked. I watched in unconcealed astonishment as she started unearthing the ingredients for cosmopolitans (including a stainless-steel cocktail shaker) from her purse as Martha, Gwen, Camille, and I rounded the table.

  “Ohmigod, I’m so gonna kill Tracy for this. I didn’t like Ada even before that bitch hooked up with Vic. But this party is so bad, if ex-prisoners of war attended it, they’d reminisce nostalgically about the days shit was shoved up their fingernails,” Camille muttered.

  “Have you seen Vic?” Gwen asked Camille and got a head shake to her question so she continued. “Shadow of his former self. He used to live and brea
the Broncos, Nuggets, Rockies, and his vintage Chevy Chevelle. Now he’s wearing button-downs instead of Elway jerseys and driving a minivan and Ada hasn’t even popped that kid out yet.”

  “Poor Vic,” Martha muttered.

  “Poor Vic, my ass,” Elvira stated while pouring vodka into her shaker. “Needs to man up, take charge of his woman.” Her eyes sliced through Camille and Gwen and she proclaimed, “You bitches know what I’m sayin’.”

  Both “bitches” nodded in a way I found interesting since they clearly did know what she was saying and I did not and wanted to know more. Before I could ask, I heard the sliding glass door open. I twisted to look as it closed and saw the gorgeous, glamorous Tracy carrying two big glasses filled with ice strutting out like she was on a catwalk and not on a picture-perfect back deck.

  “Okay, just gotta say, I’m glad we’re out here because I wanna know what the frig is up with you,” I heard Martha say and I looked to her to see she was looking at me and, therefore, talking to me.

  This was probably not good.

  Martha was Elvira’s height, which was to say five foot four. She was also now taller than me, for I was wearing a pair of flip-flops with a black base and glittery silver on the straps and she was wearing a pair of platform pumps with a six-inch heel and two-inch platform. She was rounded just right, and had curly dark brown hair that looked fabulous against her pale skin and bright blue eyes.

  She also knew me better than anyone in this world (or, at least, the parts I let her know). She was always late. She was always in a tizzy. Her life was always filled with drama. But I loved her and she loved me, always and forever, no matter what. I’d been through the thick and the thin with her, all of it, and there was a lot of it, riding her killer waves, holding her hand the whole time. She was grateful for it and didn’t have a problem with letting that show.

  That said, although she could be immensely gentle, insightful, and thoughtful, that didn’t mean when she had something to say, even if that something might be uncomfortable, she didn’t say it.

  Which I was getting the sense she was gearing up to do now.

  So I asked a fake innocent, “What?”