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  Ham had a hairy chest. It wasn’t profuse. It wasn’t a dusting either. I’d never been one to like men with hairy chests but his was just so… Ham. If the first time we made love and he took off his shirt (or, if memory serves, as it actually happened, I yanked it off), and I found a smooth chest, I would have been disappointed.

  Even though on another guy I did not like this, with Ham, I loved it. In the times he was mine, I slid my fingers through it. I trailed my nails down it.

  And after a night like that night, I would have liked nothing better than to cuddle up next to him, put my cheek to his shoulder, sift my fingers through his chest hair, rest my hand against the warm hardness of him, and let his mellowness melt my physically and emotionally exhausting night away.

  Alas, this was not an option open to me.

  To get my thoughts off his chest hair and stop myself from even beginning to think about his abs, which would not bring on thoughts of relaxation and stress relief, but instead orgasms, which would be a better kind of stress relief, I threw back the shot.

  Ham leaned forward, took the glass from me, his was empty, too, and he twisted for a refill, demanding, “Stretch out, babe.”

  I stretched out, my head to the foot of the bed, on my side, up on an elbow, head in hand, eyes on him.

  He reached out an arm with the filled glass toward me. I leaned to take it and settled back in.

  “Talk to me,” he invited.

  I didn’t sugarcoat it.

  “I fucked him over,” I declared.

  “You cheat on him?” Ham shot back.

  “No.”

  “Steal from him?”

  “No.”

  “Lie to him?”

  “No.”

  “Then what?”

  “I loved him.”

  Ham’s brows shot together, giving me his scary look. Or, I should say, scarier look and he asked, “What?”

  I rolled to my back, rested the shot glass on my belly, and told the ceiling, “I loved him. When we got married, I was happy. I was thinking house, babies, settled, safe.” My eyes slid to Ham. “I really did love him, darlin’.”

  “Okay. So… what?” Ham asked slowly.

  “I didn’t love him enough,” I whispered.

  His face lost the scary look, went soft, and his voice was jagged when he said, “Cookie.”

  He got me.

  He always did.

  I turned to my side, got up on my forearm, and explained. “Six weeks in, Ham, six weeks into our marriage, I knew I didn’t do right. I had second thoughts, too late. He was a homebody. I knew that. I still married him even though I was not a homebody. I’m social. I don’t like stayin’ at home all the time. That’s all he liked. He likes foreign movies—you know, the ones with subtitles. He watches them a lot. I don’t like them. Reading and watching”—I shook my head—“did my head in. And half of them are just plain weird. After we tied the knot, he didn’t spring that on me as a surprise, tying me to a chair, and making me watch Polish movies. Before we were married, I knew that about him, too.”

  “So you fucked up,” he said in his jagged voice.

  “Yeah,” I replied. “Huge. Time went on. He’d talk babies. I’d delay because I knew. I knew I wanted out and I didn’t want a baby caught in that mess. I wanted something he couldn’t give me. I didn’t try to change him. Make him into what I wanted. In the beginning, I just thought I could deal with who he was if I had all the rest.”

  “All the rest of what, darlin’?”

  “Babies. Home. Safety.”

  “But you couldn’t deal.”

  “In the end, it was a life changer,” I told him. “He tried to go out with me but I knew he wasn’t havin’ a good time, so much so he was even miserable, so we quit goin’ out. He tried to watch the shoot-’em-ups with me but he didn’t get into them so I quit suggesting we watch them. I just stopped doin’ more and more of what I liked doin’, what made me who I was, until I started feelin’ like I was losin’ me. Then the recession hit, the tourist trade dwindled, the shop started to get in trouble, and I got deeper in that bad place. I couldn’t control what was happening with the shop but I could control what was happening in our marriage. Or, that is to say, I could end a marriage that wasn’t makin’ me happy. In fact, it was like I was losin’ hold on all that was me, fading away, and weirdly lonely even though I had someone to come home to. So I did. I ended the marriage.”

  “And he’s pissed,” Ham surmised and I shook my head.

  “No. I hurt him. I…” I pulled in a breath and admitted, “I broke him, Ham. He was happy. He enjoyed our life, our marriage. He hated losing me. He liked me just the way I was.”

  “Doesn’t seem like it to me, him not lettin’ you go out. Be you.”

  “He never tried to stop me. I just stopped goin’ because he preferred to stay in and that’s what I thought I was supposed to do.”

  “Darlin’, a man can put pressure on a woman to change without sayin’ a word,” Ham contradicted and that rocked me.

  I hadn’t thought of it like that.

  “All right,” Ham kept going. “So what was tonight about?”

  “He heard I changed my name back to Cinders.”

  “So?” Ham asked.

  “So, the house was mine, we just never got ’round to puttin’ his name on it, so it was him that left because it really was always mine. He wanted to give me some money to tide me over but I wouldn’t let him. I didn’t think with what I was doin’ to him that was fair, takin’ his money after I broke his heart and essentially kicked him out. And I made him take his stuff. I told you that already. And I did do that. I made him. I was firm about it. He didn’t want to but I made him take everything he bought because I thought it was fair. I gave him back his rings. I didn’t know me doing that was sayin’ to him that I didn’t want any memory of him but he told me tonight that he took it like that.”

  “Not your problem,” Ham stated.

  “It is. I don’t want to hurt him…” I paused. “More.”

  “This divorce final?” Ham asked.

  “Yes,” I answered.

  “Then you don’t worry about that either. He’s no longer your man. That’s also not your problem.”

  “Ham, you’re making it sound like it’s okay I got involved with a man I shouldn’t. I hurt him and ended a marriage. You don’t just end marriages. This wasn’t a little fuckup. It was huge.”

  “No, you’re right. You don’t just end marriages. You get in ’em knowin’ as best you can you’re in for the long haul,” Ham replied. “But you went into it like that, bein’ in love, thinkin’ you were gettin’ and givin’ what you wanted. It just didn’t turn out that way and, babe, you start losin’ you to anything, a guy, a job, to any-fuckin’-thing, you get out. If he loved you the way you think he loved you, he knew who he was marryin’, too. And he wouldn’t want you at home watchin’ fuckin’ Polish movies. He’d want you to be you.”

  I hadn’t thought of it like that, either.

  Ham wasn’t done.

  “You’re also right it was a big fuckup. But that kind of fuckup doesn’t end in capital punishment, cookie. People do it. You tried. It failed. You hurt him. That sucks. Your punishment is what you feel right now, the hurt, the guilt, him able to come in and cut clean through you with a few words. That’ll heal. What you gotta do is learn from your mistakes, cut your losses, and move on. Includin’ changing your name back if you want.”

  “But he hates my parents. He thought giving me his name was a gift.”

  “It is. Absolutely,” Ham stated with an inflexibility that was surprising. “Means everything. Means a woman’s got him, his protection, his money, his love. That’s everything. Best thing he’s got to give because it symbolizes all that. But you two are done, babe. His name is yours to keep or give up as you please.”

  “He took that, too, as me not wanting any memory of him.”

  “I see that. But I don’t see him walkin’ into a place whe
re you work, you’re busy, you’re on your feet, you gotta be on your game, and layin’ that garbage on you.”

  “He’s really a nice guy, Ham. He’s never been to The Dog. He wouldn’t know it was an imposition. He didn’t even know how to pay for his beer tonight. He probably thought it was the only way to connect with me, to share what he had to share so he pulled up the courage and did it.”

  “Well he did it wrong.”

  “Ham—”

  Again with the inflexibility. “He did, Zara. You worked in an office or as a pilot on a plane or a lawyer in a courtroom, your ex doesn’t walk in while you’re doin’ your gig and lay shit on you.”

  I hadn’t thought of it like that, either.

  “He’s got the wrong end of the stick about what you were doin’,” Ham continued. “You feel like it and wanna sort that, you call him. Have a drink with him. But tell him The Dog is off-limits. Your boss wants your head on your work, not on your ex. He comes in again, he comes in for a drink and to make you laugh or he doesn’t come in at all.”

  “Okay, Ham,” I muttered, put the shot glass to my lips, and threw it back.

  “Zara,” he called when I was done and I looked at him. “That is not me bein’ an asshole boss. That’s me takin’ care of my cookie. He doesn’t come in because I’m worried about you droppin’ drinks. He doesn’t come in because I didn’t like watchin’ him gut you, but more, I didn’t like knowin’ you felt him sink in that blade.”

  I’d known for a long time why it wasn’t Greg for me.

  Because, for me, it was Ham.

  It had always been Ham.

  And this was another of the myriad reasons why. Why I should never have married Greg. Why it would always be Ham.

  “Thanks, darlin’,” I whispered and watched Ham’s face get soft again.

  “Take him out for a drink. Unburden his mind about that shit. He’s feelin’ crap about that, you set him straight,” Ham advised. “But take care of you while you do it, baby. And if you gotta use me as an excuse to take care of you, do it.”

  I needed to stop him from being so freaking cool.

  Therefore, I shared, “I’m feeling the need to do another load of your laundry.”

  At that, Ham threw his head back against my wall and laughed, the rich, booming sound filling my room and warming my soul.

  I watched, smiling.

  Chapter Six

  Moving On

  One week, two days later…

  “Oh my God.”

  “Baby.”

  “Ham.”

  “Oh yeah. Fuck. Love that, baby. Love you, Zara.”

  I opened my eyes and saw sun peeking through the blinds.

  I was hot, bothered, my nipples hard and aching, perspiration was dampening my chest and between my breasts, and my girl parts were throbbing.

  I’d had another dream.

  Since Ham talked me through the Greg thing, I’d had three.

  This one made four.

  All of them hot, so freaking hot.

  All of them ended with Ham telling me he loved me.

  This was not good.

  I rolled to my back and turned to see my clock.

  It was twelve fifteen. I often went to bed late, and slept in late, but today I’d slept in later.

  I listened and heard no noises.

  Back in the day, Ham had a routine and it hadn’t changed. Even if he went to bed at four in the morning, he woke up between eleven thirty and twelve, slugged back a mug of coffee, and went for a run with coffee as his only sustenance.

  I not only didn’t know how he could run (at all); I didn’t know how he could run with only a cup of coffee fueling his endeavors.

  I figured it was a macho guy thing. A test of endurance. If he could lug that big body of his five miles in what was considered his morning on just a cup of coffee that was the same as cage fighting a bruiser by the name of Butch Razor and coming out the unqualified victor.

  Ham’s “morning” run meant I had time to do what I needed to do. And I hadn’t done it since I moved in with Ham.

  So I was going to do it.

  I reached into my nightstand and grabbed my toy. Pulling up my nightgown and sliding it in my panties, I turned it on.

  Then I replayed the dream. I also made up more bits of the dream. They were really good additions, seeing as, when it came to Ham, I had an excellent imagination.

  It had been a while so I came relatively quickly but it still snuck up on me. It was long. It was good. I gave a soft cry when it hit me and I moaned through it, whimpering at the end.

  When I was done, I returned my toy to the nightstand, stretched, snuggled into my pillow, lounged, and when my body’s call for coffee could no longer be ignored I threw the covers back, put my feet to the floor, and headed to the kitchen.

  I hit the door to the kitchen and stopped because a sweaty, track-pants wearing, tight-shirt-wet-and-plastered-to-him Ham was standing at the counter in the kitchen with his head turned, glowering at me.

  “New rule. You don’t do that shit when I’m in the house,” he growled and I blinked.

  “What shit?”

  “You use your toy to get off when I’m not fuckin’ here.”

  Oh my God. He heard me.

  How humiliating was this?

  “Ham—”

  “Heard the toy. Heard you. Don’t do that again.”

  “I—”

  “Hear it again, make no mistake, babe, I’ll join you.”

  Oh my God. Did he say what it sounded like he just said?

  I didn’t have time to ask him to confirm, not that I could speak at that moment anyway. He came my way and I had to jump to the side to avoid him bowling me over.

  He disappeared down the hall to the master bedroom.

  “What the hell?” I whispered.

  Okay, so that was humiliating.

  Why Ham would be pissed about it, seriously pissed, pissed enough to bring it up, which he shouldn’t have—he should have never said a word—and lay down the law about it, was beyond me.

  He told me straight up he didn’t want my body. We were roommates. We had been for over a month and he gave no indication whatsoever he wanted anything more or was even nostalgic for what we once had.

  Until just then with what he said but it was said in anger so he probably said it just to be a dick.

  I stared down the hall as my thoughts came into order.

  He couldn’t tell me when I could or could not touch myself.

  That was insane.

  And why was he mad about it? He wasn’t a prude. Far from it. He’d helped me do what I just did to spectacular results more than once. And I’d participated and watched as he’d done the same to himself.

  “What the hell?” I hissed.

  Suddenly, I wasn’t mortified.

  I was mad.

  I stomped to my room and decided his penalty for being an asshole was my getting into the shower at the same time as he got into his. I was quick in the shower but he could stay in there a year. I didn’t know what he did in there but he took the longest showers of any man I knew.

  And our hot water heater wasn’t that big.

  “So there, dickhead,” I muttered to the shower spray.

  Then I got ready and took my time. Blowing out my blonde hair with a roller brush, I used blasts of heat on my hair with the roller tight so it had big soft curls and flippy waves. Giving my makeup that tad bit of extra attention. Dressing for work, which was where I was going after I somehow whittled away the day, because once I left the condo, I wasn’t coming back until I’d calmed down. All of this was done in what I considered was an heroic attempt at not committing murder.

  I was dressed, jacket on, purse on my shoulder, and ready to go but I made one stop.

  Back at the kitchen where Ham was.

  He was at the counter again, and he again had his head turned to me, face wearing a scowl.

  “I’m in the shower after a run, babe, do me a fuckin’ fa
vor and don’t jump in yours,” he growled.

  “Kiss my ass,” I retorted.

  His eyes narrowed dangerously.

  I ignored that and kept going.

  “FYI, bruiser, you can’t tell me when to touch myself. I may not be able to go halfsies but you told me yourself this is my pad, my home, and I’ll touch myself whenever I want in my pad that’s my home and if you walk in on me, I’ll throw my vibrator at you.”

  On that somewhat pathetic parting shot that still managed to make me feel better, I turned on my boot and stomped out of the condo.

  * * *

  “Oh my God, that’s crazy,” Becca breathed.

  I had chosen to whittle away my Saturday with my girls Becca, Mindy, and Nina.

  Becca was a pretty brunette who used to work at The Dog but moved to waitressing at The Drake because her live-in boyfriend, Josh, was a musician who did acoustic nights there and she liked to be there when he played.

  Mindy was tall, very pretty, with curly strawberry-blonde hair. She’d also worked at The Dog once upon a time but now she worked as a counselor at a rape crisis center while going to school to be a social worker. She was almost done. She was graduating next year.

  Nina was a bit older than all of us, blonde, exceptionally pretty, and she dressed like a model. She was an attorney and married to Holden “Max” Maxwell. I’d met her yonks ago when she first came to Gnaw Bone for a vacation and visited my shop to buy some earrings made by my other girlfriend Jenna. We didn’t become friends until after she was kidnapped, nearly shot on the side of a mountain, went back to England to sort stuff there, and officially came home to Gnaw Bone to start her life with Max.

  Looking at them as we sat at a table outside at the riverside café in town drinking coffees, I thought they looked like Charlie’s Angels, except without jobs as private detectives with a mysterious boss and the Pinto.

  I’d just told them what happened with Ham earlier.

  “That’s scary,” Mindy added.

  “It’s not scary. It’s crazy,” Becca replied.

  “It’s scary crazy and crazy scary,” Mindy stated.

  Neither of them was wrong but Mindy was more right.