He didn’t answer. He’d buy her an expensive dinner to celebrate her getting a job and he’d buy her an expensive dinner to celebrate the fact that he woke up next to her. In time, she’d come to know that without him saying it and she’d come to know that because that was what he intended to give her.

Instead of speaking, he stared at the ceiling he could see in the moonlight. Wood planks and beams. And he felt the soft bed underneath him, Lexie’s softness at his side. Not cement and industrial paint overhead. Hard, thin mattress under him. Narrow bed that didn’t fit his frame and allowed no room to move. And no chance in hell of pu**y tucked to his side, definitely not sweet, classy pu**y who dressed nice, laughed often and didn’t give a f**k who saw her run across the forecourt of a garage on high heels and launch herself into his grease-stained arms just because she found herself a part-time job as a receptionist in a f**king salon.

He stared at the ceiling and waited for it.

Then it happened, her weight settled. She’d found sleep.

Then he waited again.

She detached in her sleep and rolled away.

When she did Walker did what he always did. He moved out of bed and across the room to one of three thermostats in the house. He jacked the AC up then turned to move back to the bed but stopped when he saw her purse on the dresser, it was open, the stuff inside spilling out.

Instead of going back to bed, he moved there and tagged the digital camera. He turned it on and moved his thumb over the buttons on the side, the screen displaying the pictures. Three she made their waitress at The Rooster take of them cuddled in one side of a booth. But he stopped on one.

Lexie’s head turned and tipped back, facing him but even in profile you could see her smiling big, her nose pressed to the underside of his jaw, filled champagne glasses on the table in front of them. Her arm was wrapped around his middle, his arm around her shoulders, his head was partially turned to her, dipped down, his eyes were closed and he remembered what he was thinking with his eyes closed. Lexie pressed into his side, feeling her tits, smelling her hair and perfume, knowing she was smiling because she’d just been laughing. He was thinking something whacked, so whacked it was f**king insane.

He was thinking he didn’t mind doing that time because he walked out and found all that.

Standing there, staring at the display, Walker remembered her sitting in the booth after the waitress gave back the camera, head bent, looking at the photos on the display and muttering, “Need another frame. The mantel is looking naked.”

Her muttering had proved him right. She was making him a home, them a home because she’d never had one either, and she intended to keep doing it.

He turned off the camera and set it on the dresser. Then he joined her in bed, curling into her back, his arm going around her pulling her close. He did this every night since he took a shot at trusting her and made them a them. And like every night, in her sleep, she snuggled closer before settling and he knew she wouldn’t detach because every morning since they became them he woke up with his wife tucked right there.

And like every night since they became them, he fell asleep smelling her hair, not a correctional institute filled with men, feeling her body tight against his, not rough covers, the air cool, not hot as f**k and moonlight shining through huge-ass windows not small ones covered by bars.

But that night, he fell asleep thinking it was whacked, f**king insane but it was true.

He didn’t mind doing that time when doing it meant he would walk out to Lexie.

Chapter Eleven

Filled with Brightness

“Babe.”

I looked up at Ty’s call to see he was standing in the opened, wood framed glass door to the front deck, hand still on the handle, a funny look on his face

It was Sunday, a week and a half after I got my job and we’d celebrated and it had been a week and a half where I’d spent a good amount of effort at keeping him distracted from his grand plan o’ vengeance.

And, as far as I knew, I’d been successful.

Mostly, I did this with sex.

But we couldn’t have sex every minute we weren’t working or eating (alas) so I’d had to get creative.

And that creativity was helped by Laurie, who came into the salon to have her hair cut and highlighted. While she was waiting for Dominic to finish with a client, I’d shared with her my deck plant vision but lack of experience seeing as I’d lived in an apartment the entirety of my adult life but had managed to keep a houseplant alive for a few years so I had hope if not knowledge. In return, she’d shared that Betty of Ned and Betty owned the Carnal Hotel and the healthy, abundant flowers outside were her doing. Then she’d phoned Betty while sitting in Dominic’s chair and about seven seconds later Betty had walked through the doors of Carnal Spa to give me a very long but friendly lecture about keeping outdoor plants alive in the Colorado Mountains.

I took notes.

Three pages of them.

Dominic’s “spa”, by the way, was really just a hair stylist that did manis and pedis. But Dominic’s g*y partner Daniel was building a couple of rooms at the back where he was hoping to expand into facials and massages.

“If the biker babes in this freaking town do facials and massages,” he’d said. “Color me stunned when I found out the bitches got manis and pedis. Been living amongst them for years, still do not understand them. I get you wanna dip your toe into rough and tumble but attach your ball and chain to it? Uh… no. When your man doesn’t bother to shave or get a haircut, my guess would be you wouldn’t want a French pedicure. But I started that trade and those biker bitches were all over it. There you go. I may be f**ked with facials, that might be taking it a shade too far, but you can’t know unless you try.”

By the way, my pay stunk but Dominic was hysterical, the work was entirely stress free, I got paid enough to cover the gas to drive down and then some, it was something to do with my days, it was doing something where I met half the town (the female half) and it came with free manis and pedis and half off Dominic doing your hair. And since he was a master and I liked my manis and pedis, I thought it was awesome.

So, since I had Betty’s tutelage, the minute Ty got home on Saturday afternoon, I pounced.

And I did this by announcing, “Garden center is open on Saturday until eight.”

To this he’d replied distractedly, head bent to his phone, thumb moving over the keypad, texting someone, “Go on, mama, I got somethin’ I need to do.”

Alarm bells sounded since he didn’t share that something he needed to do. It wasn’t like we were attached at the hip but unless he was working out, there weren’t many somethings he had to do that took him away from me and I suspected the something he had to do was vengeance related.