His beautiful eyes held mine.

Then he grunted, “Phone.”

I blinked.

Then I turned to my purse, dug in, pulled out my phone and handed it to him.

He took it and slid out of the booth, saying, “You finish, pay the bill. Meet you at the car.”

Then he walked out of the diner.

* * * * *

Ty

“Jackson,” Tatum Jackson said in Ty Walker’s ear.

“Jackson, Walker,” Ty Walker replied.

Silence for a long moment then, “Shit, f**kin’ hell, Ty?”

“Yep.”

Another pause then, “Shit, brother, you out?”

“Yep. Today.”

Another pause before, “Ty, f**k, Wood told me it was soon but I didn’t know it was today.” He paused again then quietly, “Fuck, Ty, good to hear from you, man.” Another pause then, “Where are you?”

Walker didn’t respond to that. Instead he said, “Got somethin’ I need you to do.”

More silence then, “Talk to me.”

“Alexa Anne Berry. Dallas resident. Buyer at Lowenstein’s department store. I need everything you can get on her.”

“Walker, I’m a bounty hunter, not a PI,” Jackson reminded him.

“You got resources. You got connections. I’m askin’ you to use them.”

Pause then, “Who is this woman?”

“I’m marryin’ her tomorrow.”

Silence.

Walker broke it. “You do this for me, I owe you.”

“You’re getting married?” Tate Jackson asked, disbelief clear in his tone.

“Yep.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Yep.”

“No joke?”

“Nope.”

“Fuckin’ hell, brother, who is she? How’d you meet her?”

“Doesn’t matter. You gonna look into her?”

Pause then, “I’ll do what I can do, Ty, but I don’t know how much I can pull together before tomorrow.”

“Doesn’t matter. We’re gettin’ married tomorrow, you find shit, I’ll deal with it.”

“Don’t you know her?”

Ty Walker thought about the woman he left behind in the booth.

He didn’t know her. Not at all.

He knew she had great f**king legs, fantastic f**king tits, a generous, round ass and more f**king hair than he’d ever seen on any woman’s head. It looked thick, it looked soft and he knew it’d feel good trailing on his skin. He knew she spoke with her eyes and her face even before words came out of her mouth. He knew he wanted to taste her pu**y and he knew he wanted it in a way that he’d want it even if he wasn’t in a situation where he hadn’t tasted any pu**y for five, very long f**king years.

And he knew he was going to marry her tomorrow.

“I know enough,” Walker answered.

Silence.

Then, “Ty, brother, is this a big setup? Can you delay? Give me a chance to –”

“I’m not asking for marriage counseling, Tate,” Walker said low. “I’m askin’ a favor. You gonna do that for me?”

Silence then, “You know I will.”

Walker knew he would.

“You comin’ home?” Jackson asked.

He felt his blood heat and his voice was like the rumble before the break of thunder when he whispered, “Oh yeah.”

More silence.

Jackson heard the rumble and Tatum Jackson was far from stupid so he knew what it meant.

Therefore Jackson stated, “You’re not gonna let it lie.”

No he f**king wasn’t. He was not going to f**king let it lie. No f**king way.

No f**king way.

He didn’t answer.

Jackson went on, “Best thing you could do is let it lie. It’s done. Move on. You come home, Wood’ll take you on. You don’t want that, we’ll find you something. You got friends, brother, and you know it. We’ll set you up.”

This was easy for him to say. Five years of his life hadn’t been stolen then flushed down the toilet. He didn’t have a record. He wasn’t an ex-con needing to lean on friends for a f**king job. He didn’t rot in a cell, sharing air with scum, eating shit food, no pu**y, no beer, told when he could sleep, when he could eat, when he could play ball, when he could work out, what he could wear, what he could read, watch on f**king television. No choice. No freedom. None. Constantly looking over his shoulder. Forced to use his fists to make his point and keep the jackals at bay.

All that shit for five years.

Five years.

Only to come out and have a tall, leggy, rounded, beautiful woman with a fantastic ass wearing a tight tank, short-shorts and sexy shoes back away from him and press herself into a car just because he leaned in to grab her f**king phone when that shit would not happen with any woman five years ago.

Yeah. Easy for him to say.

“I’ll talk to Wood when we get home,” Walker told him.

“That’d be good,” Jackson said quietly. “And it’ll be good to see you.”

Yeah. It would be good to see Tate. And Wood. And even Krystal though that bitch was a pain in the ass and she was a pain in the ass mostly because she was a bitch. Still, if she liked you, she was good people. If she liked you, she was the best people you could have. And luckily she liked him and she’d done what she could. So had Tate. So had Wood. So had Pop, Stella and Bubba. But none of them could do anything to stop the shit storm swirling around Ty Walker.

“I’ll look into Alexa,” Jackson said.

“Lexie,” Walker corrected.

“Come again?”

“She calls herself Lexie.”

“Right,” Jackson muttered, a smile in his voice, not getting it but thinking he did.

“Catch you at Bubba’s in a few days,” Walker said, referring to the bar Tate owned with Krystal.

“Lookin’ forward to it, Ty,” Jackson replied.

Walker flipped the phone shut.

Then he scanned the parking lot.

Then he saw the car that picked them up a mile from the prison.

Shit tail. Total shit. How did these f**king guys take him down? They were all part-idiot.

Except Fuller. Fuller was all ass**le. All ass**le with a badge. Not a good combination.

His eyes moved from the car into the diner. Lexie was at their table, paying the waitress while smiling at her.

He took in that smile.

The bitch had a fantastic smile. Nearly as good as her tits, not as good as her ass and nowhere near as good as her legs, still, it was good.