His neck bent and head tipped back again. “Nope?”
I shook my head, swallowed and grinned. “Well, he might not invite you to our child’s christening but, like me, he’s grateful for what you did. If you’re not thinking that and instead thinking he’s jealous, nope again. You’re not my type. I’m not into blonds. But you know who is?” I asked.
“Lex –” he started.
I finished quickly, “Faye Goodknight.”
He sat back again but this time his eyes rolled to the ceiling.
“You do know I’m on a mission,” I informed him then took another bite of burger.
His eyes came back to me.
I chewed, swallowed and explained, “When women get all loved up, they do this. They want to spread the joy.”
He just stared at me.
“They get obsessed with it,” I went on.
Chace sighed.
“So you should probably just give in,” I finished.
He shook his head then bent it back to his papers again but I could swear he did it while his lips twitched.
Good.
I finished my lunch in silence while Chace Keaton scribbled and moved papers around and studied some photos and scribbled some more. When I was done, I opened my purse, pulled out money to cover my lunch and the tip and tucked it under my plate.
Then I announced, “Well! Off to get a library card. See you later, Chace.”
Before he could say anything, I slid out of the booth.
But when I was out of the diner and walking along the sidewalk in front of it, I looked into the window to the back booth and saw a pair of attractive blue eyes on me.
And they were smiling.
And it wasn’t the only thing on Chace Keaton’s face that was smiling.
So when I lost sight of him, it was my turn to smile.
* * * * *
Angel
One and a half weeks later…
“You are fuckin’ shittin’ me,” Angel Peña clipped to the DA.
“Nope, failure to appear. Jumped bond,” the DA replied.
Angel shook his head.
Duane “Shift” Martinez. A pain in his ass.
“Means your afternoon is free, Angel,” the DA went on.
Angel didn’t want a free afternoon. He wanted to sit in the courtroom and watch then testify at Martinez’s preliminary hearing.
Shit.
“Head’s up, you need to make sure the paperwork is processed so his bondsman knows real fuckin’ quick that he’s FTA. He doesn’t get someone out on this guy’s ass right away, he can kiss his bail money good-bye,” Angel advised.
“No bondsman posts bail without collateral,” the DA returned.
“Martinez is known to fib about collateral. The bondsman got dibs on Shift’s Momma’s house, he’s gonna learn soon Shift has no Momma. I don’t know what he put up, I just know there’s a twenty-eighty chance he don’t got it.”
“No bondsman is that dumb,” the DA replied.
“The one who bonded out Martinez is. He’s already kissin’ ten percent of his bond good-bye ‘cause he needs a bounty hunter to round him up. Shift was a huge flight risk. He took flight. This is not a surprise. Martinez perpetrated the ultimate fuck to his best fuckin’ friend, you think he won’t fuck his bondsman on collateral, you’re whacked. The longer this shit is delayed; the more chance Martinez has to get to Mexico.”
Or Colorado but, pray God, Angel hoped not.
He watched the DA’s mouth get tight.
Then he watched him pull out his phone.
Message received.
Angel jerked up his chin and walked on his cowboy boots out of the courtroom and through the halls of the courthouse automatically listing in his head who would get calls and their priority.
First, Ty Walker.
He was pushing through the front doors of the courthouse, pulling his phone from his inside jacket pocket when the drive-by happened.
The automatic weapon fire took down three innocent bystanders.
It also drilled four rounds into Detective Angel Peña, the intended target.
Chapter Twenty-One
He Took That Too
Ty
Ty stood, hip against the kitchen counter, eating oatmeal and watching his wife shuffle around the kitchen fixing her own oatmeal and a travel mug of coffee for him.
His eyes slid from her, his torso twisting, his gaze moving to the latest addition in their house.
Next to the fireplace, a black frame, in it two sheets of glass and pressed between that glass side by side were two pieces of paper with the logo of the hotel in Vegas where they’d stayed when they were married. The first was her note to him and the second was his note to her the next day.
For reasons he didn’t know and didn’t process mostly because they were obvious and didn’t need processing, he carried her note with him every day, in the morning with his wallet and phone, shoving it in his pocket so his was ragged and worn. A little over a week ago, Lexie had discovered it. He was taking a shower after coming back from the gym; she was sorting out his gym bag after setting his protein shake on the vanity.
She’d probably handled it numerous times but his woman gave him privacy, one of the multitudes of things he loved about her. When he was ready to share, she was there. Until that time, she gave him space.
Why she unfolded it that night, he didn’t know or ask. But when he came out of the shower with a towel around his hips, she was sitting on their bed. Without delay or words, she lifted up the unfolded note, words out and showed it to him.
Then her other hand came up and she lifted up an identical piece of paper, this had folds in but it was not worn and it was his much shorter message.
She’d kept his note too. It only had one word and two letters on it but she’d kept it.
He felt the roots of that thing inside him dig deeper. It was embedded in a way it would never go away but that didn’t mean, frequently, it didn’t push deeper, swell and spread.
His eyes went from the notes to her.
“I carry it in my wallet,” she whispered, her head tipped back, her face soft and he knew in about five seconds she would start bawling.
So he walked to her, carefully pulled the pieces of paper out of her hand, set them on the nightstand, bent deep, wrapped his arms around his wife picking her up, planting her deeper in the bed and then he pulled off his towel.
Then he took his time fucking her.
This was his means to the end of stopping his woman from crying. It was also, as it usually was, fucking brilliant.
She didn’t tell him she was taking it to the frame shop but he came home the night before to see it mounted on the wall. No one would get it and most would probably look at it and think it was whacked.
He didn’t give a fuck.
When she wrote her note to him, she was already falling in love with him. When he’d written hers, he was already gone. They’d known each other days but, keeping those notes, they knew. And that frame was a reminder of what they knew and when they knew it.
Ty fucking loved it.
He didn’t use words to tell her that because he didn’t need to. He’d frozen when he saw it and when his body was at his command again, his eyes found hers. He said nothing but held her eyes until she smiled. He smiled back. Then he went up the stairs to take a shower and she went to the blender.
“Okay,” she said and he twisted back to see her screwing the lid on his travel mug, “your assignment today is to think about something.”
Ty made no response, just shoveled in more oatmeal.
She grabbed his mug, picked up her bowl of oatmeal and moved to him, standing close, smack in his space, as she always did, setting his mug by his hip, as she always did and lifting her bowl up in front of her, which was new. He didn’t know if his baby inside her was changing her program or the onset of winter was. She was eating more. Most nights, she stretched out beside him to watch TV and crashed within minutes, that w
as to say, around seven thirty. Instead of just pulling on her panties when she’d cleaned up after they were done at night, she tugged on drawstring shorts and a tee or a nightie and climbed in beside him. She had on a nightie now and thick slouchy socks. It was November and they’d already had snow that didn’t go away. She was from Dallas. Dallas didn’t get snow and the temperatures rarely fell below freezing. Her blood was thin. She wasn’t used to it. She also didn’t complain. She knew she would get used to it.
She kept talking. “Supply is exceeding demand for Dominic at the spa. He rents out his rooms in the back to the massage therapist and skin technician. The massage therapist only works part-time and her appointments are now six weeks out. The skin technician is a little flaky and it isn’t unheard of that she misses appointments and when she comes in, nearly every day, she’s usually late so her appointments run late. That reflects on Nic, not her and he’s not a big fan of that.”
She stopped talking; Ty swallowed the last mouthful of oatmeal and set his bowl on the counter.
Then he prompted, “You’re telling me this because…?”
“I think I want to go to school to do one or the other or maybe even both. They make three times as much as I make, I’d never screw over Dominic and they have it sweet. It’s like, the best job in the world. A woman looks forward to a massage or a facial; it’s the highlight of her day so, in a way, you giving it to her makes you the highlight of her day. It’d be cool getting paid to do something people look forward to, being the highlight of their day and, when they leave you, they feel relaxed and peaceful. I think that would be awesome.”
“Do it,” Tyr replied and Lexie blinked.
“Uh… maybe you should think about it. First, it costs money to go to school. Second, it’ll mean me being away in the evenings, third –”
Ty cut her off. “Babe, do it.”
“But, we have –”
He lifted a hand, wrapped it around the side of her neck and asked, “You wanna do this?”
She nodded.
“Do it.”
His woman held his eyes. Then she grinned.
Then she said, “Okay, I’ll do it.”
He gave her neck a squeeze before he released it but only to move his arm to slide around her waist and bring her closer, muttering. “Payback is me gettin’ rubdowns from my wife when I get back from the gym.”
She set her bowl aside, lifted her hands to rest them on his chest, rolled her eyes and said to the ceiling. “I’m not even enrolled in classes yet and he expects freebies.”
“God don’t care about me expecting freebies.”
She rolled her eyes back and retorted, “God cares about everything.”
That was the damned truth, fortunately.
“All right,” Ty changed the subject, “somethin’ for you to think about today.”
Lexie tipped her head to the side and asked, “What?”
“We got a kid comin’, we got a shitload of money in the bank and still not a small amount of cash in the safe. The first one comes, we lose our guest room. The next one comes, you lose your craft room. They get to the point where they can cogitate, my woman is not gonna let me fuck her the way I like anywhere but the bathroom. This does not work for me. We need a new house.”
Her eyes got big and her lips parted before she whispered, “But I love our house.”
“I do too but it isn’t gonna fit four kids, us and our sex life.”
It was then her eyes slid to the side and she murmured, “This is true.”
Ty pulled her closer, her eyes slid back and her hands slid up to round his neck. “This does not have to happen now but it has to happen. You need to think about what you want. We do this; we do it once and settle. We don’t need to be movin’ our brood all over Carnal as it grows so you find what you like in a way that you’re gonna like it a good long while.”
“What about what you like?” Lexie asked.
“I got one condition and that is, your ass in my bed every night. Since that’s gonna happen anywhere we’re gonna be, the rest of it, I don’t give a fuck.”
That was when he got her soft face, warm eyes and a sweet, quiet, “Ty.”
“We do it before the first one comes then we do it soon. It’s your first, you advance, I want you worried about our kid not movin’. Yeah?”
“Yeah,” she whispered, her arms around his neck getting tighter, her body moving up because she rolled up on her toes.
“Now, I gotta get to work,” he said quietly.
She nodded and, still whispering, replied, “Okay, honey.”
He bent his neck and touched his mouth to hers. Then he dropped his forehead and touched that to hers. Then he released her, tagged his travel mug but wrapped his hand around her hip and gave her a squeeze before he let her go again and started moving away.
“Later, mama,” he said to the backdoor and heard said to his back, “Later, baby.”
Then Ty walked out the backdoor, down the stairs, got in his Cruiser and went to work.
* * * * *
Three and a half hours later…
Ty’s cell rang, he did the drill, looked at the display, flipped it open and put it to his ear.
“Champ,” he greeted.
“Where are you?” Julius asked quickly, his voice strange, urgent and Ty felt a whisper of dread snake up his spine.
“At work,” he answered.
“You haven’t heard,” Julius stated.
“Heard what?”
Julius sucked in breath.
Then he told Ty, “Day before yesterday, Shift was FTA at his prelim hearing.” Pause then, “My man, this kicks me in the balls to tell you this shit because I know you got a relationship with that cop but he was there, Peña, at the courthouse. When the hearing was cancelled, he walked out right into a drive-by. He took four. He’s alive but they are not thinkin’ good things and when I say that, he’s already received last rites. Him still breathin’ is a miracle and that miracle is aided by a machine.”
Ty was already on the move through the garage to the office where Wood was in with Stella and Pop.
“Shift do it?” he barked into the phone.
“Was mayhem, the shooter took out three other people, two survived, one got one right in the neck, bled out before help arrived. Bystanders were freaked, it happened fast but they said it was a black man though further descriptions aren’t great. My guess is, Peña’s got more enemies than just Shift. But you gotta have this head’s up.”
“Right,” Ty muttered, climbing the stairs to the office.
“Sorry, brother, wish you and Lexie had a longer run without shit news comin’ at you,” Julius said quietly.
“Me too. Thanks for callin’ to tell me, brother,” Ty replied, opening the door to the office.
“I’ll call, I get any more,” Julius told him. “Later.”
“Later,” Ty said into the phone, flipped it shut, looked through the office to see all eyes on him, his intent to tell them he had to walk to the salon to deliver shit news to his wife. Lexie’d be pissed if he waited until that night. Peña’s position elevated significantly in Lexie’s mind since he’d gone all out for Ty so that meant Lexie’d want their asses on a plane and she wouldn’t want a delay in that.
But before he could open his mouth, his phone rang in his hand. He looked at the display and felt his brows draw together at a number that was local but one he didn’t know.
His gaze went through the room, he muttered, “Somethin’s up but hang on.” He flipped his phone open, put it to his ear and greeted, “Yo.”
“Ty?” He heard a familiar voice that made his blood run cold. “Sorry to bug you but I called Lexie’s cell and at home, no answer. She hasn’t come into work yet. Half an hour late. This isn’t like her. Is something up? Is she unwell?”
Dominic.
Lexie hadn’t gone to work yet.
Shift was FTA.
Peña was delivered last rites.
All the air in Ty’s
lungs squeezed out, leaving his body void of oxygen.
Without answering and saying not one word, he flipped his phone shut and his long legs took him through the office to the front door and out of it. He flat out ran down the steps and to the Cruiser, pulling his keys out and beeping the locks on the run. Tearing open the door when he arrived, he folded in, started it up and screeched out of his parking spot, through the forecourt and out into the road.
He was at home in half the time it normally took and he bolted up the outside stairs taking them three at a time. His heart squeezed when he saw the backdoor hanging open but he didn’t hesitate running through it. Then his heart twisted when he saw the state of the house. Struggle, evidence of it everywhere, oatmeal on the wall, a broken bowl on the floor under it, a shattered glass, a stool overturned. He didn’t look closely, didn’t give it time as he raced through the house up the stairs and to their bedroom.
Bed unmade.
Clothes on the floor.
Not unusual.
But no nightie tossed anywhere.
And no Lexie.
His feet took him to the closet because the light was on. He looked down and saw it.
The safe open, cleaned out. Her jewelry boxes gone, the cash gone.
His gun, the clips and ammo gone.
He turned and sprinted down the stairs, through the living room, down the stairs to the utility room, opening the door.
Snake and Charger there.
He had no fucking clue what Shift was driving.
He just knew Shift had his money, the jewelry, his gun and his fucking wife.
“This isn’t happening,” he whispered to the cars, his chest expanding and contracting so big, so deep it was painful, he felt it in his gut, his throat, that burn searing through him. “This isn’t happening,” he repeated.
Then he hit the button on the wall to open the garage and ran through, ducking low because the door hadn’t fully opened, he cleared it and ran to the Cruiser. He yanked open the door, leaned in and grabbed his phone he’d thrown on the passenger seat.
He flipped it open, found Julius and hit go.
It rang once after he put it to his ear.
“You okay, my man?” Julius answered.
“Shift has my wife. What was he driving and was there someone with him?”