“I love your sister,” I said to Hank.

He threw his arm around my shoulders, pulled me into his body and gave me a sideways hug.

Tod and Stevie had gone back to yard work and I felt the guilt pull. Their side of the lawn was lush, green and manicured, the edges that butted our brick walkways were cut precisely. Colorful flowers grew healthy along the front, black wrought iron fence, down the wooden fence at the side and in the beds in front of their porch. They had a basket on the porch overhang that happily dripped fuchsias and terracotta pots on each step of the stoop trailing ivy and bursting with flowers.

My side of the lawn was also mowed and had clean and cut borders but only because Stevie did it. I’d planted flowers in my flower beds but they were being choked by weeds, had not been watered in days, looked dry and close to death. The fuchsia basket that Tod bought me to balance the look of the duplex was bedraggled and only in slightly better shape than the flower beds because it didn’t have weeds attacking it.

Their side looked like Martha Stewart. My side looked like Sanford and Son.

I needed to help with the yard work. It was my neighborly duty.

I went into the house and up to my bedroom. I was running out of clothes at Lee’s place so I dumped the contents of my ever-ready, rarely-used workout bag and shoved items in just in case my stay there lasted longer. I took off my clothes, slathered myself with factor 8, put on a pair of cutoff jeans shorts and a kelly green camisole with a shelf bra. I gathered my hair in a messy knot on top of my head, grabbed my phone and called Lee.

“Yeah?” he answered.

“How’s it going?”

“Not good.”

He didn’t sound happy.

Yikes.

“If you get finished in time, we’re going out for pizza before Tod’s show tonight.”

“Who’s ‘we’?”

“Your Mom says ‘all of us’ so I’m guessing that means Marianne Meyer, Andrea Moran and her kids, probably Ally and Hank, likely Dad and Malcolm and select players from the Colorado Rockies,” I paused, “oh, and Tex.”

“Marianne Meyer and Andrea Moran?”

“They’re on a Lee and Indy Sex Watch.”

“Come again?”

“They want to know when we’ve done it.”

Silence.

I went on. “If we don’t do it soon, they might force us to at gunpoint.”

“Christ.”

“I know. No pressure though. I told them we’re taking it slow.”

“You have to report in?”

“I kind of feel obliged.”

“How’s that?”

I didn’t want to tell him I’d recruited them both for Lee Maneuvers in the past, so I said, “Never mind.”

“If something doesn’t happen soon, it’s gonna be bad. I can’t keep focused, all I can think of is what’s on your Victoria’s Secret credit statement.”

“You need to keep focused,” I told him, “bad guys are after me.”

“Tell me about it.”

He hung up and I went into the other bedroom. Tex was lying on the couch, a sandwich on a plate and an open bag of chips both balanced on his sling, my remote in his hand, the TV on and a ball game was blaring.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Peachy,” he flipped through channels, acting for all the world as if he was a regular houseguest.

I got a sandwich from Ally and Kitty Sue, ate it standing up and then went outside. Hank was alternately hosing down Andrea’s monsters and watering my fuchsia and lawn. I hunkered down to weed my front flower bed, got into it about three feet and decided to take a break.

I laid down on my back in the grass and fell into an impromptu Disco Nap. What could I say? Yard work did that to me.

Something soft trailed down my temple and across my cheek. I opened my eyes and saw Lee crouched beside me, blocking the sun.

“I don’t like yard work,” I told him.

“My condo doesn’t have a yard,” he replied.

Hmm.

I sat up. He grabbed my hand and helped me to my feet. Someone (probably Kitty Sue and Marianne) had weeded the side and front beds, the one I was working on was still only half done. The yard was quiet. I took in a happy breath at the sweet bliss of aloneness.

“Don’t get too excited, we have an audience watching us from three different windows,” Lee told me.

Lee was close, looking down into my face, forcing me to tilt my head to look up at him. He always looked handsome but now I could see the tiredness around his eyes and mouth. It occurred to me he’d been at this for days, non-stop. I’d been lucky enough to squeeze in a couple of Disco Naps.

“How did hunting go today?” I asked.

“I’m used to better results.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“It isn’t.”

“What are you thinking?”

“I don’t think he’s gone to ground, one of my contacts would know something. That means he’s either skipped town, which is unlikely, or he’s dead.”

I sucked in breath.

“Is dead an option?”

“He has some enemies, starting with Coxy,” Lee answered.

“You wanna explain that to me?”

“Not now, it’s nearly pizza time and I need to go home and shower.”

“Do you want to shower here?” I tried to ignore the thrill the thought of a naked Lee in my shower gave me and pretend it didn’t affect me.

“I want to shower with you, are you comin’ with me?”

Okay, I couldn’t pretend he didn’t affect me, he seriously affected me.

I looked back at the house and saw faces swiftly disappear from the windows. “I don’t think I should, I have company.”

He grabbed me and kissed me, hard and quick and also disappointingly fast.

“Wear sexy panties tonight,” he said against my mouth.

“I don’t have any other options except commando.”

Lee’s arm tightened spasmodically.

“Christ.”

* * *

Lee met us at the Beau Jo’s.

Beau Jo’s offered huge, thick-crusted “mountain pies” that were the best pizza I’d ever had outside the times Dad and I visited Aunt Sunny in Chicago. Mountain pie crust was so thick, you saved the edges, smothered them with honey and ate them for dessert.

Our table seemed a mile long and it was mayhem. As if Andrea’s children weren’t enough to make us loud and obnoxious to all other customers, Duke and Dolores joined us as did Dad and Malcolm. Duke, Tex, Dad and Malcolm seemed to be in a contest to out-booming-macho-male talk each other.

Lee slid into the seat beside me, his hair still wet from the shower and curling around his neck and ears. He was wearing a pair of beat up, faded, army-green cargo pants and a light-blue, loose-fitting collared shirt, untucked, the right-amount of buttons left undone and the sleeves rolled partially up his forearms.

He looked hot.

For no apparent reason, before Lee fully settled into his seat, Andrea’s baby let out a high-pitched scream. I liked kids, of course, other people’s kids. In small doses. Very small doses.

Once Andrea had cooed it to semi-quietness, I turned to Lee.

“Do you want children?”

His eyes slid to me as he grabbed a menu.

He answered cautiously, “Yeah.”

“How many?”

He turned to me and his arm went around the back of my chair.

“Three.”

I thought about three children. They weren’t pleasant thoughts.

“And you?” Lee asked, gently tugging my hair.

“Hmm?”

“Kids?”

“I can’t even take care of my yard,” I reminded him.

He smiled The Smile and I immediately decided I’d like three kids a whole lot.

“How are things?” Dad asked Lee.

Lee glanced at Dad, took his arm from my chair then studied the menu.

“Depends. Some are great, some not so good.”

Dad nodded, apparently happy with that answer or at least understanding it. I sat there thinking a lot more was said than what was actually said. Men had a mysterious way of communicating.

We ate, we chased after children who wanted to visit other diners’ tables, we talked, we laughed and after awhile, I began to relax. Life had been so weird lately, I didn’t even realize how tense it was making me. I didn’t realize how much I needed a night like tonight.

I poured honey on my crust and watched Tex who seemed not like a man who had barricaded himself on his block for two decades but like someone relaxed and who fit in with my family and friends.

Then again, you bought yourself some serious loyalty by saving a daughter/sister/girlfriend from being held hostage and getting shot for your troubles.

I ate my honeyed crust and my eyes moved to Lee who was listening to Dolores. His thigh was pressed against mine under the table and twice he had handed me the honey without me having to ask for it. The Savages and the Nightingales had been to Beau Jo’s dozens of times either in Denver for whatever occasion or Idaho Springs after a day of skiing.

Lee knew when I wanted the honey.

Yikes.

How did this happen?

There was no denying we were actually together, not test driving it. We’d blown right passed the “getting to know you” phase of the relationship because we didn’t need it. We were smack dab into the comfortable part of a relationship, the part that held shared intimacy because of history.

Even so, we still had the thrill of the newness about our situation, discovering hidden things about each other like him having a housekeeper, keeping good java in the kitchen, being incredibly moody, kissing really, really well and having a naked body that was a gift from the gods.

At these thoughts, inexplicably, panic overwhelmed me.

Sensing it because he was a freak of nature, Lee’s head immediately turned to me.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

Self-preservation kicked in over the panic and I lied.

“Nothing.”

He turned fully to me and his arm went around the back of my chair again, his other forearm resting on the table, fencing me in.

“What’s the matter?” he repeated.

“Nothing!”

He watched me for a couple of beats and then he said calmly, “We’re gonna have to work at kickin’ your lying habit.”

“I’m not lying,” I lied.

He leaned in. “What we have here is good and if you’d get over your thoughts that it isn’t gonna last, you’d realize how much better it’s gonna get if you’d just relax.”

See! He totally knows me. It was beginning to be scary.

Since lying wasn’t going to work, I changed strategies and went for annoyance.

“Get out of my brain, it’s pissing me off,” I warned him.

Then I learned (or more to the point realized) something new about Lee. Something he’d been showing me for days.

Lee didn’t play games and he didn’t like me doing it either. Perhaps surviving life-threatening situations and living a life filled with danger made you more honest and less apt to waste precious time.

“What kind of underwear are you wearing?” he asked.

“What? Why?”

“Because if you describe it to me, I might decide you’re worth the trouble.”

It was best to cut my losses so I crossed my arms on my chest and glared at him.

He turned away, completely unperturbed.

I caught sight of Dad who was sitting down the table from us. There was no way he could have heard what we were saying because Lee had his back to him and spoke low. Still, Dad was shaking his head.

“What?” I snapped at my father.

“Jesus, it’s uncanny. You’re just like your mother.”

* * *

Everyone disbursed to get ready for Burgundy Rose’s show, Ally taking responsibility for Tex, Lee taking me home in his Crossfire.

I’d showered before Beau Jo’s but hadn’t prettied myself up because most of my makeup was at Lee’s. We walked up to the bedroom so I could change and Lee saw the bag.

“What’s this?”

I didn’t want to admit what it was and what it meant that I packed it. Since Lee saw through most of my lies, or was cocky enough to zip it open and see for himself, I came clean.

“I was running out of stuff at your place so I packed more provisions.”

His eyes crinkled their approval, his arm snaked out and pulled me to him. His mouth went to the skin below my ear.

“You done pretending to be mad at me to hide bein’ scared?” he murmured.

My whole body stiffened.

“Don’t be a jerk.”

His head lifted and he looked me in the eye.

“You’re right. That was an asshole remark.”

Holy shit.

What did you say to that?

“I’m tired, it’s been a long day,” he continued, his hand coming up to pinch his nose between his eyes.