I watched.

Then I asked, "So, are you gonna ask Faye out?"

His neck bent so just his head tipped back and he skewered me with his blue eyes.

"Okay, okay," I muttered. "Yeesh."

He looked back at his papers and kept scribbling.

Poppy served my cheeseburger, curly fries and diet at the table.

I squirted an enormous mound of ketchup on my plate while commenting, "By the way, you're hot but you're super hot when you get angry."

His neck bent so his head tipped back again and he scowled at me.

"Just sayin'," I muttered, digging a fry into my ketchup, popping it into my mouth and deciding against telling him his scowl proved my point.

I continued to do this and after I picked up my burger and took a big bite, Chace spoke and he did this to his papers.

"Walker gonna lose his mind, find me and rip my head off when he finds out you were sittin' here with me?"

"Nope," I said through half-munched burger.

His neck bent and head tipped back again. "Nope?"

I shook my head, swallowed and grinned. "Well, he might not invite you to our child's christening but, like me, he's grateful for what you did. If you're not thinking that and instead thinking he's jealous, nope again. You're not my type. I'm not into blonds. But you know who is?" I asked.

"Lex " he started.

I finished quickly, "Faye Goodknight."

He sat back again but this time his eyes rolled to the ceiling.

"You do know I'm on a mission," I informed him then took another bite of burger.

His eyes came back to me.

I chewed, swallowed and explained, "When women get all loved up, they do this. They want to spread the joy."

He just stared at me.

"They get obsessed with it," I went on.

Chace sighed.

"So you should probably just give in," I finished.

He shook his head then bent it back to his papers again but I could swear he did it while his lips twitched.

Good.

I finished my lunch in silence while Chace Keaton scribbled and moved papers around and studied some photos and scribbled some more. When I was done, I opened my purse, pulled out money to cover my lunch and the tip and tucked it under my plate.

Then I announced, "Well! Off to get a library card. See you later, Chace."

Before he could say anything, I slid out of the booth.

But when I was out of the diner and walking along the sidewalk in front of it, I looked into the window to the back booth and saw a pair of attractive blue eyes on me.

And they were smiling.

And it wasn't the only thing on Chace Keaton's face that was smiling.

So when I lost sight of him, it was my turn to smile.

Angel One and a half weeks later...

"You are fuckin' shittin' me," Angel Pena clipped to the DA.

"Nope, failure to appear. Jumped bond," the DA replied.

Angel shook his head.

Duane "Shift" Martinez. A pain in his ass.

"Means your afternoon is free, Angel," the DA went on.

Angel didn't want a free afternoon. He wanted to sit in the courtroom and watch then testify at Martinez's preliminary hearing.

Shit.

"Head's up, you need to make sure the paperwork is processed so his bondsman knows real fuckin' quick that he's FTA. He doesn't get someone out on this guy's ass right away, he can kiss his bail money good-bye," Angel advised.

"No bondsman posts bail without collateral," the DA returned.

"Martinez is known to fib about collateral. The bondsman got dibs on Shift's Momma's house, he's gonna learn soon Shift has no Momma. I don't know what he put up, I just know there's a twenty-eighty chance he don't got it."

"No bondsman is that dumb," the DA replied.

"The one who bonded out Martinez is. He's already kissin' ten percent of his bond good-bye 'cause he needs a bounty hunter to round him up. Shift was a huge flight risk. He took flight. This is not a surprise. Martinez perpetrated the ultimate fuck to his best fuckin' friend, you think he won't fuck his bondsman on collateral, you're whacked. The longer this shit is delayed; the more chance Martinez has to get to Mexico."

Or Colorado but, pray God, Angel hoped not.

He watched the DA's mouth get tight.

Then he watched him pull out his phone.

Message received.

Angel jerked up his chin and walked on his cowboy boots out of the courtroom and through the halls of the courthouse automatically listing in his head who would get calls and their priority.

First, Ty Walker.

He was pushing through the front doors of the courthouse, pulling his phone from his inside jacket pocket when the drive-by happened.

The automatic weapon fire took down three innocent bystanders.

It also drilled four rounds into Detective Angel Pena, the intended target.

Chapter Twenty-One.

He Took That Too Ty Ty stood, hip against the kitchen counter, eating oatmeal and watching his wife shuffle around the kitchen fixing her own oatmeal and a travel mug of coffee for him.

His eyes slid from her, his torso twisting, his gaze moving to the latest addition in their house.

Next to the fireplace, a black frame, in it two sheets of glass and pressed between that glass side by side were two pieces of paper with the logo of the hotel in Vegas where they'd stayed when they were married. The first was her note to him and the second was his note to her the next day.

For reasons he didn't know and didn't process mostly because they were obvious and didn't need processing, he carried her note with him every day, in the morning with his wallet and phone, shoving it in his pocket so his was ragged and worn. A little over a week ago, Lexie had discovered it. He was taking a shower after coming back from the gym; she was sorting out his gym bag after setting his protein shake on the vanity.

She'd probably handled it numerous times but his woman gave him privacy, one of the multitudes of things he loved about her. When he was ready to share, she was there. Until that time, she gave him space.

Why she unfolded it that night, he didn't know or ask. But when he came out of the shower with a towel around his hips, she was sitting on their bed. Without delay or words, she lifted up the unfolded note, words out and showed it to him.

Then her other hand came up and she lifted up an identical piece of paper, this had folds in but it was not worn and it was his much shorter message.

She'd kept his note too. It only had one word and two letters on it but she'd kept it.

He felt the roots of that thing inside him dig deeper. It was embedded in a way it would never go away but that didn't mean, frequently, it didn't push deeper, swell and spread.

His eyes went from the notes to her.

"I carry it in my wallet," she whispered, her head tipped back, her face soft and he knew in about five seconds she would start bawling.

So he walked to her, carefully pulled the pieces of paper out of her hand, set them on the nightstand, bent deep, wrapped his arms around his wife picking her up, planting her deeper in the bed and then he pulled off his towel.

Then he took his time fucking her.

This was his means to the end of stopping his woman from crying. It was also, as it usually was, fucking brilliant.

She didn't tell him she was taking it to the frame shop but he came home the night before to see it mounted on the wall. No one would get it and most would probably look at it and think it was whacked.

He didn't give a fuck.

When she wrote her note to him, she was already falling in love with him. When he'd written hers, he was already gone. They'd known each other days but, keeping those notes, they knew. And that frame was a reminder of what they knew and when they knew it.

Ty fucking loved it.

He didn't use words to tell her that because he didn't need to. He'd frozen when he saw it and when his body was at his command again, his eyes found hers. He said nothing but held her eyes until she smiled. He smiled back. Then he went up the stairs to take a shower and she went to the blender.

"Okay," she said and he twisted back to see her screwing the lid on his travel mug, "your assignment today is to think about something."

Ty made no response, just shoveled in more oatmeal.

She grabbed his mug, picked up her bowl of oatmeal and moved to him, standing close, smack in his space, as she always did, setting his mug by his hip, as she always did and lifting her bowl up in front of her, which was new. He didn't know if his baby inside her was changing her program or the onset of winter was. She was eating more. Most nights, she stretched out beside him to watch TV and crashed within minutes, that was to say, around seven thirty. Instead of just pulling on her panties when she'd cleaned up after they were done at night, she tugged on drawstring shorts and a tee or a nightie and climbed in beside him. She had on a nightie now and thick slouchy socks. It was November and they'd already had snow that didn't go away. She was from Dallas. Dallas didn't get snow and the temperatures rarely fell below freezing. Her blood was thin. She wasn't used to it. She also didn't complain. She knew she would get used to it.

She kept talking. "Supply is exceeding demand for Dominic at the spa. He rents out his rooms in the back to the massage therapist and skin technician. The massage therapist only works part-time and her appointments are now six weeks out. The skin technician is a little flaky and it isn't unheard of that she misses appointments and when she comes in, nearly every day, she's usually late so her appointments run late. That reflects on Nic, not her and he's not a big fan of that."

She stopped talking; Ty swallowed the last mouthful of oatmeal and set his bowl on the counter.

Then he prompted, "You're telling me this because...?"

"I think I want to go to school to do one or the other or maybe even both. They make three times as much as I make, I'd never screw over Dominic and they have it sweet. It's like, the best job in the world. A woman looks forward to a massage or a facial; it's the highlight of her day so, in a way, you giving it to her makes you the highlight of her day. It'd be cool getting paid to do something people look forward to, being the highlight of their day and, when they leave you, they feel relaxed and peaceful. I think that would be awesome."

"Do it," Tyr replied and Lexie blinked.

"Uh... maybe you should think about it. First, it costs money to go to school. Second, it'll mean me being away in the evenings, third "

Ty cut her off. "Babe, do it."

"But, we have "

He lifted a hand, wrapped it around the side of her neck and asked, "You wanna do this?"

She nodded.

"Do it."

His woman held his eyes. Then she grinned.

Then she said, "Okay, I'll do it."

He gave her neck a squeeze before he released it but only to move his arm to slide around her waist and bring her closer, muttering. "Payback is me gettin' rubdowns from my wife when I get back from the gym."

She set her bowl aside, lifted her hands to rest them on his chest, rolled her eyes and said to the ceiling. "I'm not even enrolled in classes yet and he expects freebies."

"God don't care about me expecting freebies."

She rolled her eyes back and retorted, "God cares about everything."