“I told you—”

“Her son’s daddy and his bitch are thinkin’ of makin’ a play for her boy,” Garrett cut him off to say. “I found that shit out for her so she could shut it down.”

“She told me that, but—”

“This mornin’, a man walked up to her door and offered her a thousand dollars to talk about Lowe.”

That made Colt push up from the table.

“I shut that down too,” Garrett told him. “This is not play. This is not a hookup. This is not about Mia. This is not dick but me and a woman I have feelin’s for, explorin’ what’s goin’ on between us. It’s time she started her life again after Lowe interrupted it. She’s doin’ that with me.”

He crossed his arms on his chest, held Colt’s gaze, and kept going.

“I have no clue how this is gonna roll. I got shit I gotta deal with. She does too. But right now, we’re lookin’ at doin’ it together. We can tough it out, I see good things. We can’t, we can’t. But that’s ours. Not yours because you want to cushion her from any hits life might land. Not anyone’s. I gave it time because I needed that time to know exactly where I was before I took it further. I gave it time because she needed to know I gave it that time for her and her kid. I’m all about doin’ this right and that’s also for Cher and for Ethan. That’s said, so now you need to stand down, Colt. If not for me, wantin’ me to have good in my life, then for her.”

“You better—” Colt kept trying.

But Garrett was done with this shit.

“Don’t say more. Don’t threaten me. Don’t warn me. Don’t do shit, Colt,” Garrett interrupted him again. “Not shit you can’t come back from. You know I’m only givin’ you what I just gave you because of what she means to you. You don’t cut me some slack, we got problems, and straight up, man, I do not want problems with you when my attention needs to be on sortin’ my shit so I can bust my ass to make a good woman happy.”

Garrett knew he finally got to Colt before he watched his friend’s eyes narrow as he asked, “Some asshole walked right up to her door to get to her about Lowe?”

Garrett nodded. “She says it doesn’t happen much anymore, but it happens.”

“He didn’t call first?”

“He called. Cher didn’t take his calls, so he decided on a face-to-face.”

“Fuck,” Colt hissed.

“Rumor’s spreadin’, seein’ as this guy probably has a hit list and Cher was just his first, and Ryker’s heard.” Colt’s face froze, but Garrett kept talking. “You know how protective Ryker is about the citizens of this ’burg, so I think Walter Jones might soon feel induced to find his way to the town limits.”

“Shit, Cher’s never learned, you got a problem, you court it gettin’ bigger if you don’t tell somebody. She could have told me about the calls and I could have had a chat with this moron over the phone and convinced him a trip to the ’burg would be a waste of his time. Instead, she didn’t take his calls, you were there when he made his play, and now I don’t know what’s worse, whatever Ryker’s gonna do to ‘induce’ this guy to take a hike or you bein’ a bigger lunatic than Ryker because you know he’s a lunatic and you set him on this guy.”

“And you would have played it how?” Garrett prompted.

“My play would have been personal,” Colt returned.

And that was why Colt and February didn’t catch this shit.

“Yeah, and that gets messy. The cap, every one of your brothers, every man and woman in this county, and every judge at the courthouse would see your play because they’d play it the same way. Lowe spent decades where he existed only to destroy your life. He nearly succeeded in that. They’d get that. Me actin’ for a woman I haven’t even taken on our first date? Not so much.”

Colt said nothing for a beat before he sighed.

That meant he saw Garrett’s play.

“We done with our brief?” Garrett asked. “I got cases to close.”

“We’re done, brother,” Colt muttered.

That also meant they were good.

Garrett nodded and started to turn away when Colt called his name.

He gave the man his attention.

“Would be good, you got some happy. Would be good, Cher did too. But you couldn’t have picked a bigger challenge, Merry. I hope you know the work you got cut out for you, man.”

“It’s taken me nearly two weeks to get her to a place where I could even talk to her about a date, Colt. I think I know that.”

Colt grinned.

Garrett shook his head. They were done. They were good. Time to get to work.

So he left Colt to do that.

But before he took off with Mike, he called Swank’s, got the only reservation they had left, and texted the time to Cher.

He knew she was still on a course to surfacing, not retreating, when he and Mike didn’t even make it to the bottom of the back stairs before his phone sounded with a return text.

Got it. And just so you know, I’m only going because I know you put out on the first date.

This meant Garrett Merrick walked out of the station laughing.

* * * * *

Cher

I walked down the hall into my living room.

My son, on the couch, eyes to the TV, looked at me.

“Whoa,” he said. “You’re ready way early.”

I was.

This was due to the fact that I’d called Mom to ask her to come early because we had to chat. And because I’d called Feb and Vi to tell them I needed a dress for a date with Merry at Swank’s. Since I didn’t need to be spending two hundred dollars on a dress when my ex was threatening attorneys, I needed to borrow one, so I was hitting the bar early to do some dress borrowing in the office.

And last, because I needed to have a sit-down with my boy.

“Hit mute, kid, would you?” I asked.

He looked at me, then he lifted the remote from his thigh and hit mute.

I curled my leg under me as I sat on it on the couch, turned toward him.

“What’s up, Mom?” he asked.

“Merry came to visit me today.”

I’d practiced this. I didn’t know how to begin, but I thought sharing that information and waiting to see how he’d react would guide my way.

How he reacted was how I figured he’d react with one addition I didn’t expect.

That being his very first reaction was such extreme excitement, it was a wonder he didn’t burst from the couch, propelled by its power.

Damn.

It hit him what I was saying and how Merry’s visit came to be, so his first reaction was quickly dampened by panic mixed with guilt.

“Yeah, kid, I know you sent my text along with your own,” I said quietly.

“Mom—” he whispered.

“Not good,” I cut him off to whisper back.

His face was pale but his cheeks were red, and I knew when his eyes started shining that he was close to crying.

That was not what I wanted to do to my kid, ever, so I moved things along.

“First, I’ll tell you that, with your invitation, Merry showed. We talked. Since you read my texts with him, you probably got the impression that something was goin’ on between him and me. It wasn’t, but it was. I didn’t think either of us were ready to tackle that. Today, Merry convinced me differently.”

The color came back to his face as the excitement came back to his eyes, but I had to keep going.

“We’re goin’ out on a date tomorrow. You’re stayin’ the night with Mimi and Al.”

“Cool,” Ethan said softly, clearly not sure how to play this because my tone was crisp and informative and not much else.

“I’ll tell you that I’m glad me and Merry got the chance to talk, because I like him. I like that you like him. He’s a good guy, and if things go okay, he’d be good for us. I’m a little bit scared of that, but I’m gonna give it a shot.”

“I’m glad, Mom.”

“What I don’t like,” I kept talking like he didn’t, “is my son invading my privacy.”

He leaned slightly toward me and started, “Mom—”

“No, son, listen. Don’t talk,” I said gently, but the tone was a mom tone that I didn’t pull out very often because I didn’t have to. I didn’t think I’d used it in the last year. It could even be two.