Sorrow suffused her face and she whispered, “Oh, Lanie.”

“I see his eyes open and staring at me. He looks surprised. Not just in my dream. When it happened. He was dead but still, he looked surprised.”

She grabbed my hand and squeezed.

“I think he was surprised I didn’t save him.”

I watched the tears start shimmering in her eyes.

“I wanted a man who’d save me,” I confessed.

“Maybe, if you looked, you can find that man,” she suggested.

That wasn’t going to happen.

“I think I need to give that more time,” I evaded.

“Lanie, honey, I want to be sensitive but don’t you think that seven—?” She stopped talking and turned her head just as my eyes shot to the sliding glass doors because we both heard a Harley roar up to the back of my house.

My entire body strung tight.

“Tack knows I have my car and he doesn’t have to come and get me. God, do you think something’s up with the boys?” she asked, setting her wineglass aside, quickly getting up from the couch and hustling to the door.

She was out the door and in the courtyard when I heard the Harley roar away.

I closed my eyes.

It wasn’t Hop.

“How weird was that?” Tyra asked, back in the house, and I looked at her.

“Weird, sweetie,” I agreed.

She walked back to me and sat. “Could swear that bike came right up to your garage but it was gone before I got to the back gate.”

“Maybe bad sat nav directions,” I murmured.

She grabbed her wine. I followed suit.

Again, she got her sip in before I did and thus she could sock it to me.

“Mitch and Brock have a guy they want you to meet.”

“Ty-Ty—”

She shook her head. “I know Tack talked about him with you, he was going to call Mitch about it but maybe things with Tabby got him off track. I’m going to call Mara, get things back on track.”

“This really is too soon,” I told her.

“You wait any longer, honey, it’s going to be too late,” she replied, her voice sweet but firm.

I closed my mouth because she wasn’t wrong. But she also was and I couldn’t explain how.

“Right, I want you to do two things for me,” she started and when I nodded, she continued. “One, think about going to counseling. Even if it’s short-term counseling, get rid of those dreams. Talk to someone about Kansas City. Try to let that go.”

I could do that.

And I should do that.

It was time.

“Okay,” I agreed, then took a sip of wine.

“Second, go on this date with Mitch’s buddy,” she stated, and I nearly choked on my wine.

“Ty-Ty!” I cried when I recovered.

“Not tomorrow, not next week, just let Mitch give him your number. Talk to him on the phone. Get to know him a bit. Then,” she grinned, “maybe the week after that, just meet for coffee. No pressure. Just coffee.”

I stared at her a moment before I suggested, “How about this? You corral Elvira and maybe Gwen and go on a reconnaissance mission. Find this guy, follow him around, get pictures, go through his trash, stuff like that. And, in a month or so, report back to me and I’ll make my decision then.”

“I’m not going through trash,” she replied.

“Get Elvira to do it.”

“Lanie, do you know Elvira? I’ve never seen that woman in jeans. She is not going to wear one of her fabulous dresses and heels and go through trash. Hell, she’s just not going to go through some guy’s trash.”

“Maybe Gwen will,” I kept trying.

Her eyebrows shot up. “Okay, now, do you know Gwen?”

That was true. Gwen wouldn’t do it, either.

“Maybe we could get Gwen to get Hawk to—”

Ty-Ty broke in. “Let Mitch give him your number.”

I ignored her. “Or maybe I could just go and talk to Hawk and Gwen won’t have to—”

“Lanie!” she exclaimed on a laugh. “It’s just giving a guy your number. If you don’t like the sound of his voice or he’s a terrible conversationalist, you don’t even have to have coffee. But let Mitch give him your number.”

She thought I was being crazy mostly because I was but that was my way.

She also didn’t know about Hop. She would. It was just that I figured I’d tell her that later, after we got the tough stuff we were currently processing out of the way.

This all meant that I had no choice.

“All right, tell Mitch to give this guy my number.”

She grinned huge.

I sucked back more wine.

“I’m so glad we did this.”

I stopped sucking back wine at the tone of her voice. It wasn’t smiling. It was thick.

“Ty-Ty, sweetie,” I said softly.

“You don’t cry anymore,” she told me and I blinked.

“What?”

“You used to cry at the drop of a hat. You don’t cry anymore.”

I swallowed before I shared, “I fight it. I… don’t want to be that woman anymore.”

“Nothing wrong with that woman, honey.”

“Crying is weak,” I declared.

“Crying is a release and if you let yourself feel the feelings your mind is telling you to feel rather than fighting them, maybe you could let some of this stuff go.”

This idea held merit so I gave her a small smile

“I’ve been so worried about my girl,” she admitted and I felt the guilt hit me again like a moving brick wall going at the speed of sound.

“I’m a terrible friend,” I announced.

“You’re a woman who went on the lam with her fiancé, watched him die and got shot in the process. That’s big shit to deal with. I let it go on too long. I’m a terrible friend.”

“You didn’t know what to do,” I defended her. “Tack told me, you were torn and didn’t want to set me off.”

“Well, that’s true,” she agreed.

“So I should have noticed you were worried, come to you sooner and ended it,” I stated and she smiled.

“I’m thinking we could talk about who was the worse friend until we’re old and gray,” she said.

“Maybe, but I suggest we don’t since I don’t think this bottle of wine will last that long,” I returned.

She made a choking noise then burst out laughing.

I grabbed her hand, held tight and smiled.

When she stopped laughing, we sipped more wine, then I squeezed her hand until she looked at me.

“I’m going to be okay,” I shared and strangely, the words came out resolved.

I meant it.

I would.

And I knew that because, throughout the conversation, my monster hadn’t made an appearance.

Not once.

I didn’t fool myself it was over. It was just that, the first step was easy so maybe the next ones wouldn’t be so hard.

It was bittersweet to admit that Hop had been right. We talked and Ty-Ty felt better.

So did I.

“I know,” she replied.

She believed in me.

Yes, maybe the next steps wouldn’t be so hard.

“Mostly, I’ll be okay because I’ve got you,” I whispered.

She pressed her lips together.

I lunged toward her and hugged her.

Ty-Ty, my best girl, hugged me back.

* * *

Tyra had been gone for five minutes when I heard the Harley pipes pulling up my back alley.

I was standing at the sink, rinsing out the wineglasses and I went still. My eyes slowly moved to the back doors when those pipes stopped in my back drive.

Oh God.

Had it been Hop who came earlier? Did he see Tyra’s car in my drive and ride away?

The answer to these questions came clear when I saw him walk through the gate and into my courtyard.

Oh God!

Damn.

I watched him, eyes on me, walk through my courtyard.

Right. This was okay. I’d locked the door. I always locked the doors. I would ignore him, finish rinsing the wineglasses, turn out the lights, go upstairs and fall apart up there where he couldn’t see.

I turned off the water, set the glass aside and did all of this with my eyes on Hop, who came right to the glass door but didn’t knock. He didn’t call. He crouched, pulling something out of the back pocket of his jeans. Then he worked at the lock.

My mouth dropped open.

I heard the lock click.

My breath caught in my throat.

Wow.

He picked my lock.

He straightened and walked in, sliding the door closed behind him.

I stood staring at him, statue-still.

He took three steps in, stopped and asked, “You talk to Tyra?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“No, babe, did you talk to Tyra?”

“Yes,” I whispered.

“Good,” he whispered back and God, that whisper, full of pride and relief.

It killed.

I straightened my shoulders. “Hop—”

“Now we gotta talk,” he declared.

I shook my head. “That isn’t happening.”

“Lanie, I gave you some time. Now we gotta sort this shit out.”

Oh. He didn’t show last night because he was giving me time.

That was nice.

And supremely unfortunate because it was too late.

“There’s nothing to sort. It’s over,” I announced.

“Babe,” he leaned toward me, “it isn’t.”

“Hopper,” I leaned toward him, “it is.”

He leaned back and studied me.

Then he said, “What we got, you know, it’s worth gettin’ past this.”

“I know what we have and it isn’t worth that work,” I retorted and his body twitched.

“Come again?”

I threw out a hand. “I know how this goes, Hopper. I’ve been here before. I fall for a guy and he makes stuff about me he doesn’t like clear, and I knock myself out to stop doing that stuff, and I’m not me anymore.”