Then another sob tore out of my throat and I shoved my face back in Ty’s neck as his arms tensed around me, his body shook with what had to be silent laughter and the salon filled with cheers and whoops.

I didn’t cheer or whoop. I held tight to my husband, my body convulsing with my emotion, my husband holding me tight right back.

Then I felt his head turn again and in my ear I heard, “Mama, get a handle on it.”

I reared back, tried and failed to focus on his face and snapped, “No! No f**king way! This feels too good. I’m never getting a handle on this!”

Then I shoved my face back in this neck and kept right on crying.

“Ohmigod! We need champagne! We need champagne right now!” Dominic was shouting and I heard movement around me including the cash register opening. “Stockard, girl, get your booty over here. Take this. Go down to liquor store. Get champagne, not the California kind, the French kind. From the chill cabinet. Stop by the grocery store to get cups, I don’t care if they’re Dixie cups, just get lots of them. Jazz, finish her off later and run down to the garage, get those boys in their coveralls down here. We gotta celebrate!”

Through this, I kept crying.

Then I heard Ty whisper, “Not sure how I feel about celebratin’ with a g*y guy and a bunch of pu**y in a salon and, babe, equally unsure how Wood’s boys are gonna feel about it.”

To that, I again jerked back and informed him, “They’re gonna have to suck it up.”

He stared in my eyes as I blinked the wetness out.

And when I finally (kinda) focused on him, I saw he was smiling, white, huge, beautiful and right there for the world to see.

And seeing that smile, I burst back into tears.

* * * * *

Forty-five minutes later…

The party had begun in earnest in Dominic’s spa.

Someone bought pre-prepared deli trays from the grocery store. More champagne was carted in with the addition of beers. Shambles hoofed it down to the salon and added a tray of just-out-of-the-oven chocolate and butterscotch chip cookies.

Jim-Billy was there as were Krystal and Laurie. The boys from the garage were there and this included Pop and Wood, Stella hanging back to hold down the fort in the office. Maggie showed about five minutes after Wood got there. Ned and Betty arrived ten minutes after Maggie.

Dominic, Kayeleen and Jazz were working and socializing which meant they were working slowly.

No one cared. If they had to wait an extra half an hour to sit in a chair, they could do it with a Dixie cup of champagne in their hand and a kickass cookie.

The rough guy mechanics, by the way, gave not one shit they were drinking champagne or they were doing it with a bunch of pu**y and a g*y guy. I had a feeling this partly had to do with deli trays, cookies and the fact that it was one of them who brought the beer. Though I had a feeling it was mostly to do with Ty.

I was sitting in Ty’s lap in my chair behind the receptionist desk, sipping champagne, a perma-smile on my face, talking to Jim-Billy, Betty and Krystal who were all hanging over the high counter of my desk at the same time I was wondering at the state of my mascara when Tate and Deke walked in.

I felt my heart skip then stutter when I saw their faces. I also felt Ty’s body tense under mine.

They only had eyes for Ty and, like Ty when he walked in, I couldn’t read their faces but I felt their vibe and I didn’t get it.

I didn’t get it until they walked straight up to the counter at my desk, Betty, Jim-Billy and Krystal peeling back to give them space and Tate started speaking.

“At nine o’clock this morning, a tri-county police task force marched into the Carnal Police Department, seized all records and arrested all the officers on duty excepting Frank Dolinski and Chace Keaton. Mick Shaughnessy and his boys from Gnaw Bone were tasked with rounding up those not on duty and it’s been reported that Mick himself took Arnie Fuller into custody fifteen minutes ago.”

I stared at Tate, my mouth hanging open.

Ty said nothing and since I was staring at Tate I could only assume he was too (though his mouth was probably not hanging open).

Then I heard Dominic shout, “We need more champagne!”

And it was at that, I watched Tatum Jackson grin.

* * * * *

Ty

Eleven and a half hours later…

Ty stood leaning against the Snake which was parked on the lookout off the mountain road that was a winding seven miles up from Tate Jackson’s house.

His eyes were on Carnal sitting below in the valley, lit up in the dark night, the flickering lights sending a hazy glow into the velvet of the midnight sky and the dark, near-black blue of the mountains.

He’d never, not once, spent time reflecting on his place of birth. It was what it was, as good a base as any.

With five years of very little to do but think; it was not lost on him that he’d spent a great deal of his life aimless, breathing, moving, earning and winning money to acquire things and partaking in all the pu**y that caught his liking that was thrown his way. He f**ked who he f**ked when he felt like it, treated them well enough but when he was done, he always walked away and didn’t think about them. He was where he was when he was there doing whatever he was doing at the time.

He had no plan. He had no passion.

Tuku would be pissed.

And he had always been alone. It had never bothered him, he’d never thought of that either. Like everything else in his life, it was what it was.

But after today, experiencing the euphoria of a town released from subjugation and the righting of the wrong done to one of their own, he realized that when he felt he was at his most alone, he was not. He belonged to Carnal, they’d never turned their back on him, they’d just been powerless, less than Ty but powerless all the same. He’d simply been so absorbed in his shit storm, he didn’t recognize it.

And that day, Carnal had stopped becoming the place he’d been born and where he stayed just because he stayed. It became home and he realized it always was.

But amongst those who made their home there along with Ty, there were some who not only didn’t turn their back but did more.

And he heard the Harley pipes of one of them as the bike approached.

Tate rolled the bike to a halt six feet away, shut it down, threw his leg over and walked to Ty, stopping three feet away. Ty could see his eyes on him but he could also feel them.

“Brother, it’s nearly eleven; why the f**k do you want to meet me up here alone? Where’s Lexie?”

“My wife is passed out and she ain’t gonna move for about ten hours,” Ty replied low and quiet. “Maybe twelve. She doesn’t even know I’m gone.”