Текст книги "Hold On"

Автор книги: Kristen Ashley

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On this thought, Garrett moved to his refrigerator, pulled out a beer, twisted off the cap, and turned to rest his hips against the counter, looking into his shitty condo, the eclectic warmth of Cher’s pad not layering over what his eyes saw.

The feel of her, the smell of her, the memory of being with her in her bed was what filled his mind.

For years, he had stupidly tried to fuck Mia out of his head and his heart, knowing he was doing it and completely unable to stop himself.

And to make that shit even shittier, he’d done it by actually fucking Mia any time after their divorce that she came around to get a dose of his cock.

More often than not, though, when he sunk his dick into a woman who was not his ex-wife, Mia filled his head. Drunk or sober, it happened. It made him feel like an asshole. But he kept doing it.

With Cher, it did not.

With Cher, he was with Cher.

On a night when he was trashed and that shit was sure to happen, it didn’t.

On a night where he never expected he could do it, he’d laughed. Not a little, a lot. His gut clenching with it. His eyes watering with it.

And he did that with Cher.

No, he didn’t just do it with her, she gave him that.

You came here to get me to go to Frank’s so you could tell me what went down with us was just a drunken fuck, no more. We don’t change. Am I right?

She’d been right.

Garrett looked to the clock on his microwave.

It was just before nine thirty. Her shift that day was noon to eight thirty.

She’d be home.

He engaged his phone, opened his texts, and shot her one.

Ethan got a sleepover this weekend?

He took another pull from his beer, thinking Cher’s early shift was noon to eight thirty and her late shift was eight to three thirty. He knew that because he was a cop and he paid attention to everything, an occupational hazard, so he’d noted it just from being a regular at her place of business.

Those shifts meant, either way, on school days, she didn’t have to rush Ethan to get ready. Even if she’d only had a few hours of sleep, she could make him breakfast, take him to school, not have to be anywhere but with him. Late shift, she could also go get him, get him home, make sure his schoolwork got done, make him dinner.

But even if they had time together, either way, that time was still fucked.

People did that kind of thing all the time, shift work that meant they had to get creative about who looked after their kids.

But those people didn’t have Cher’s history and a kid with a stick-up-their-ass stepmom who decided the way of the world and that her way was the only way. Garrett knew that was the way Peggy whoever-she-was was the minute he saw the bitch. Cher didn’t need to lay that out. He knew she was trouble of one variety or the other before she opened her mouth.

Before he knew she was bringing Cher trouble.

Fuck, he hoped the junkie ex was dirty.

He pushed away from the counter, took his beer to the couch, and grabbed the remote.

He found a show right when his phone sounded.

He grabbed it off his coffee table and his mouth curled up when he read, Kiss my ass, Merry.

Using his thumb, he returned, You want that, brown eyes, I’ll work it in.

She didn’t make him wait and shot back, Go fuck yourself.

Now, sweetheart, you know that’s not the way it works.

Then came, We’re done.

He ignored that and sent, Sleep tight. See you tomorrow.

Tomorrow? she returned.

Have good dreams.

Tomorrow?

Garrett didn’t reply.

Merry? Tomorrow?

Garrett again didn’t reply.

Don’t fuck with me, Merry. I don’t need your shit.

Garrett grinned, but he didn’t reply, and at that, Cher let it go.

He trained his eyes to the TV, not watching it.

He was thinking that he had absolutely no idea what he was doing.

The only thing he knew was that he was going to do it. And right then, as much of a dick as it made him, it was because Cher Rivers was the best fuck he’d ever had, bar none, including Mia.

After their showdown, where Cher showed him a different kind of fire than her normal—a fire he liked—and a vulnerability she’d never shown before—the kind as a cop and as a Merrick he couldn’t ignore—he wanted more.

It was also because, when he was low, she took his back.

So now that she had the possibility of trouble, he was going to take hers.

If she wanted him to or not.

Chapter Four

Plotting My Murder

Cher

The next day, after I’d dropped Ethan at school, I was about to go out to the garage to get the storm windows when my phone rang.

I moved to my purse in the bucket chair, pulled the phone out, and saw a number I did not know.

I’d learned a long time ago never to answer those kinds of calls. I was careful to program in any numbers that I would need to know, including doctors, dentists, Ethan’s school. I’d learned to do this, because if it didn’t come up as programmed, they were either someone trying to sell me something or someone I absolutely did not want to talk to.

This being someone I didn’t want to talk to, I dropped the phone on top of my purse and headed to the garage.

I had the windows out of the garage, stacked against the side of the house, the screen switched out in the front door, and was moving to the first window when I heard shrieked, “You think I won’t fuck with you?”

I looked left and went still.

My next-door neighbor was cool—Tilly, an old lady. She was quiet. She was also private but friendly and happy to look after Ethan on the rare occasion I needed her. She did this because she was a good woman and she liked us, not because Ethan or I mowed her lawn and shoveled her snow whenever we did ours (which we did).

And she acted like the light of God shone down on her when her asshole son or her bitch-face daughter deigned to pay her a visit, bringing her grandchildren. I was not in my house 24/7, but I didn’t miss the fact that these pilgrimages back home to momma happened rarely. Ethan and I had lived there for over two years and those bastards had shown twice, collectively.

But the house next to Tilly’s was a rental. Not one like mine, where my landlord gave a shit. One where the landlord didn’t, so it was in visible disrepair, which meant the rent was lower and the renters were of the same level.

I’d seen the new tenants. They’d been around a few months. In that time, they’d had one party that was loud, which I’d had closed down.

But they were around a lot, in and out a lot, and had a slew of visitors, so I had a variety of opportunities to see them.

Being a person who was quickly judged, I was not judgmental.

Still, the man had dickhead written all over him, and the woman was a sister in the way she’d convinced herself she couldn’t do much better, so she didn’t try.

Now she was on the stoop, red in the face, still in her shapeless nightshirt, hair wild, clearly, even from a distance, pissed way the fuck off.

He was in jeans and a jeans jacket, a few feet down the walk from her, his back to me, but his body language was easily read and he shared his woman’s mood.

Since they were a house away, I didn’t hear what he said. I just knew he replied when she kept screeching.

“Fuck you! You don’t change your mind, motherfucker. Carlito will learn all your shit!”

At that, I knew it was time to go inside and do it quiet so neither of them would know I was outside and I’d heard what I’d heard.

This was what I did.

When I soundlessly closed my door behind me, I looked into my living room and hissed, “Shit.”

I didn’t know Carlito.

But I worked in a bar that served booze to cops, bikers, and bankers. Hairdressers and lady doctors. Farmers, plumbers, and lawyers.

And at a bar, customers considered waitresses deaf to anything but drink orders.

Also at a bar, customers considered bartenders their own personal shrinks.

So I knew that the least of what a man called Carlito was was a low-life loan shark.

But considering I’d heard his name murmured on more than one occasion by Colt, Sully, Mike, Drew, Sean, Merry, and a number of other cops in that ’burg, I suspected he was more.

I did not need that shit on my block, but it was more.

I did not need that shit on the block where my kid lived.

I went to my kitchen to pour myself a travel mug, emptying the last cup of joe from the pot into the mug to take out with me when the coast was clear. I was standing in the living room, holding it in my hand and listening for my neighbors, when my phone sounded with a text.

Excitement and annoyance chased its way through me as I looked to my phone on my purse, wondering if the text was from Merry.

Last night, through texts, his games had begun.

I was trying to ignore this.

It was hard to ignore.

I put the mug down on the coffee table, grabbed the phone, and saw it wasn’t from Merry. It was a text from Violet telling me she could pick Ethan up from school on Thursday when both Mom and I were working.

When I texted her back to confirm and give thanks, I saw I had a voicemail.

It was from that number I didn’t know.

I didn’t want to listen to it, but just in case the school got a new extension or some teacher was calling me from their own phone for some reason, I went to it, hit play, hit speaker, and heard, “Ms. Sheckle. This is Walter Jones. I would appreciate it if you could phone me back when you have a moment. Just so you know, I’ll make it worth your while. I was a profiler with the FBI, currently freelance, and am researching a book I’m writing on serial killers of the last twenty—”

I set my teeth and hit delete.

Fucking motherfucker.

I jumped and turned when a knock came at my door.

I had a shit door that, even wearing my daintiest high-heeled sandal, I could kick through. It was two layers of thin, cheap wood with a small diamond window at eye level so you could look out.

And in that diamond window, I saw Merry.

Fucking motherfucker.

He’d texted tomorrow.

And it was tomorrow.

I stared at him through the window, but he did not stare at me.

He opened the door and walked right through.

Mental note: lock the damned door, no matter if you’re inside just to pour a cup of coffee.

“Well, come on in, Officer,” I greeted sarcastically, throwing out my hand with the phone in it. “Something I can get you? Cup of coffee? Late breakfast? Quick blowjob?”

He did not look amused. He did not look annoyed.

He looked ticked.

“You puttin’ in your own storms?” he asked.

With the crap coming from my neighbors, Walter Jones getting my cell phone number and having no problem calling me, thinking he could ever in a million fucking years make it “worth my while” to talk about Dennis Lowe, and Merry waltzing into my living room, all in the expanse of ten minutes, I wasn’t following.

“What?”

“Windows, Cher.” He jerked his head toward the side of the house where the storm windows were stacked. “You puttin’ in your own storm windows?”

I had no idea why he would care, but there was only one answer to that question, so I gave it to him.

“Well, yeah.”

“Why doesn’t your landlord do it?” Merry asked.

“Because he’s seven hundred and twelve years old and my CPR skills are a little rusty, so I don’t want him giving himself a heart attack switching screens out for storms when I can do it myself.”

“It’s his responsibility,” Merry returned.

“I’d have to study my rental agreement, but I think routine maintenance is my responsibility, Merry.”

“You study that agreement, you’d find you’re wrong.”

It had been a while since I read it, but I had a feeling Merry was correct.

I didn’t share this feeling.

I said, “Then, considering the screens pop out, the storms pop in, and the doors only require little ole me to be able to turn a screwdriver, I’d rather just do it instead of calling him, waiting for him to come over, suffer a stroke while winterizing my house, thus scarring me mentally for life.”

His eyes narrowed. “You this much of a smartass before I made you come for me five times?”

I waited for my head to swivel around on my shoulders while fire shot out of my eye sockets.

When that didn’t happen, I snapped, “Uh…yeah.”

“Leave ’em,” he ordered. “I’m done with my shift, I’ll come over and put ’em in.”

I didn’t know how to react to that except allow my mouth to drop open, which I did.

Before I recovered, he asked, “You know Riverside Baptist Church?”

“Oh God. First you give me five orgasms, now you’re gonna save my soul?” I asked back.

He crossed his arms on his chest. “Rein in the smartass, Cher. Don’t got time to get you sweet, which means get you hot, so you’ll give me what I want instead of bein’ a pain in my ass. Answer the question: Do you know Riverside Baptist Church?”

That was when my eyes narrowed. “Get me sweet, which means get me hot?”

Merry became visibly impatient. “Babe, focus.”

“You want me focused, tell me why you’re here, injecting cheer into my day,” I demanded.

“Peggy Schott belongs to Riverside Baptist Church.”

I snapped my mouth shut.

Merry didn’t.

“She talk about that? Trent talk about it? Ethan come from them to you and talk about it?”

I felt my heart beating hard in my chest. “What I wanna know is why you’re talking about it, and how do you even know that? How’d you even find out Peg’s last name?”

“I told you I was gonna take your back and that’s what I’m doin’,” he returned.

That was what he was doing?

We’d had our previous fun-loving chat at four o’clock yesterday afternoon.

It wasn’t even ten o’clock the next morning and he’d already learned about a church Peggy belonged to.

I had a bad feeling about this because I knew Merry, and once he got his teeth into something, he didn’t let go.

And he had his teeth into Trent and Peggy, so my chances at stopping him from getting right up in my shit were minimizing by the second.

These thoughts made me throw up both hands in exasperation and snap, “It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours!”

“Someone gives you a heads up they’re thinkin’ of fuckin’ with you, you don’t offer them a head start,” he replied, then kept going. “Margaret Schott is the volunteer assistant director of a program run by Riverside Baptist Church called Faith Saves. The mission of this program is to send members to hang outside AA, NA, and Al-Anon meetings, as well as methadone clinics, approaching people who leave to seek recovery or guidance through the word of God.”

“Holy shit,” I whispered.

“Considering those programs are already significantly faith-based, the folks at Riverside either aren’t that bright or not real good at hiding their recruitment tactics. Google Peg Schott’s name; she’s all over the church’s website, tied to this program. Might be a jump, but doubtful—this is how she met your ex. You know anything about that?”

I shook my head.

“They take Ethan to church?” Merry asked.

I kept shaking my head.

“He’s never mentioned it?” Merry pushed.

I continued shaking my head but asked, “This church bad news?”

“Haven’t had time to dig deep. Jumped from that to some articles about a couple of community centers and other churches that give space to recovery programs that got together to call the cops to get Faith Saves off the pavement so they don’t bother group members after meetings. But they stick to publicly owned space and they’re peaceful, if irritating, so cops can’t do jack. Haven’t been able to follow it further.”

I didn’t have any time to sort through this information in my head before Merry kept talking.

“Trent Schott has priors.”

I felt my lips part.

Merry continued to give it to me.

“Pulled over, suspected DUI, tests showed he was high. Weed. First offense, it was just pot, not much came of it. Got in a fight at a bar that rolled outside that the cops had to break up. His statement reported he was confronting someone who owed him money. They were both hauled in, but no property was damaged. He eventually dropped the charges, so did the other guy, so that slid. Then he was caught with a baggie of ice, not enough to make a big deal about it, so they didn’t. He got community service. He was also suspected in a liquor store robbery, but they didn’t have any security cameras and the clerk on at the time couldn’t positively identify him.”

I stared at Merry reeling this off, all not so good stuff that could be good for me, and I said nothing.

Then again, Merry wasn’t done.

“Last one, strung out, he stole a lighter from a convenience store. Owner was behind the register, and he’d been having some not insignificant gang trouble and having that for a good while. Fed up, he bought a piece, tackled Schott, shoved the gun in his face, and made a citizen’s arrest on the spot. Good news is, he also called the cops to make a proper arrest. Seein’ as Schott only stole a lighter, security footage confirmed that, and he was able to hand that eighty-nine-cent item back to the owner, no charges were filed.”

Before I could swallow it back, I made a noise that was half snort, half giggle before asking, “Trent was arrested by a convenience store owner?”

Merry grinned at me. “Tackled then arrested. And the owner was sixty-three at the time.”

I made the noise again, my shoulders jerking with it.

Visualization of my imagination’s version of this awesome event hit my head and I couldn’t hold it back any longer. I busted out laughing.

I did it so hard, I squeezed my eyes shut and wrapped an arm around my stomach.

I sobered instantly when I felt a warm, strong hand wrapped around the side of my neck.

My eyes shot open and up to see Merry’s face gentle, without humor, and he was looking down at me.

“There’s my girl.”

Uh.

No.

I stepped back, running into the bucket chair, so I had to skirt it to get out of his hold.

His hand dropped, but he stepped toward me.

I took another step back.

He took another step my way.

“Merry, stop moving,” I ordered.

He didn’t. He kept at me, I kept retreating, but he made his movements while talking.

“As hilarious as that is, Schott’s inability to outrun a sixty-three-year-old man who has to clear a counter to get to him is not gonna go far with a judge. He might call a recess so he can go to his chambers to have a laugh, but no charges filed, it’ll probably be inadmissible during a custody battle.”

While he spoke, when I was about to run into my media center, I shifted and Merry shifted with me. I had to make another shift, rounding the room, and Merry did it with me.

“Merry, stop moving,” I repeated.

“Not much in the rest,” he continued like I didn’t say a word. “Can’t hide he used, so the DUI and ice won’t be a surprise, and since he’s in recovery and his record has been clean through that, might not get you far. The fight isn’t good. Even if charges were dropped, you might be able to use that to prove he’s got a temper and isn’t averse to using his fists.”

Through this, my leg hit an end table and I adjusted. We cleared the couch, I shifted again too soon, both my calves hit the coffee table, and my ass went down on it.

I looked up. Cell flat to the table, I braced my hands to push up, but Merry was there, chin in his throat, eyes on me, and when he spoke again, his mind was clearly on my location.

“Tried to get your mouth on me more than once when we tore at each other up last Friday, but I was in the mood to use mine. Lookin’ forward to learnin’ what you can do with yours, but like I said, baby, right now, don’t got the time.”

My only response that he couldn’t twist was to glare at him, which was what I did.

“But got time before I go for a kiss,” Merry informed me.

“Only kiss I’ll give you is tellin’ you to kiss off,” I informed him.

“Who knew warm brown eyes like the ones you got could spark that kind of fire,” he muttered as if he wasn’t even talking to me.

“Step back,” I demanded.

“No,” he denied.

I continued to glare up at him, then I realized I was not the kind of woman who sat on her ass, glaring up at a man towering over her and pinning her in. So I stood, which put me smack in Merry’s space, my breasts brushing against his abs and up his chest on my way.

They kept brushing when he didn’t move back, but I didn’t attempt escape, even to get away from the shafts of electricity this all caused at my nipples, shafts that headed south.

I glared at him from closer.

He stared into my eyes, his gaze moving down to my mouth then back up as one side of his lips curved.

He was getting off on this.

I didn’t get that and I didn’t want to get that.

I wanted this done.

“In the mood to play, Officer?” I whispered.

“Told you, sweetheart, don’t got the time.”

I shook my head but held his gaze. “Not what I mean. Single mom, all alone. Switch out her storms. Offer info to help her out of a jam. Been a while since I was in the know about these things, so tell me, what’s the price for all that? You mentioned a blowjob. You got stamina, but I got talent. Balance that out, I’m thinkin’ it’ll take more than the usual ten, fifteen minutes. We’ll give it twenty. So I can manage my time, is there more?”

I wasn’t even done talking before I learned his eyes could spark fire too.

I also learned he was in the mood to play, that being, playing me at my own game.

And doing it better.

He dipped his face close, his voice low. “Storms get me the blowjob, brown eyes. I get the intel you need, that buys me sinkin’ deep in wet pussy.”

I felt my nipples get harder at the same time something else happened to me that, if he was of a mind to take his payoff right then, he’d get what he wanted.

I hid this reaction and asked, “You want this all in one go, or you wanna spread payback out for a while?”

“Keep plenty of time open, Cher. I intend to earn a fuckuva lot more and draw it out collecting.”

I nodded, still keeping a lock on his eyes. “I get it. Girl like me, only payback expected for me to be able to give.”

That didn’t get me fire.

That got me ice.

“I hear you talk down about yourself one more time, Cher, shit will get extreme.”

That made me ice over.

“Do not hand me that crap, Merry. You come into my home and got no problem talkin’ about wet pussy right to my face tells me the woman you know me to be.”

He dipped his face even closer, to the point it felt like if I blinked, my lashes would sweep his in a butterfly kiss.

“Do not hand me your shit, Cher,” he growled. “That hang-up is yours, not mine. And how I know that is I made you come just finger fuckin’ you and talkin’ dirty in your ear, and it was the talk and not what my fingers were doin’ that took you there. I like that, a woman who can let go and let me give her that without gettin’ uptight and closin’ down on me. You liked it too, a fuckuva lot more than me. So don’t stand there handin’ me your shit when I know you’re wet for me now and I haven’t fuckin’ touched you.”

I refused to reply to that because he was right and I had no intention of confirming that information.

But it was then he hit me with a verbal blow, the intensity of which, not in my whole shitty-ass life I’d ever received.

“Christ, if I didn’t know you were worth it, I’d walk out the door and this would be done—all we got, over.”

I could stand.

I could stare.

But I couldn’t breathe.

Merry could.

He could also speak.

“Hope like fuck no one takes off with those storms while I’m gone. You think they will, move ’em into garage and leave the key under the mat. I’m switchin’ ’em out, Cher. I come back tonight and they’re done, I’ll find you, and I won’t be collectin’. I’ll be dishin’ it out, but you won’t get it until you beg for it and do that shit for a really long time.”

His words were lost on me.

I continued to stand.

I continued to stare.

But my lungs had started burning.

If I didn’t know you were worth it…

“When’s Ethan’s next sleepover?” Merry bit out.

“Friday,” I whispered. “But his friend’s comin’ here.”

“Fuck,” Merry clipped. “Find a time, babe. You don’t, payback’ll stack up and I’ll have to take personal days and hole up in a hotel with you for a week. And there’s not a doubt that stick-up-her-ass church lady your ex tied his shit to won’t appreciate you bein’ gone from your kid for a weeklong fuckathon.”

That was kind of funny as well as hot.

I still said nothing.

Merry fell silent and stared at me.

Then he dealt the second biggest verbal blow I’d ever received in my life.

“Christ, you’re pretty, even standin’ there plotting my murder.”

After that, he lifted a hand, grabbed me gentle but firm at my neck, yanked me up so my mouth hit his hard but brief, then he let me go.

“Later, babe,” he said, strolling to my door. He stopped in it, turned to me, and bid his farewell by saying, “You touch those storms only to put them in the garage.”

He closed the door on that.

I stood where he left me.

If I didn’t know you were worth it…

What was I worth?

What was I worth to Merry?

I stared at the door, again breathing but not knowing what to think.

Not even knowing what was happening.

How had it gone from a drunken fuck, after which he was going to blow me off, to him investigating Trent and Peggy, demanding I find a time when I could offer his brand of payback, and him not only telling me I was pretty, but I was “worth it?”

It would seem me and Merry had to have a chat where we were not fighting or talking about my ex and his bitch’s diabolical plans.

And I would suggest just that to him later, when he’d cooled down and when we were both far apart from each other.

I left the storm windows where they were. Merry wanted to put them in, at that juncture, I was not going to test his mood by going against his wishes.

Instead, I went to the laptop me and Ethan shared.

I powered that baby up.

Then I found Riverside Baptist Church and its program Faith Saves. I read every word.

Twice.

* * * * *

“Takin’ my last break,” I told Jack, who was behind the bar.

“Make it a good one,” Jack replied.

I said nothing and went to the office.

Mondays during the day were not big days at J&J’s. We had the odd drifter. Weather allowed, we had biker boys who knew J&J’s was welcoming, so if they slid through town, they’d stop to play a couple of games of pool and throw back some brews. We had regulars with no jobs but the miraculous ability to buy drinks.

I was on early for the week, going nights next week, which was Feb and Morrie’s way with scheduling to make sure Ruthie nor me took a hit from having to do all early.

Luckily, things looked up around five, and when I did early, I usually got my breaks and lunch out of the way when it was not after five because that was when the tips were made. I didn’t need to be sitting on my ass, eating, when I could be making money.

Although cops had imprecise schedules, detective shifts were eight to five officially. If anything happened beyond that, the on call cop went in.

So unusually that day, I waited for my break until six thirty, when Merry was off. The autumn light was waning, which meant the storm windows were probably in before I phoned him.

He picked up on the second ring, greeting, “Hey.”

“Hey,” I replied, and it occurred to me that, although we had each other’s numbers, I didn’t think I’d ever phoned him.

We’d texted things, like him asking me, You bringing that bacon potato salad to Vi’s party? (which meant, bring it, and so I always did), and me texting him, Colts lost. You owe me twenty bucks.

But I’d never phoned him.

“Cher?” he called, and I shook my head sharply.

“Looked up Riverside Baptist Church. That Faith Saves thing looks pretty legit.”

“They’re not gonna tell everyone on the Internet they’re freaky-ass zealots intent on saving the world by kidnapping recovering addicts and brainwashing them.”

My hand tightened on my phone, my mind thinking of Trent’s devotion to Peg. “Holy fuck, Merry. Do you think that’s what they’re doing?”

There was humor in his deep voice when he replied, “Calm down, sweetheart. No. Just tellin’ you as you look into the shit that I feed you, don’t judge a book by its cover. We get it, we won’t go surface—we’ll look deeper. But I’ll do the digging.”

Okay, right, this was one of several things that had to stop, and to stop it, we had to talk.

“I have Wednesday and Friday off this week,” I declared.

“Fuck, I just got the weekend off,” he returned.

He was thinking I was planning payback time.

“Can we do lunch on Wednesday?” I asked.

“Mike and me bought a case this weekend, which means we’re officially over our recommended caseload. Until we clear some, lunch is a memory for me.”

I moved to the chair at the desk and sat in it before saying, “We need to talk, Merry.”

“What’re we doin’ right now, Cher?”

“I’m on a break.”

“So call me when Ethan goes to bed.”

“That’ll be late.”

There was humor in his voice again when he replied, “Not like you aren’t used to late nights.”

“This talk we need to have needs to be face-to-face.”

Merry had no reply to that, humor-filled or not.

I rushed to fill the silence.

“What we had…before…it was good. We fucked it up. We’re still fuckin’ it up, playin’ these games. We should sit down, talk it through, get back to that good. It’s the best thing for both of us, Merry, and we both know it.”

He didn’t agree. He didn’t anything, so I rushed to fill that silence too.

“And Trent said they just wanted to see Ethan more. I didn’t want to talk about it when he was in the mood to push it, and things went south from there. Before I blow it up with them, maybe I should sit down with Ethan and see how he feels about it. He likes his dad, Merry. He likes them both and he digs havin’ a brother and sister. Maybe he actually wants more time with them too and doesn’t want to hurt my feelings by tellin’ me that.”

He finally spoke, and when he did, it came gentle.

“Consider this, sweetheart. Maybe, this bitch has claws, and she’s got more time to sink them into Ethan, that’s not a good idea.”

This was a concern.

But it was my concern, not Merry’s.

“I still think that’s my first step, talking to Ethan.”

“I hear you. And maybe you’re right. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do what you can to know what you’re sendin’ him into and if that’s healthy or if it’s not. Bottom line, your ex is a junkie. He’s recovering, but that’s still gotta give you pause. I know from the way you reacted that woman freaks you out, and she does that for a reason. Just find out what you’re dealin’ with before you make a deal with them that involves your boy.”

“Okay, then, maybe I’ll talk to Tanner about doing some legwork.”