Therefore Colt bit back a smile before he replied, “Book tours.”
Greed suffused her face and her grin turned to a smile.
“Exclusive?” she pressed his promise.
“I’ll talk to Sully.” And he would talk to Sully and maybe Sully would give it to her, if he felt generous but that was doubtful. Colt wasn’t going to go after the Feds. They might talk, they might not. They wanted to seal their retirement by resigning and making their own deals, he wasn’t going to hand them to Monica.
Luckily, she didn’t think to pursue that.
“I’ll be expecting your call to confirm,” she said.
“Don’t. I won’t call. This is trust or we got nothin’.” Sully might screw her, Colt knew, and he had no problem with that since he intended to do it himself.
“You think I’ll leave with that?” she asked.
“Life is risk, what I’m tellin’ you, this one is worth takin’.”
She stared at him longer than was comfortable but Colt withstood it. Then she reached out and clutched his arm one more time before turning and walking away.
Colt had no idea if he’d contained her or not but he hoped he did. It was Saturday, the Gazette didn’t run until Wednesday. Denny would probably be caught by then, God willing. She shopped this to The Star, it was likely they’d screw her and hand it to someone on staff. They had far better resources than Monica and the Gazette. They wouldn’t give her access to those, no way they’d work with her and she likely knew it. She was fucked if she tipped it now.
“Need to call the janitor, mop up the slime trail she left,” Betsy commented from beside him, Colt turned and grinned at her.
“Tell him to prepare, Bets, another coupla days we’ll be drippin’ with it.”
“Can’t wait,” she muttered.
Colt laughed quietly then said, “Later.”
She turned to him and her annoyance fled, light hitting her eyes before she said, “Have fun with Feb.”
Colt shook his head, waved at Betsy, put Monica out of his mind and headed to the door which would lead him to J&J’s.
* * * * *
Colt sat on his stool, Jack and Morrie in front of him behind the bar, all of them sipping bourbon through their smiles.
Dee was at the middle of the bar with Jackie. Dee was cat calling, Jackie slamming her palms on the top of the bar like everyone else who sat or stood the length of it. The rest of the bar was clapping, whooping, whistling, stomping or some combination of the four.
All eyes were at the floor space in the middle of the bar where Feb was being swung around to Bob Seger’s “Betty Lou’s Gettin’ Out Tonight” by none other than fucking Joe-Bob.
Colt had known Joe-Bob a good long while and he’d only ever seen the man sway to the bathroom, lurch out the door or stumble down the sidewalk.
Now he was moving like he did it for a living, he loved his job and he was damn good at it. Feb’s hair was flying out everywhere and she was laughing out loud, trying to keep up with Joe-Bob as he twisted her, twirled her and spun her around. The old guy knew what he was doing and he was loving it just as much as Feb. His body jumping and jerking with the rhythm, totally in control of Feb and he was grinning like a fool, having the time of his life.
Seger was pulling out the stops and so was Joe-Bob just as Jack shouted loud, “That’s my girl!”
Feb threw a bright smile their way before Joe-Bob gave her a jerk of the arm, whirled her in then sent her back out flying before he spun her with one hand over head, the other hand catching her hip to keep her going and going. Then he pulled her to a stop, yanked her in his arms and twirled them both round and round before stopping with Feb in his arms and he held on tight as the piano gave its final flourish. Feb held him back, cheek to cheek, giving him a big hug.
Jack had closed down the jukebox in order to play Seger’s crowd pleasing “Nine Tonight Live” and Bob and the Silver Bullet Band went straight into “We’ve Got Tonight”. Joe-Bob immediately began swaying with Feb in his arms as she held on tight.
Colt watched this for approximately half a second. He knew he should give Joe-Bob his moment but Joe-Bob could have another moment another night. Tonight was Alexander Colton’s night to slow dance with February Owens.
He put down his bourbon and headed toward the couple. As he moved, all eyes came to him. By this time, Colt was used to it, he couldn’t give a fuck and he kept right on walking.
Joe-Bob saw him, lifted his chin then pushed Feb out for another, slower twirl, stopping her facing Colt then giving her a gentle shove in Colt’s direction.
She didn’t need any prompting. She moved into his arms with a small smile over her shoulder at Joe-Bob and a bigger one for Colt when she turned back to him. Colt slid his hands around her waist, crossing them at the back, resting them at opposite hips, gaining full body contact. She curled both her arms around his shoulders, the fingers of one hand going into his hair as her hips found his rhythm. Colt bent his neck so his temple was pressed against her hair and she tilted her head so her cheek was pressed to his jaw.
They didn’t speak, they just moved. Colt found himself marveling at the fact that she fit him so perfectly, fell into his rhythm like it was the most natural thing in the world, as if she was born to slow dance in his arms.
Then again, that had always been the way with Colt and Feb. Always.
Her hand slid through his hair to curl around his neck, she tipped her head back and in his ear, she whispered, “Since I was three, there’s never been a day when I wasn’t in love with you.”
Colt didn’t answer. He just closed his eyes, held her closer and kept swaying.
And he didn’t stop, didn’t let her go, not even when Seger started singing “Night Moves”.
But he did let Darryl have her for “Rock and Roll Never Forgets” and Colt went back of the bar because Morrie was also now swinging Delilah around. Colt watched and saw that Darryl was nowhere near as good as Joe-Bob but he was also no slouch. Morrie had always liked dancing to anything, he was a natural and it was obvious, with practice borne from time, Dee knew his moves. But Jack and Jackie had also joined them and it wasn’t hard to see where Morrie and Feb got their talent. Jack and Jackie could fucking cut a rug.
Colt heard a call and saw that Ruthie was busy but Tony Mancetti was at the bar and had a bill folded lengthwise in his hand. Colt got Tony a beer, Ruthie got him change and Colt’s eyes went back to the dancers in the middle of the floor just as Feb’s laughter pierced the air in a direct trajectory, the sound stabbing him in the chest. It was painful, but it was a beautiful pain.
He’d been right the day before. Twenty-two years of her laughter, her smile, her body, her jewelry on his kitchen counter, he might have gotten used to it and moments like this would have been lost on him.
Now he knew that he’d never miss these moments and he’d always feel that beautiful pain because he’d always understand how precious they were.
* * * * *
They were in bed in the dark, Feb pressed to his side, Wilson draped over their ankles.
She was drawing mindless patterns on the skin of his chest, her hand moving slower and slower as her body settled into his.
“Feb,” he called and wished he didn’t have to do it.
“Yeah, babe?” Her voice was quiet, tired. It was passed three in the morning and she’d worked and partied all night, both hard.
“Tomorrow, I want us to go into protective custody.”
The weight of her body changed and he knew the relaxation of impending sleep had disappeared.
She lifted her head to look at his face in the dark. “I thought we –”
“Found out today that it’s highly probable that Denny killed two more people.” He heard her pull in breath through her nose and he continued. “No one you know, unless you know a man named Jayden Whelan.”
He saw the shadow of her head shake in a “no”.
“Random victims, baby, he’s getting out of control
and we’re pretty sure he’s headed up here.”
“But –”
“Feb, they’ll get him.”
“But –”
“And I want you safe until they do.”
“You can keep me safe.”
“Yeah, I can, by talkin’ you into protective custody.”
She looked away then back and said, “I don’t want him to have any more of my life.”
“And I don’t want him to have all of it.”
“Colt.”
He gave her a squeeze with the arm he had around her waist, lifted his other hand and hooked it around the back of her neck, bringing her face closer before he whispered, “Baby, I’m askin’ you to do this for me. Will you do it for me?”
She hesitated only a second before she whispered back, “I’ll do it for you.”
No argument. There it was. That was his girl.
He brought her mouth to his for a short kiss and he let her go. She settled back in, head to his shoulder and started to draw her patterns on his chest. Colt stayed awake until her hand stopped and her weight became heavy against his side.
Then he fell asleep at about the time Chris Renicki, sitting in an unmarked car on the street one house down from Colt’s, poured his second cup of coffee out of the thermos he’d brought.
Chris took a sip then glanced into the night surrounding Colt’s neighborhood, doing a scan for about the fiftieth time since he got there, seeing nothing.
Chapter Twelve
February
I jerked awake thinking I heard my brother shouting the word “frittata”.
I knew this wasn’t the residue from a bad dream when I heard Colt mutter, “I’m gonna fuckin’ kill him,” before he threw the covers aside, knifed out of bed, grabbed his jeans from the floor, yanked them on and stalked out of the room buttoning them.
Wilson trotted out after him, tail straight in the air.
Before Colt got to the front door, I heard Morrie shout, “Frittata!” again and then there was loud knocking through the four beeps of Colt disarming the doors and windows.
Then the knocking stopped and Colt said loudly, “Seriously?”
Then Morrie said, also loudly, “Dude, I missed the last one.”
Then Tuesday shouted, “Hey Uncle Colt!”
Then Palmer, so like his father, shouted, “Auntie Feb, frittata!”
Then a lot of noise as the kids ran inside, likely straight to the pool table. Before I’d been to Colt’s house I’d heard a lot about the pool table from the kids. It was nearly as legendary as the boat. Colt having these two things was more likely the reason Palmer wanted to be like his Uncle Colt than the coolness of Colt being a cop.
Then I heard Dee saying, “Sorry, Colt, I tried to stop him.”
I thought I heard Colt grumble something and I looked at the clock. It was nine-oh-eight.
I rolled to my back, mumbling, “Fucking hell.”
Firstly, I mumbled this because I was going into protective custody with Colt and I wanted to have a lazy Sunday morning in bed with him. His bed. Our bed. Secondly, I mumbled this because I was going into protective custody at all. Lastly, I mumbled this because I wanted to sleep more.
I was up on an elbow with the covers pulled over my chest when Colt stalked back in and announced, “Command performance, February.”
By the look on his face I was guessing he was about as happy as I was to have early morning Sunday company.
“You wanna change your mind about that answer of you ownin’ a hatchet?” I asked.
“Be cleaner usin’ my gun,” Colt returned, giving me the impression he was really thinking about this option even though I knew he wasn’t really thinking about this option.
I smiled then said, “We gotta count on Tuesday and Palmer takin’ care of us in our old age. You murder their father, I doubt that’ll happen.”
For some reason this was the wrong thing to say. I watched as Colt’s face changed, pain slicing through it before it went blank.
I sat up fully in bed, still holding the covers to my chest and called, “Colt?”
He shook his head, his face relaxed and he said softly, “Get up, baby.”
“Colt.”
He ignored me and went to the bathroom. I got out of bed, pulled on my underwear and Colt’s tee and waited until I heard him brushing his teeth. Then I knocked on the bathroom door and came in at his call.
I walked to him at the basin and leaned a hip against the counter, watching him brush. His eyes didn’t meet mine.
“What’s on your mind?” I asked quietly when he spit the foam in the sink.
Colt avoided my question, turned on the tap in preparation to rinse and said, “I’ll call Jack and Jackie, they won’t want to miss a frittata and, they’re here, we can tell them all at the same time we’re goin’ into custody.”
I got closer as he bent at the waist and rinsed his mouth.
I put my hand to the skin of his back. “Okay, but Colt,” I said low, “something happened in there, baby. I saw it. Honey, tell me what’s on your mind.”
His head tipped back so he could look at himself in the mirror, he held his own gaze for several beats and I waited. He made me wait awhile before he straightened, turned, my hand dropped from his back and I held my breath at what I saw in his face when he finally caught my eyes.
“Woulda talked you into namin’ a boy Jack, we had one. Jacqueline, we had a girl,” he whispered and I closed my eyes and swallowed back the pain.
He’d wanted kids and I did too. Even back in the day, both of us young, we’d talked about it. We didn’t talk about it a lot but we talked about it enough that it was understood, when we made it official, we weren’t going to waste time building a family. Then he went through the heartbreak of Melanie not being able to conceive. Now, with him forty-four and me forty-two and us just starting out again and needing time, it wasn’t impossible but it also maybe wasn’t smart for us to try to start a family at this juncture. If we tried and it didn’t happen, we’d both just have more heartbreak and we’d had enough of that.
His hand came to the back of my neck, curling around, warm and reassuring and I loved it when he did that. Even now, when yet another thing Denny stole from us tore through our consciousness, his hand there felt good, it felt right and it made the pain hurt a whole lot less.
“Honey,” he called and I opened my eyes.
“You wouldn’t have had to talk me into that,” I told him and he grinned, not a happy grin or one filled with humor. It was a grin that broke my heart.
“Don’t ‘spect I would,” he said.
I moved closer and his hand at my neck gave me a squeeze as his other arm went around my waist. I put my palms on his bare chest and pressed my cheek there.
“You think there’ll come a time when this shit quits hittin’ us, stuff we missed, things he stole?”
“Yeah, baby,” he said reassuringly, though I didn’t quite believe him mainly because he didn’t sound like he believed himself.
“You sure?”
Another squeeze at my neck. “Yeah.”
I nodded, my cheek sliding against the warm skin of his chest.
“One thing…” I started and then my throat closed and I couldn’t go on.
This time I got a squeeze from his arm at my waist before he prompted, “Baby?”
I cleared my throat and slid my hands around him, holding him around his waist too.
“One thing,” I said into his chest, “one thing that’s good, Colt, and that is, every day, for all these years, I thought of you, dozens of times a day. Every day. Every single fucking day.”
“February,” Colt whispered.
“Still do, except, now… it doesn’t hurt anymore.”
His hand at my neck went into my hair and gave it a tug. When my head went back, his face was already there and his mouth was on mine.
Colt tasted of toothpaste when he kissed me and I thought it was the best thing I ever tasted in my life.
br /> “What’s takin’ so long?” Morrie bellowed, Colt’s head came up and this time he was grinning with humor.
“Shut up, Morrie! We’ll be out in a second,” I shouted back, still holding Colt close.
“Get the lead out, I’m hungry,” Morrie was still bellowing and I heard Tuesday giggle.
My body melted further into Colt’s. “He’s a pain in the ass,” I noted but having Colt in my arms and my family in the other room, I went on. “Still, I love Sundays.”
“Best day of the week,” Colt replied.
I smiled before I agreed, “Absolutely.”
“Baby?” he called like I wasn’t in his arms.
“Yeah?”
“We got a lifetime of Sundays ahead of us,” he reminded me.
I tipped my head to the side and I felt my smile change and the only word I could think to say to express how happy this idea made me was, “Yeah.”
Then I decided Morrie could wait a bit longer, so could the Feds, so could protective custody and I got up on my toes and kissed Colt in our bathroom.
* * * * *
Colt sat at his desk at the Station, Sean in the chair by the desk, Sully across from him.
Colt was antsy but he needed to get this done.
February was at the bar, she’d wanted to go there, sort some things out, preparing, like Colt was now, to be away.
Marty, in plainclothes, was there playing bodyguard.
This was why Colt was antsy. Chris had done night duty, which was good. Colt could trust that Chris would stay alert all night. Marty, Colt couldn’t trust and he wasn’t happy leaving Feb at the bar even though Morrie was there, as was Darryl and, although they weren’t yet open, Joe-Bob had already been let in and was in his seat. It wasn’t exactly an army of protection but Denny and a hatchet would have some troubles getting through four men to get to Feb.
But Colt had a bad feeling in his gut, he’d woken up with it and it hadn’t gone away. And when he had this feeling, he didn’t want to be away from Feb. Therefore, even with four men between her and the possibility of Denny showing, Colt was still antsy.