“Enough!”

The room rattled with the deep, booming voice of Harrison. Carter gaped at him, speechless that he’d shouted as loud as he had, even though he’d been damn near doing the exact same thing himself. Harrison moved from his spot, behind Eva’s chair, looking pissed. “That is enough from both of you.”

Eva sighed. “Harrison, I don’t think—”

“No, Eva,” he interrupted. “Enough is enough.” He rubbed his forehead with the tips of his fingers. “I’m so tired of seeing the two of you argue and fight. It breaks my heart.” He looked at Kat. “I’ve never seen you like this. Either of you, and I can’t keep my mouth shut any longer.”

“I agree,” Nana Boo muttered from her seat in the corner of the room. “Eva, I love you, but you need to back off.”

“Back off?” Eva repeated. “Your granddaughter is ‘in love’ with a man whose wardrobe is filled with nothing but prison-issue coveralls.”

Carter almost snorted at that one.

“That may be so,” Nana Boo retorted angrily. “But what you seem to be oblivious to, is that the more you shout and dig in your heels, the more you will push them together. And if you’re not careful, you really will lose her.”

Eva blinked. Kat turned to Carter with an apologetic grimace. He took her hand and kissed her knuckles.

“Kat, come with Harrison and me,” Nana Boo instructed in a tone that denied argument. “Eva and Carter, you two stay here.” Her eyes softened when she caught Carter’s eye. “I’m sure it will be easier for you to talk without an audience.”

Eva blanched. “I am not staying in here with him.”

“Why?” Nana Boo shot back. “You afraid he’ll try to sell you an eight ball?”

Eva was rendered wide-eyed and mute while Carter smirked.

“Stay here,” Nana Boo ordered. “Talk.”

She ushered Kat and Harrison out of the room, never taking her eyes from Eva. Carter couldn’t deny he was surprised Kat hadn’t argued, but remained quiet. He fixed his eyes on Eva while she paced up and down the room like a caged animal. He glanced at the large mahogany drinks cabinet across the far side of the room and the decanter of what he prayed to Jesus was whiskey.

Bingo.

“Well, I don’t know about you,” he said with an exhausted groan. He stood and made his way over to it. “But I need a drink.”

Eva watched him pour two fingers into a crystal glass. He gestured toward her with it.

“No, thank you,” she bit back, dropping back into her seat. “It’s a little early for me.”

Carter sipped the bourbon and closed his eyes. Dutch courage never tasted so damned good. Eva avoided his stare, looking anywhere but him, staying annoyingly but not surprisingly silent. Fifteen minutes passed in the same manner until Carter couldn’t take it anymore.

“Kat’s a lot like you, ya know.”

Eva cocked an unimpressed eyebrow.

“She is,” he continued. “Caring, determined, passionate. Stubborn as all hell.”

“If this is your way of getting into my good books,” Eva said firmly, “believe me: it isn’t working.”

“Oh, I know that,” Carter agreed. “Like Kat, you don’t back down when it comes to things you believe in.”

“Katherine doesn’t know what she believes in.”

“Bullshit. Kat is the most strong-minded person I know. You don’t give her enough credit. What she believes in, she does without equivocation.”

“Impressive language,” Eva scoffed.

“Thanks. I had a good teacher.”

Eva sat back and crossed her legs. “Yes, you did. As I understand it, you had an upstanding education, which you threw away without thought so you could run around dealing drugs and boosting cars.”

“It wasn’t quite like that,” Carter remarked, sipping his drink.

“Semantics. The point is you’ve been in prison more times than most people in this country go on vacation, including your most recent stint for cocaine possession.”

The corners of Carter’s mouth pulled down impressed. “You’ve done your homework.”

“I love my daughter. Of course I’ve done my homework.” She eyed him. “I also know that you’re the main shareholder in one of the biggest companies in the continental US, worth millions, and yet you continue to live this insignificant life of crime.”

Carter cleared his throat, too unnerved to fill in the blanks. “Well, at least Kat won’t go hungry, right?”

“Are you trying to be funny?”

Obviously not.

He wound his index finger around the lip of his glass and closed his eyes. “Look, would you understand what I meant if I said that my last time in lockup, the cocaine, was my pound of flesh?”

Eva frowned. “What?”

“A pound of flesh,” he repeated, lifting his eyes to hers. “Do you know what that means?”

Bewildered, Eva answered, “A debt that must be paid?” She paused. “You dealt cocaine to pay off a debt?”

“No,” he replied. “I was caught with the cocaine to pay off a debt.”

Eva rubbed her forehead in annoyance. “I’m completely confused.”

Carter exhaled and fingered the top of the cigarette box in his jeans pocket, needing the nicotine in his blood. He sighed and leaned his elbows on his knees, detailing the story of Max and Lizzie, from the moment Max pushed him out of the way of a bullet, to the day Lizzie left.

Eva waved her hand dismissively. “And you’re telling me this because …”

Christ, she was a tough one to crack. “Because sometimes things aren’t always what they appear to be.”

“And sometimes they are exactly as they appear to be. One act of stupidity does not change a damn thing.”

“Granted,” Carter conceded. “I know I’m an asshole, I’ll be the first one to admit it.”

“Do you have any idea how worried I’ve been?” she asked. “Have you any idea about the amount of sleep I lost when she began working in that … prison?”

“I can imagine.”

“No, you can’t!” Eva snapped. “You have no idea. Being a mother is not easy, especially when your daughter insists on making everything so damned difficult.”

“Kat didn’t take the job at Kill to make your life difficult,” Carter refuted. “She took the job to overcome her fears, to overcome what terrified her and kept her awake at night.”

“And what do you know about that?” Eva spat.

“Enough.” Carter pursed his lips in an effort to reel himself in. “Look, I know about her father. I know what happened. Her teaching criminals—”

“Animals.”

“—is her pound of flesh.”

“To whom?”

“To her dad.”

Eva’s face softened and her voice dropped in volume. “What do you mean?”

“The night he passed, she promised him she would give something back. She promised him she would become a teacher and help people, the way he’d done as a politician.” Carter glanced toward the door his Peaches had gone through. “She just wanted to keep her promise. To pay her debt.”

Eva sat back in her seat and stared out the window. The snow had started falling again. “I didn’t know that.”

“Like I said,” Carter murmured. “Things aren’t always as they appear.” He took a deep breath. “I’m in love with your daughter, ma’am. I’m doing this because I want to do everything right. I’m doing this because she wants to be with me, and I want to be with her.”

Eva’s back straightened. “You barely know each other! You think because she’s told you a few secrets, that you know her?”

“I know her better than you think.”

“Oh, please! You’ve known her, what, four, five months?”

A heartbeat passed. “Try sixteen years.”

Eva’s eyes flickered, fierce yet puzzled.

Carter stared right back, waiting for the penny to drop.

Yeah, it was a big ask, but, hell, at this point what did he have to lose? He hadn’t wanted his role in saving Kat to be the deciding factor as to whether or not Eva would accept him with her daughter, but the damn woman had driven him to it with her incapacity to see him without a list of misdemeanors and felonies tacked to his fucking forehead.