LITMIR.BIZ

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I get back but I wanted you to know right up front that what happened wasn’t okay in my book.”

      It wasn’t? Since when?

      “I appreciate you coming here to tell me that yourself,” Jamie said. “It makes me feel a whole lot better about everything.”

      She cannot be buying this.

      “And I appreciate you giving me my say. I also expect you to add whatever you pay here to my bill.”

      “That’s not necessary.”

      “It is to me. You promise me that you’ll do that.”

      “Okay.”

      “Thank you.” He still held her hand, studying it before he released her, nodded at them both, and walked out.

      Tully followed right behind him. As they neared the old coot’s truck, Tully asked, “What the hell are you up to, old man?”

      Buck stopped and faced him. “I’m not up to anything. And watch how you talk to me, boy. I ain’t that feline you grew up with.”

      And there he was. There was Buck Smith.

      “You ain’t foolin’ me for a second.”

      Buck smiled. “Don’t know what you mean…son.”

      Tully growled while Buck walked around to the driver’s side of his pickup. He got inside and slammed the door shut, his arm resting on the frame of the open window. “You know, I’ve been thinkin’, maybe it’s time we put the past behind us.”

      “Is that right?”

      “It would make my Wanda real happy. She don’t like all this discord.”

      “Can you even spell discord?”

      “Funny. You were always real funny.” Buck started up his truck. “All I’m asking for is a chance. A chance to make it all right. You think on it.”

      Tully stood in the parking lot for he didn’t know how long after his father had driven away. Other patients came in, the dogs snarling and snapping at him or cowering on their leashes, the cats hissing at him from their crates. A stallion horse, brought in for treatment in the back where they took the farm animals, busted out of his trailer before his owner could even get out of her truck and took off running down the street, half the vet staff running after him. And the whole time Tully didn’t move a muscle until Jamie came outside with a bandaged Rico in a makeshift crate and a bag of medicine hanging from her fist. She stopped beside him, studying him without saying a word.

      “He says he wants to put the past behind us.”

      Jamie shrugged. “Well—”

      “Don’t tell me what you think I want to hear, Jamie,” he cut in, desperate to hear truth. Absolute truth. “Tell me what you feel.”

      “What I feel?” She let out a breath. “I feel like I want a chocolate shake from the McDonald’s down the street. I feel that Rico is going to really milk the sympathy as long as she can. And I feel if your father had half a chance, he’d cut your throat and leave you bleeding out by the lake I accidentally poisoned. But what’s in your favor is that he wants something. And he’s not going to make a move until he gets it. But if you push him out now, he’ll only be back later. Maybe at a real bad time. I’m a big fan of waiting to see what people will do rather than simply reacting. Just make sure you’re ready for him. Anyway…that’s my opinion.” She tugged on his T-shirt. “Come on. Let’s get that shake.” Then suddenly, she surprised him and, he was guessing, herself, by going on her toes and kissing his cheek. Her brown eyes blinked wide and then she tossed out, trying to sound casual, “That’s for coming with me today. And for last night.”

      And for the first time since his father had driven off, Tully suddenly saw everything around him in crystal perfection. The blue sky above, the dusty dirt at his feet, the stallion charging back up the opposite side of the street, the vet techs and owner still trying to catch him, and the amazing ass hanging out from the back passenger side of the SUV as Jamie placed the crate with her bird inside the vehicle. After a few minutes of outright rude ogling by him, he heard Jamie let out an annoyed sigh and she turned to face him. “Mind giving me a hand, Tully?”

      He refused to move because he didn’t know what she wanted a hand with.

      “She won’t settle down back here. I think you may have to hold her.”

      The bird. She’s talking about the bird. Which was a good thing, because if she was talking about something else, they wouldn’t be leaving this parking lot for hours and Colton City was a family-friendly town. In the end it wouldn’t be right. It would be fun…but not right.

      At least not yet.

      Chapter Eight

      Jamie parked her SUV and stepped out. She’d already taken Rico back home and left her walking on the furniture, pretending she was too weak to fly. Now Jamie was back at the hotel to check in with her coven. Especially Sen.

      She walked up the porch stairs and was reaching for the door when she heard, “I talked to my boys. They’re real sorry ’bout what happened.”

      She stopped and slowly faced Buck Smith. He sat in one of the rocking chairs that littered the wraparound porch. He watched her with eyes like his son’s. But he was bulkier than Tully, dangerously large. The kind of guy she’d never want to be caught alone in an alley with.

      “It was just a misunderstanding.” She gave him the same smile she used to give perps she was sure had killed someone, but didn’t have the proof yet to prove it.

      “You ain’t like the other covens.”

      She walked over to him but didn’t get too close. There were just some people in the world she didn’t get too close to. Buck Smith was definitely one of them. “You could say that.”

      “Y’all are definitely a lot prettier. Those Midwestern ones they had the last few years looked like they belonged behind a plow.”

      Jamie’s laugh was real.

      “So you and my boy together?”

      That seemed an odd question coming from an uncaring father. “No. Just good friends.”

      “Something tells me you don’t have a lot of friends.”

      “And something tells me you don’t have any. But hey,” she said before he could reply, “that’s not why you’re here. You’re here to see your son. To mend that bridge. That’s what you told Tully, right?”

      “Yeah. Right.”

      He studied her and Jamie didn’t flinch, nor did she look away. She didn’t know what he was looking at or looking for but she’d be damned if she backed off of anyone. It was something she learned as a cop. Show any weakness and the scumbags would wipe you out before you took your next breath.

      “There you are.” Wanda waved from the path leading to the hotel. The woman hadn’t even gotten ten feet when Jamie’s eyes watered. Does she bathe in that scent?

      Maybe Jamie wouldn’t back off in a firefight or facing down Tully’s sperm donor, but she’d be damned if she’d stay around for that smell. By the time Wanda made it to the porch, Jamie was walking inside the hotel, closing the door firmly behind her. She sneezed twice and Emma grinned at her from the front desk.

      “Wanda?” she asked.

      “We’re totally going to have to fumigate her room when they leave.”

      Tully relaxed back in the half-circle booth at his favorite bar. It wasn’t the fanciest one in town, but it was the most comfortable, had his favorite beer, and the best live reggae music anywhere on the East Coast.

      As it turned out, soothing Caribbean sounds were just what he needed right now. He needed to be soothed. He needed to relax. Not easy when

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