“Please, honey, fuckin’ come inside.”

“We’re done.”

“Take a deep breath, calm the drama, think a second then come the fuck inside.”

I stopped dead, he stopped dead and I pinned him with my eyes.

“This isn’t a drama, Hop. Pay attention. I’m not ranting. I’m not in a tizzy. I’ve given this a lot of thought. Thanks to you, I’ve had a good amount of time to think about it. And we’re done. I don’t need this pain. I’ve had twenty-eight years of living with this kind of pain, watching my mother endure it, and I’m done.”

His face went hard.

“I’m not doin’ to you what your motherfucker of a father is doin’ to your mother,” he growled.

“It’s not the same but it’s still heartbreak,” I returned and, just as quickly as it came, the hardness washed out of his features.

“Do not do this, Lanie.”

“It’s already done. It was done when you got off your bike, walked into your house and broke my heart. Just like my father. You didn’t even have it in you to do it up close and personal.”

He grabbed my arm but, with a savage twist, I pulled away and took two steps back.

“It was good you shielded your kids from what we might have been, Hop. I’ll miss them but they won’t miss me.”

“Jesus, fuck, babe, I’m beggin’ you, come inside.”

“Good-bye, Hop.”

“Baby—”

I turned and ran.

He turned and ran into his house.

He didn’t have his keys.

This was good.

This meant I got a head start and when I hit a motel parking lot, Hop had no idea where I was.

It was only when I was sitting cross-legged on the ratty bedspread did I allow myself to burst into tears.

* * *

Two days later…


I sat on my couch, twisted toward Tyra to my left, lifting a bent leg just like hers to rest it on the couch and I sucked back some wine.

Since I gave her the wineglass before I sat down, she’d already had her sip, so when I took my glass from my lips, she was prepared to launch in.

“I don’t blame you.”

I closed my eyes.

“Lanie, honey, look at me.”

I opened my eyes.

She leaned toward me and wrapped her fingers around my thigh. “I don’t blame you for me getting stabbed.”

“I know,” I whispered something I did know but had been denying for insane reasons until that moment I wouldn’t allow myself to get. Understandable fear after what happened that led to irrational guilt that no one gave me any indication I should feel. I just fed off it, or more to the point, let my monster feed on it in a vain and crazy attempt to keep myself safe from ever being hurt again.

“I hope so,” she told me. “Since I told you way back when that I didn’t.”

I drew in breath then confided, “I hear it over and over again in my head.”

Her head tipped to the side and she scooted closer. “You hear what in your head?”

“Our conversation. You telling me to end it with Elliott. You advising me that his getting us kidnapped was a concrete wall you can’t scale when it comes to love. Me telling you—”

“Stop it,” she interrupted, squeezing my thigh.

“I think that’s it, sweetie. I think that was why I couldn’t forgive myself even though you and Tack never blamed me. I think it’s because I play that conversation over and over in my head and it reminds me there was something that needed to be forgiven,” I admitted.

“Honey, you didn’t kidnap and stab me and you have to find some way to get that straight. I don’t know how to stop you playing that conversation in your head,” she stated. “I just know, together, Lanie, we have to find a way to do that.”

I took a sip of wine, my way of being noncommittal. I couldn’t tell her we could do that, since I hadn’t been able to do it for seven years. With this, I’d taken a big step. Who knew how long it would take me to get to the next one.

The day after the break with Hop, I’d called her and told her I was ready to do this. Not surprisingly, she’d told me to tell her when and where and she’d be there.

I gave her the when and where and last night, sleeping at home again, I waited for Hop to show or call.

He didn’t.

It was over.

That killed but I’d survived worse (I told myself) so now it was time to move on with my life. Do this. Fight the monster myself without Hop at my back.

And hope I won.

“I think this all might have to do with, uh… well, me getting you hurt, feeling guilt about it since you told me to dump Eli but also, mostly, that whole thing,” I waved my hand around, sloshing the wine I held dangerously, so I righted it and finished, “in Kansas City.”

“Do you think you need to talk to a professional?” she asked.

I put the wine to my lips, murmuring, “Maybe,” before I took a drink.

Her next question was voiced with hesitancy. “Do you want to talk about Kansas City?”

I didn’t.

Even so, I looked her straight in the eye and declared, “He used me as a shield.”

“I know,” she said so low I could barely here her.

“You know and you knew,” I stated and her head gave a slight jerk of confusion.

“I know and I knew?”

“You know what happened and you knew it would happen. That was what you tried to warn me about.”

She shook her head. “I didn’t know the Mob would find you in—”

“That’s not what I mean,” I cut her off. “You knew, in that situation or any situation in life, Elliott getting involved with the Mob at all stated it clear to you, he would not protect me.”

She sighed before she scooted closer, took another sip of wine, then locked her eyes with mine.

“Yes, I knew. There are some guys, and Elliott was one of them, that just aren’t built that way. Luckily, the Mob doesn’t normally enter someone’s life so they aren’t put to that test. I didn’t know, if it came down to bullets flying, he’d use you to take them for him. I just knew that he made a bad decision on how to invest money. Then, when he lost his money, he made a bad decision on how to get it back, and it just went downhill from there. So, yeah, I knew. But I didn’t love him, Lanie. Tack is the exact opposite of that. He’d fight, kill and die before he let anything happen to me, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t sometimes a pain in my ass. He is. Elliott made it worth it to you in his ways. Tack makes it worth it in his. It’s just the way it is.”

I couldn’t argue with this so I said nothing.

She took another sip of wine before she finished.

“It’s easier to see this stuff clearly when emotion isn’t involved and, remember Lanie, you didn’t want Tack for me in the beginning. You hated him, wanted me to quit and walk away. Pretty much any good girlfriend at that time, before he exposed the man he really is, would say the same thing because they care about their girl, not the guy. They see stuff from the outside, not with emotion coloring everything. Sometimes they’re right, like I was with Elliott. And sometimes they’re wrong, like you were with Tack. But neither of us had all the information. It’s just that you got it all when it was too late.”

That was very true.

I took a sip of my wine then set the glass on my coffee table, dropped my hands in my lap and looked at her.

“I dream of Kansas City.”

Sorrow suffused her face and she whispered, “Oh, Lanie.”

“I see his eyes open and staring at me. He looks surprised. Not just in my dream. When it happened. He was dead but still, he looked surprised.”

She grabbed my hand and squeezed.

“I think he was surprised I didn’t save him.”

I watched the tears start shimmering in her eyes.

“I wanted a man who’d save me,” I confessed.

“Maybe, if you looked, you can find that man,” she suggested.

That wasn’t going to happen.

“I think I need to give that more time,” I evaded.

“Lanie, honey, I want to be sensitive but don’t you think that seven—?” She stopped talking and turned her head just as my eyes shot to the sliding glass doors because we both heard a Harley roar up to the back of my house.

My entire body strung tight.

“Tack knows I have my car and he doesn’t have to come and get me. God, do you think something’s up with the boys?” she asked, setting her wineglass aside, quickly getting up from the couch and hustling to the door.

She was out the door and in the courtyard when I heard the Harley roar away.

I closed my eyes.

It wasn’t Hop.

“How weird was that?” Tyra asked, back in the house, and I looked at her.

“Weird, sweetie,” I agreed.

She walked back to me and sat. “Could swear that bike came right up to your garage but it was gone before I got to the back gate.”

“Maybe bad sat nav directions,” I murmured.

She grabbed her wine. I followed suit.

Again, she got her sip in before I did and thus she could sock it to me.

“Mitch and Brock have a guy they want you to meet.”

“Ty-Ty—”

She shook her head. “I know Tack talked about him with you, he was going to call Mitch about it but maybe things with Tabby got him off track. I’m going to call Mara, get things back on track.”

“This really is too soon,” I told her.

“You wait any longer, honey, it’s going to be too late,” she replied, her voice sweet but firm.

I closed my mouth because she wasn’t wrong. But she also was and I couldn’t explain how.

“Right, I want you to do two things for me,” she started and when I nodded, she continued. “One, think about going to counseling. Even if it’s short-term counseling, get rid of those dreams. Talk to someone about Kansas City. Try to let that go.”

I could do that.

And I should do that.

It was time.

“Okay,” I agreed, then took a sip of wine.

“Second, go on this date with Mitch’s buddy,” she stated, and I nearly choked on my wine.

“Ty-Ty!” I cried when I recovered.

“Not tomorrow, not next week, just let Mitch give him your number. Talk to him on the phone. Get to know him a bit. Then,” she grinned, “maybe the week after that, just meet for coffee. No pressure. Just coffee.”

I stared at her a moment before I suggested, “How about this? You corral Elvira and maybe Gwen and go on a reconnaissance mission. Find this guy, follow him around, get pictures, go through his trash, stuff like that. And, in a month or so, report back to me and I’ll make my decision then.”

“I’m not going through trash,” she replied.

“Get Elvira to do it.”

“Lanie, do you know Elvira? I’ve never seen that woman in jeans. She is not going to wear one of her fabulous dresses and heels and go through trash. Hell, she’s just not going to go through some guy’s trash.”

“Maybe Gwen will,” I kept trying.

Her eyebrows shot up. “Okay, now, do you know Gwen?”

That was true. Gwen wouldn’t do it, either.

“Maybe we could get Gwen to get Hawk to—”

Ty-Ty broke in. “Let Mitch give him your number.”

I ignored her. “Or maybe I could just go and talk to Hawk and Gwen won’t have to—”

“Lanie!” she exclaimed on a laugh. “It’s just giving a guy your number. If you don’t like the sound of his voice or he’s a terrible conversationalist, you don’t even have to have coffee. But let Mitch give him your number.”

She thought I was being crazy mostly because I was but that was my way.

She also didn’t know about Hop. She would. It was just that I figured I’d tell her that later, after we got the tough stuff we were currently processing out of the way.

This all meant that I had no choice.

“All right, tell Mitch to give this guy my number.”

She grinned huge.

I sucked back more wine.

“I’m so glad we did this.”

I stopped sucking back wine at the tone of her voice. It wasn’t smiling. It was thick.

“Ty-Ty, sweetie,” I said softly.

“You don’t cry anymore,” she told me and I blinked.

“What?”

“You used to cry at the drop of a hat. You don’t cry anymore.”

I swallowed before I shared, “I fight it. I… don’t want to be that woman anymore.”

“Nothing wrong with that woman, honey.”

“Crying is weak,” I declared.

“Crying is a release and if you let yourself feel the feelings your mind is telling you to feel rather than fighting them, maybe you could let some of this stuff go.”

This idea held merit so I gave her a small smile