My mind blanked, my stomach curled sickeningly and I stared at him.

“You found something last night,” I whispered.

He let me go and turned back to the cat food.

“Colt.”

Colt forked the food into the bowl. “We found something. When he visited, he spent time there.”

“Oh my God.”

I didn’t know what this meant but the escalation in Colt’s protection said it was no good. This wasn’t about a madman invading my mind by stealing my thoughts written on a page. This was something that freaked him out and he was a cop, I didn’t suspect much freaked him out.

He moved to put the food down for Wilson and Wilson settled down belly to the floor on all fours and stuck his face in it.

“What’d you find?”

He straightened and looked at me. “I’ll know more this mornin’. They were still working when I left.”

“What’d you find?”

“I gotta shower.”

“Colt –” I started but he was moving away.

I stared at the hall he disappeared into long after he disappeared. Even after I heard the shower go on in the master bath.

After awhile it hit me that he was protecting me with more than him keeping close, close enough to sleep in his huge bed with me. He was protecting me by not sharing and I decided to wipe my mind clean.

Some folk, I suspected, would want to know.

I didn’t want to know.

I knew enough and it was tearing at my insides. I could use a break.

By the time he came back out, hair wet, slicked back but still curling around his neck, dressed in jeans, boots, shirt, badge clipped to his belt, shoulder holster on, gun clipped in place, blazer bunched in his hand, I’d made coffee and toast. I’d also poured him some coffee and it was keeping warm in a travel mug.

He hit the kitchen, shrugging on his blazer and I was turned to him, one hand wrapped around his mug, the other hand holding up a plate with four slices of buttered toast.

“I made toast and coffee,” I said.

He was looking at my hands but when I spoke his eyes came to my face. Something in them struck me funny, not in a bad way, in a good way. That look settled in beside his smile from yesterday, the one that was still lodged in that private place deep inside.

When I thought he’d stop moving toward me, he didn’t and I had to jerk my arms to the sides to give him space and he took it. His hand came up and around the back of my head, fingers in my hair, fisting and tugging down. I made a surprised noise that came from deep in my throat when I had no choice but to tilt my head back before his mouth came down on mine.

This kiss wasn’t hungry, wet and desperate. No tongues. It was hard, closed-mouthed and swift.

It still did a number on me and I felt a curl that I liked a lot between my legs.

He let me go, grabbed the mug and took the slice of toast off the top of the stack.

“We’ll talk about that kiss later too,” he said, turned and walked away. At the door he turned again and ordered, “Lock this after me. I’ll send Jack in. You’re not alone, Feb, ever. Not even in the storeroom at J&J’s. Not even to walk down to Meems’s. You move; you make sure you have a shadow. Yeah?”

I stood there still holding up the plate and nodded.

“Stay safe, baby,” he said, the cop authority gone from his voice, this statement was quiet and sweet and it strolled right into that private place inside me, took its seat and sat back, intending like the others to stay awhile.

“You too,” I replied and he left.

It took awhile for me to pull myself together. The only reason I did was because the door was unlocked and I hated it but that scared the shit out of me.

I put down the plate, walked into the living room and locked the door. On the way back to the kitchen, the phone rang.

I hit the kitchen and reached out to the phone. It was an old fashioned kitchen wall phone, yellow, boxy, with push buttons and a long, curly cord so you could wander the kitchen with it held in the crook of your neck while you were doing shit. I liked it mostly because I could imagine wandering Colt’s kitchen with it held in the crook of my neck.

I put it to my ear and said, “Hello?”

No one spoke.

I felt a curl again, it was north, in my belly, and it wasn’t pleasant.

“Hello?” I repeated, tentative this time.

“Um… hello, is Colt there?”

Oh shit, it was Melanie.

“Melanie?” I asked, though I didn’t want to.

“February?” she asked back and I knew she didn’t want to either.

Oh shit, shitshitshitshitshit.

“Uh… yeah. How’s it going?” Oh my God, I hated this.

“Um… it’s good. How’re you?” She hated it too.

All I could think about was Romeo and Juliet and Nancy and I was going to give Dee what for the next time I saw her for putting that crap in my head.

“Things aren’t great. You maybe didn’t hear but I found Angie –” I was going into explanation mode; I didn’t want her to get the wrong idea.

“I heard,” Melanie cut me off then paused before she went on. “Poor Angie.”

“Yeah.”

“Is Colt there?” she repeated.

“No, he, um… left. You just missed him.”

“I’ll call his cell.”

“Melanie –”

“It’s not important anyway.”

“Mel –”

“You take care, Feb.”

“Mel –”

“See you.”

Then she hung up. I closed my eyes tight and put the phone back in the receiver. I heard the key scrape the side door and Dad walked in.

“’Mornin’ darlin’.”

It worked for me that Dad didn’t put the “good” in that greeting. It was not a good morning, it was just morning or to be precise, it was a shit morning.

“’Mornin’ Dad,” I replied.

* * * * *

My cell rang about five minutes after Morrie, Dad and I opened J&J’s. The display said “Colt calling.”

I flipped it open and put it to my ear, “Hello?”

“Hey.”

“Everything okay?”

“You know what I told you about last night?” he asked, “before I wiped the floor with your ass at pool.”

I was a good pool player. I’d worked in bars all my life, I had lots of practice. Still, Colt wasn’t lying when he said he wiped my ass. It pissed me off but he did. It was embarrassing.