“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 f**kin’ 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.