"Good spot for that," Ty said to the view.

"Her last birthday, I brought her up here last thing just like that night," Tate went on then, "Asked her to marry me on her birthday, decided last year this was where she'd end every one of them from now on."

Ty didn't respond. Tate being a romantic was surprising but not that surprising. He was married to a good-looking, kind-hearted woman. You didn't win that kind of woman and keep her as happy as Laurie obviously was without treating her right.

Tate fell silent for another length of time and when he was done with silence, he turned back to face Ty and started, "Ty "

Ty cut him off by slicing his eyes to him.

"Years ago, you weren't ready to give up. I was buried under shit, couldn't see my way clear of it. So deep under, couldn't even hear you. Even if I could, I wouldn't listen. My power was stripped; I was pissed, in pain and both made me stupid." He held Tate's eyes and whispered, "Shoulda listened."

Tate shook his head. "Don't go there, brother, you're free, look forward and rejoice, do not look back and despair."

"That isn't what this is about, Tate. I feel no pain. Not anymore. That doesn't mean the journey wasn't torture but it led me to Lexie so I can live with that. What I need you to get is that you were right, I was wrong and you deserve to know that."

"You don't have to tell me this, Ty," Tate said softly.

"Yes, I do, Tate," Ty replied softly.

"Okay, then, you do," Tate returned. "But, you will remember, I was in that pit of snakes and I shoulda done something about that years ago. I didn't and you went down."

"You hold no responsibility for what happened to me."

"I don't see it that way."

"Brother, you had a son you needed to look after and pain in the ass pussy who was making your life a misery," Ty reminded him. "You had things you needed to see to and they were priorities. When you got out, they'd never done anything as bad as they did to me. You couldn't foresee how bad it would get. But you tried to deal with it then and I pulled you back. That is what this is about."

Tate fell silent.

Ty didn't.

"Since the day I was released, you knocked yourself out. You had my back, you took care of Lexie when we had our thing then you did what you could to help me sort that. It's important to me that you know I'm grateful. I've been tryin' to figure out how I can show how much but, keep thinkin' on it, nothin' comes to mind and I know why. I get it. You're a man who has everything so there is no way to show that appreciation because there is nothing I can hand you that you want or need. And I get that because I am now that same man. So the only thing I can give you are words and, my guess is, that'll be enough. If it isn't, you name it and it's yours."

"Friends do what I did for friends," Tate returned.

"No they don't, Tate. You did what you did for me because you're you. That's what I'm talkin' about."

Tate was silent a moment then he said, "Well then, you guessed right. Words are enough."

Ty nodded.

Tate tipped his head to the side and asked jokingly, "We done with the near-midnight in the middle of fuckin' nowhere heart-to-heart?"

Ty didn't feel like joking and answered, "No."

"Then what ?"

"Love you, man," Ty interrupted quietly. "Learned the hard way not to delay in expressing that sentiment so I'm not gonna delay. You call me brother and I got one who's blood who don't mean shit to me and today, all this shit done, rejoicing and reflecting, it hit me that I got two who aren't blood but who do mean something. And you're one of those two."

"Ty " Tate murmured.

"I will never forget, until I die, what you did for me and my wife and until that day I will never stop bein' grateful."

"Fuck, man," Tate whispered.

"Now, do those words work so you get what what you did means to me?"

Silence then, "Yeah, they work."

"Good, then now we're done with our near-midnight, middle of fuckin' nowhere heart-to-heart," Ty declared, turned, opened the door to the Viper and started folding in.

He stopped with his ass nearly to the seat and looked up over the door when Tate called his name.

"I don't have a blood brother," Tate said. "But you should know there's a reason I call you that."

Ty nodded.

But Tate didn't need to tell him that. He already knew. His actions said it all.

Then he sat his ass in the car.

Then he got that ass home to his wife.

Lexie Half an hour later...

I woke when I felt my man slide in behind me, his arm curled around me and pulled me close.

I snuggled closer.

I wanted to ask where he went but I figured he'd tell me if he wanted me to know.

Then I fell back asleep.

And I was so exhausted by a day of celebration and an evening of more energetic celebration with my husband and me alone, I didn't notice the AC wasn't jacked up.

The next day...

4:15 p.m.

I drove through our development with Ty following me and my teeth clenched when I saw them hanging out, some cars but mostly vans with big aerials and dishes on top parked everywhere but in our drive. I hit the garage door opener with the timing I'd perfected from experience, knowing right when the signal caught so that I could roll up and not have to wait for the door to open and glide right in.

I usually glided right in. My journey right then was slowed by the reporters and cameramen converging on my baby just outside our drive and if one of them put a scratch in her, I was going to have to break my promise to Ty and lose my mind.

I kept my eyes straight and my car moved at a crawl, I hit driveway and they fell back but I couldn't exactly gun it and screech in as much as I wanted to.

Nina had warned that, regardless of the fact that she had made a statement to reporters outside her office in Gnaw Bone yesterday afternoon after the Governor of California issued his apology and pardoned Ty, and she also made another one late this morning after Ty and I woke up to a media maelstrom right outside our house, they wouldn't listen to her when she ended both saying, first, "This will be the only statement made on behalf of Mr. Tyrell Walker. Mr. Walker and his wife are relieved justice has finally been served and would now like to put this revolting episode behind them. They ask that you respect their wishes to move forward with their life in peace," and at the end of the second statement, "As I said yesterday, Mr. Walker and his wife do not wish to speak to the media. I ask again on their behalf that you please allow them to put this grueling event behind so they can carry on with their rightful but delayed freedom to enjoy their future unimpeded by further upheaval."

Obviously, they didn't listen to her.

It was okay when we were at work and when I say that, I mean it was okay for Ty. Wood, Pop and three mechanics made it clear that the forecourt was private property and unless they were getting work done on their cars, they were not to leave the sidewalk. The garage was set back a whack from the street and had some outbuildings in front of it. So Ty worked in peace.

I didn't even though Dominic called Daniel and Daniel, who had four inches and sixty pounds on his boyfriend and was also a serious mountain man, just a gay one, informed the reporters they were not invited in the Spa. Luckily, the clients coming in that day found walking through a river of reporters shouting questions very exciting.

I did not. The constant buzz from outside and the shouted questions anytime a client came through the door were nerve-wracking and a total let-down from the jubilation of the day before. I was high on relief and belated justice and they were cutting into my happy trip which was super uncool.

Nina assured us this would go away, it would take awhile but it would and we just needed to stay quiet and be patient.

Ty informed me that we were doing what Nina said we were doing, exercising the freedom to enjoy our future unimpeded by further upheaval and that included me not losing control on my sass and throwing any at annoying reporters.

I was thinking that to do this, I needed to evacuate the state of Colorado. I figured both Wood and Dominic would not balk at Ty and I taking a vacation however I was only back at work for a few weeks and I couldn't do that to Dominic after taking off on him once. Not even doing it to celebrate something as miraculous (albeit deserved) as what had happened to Ty or to escape the media onslaught.

So, it was put a clamp on my sass, something I promised my husband I would do.

Which was hard normally but now it was taking superhuman powers.

Ty glided the Snake in beside me and hit the garage door opener before he'd switched her off. I waited in my car and watched in the rearview mirror as the door fell, not getting out in order that they wouldn't get a shot of me coming out of my car like they did when I walked into and out of the salon that day, both times escorted by my husband who left work that morning in order to drive up and trail me down then walk me into the salon and then who showed at the salon when we were both off in order to escort me out to the Charger and trail me home. We should have taken one car but he wanted to go to the gym after work, a plan thwarted when the news people didn't go away all day.

As the door went down and settled, the shouts and cries of questions and requests for statements were drowned but not gone.

I got out, stood in my door and glared over the roof of the Charger at Ty as he folded out. He caught the look on my face, stopped dead and burst out laughing.

I didn't find anything funny therefore I slammed my door and stomped out of the garage, into the utility room and up the steps.

I'd crashed my purse down on the side counter and was listening to Ty coming up the stairs when something caught my eye and I froze, staring out the backdoor.

"No fucking way!" I shouted.

"What?" Ty asked.

I lifted an arm, pointed at a wide but flat-ish cardboard box leaning against the glass at the backdoor, turned to my husband and proclaimed, "If that's a box full of sick-ass sex tapes, I don't wanna know."

Ty's eyes were glued to the box, he moved through the kitchen, opened the door, tagged it, closed the door, locked it, swung the blinds closed, wound them shut and walked the box to the island all the while I stood there and glared.

His head turned to me and he muttered, "Pena."

I blinked, not prepared for that word to come out of his mouth. Then I asked, "What?"

The fingers of Ty's big, strong hands were already shoving through an opening at the side as he answered, "Express from Pena."

Great. This could mean anything and that included more sick-ass sex tapes.

I stomped to Ty as he tore the box open with his Mr. Humongo strength then he set it down, pulling out something inside that was wrapped in layers of bubble wrap. He tore that free and my breath stuck in my throat at what he unveiled.

It was a shining sun with wavy rays expanding out made of chips of Mexican tile artfully arranged and embedded in terracotta. It was unusual and extraordinary. I'd never seen anything like it.

It was magnificent.

Ty set it back on the pile of bubble wrap he'd shoved in the box and pulled out an envelope, slit it open with a finger and yanked out a card.

Then he whispered, "Fuck."

I got close and read the card held in his fingers.

On it, it said simply, "Welcome to sunshine, ese."

What should have been a happy day destroyed by annoying reporters melted instantly.

Just as instantly as I melted into tears.

And an instant later, I was in my husband's arms.

The sunshine Angel sent us was made to decorate the outside of a house.

Without me asking him to, Ty mounted it in the kitchen so we were sure to see it every day.

One day later...

We came home to another box. This was a bottle of champagne from Samuel Sterling. Nothing on the note except a scrawled, black "SS" which was super cool.

I looked up the label on the internet and found that bottle of champagne cost four hundred and fifty dollars.

Samuel Sterling was hot, rich and had class.

I got his number from Ty and phoned him to ask him to dinner that weekend. Considering he was in Paris, he couldn't make it but said he'd take a rain check.

Paris.

Totally, the dude had class.

Ty A week and a half later...

Ty's phone rang, he stepped away from the bike he was working on and pulled it out of his back pocket.

The number on the screen said it was withheld, he hesitated, opened it and put it to his ear.

"Yo."

"Is this Mr. Tyrell Walker?"