He said a lot of words, but I was stuck on one thing.

Tex was going on a cruise?

Tex was going to be confined on a cruise ship with hundreds of other passengers?

Tex was going to be lumbering around the decks in his jeans and flannels with his wild-ass beard and hair, frightening unsuspecting vacationers… on a cruise?

I burst out laughing.

“What’s funny?” Tex asked.

“You,” I choked out, “On a cruise.” I looked to Indy and saw her shoulders shaking.

“What’s funny about that?” Tex demanded to know.

“You,” I choked out again. “On a cruise.”

“I know,” Jet said from behind me, having returned from one of her seven hundred daily pregnancy-related bathroom breaks. “I laughed for fifteen minutes when Mom told me.”

“Tex on a cruise!” I cried.

“Shut it, woman,” Tex ordered.

I kept laughing.

“It’s not that funny,” Tex boomed.

It totally was.

I looked to Jet. “You make your mom promise to take pictures. Lots of them.”

Tex growled.

I looked back at him and kept laughing.

His eyes narrowed and he declared, “You’re on this case, I’m workin’ with you.”

I swallowed laughter, wiped a tear of hilarity from my eye and caught his.

“Fine. You make a list of houses we need to hit. I’ll call Hector, who said he’d work a case with me. I’ll get a night when we can hit them before you go on your,” I swallowed again then forced out, “Cruise. Then we go out and hit them. We find stolen property, we call it into the cops. Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Tex grunted.

“Can I get a coffee?” A man standing behind Mr. Kumar asked.

“Are you blind?” Tex asked back.

“Sorry?” the man queried.

Tex threw out a beefy mitt. “Don’t you see we’re havin’ a meetin’?”

The man looked around. He also looked confused.

He looked back at Tex. “I thought you made coffee.”

“We do. We also fight crime. Don’t you read the papers?” Tex asked, and I heard Jet giggle.

I was right with her.

“Um… yes, but I didn’t know you did it when you were making coffee,” the man replied.

“Crime don’t happen when you want it to,” Tex returned. “You gotta be prepared. You gotta plan. And that’s why we’re havin’ a meetin’. Now shut it and wait until we’re done.”

The man gave big eyes to Jet and I. He also appeared indecisive, like he didn’t know whether to wait as Tex ordered, or take his life in his hands that Tex might not like it and flee.

Obviously not a regular.

“We’ll be right with you,” Indy assured him as she moved to walk around the counter.

“We’re done meeting anyway,” I announced then looked between Tex and Mr. Kumar. “The plan’s in place. I’ll give you both a heads up when we put it in action.”

“Thank you, Ally,” Mr. Kumar said. “The neighbors will be very happy to hear this news.”

“You’re welcome, Mr. Kumar,” I replied.

“What’ll it be?” Tex boomed to the customer.

But he wasn’t looking at Tex. He was watching, with some alarm, as the apparent walking corpse of Mrs. Salim shuffled to Mr. Kumar carrying a pile of seven books in her arms.

All hardbacks.

I fought the urge to leap over the espresso counter to relieve her of her burden just as Mr. Kumar took the books from her and led her to the book counter.

My eyes went there to see Jane standing behind it, and I began to look away when I looked right back.

One of the pink Rock Chick books was sitting on the counter and she had her fingers to it; not leafing, lightly brushing. As Mr. Kumar and Mrs. Salim approached, she jolted, like she didn’t expect customers (ever) then gave them a small smile.

This wasn’t unusual, Jane being startled. She lived in her own world most of the time. And anyway, selling a book didn’t happen frequently so seven of them would surprise anybody.

But I wasn’t thinking about that.

I was thinking about how she was touching that pink book.

Jane loved books. She was an avid reader. And as a book lover who worked in a bookstore her whole life, she treated them with reverence.

That wasn’t what I saw.

Her touch on that pink book was reverent, for sure.

It was also loving.

Hmm.

Before I could move that thought to fruition, Indy interrupted it.

“I got broody Lee last night,” she whispered to me as she dumped her empties by the sink.

I tore my mind from Jane and looked at Indy. “What?”

“Broody Lee,” Indy answered. “Schedule goes, I get broody Lee at least once a week. A tough case is happening, maybe three or four times. Rock Chick stuff is going down, he veers from broody to annoyed to resigned. Last night, I started with broody Lee because of the meeting and super broody Lee because I told him he needed to quit giving you shit and start giving you support.”

Oh crap.

“Indy, I love it that you did that, but you don’t have to do it,” I told her. “In fact, please don’t do it again. I don’t want to be the cause of trouble between you and my brother. Let this be between Lee and Hank and me.”

“I also told Eddie he needed to sort Lee out,” Jet put in. “And Hank. He said he’d have a chat with them.”

I stared.

“Really?” Indy asked.

Jet nodded. “Yeah. He says he’s seen the tape and he’s also seen veteran officers go into a situation like that and not be able to keep their cool when things go south the way Ally did.”

Whoa.

Wow.

Righteous!

“Seriously?” I asked.

“You were the shit,” Tex boomed, flicking the latch on the coffee grinder to fill the portafilter and doing it so hard the entire grinder shook. “It was fuckin’ frustratin’. Whole thing took, like, two seconds, and I only got one punch in on the motherfucker. Then he was down. Splat!”

Indy looked at Tex, then at the customer, then at Tex. “Can you please watch your mouth in front of customers?” she asked him.

“No,” he answered her, then packed the coffee grounds down before shoving the filter up into the machine so the thing lifted off the counter an inch.

“Okay, then can you please not abuse my seven thousand dollar espresso machine?” Indy asked.

“No,” Tex answered then went on. “Been doin’ this years, woman.” He flipped a switch and patted the top of the machine (hard). “This bitch is built to last.”

Indy glared at him then rearranged her face and looked at the customer. “I apologize for my barista.”

“Once you get your coffee,” a blonde who’d just approached the counter, a regular I knew by the name of Annie, stated knowingly, “it’ll totally be worth it. Trust me. He abuses me all the time, and I don’t care as long as I get my coffee.”

“I don’t even know you,” Tex boomed at her.

“I come in every day at eight fifteen,” she shot back, and she was not wrong. She did.

“I’m supposed to remember that?” Tex asked.

“Yes,” Annie returned. “Because, for years, I’ve come in every day at eight fifteen.”

“I’m sorry, Annie,” Indy said.

“Just as long as the crazy guy never loses his touch with the coffee, again, I don’t care,” she replied then ordered. “Half and half mocha latte with a half a shot of almond syrup.”

“I remember that,” Tex muttered.

“Farewell Rock Chicks and Tex,” Mr. Kumar called from the door,

We all looked there and returned his wave (except Tex, who looked but didn’t wave). We also all braced when Mrs. Salim lifted a bony hand and waved, undoubtedly every one of us prepared to grab the broom should one (or more) of her digits break off because the blood stopped circulating there fifty years ago.

They moved out.

We all relaxed.

“That woman creeps me out,” Annie remarked, looking back after looking over her shoulder. “I don’t mean to be mean, but all the zombie movies lately…” she shivered. “Flashback.”

“She’s a good mother and a good grandmother who keeps her culture alive for her family when they’ve moved far away from home in order to make a decent living,” Tex stated and Annie’s eyes shot to him. “So yeah, she looks like the walking dead. She’s alive enough for her family.”

“I meant no offense,” Annie muttered.

“Then don’t say people that I know creep you out,” Tex shot back.

“Tex, you’re always saying shit about people,” I pointed out the truth, and he scowled at me. “And, incidentally, to people,” I went on with more of the truth.

“He’s nervous about getting married tomorrow,” Jet guessed.

“Oh my God! You’re getting married?” Annie cried. “How exciting!”

“Fuck,” Tex groused.

“Can I have my coffee?” the other customer asked.

I moved in to finish the guy’s coffee as Tex said to Annie, “You want your coffee, shut your trap.”

Annie grinned at him.

I handed the male customer his coffee.

He moved away, taking a sip, and stopped dead.

No one reacted to this. This was because a lot of newbies did this.

But what a lot of newbies didn’t do was what he did next.

He turned back and looked at Tex.

“I’m gonna say, you scare me. But I’m also gonna say, this lady’s right.” He tipped his head to Annie and lifted his white paper cup with its cardboard holder. “This coffee is unbelievable. And last I’m gonna say, good luck tomorrow and congratulations. I’ve been married for fifteen years and every day I wake up next to my wife and feel lucky. I wish for you that you feel the same.”

Everyone stared at him except Tex.

He boomed, “What’s your name?”

“Barry.”

“When you come back, I’ll remember you.”

Then Tex turned his attention to making Annie’s coffee.

I pressed my lips together and looked at Indy, Jet and Annie who were all pressing their lips together and doing the same thing.

This was because Tex just paid Barry the highest compliment he could give a customer.

And we all knew why.

Because Tex already felt that lucky.

It was just that tomorrow, he was making it official.

* * *

“Enjoy the rest of your evening.”

It was post-Fortnum’s, post-stripper class and pre-going out with Vance that night (an appointment that started very late, and one that Ren knew about but luckily had no comment).

I was in a sexy, clingy, back and cleavage-baring, halter-neck LBD and stilettos. Ren was in a suit. And we were on our first official date.

We not only had plenty of time to enjoy it, we had time to get home and have sex before I had to go out and meet Vance.

And it had been perfect.

The whole night.

Perfection.

We were on the sun terrace at Plato’s, an upscale steak and seafood joint on the second floor of a building on Sixteenth Street Mall. We had a table tucked in the corner of the terrace by the railing and behind a big plant that I was certain by the greeting the hostess gave Ren that included her using a “Mr. Zano” in a familiar way, Ren had arranged for us.

It was private and romantic, but still, the lights and hustle and bustle of Sixteenth Street mall made the air seem alive and our view was amazing.

And it was awesome to sit there in the warm May air with Ren looking hot, and knowing the way his eyes were hot on me, he thought I looked the same.

We were finished and the waitress had just slid the leather thingie with his credit card on the table, which meant we were close to the highly anticipated sex portion of the evening.

We’d eaten steak and lobster, shared a slice of rich dark chocolate cheesecake, and drank champagne. The whole time we sat kitty corner to each other.

Close.

This allowed Ren to touch my thigh, my hip, and me to wind my calf around his. It also meant we could lean into each other, Ren holding my hand high, our elbows on the table, my knuckles close to his lips, me having his full attention.

We were living together, committed to each other and our future, and this was our first official date.

That was weird.

But that didn’t mean it wasn’t the best date I ever had.

Bar none.

Then again, maybe it was because we were living together and committed to each other that made it that way.

Mostly, though, I figured it was because Ren was hot, sweet and so totally into me.

And I was in love.

Ren let my hand go to deal with the bill, but the minute he was finished tucking his wallet into his suit jacket that was slung on the back of his chair, he grabbed my hand again and, both our elbows to the table, he leaned in and put it to his lips.