“I was stupid. I shouldn’t have –” I started but he got up suddenly and leaned into me.

Then he stunned me again by kissing me. Not a Luke, teasing, sexy kiss but he put his hand to the side of my head and touched his lips to mine then pulled back a couple of inches and stared me in the eyes.

“You can go over it again and again, relive it a million different ways; it isn’t going to change anything. You saved your boy and you both are breathing. The end,” he said.

He stayed where he was for so long I felt the need to respond.

“Okay,” I said, but it was kind of shaky.

“You start relivin’ it, you talk to Vance or me or any of the boys. Don’t hold it inside. Again, we’ll listen.”

I nodded and was finding it hard to breathe and not because I’d been shot in the chest but because Luke was a great guy. Looking at Luke, hanging with Luke, you’d never know Luke could be like this. His face was hard but he was close and I saw the soft concern in his eyes and it made a normally f**king handsome guy look downright, knock-your-socks-off beautiful.

He trailed his thumb slowly across my cheekbone, his eyes never leaving mine.

Then he took his hand away, touched my nose, gave me a sexy half-grin and he was gone.

* * * * *

Fifth, I didn’t get Thanksgiving with just Vance, Nick and me. The Rock Chicks had a huge, Thanksgiving bash in my hospital room.

They brought the whole meal and all the fixin’s and stood or sat around, carting in chairs from other places, eating and chatting. All the women played a massive, marathon game of Trivial Pursuit while the men watched football.

Of course I had to suck my meal through a straw and eventually the nurses had to come around and tell them they had to go but still, it was fun.

* * * * *

Sixth, Martin and Curtis had come to visit me.

The whole time they were there, they didn’t cuss either.

Instead they told me why they were on the street. I’d been working with them for months and I had to get shot for them to open up to me.

I didn’t complain.

Instead, once they left, I called Shirleen and we had a chat.

Then I called Andy and told him Martin and Curtis were ready for a reunion with their Mom. She had a new boyfriend they didn’t like. They had reason not to like him, a really f**king good reason, and Andy knew what to do.

Martin and Curtis’s Mom either dumped a boyfriend that was abusive to her boys or her boys were moving in with Shirleen.

Their Mom dumped her boyfriend.

Then she pressed charges.

With what he did, her ex wouldn’t have much fun in prison.

* * * * *

They released me after a few weeks and I went to Vance’s cabin.

Vance and I bickered about this. Nick and I bickered about it too. They didn’t want me sleeping on my couch nor climbing up to the bed platform.

They ganged up on me. It was clear they had made the decision without my input before I was released and I had no choice. This I found alarming as it might not bode well for my future.

My head crackin’ mamma jamma was still with me, however my strength had leaked out onto the floor of Sal Cordova’s living room and it was going to take a little while longer for me to get fighting fit.

So I gave in.

Vance took me to his place, driving a new, black, GMC Sierra that Ally told me that Indy told her that Lee told her that Vance bought because he didn’t want me riding around in his rickety old truck and I was certainly in no shape to ride on the Harley.

Daisy and Roxie had packed up a bunch of my clothes and Nick had packed up Boo, his litter, food, treats and toys and Nick took my cat and stuff Vance’s cabin.

Unfortunately for Vance and Nick (it was fortunately for me, I thought it was hilarious), the cabin wasn’t nearly as restful as they thought it would be namely because everyone came with great regularity, and stayed for great lengths of time. Tod and Stevie set up an ongoing Yahtzee tournament that lasted for weeks (Jet won). Heavy even brought a punching bag there, set it up in Vance’s second bedroom and when I was up and around he sat eating Ding Dongs and Oreos and other chocolate-flavored snacks with dubious cream-like filling and drilled me relentlessly.

* * * * *

Vance worked through my recovery, though Lee never assigned him to anything that would take him out of town. He also was never given night shifts in the surveillance room. This meant Vance was home by eight o’clock, usually earlier, every night.

* * * * *

In late December, close to Christmas when I was still recovering but getting stronger all the time, I stood in Vance’s bathroom, wearing nothing but lacy, pink hipsters and staring into the mirror at my red, ugly, puckering, very, very slowly fading scars.

They would fade but they’d never go away and they were not at all attractive.

I put on a t-shirt of Vance’s. I’d not worn a sexy nightie since getting shot, the bodice of all of the ones I had showed the scar. I knew this because I tried them all on and checked. Then I walked to the bedroom.

Vance was lying in bed, chest bare, sheet to his waist, na**d under the sheet (I knew this because Vance slept na**d not that I’d acquired x-ray vision during my recent trauma). He was reading.

Boo was on his belly, eyes closed but his was head up.

I rounded the bed, flicked back the covers and lay down, pulling the covers up to my neck.

It was safe to say that multiple gunshot wounds put a serious crimp in your sex life. A crimp I wasn’t all fired up to iron out.

In fact, I didn’t think I ever wanted Vance to see me na**d again.

“I think we should break up,” I blurted to the ceiling and then closed my eyes tight when I felt his mood change and fill the room with dangerous white-hot electricity.

“Sorry?” he asked.

I opened my eyes and looked at him. I shouldn’t have. He was looking at me, his brows were knit and his eyes were narrowed and I’d learned that was not a good combo with Vance.

“I think we should break up,” I told him.

“Jesus, you’re a pain in the ass,” he muttered and went back to his book.

“Seriously, Vance.”

“Shut up, Jules,” he said without taking his eyes from his book.

I rolled to my side, reached out and pushed his book down. His eyes cut to me and with one look in them I rethought my actions but it was too late.

“Crowe –” I started but Vance turned, Boo flew off his belly and he put his book to the nightstand. Then he came back to me and rolled toward me, arm going around my waist, he pulled me to him. He did this gently, how he’d been touching me for weeks, but this time it had meaning.