My present was good too, it involved lacy underwear and high heels again, this time red and it included garters and stockings with seams up the back.

I liked Dee’s present best.

Colt liked my present better.

“Nope, Ned, don’t buy that since Jackie’s been watchin’ your kids,” Colt went on, paused then sighed and said, “Just get some focus and get it done. Yeah?” He listened for another second then said, “All right, later,” and he put down the phone.

Without hesitating, he rolled to me, leaned in, nabbed me behind the neck and pulled me forward for a hard, longish, closed-mouthed kiss right in front of everyone in the bullpen.

Back in the day Colt had been affectionate. He held my hand. He sat close and put his arm around my chair. When he walked me to class, he either had his thumb hooked in the back belt loop of my jeans or his arm around my shoulders.

Now it was the same and then some. If I was close, he was close, kissing, touching, holding hands, nabbing me and pulling me in to touch his mouth to the necklaces at my neck, wrapping his fist in my hair to hold my head steady just so he could talk to me. No matter where we were or who was watching.

At first I figured this had to do with what happened that day, what he’d walked into at the bar, what he’d walked into at Susie’s. But I thought it’d die down. When it didn’t, I decided it had to do with all that and all that came before it and the fact that Colt was making up for lost time. I didn’t mind this, not at all. I didn’t care who was watching either and I was happy to make up for lost time and I’d be happy if it lasted the rest of my life.

“Whatcha doin’ here, baby?” he asked when he let me go but he stayed leaned into my space so I stayed leaned into his.

“Came by to tell you I got a reservation at Costa’s tonight,” I told him, having decided Costa’s was the perfect place to tell Colt, if it all went okay, he was going to be a father. We’d had three more reservations there since it went down with Denny and because of his work we’d had to cancel all three.

He smiled but asked, “I thought you were on tonight.”

“Called Cheryl. She could use the extra shift.”

Colt’s smile got bigger. “What time?”

“Seven.”

“I can do that.”

“Colt?” I called and he leaned in closer.

“Right in front of you, honey.”

“Please, don’t miss this one,” I whispered, his head tipped to the side and his gaze grew intense.

“All right,” he whispered back, seeing I was going to say no more, not then, and letting me have it. “I won’t miss it.”

My fingers curled around his knee and I pushed. “Promise me.”

His fingers went into the hair at the side of my head, his palm warm against my cheek when he replied, “Baby, I promise.”

I pressed my cheek into his palm.

Then I smiled.

* * * * *

“What do you think?” I asked Phy as I came out of the dressing room.

“Danny! Quit it and come here!” She ignored me and the other patrons staring at her aghast as she shouted loudly to her son who was racing through the rails of clothes.

“I like it, Auntie Feb,” April, Phy’s daughter was giving me the once, twice and three times over.

“Thanks, baby,” I said to April and looked at Phy. “Phy?”

Phy looked at me as Danny slunk toward her, his lip sticking out. “You look good in everything, Feb.”

“Thanks but ‘good’ isn’t what I’m going for.”

“It’s too tight,” Danny announced, arriving and stopping just outside his mother’s reach to cross his arms on his little boy chest and glare at my dress.

I smiled at him. “Now that’s what I’m going for.”

Phy gave me a look which made me laugh softly and I went back into the dressing room and changed back into my jeans and tee.

I was thinking the dress was overkill considering in a few months I wouldn’t be able to wear it anymore. Furthermore, I was going to need a whole new wardrobe for awhile. Money wasn’t getting low but it was flowing out pretty damned fast.

I’d cashed in some CDs and some bonds, bought the car, the garage door opener and paid Ned. Colt and I had also pre-paid a cabin by a lake in Wisconsin for a week in June. He’d want to fish, I knew, and I’d want to do absolutely nothing but be with him, even if he was doing something as mind-numbingly boring as fishing, so that worked for both of us.

Colt and I, Dee and Morrie, Mom and Dad as well as a number of other citizens helped pay for Angie’s funeral. It had been as nice as a funeral could be.

Mom and Dad had flat out paid for Joe-Bob’s. His had been nicer, most of the town showed up which meant most of the town shut down to do it. It was the biggest funeral I’d ever seen, standing room only at Markham and Sons, the few people left in town to drive by would have seen Joe-Bob went way past five on the funeral popularity scale, tipping the pointer straight to the unheard of ten.

After, Mom and Dad, Morrie and I had thrown a huge party at J&J’s. We gave out tickets, first drink free and Dad grilled bratwursts in the alley that Dee, Mom, Mimi, Jessie and Lorraine had cleaned up with Morrie, Jimbo, Al, Sully and Chris’s help doing the heavy work. They’d festooned it with lights, balloons and streamers. It wasn’t a place of death and kidnapping and blood anymore but a happy place, a place to party. We’d partied and, as usual, the party had lasted all night.

I reckon Joe-Bob would have liked that.

With all that spending, it was lucky that it was summer and turnover at the bar always went up in summer. But it was more. The races were on and we were now a place of interest, almost a tourist attraction. Folks coming into the bar to see where a serial killer made his final kill, to have a look at the woman who was his obsession. Some even took pictures of Joe-Bob’s stool, a stool Morrie, on his own and not telling anyone, had taken away and reupholstered in black velvet, a big, black, satin ribbon attached across the seat, the sides of which were big, satin bows. Every day upon opening, Morrie or Darryl or me poured out a draft and rested the mug on the seat. It was a memorial of sorts. It was also a stool no one but no one put their ass on anymore and never would.

Then there were some who even tried to take pictures of me. Pictures of the stool pissed everyone off but we got used to it, as long as they bought a drink or two, we let it slide. When they tried to take a photo of me that was a different story. It pissed Morrie and Dad off when they tried it. It pissed Darryl off more. They pointed their camera or cell phone at me, they were shown the door, usually by Darryl. Sometimes, they were shown the door in a not very nice way, again usually by Darryl. A couple of times, it was so not nice, they called the cops. Unsurprisingly, any cop that showed up to that call arrived and they weren’t in a very good mood when they did. Not at Darryl, at tourists doing stupid shit that f**ked up their day. The cops didn’t tend to spend a lot of time explaining their bad mood before they explained where the town line was and asked if the tourist wanted an escort there. The tourists usually declined their offer at an escort but took them up on the directions.