He’d spent years doing everything he could to sort their shit. At first, young, stupid and in love with her, he’d knocked himself out to get her everything she wanted. But even when he laid it at her feet, she just wanted more. Then he’d done everything he could think to do to find out what drove her to these needs so he could guide her to understanding them and she could work through them. This didn’t work either. No matter how many talks they had, or, in the end, fights, her behavior didn’t change. Often, she promised it would, swore she’d “do better” and she might, for a week, a month. But then she’d lapse right back into it. At the start, she didn’t hide her spending. In the end, she did. How the fuck she thought he wouldn’t figure it out since he paid their bills, they had a joint account and she didn’t work, he had no clue. She just didn’t.

The pressure built. For his part, it built along with his frustration at being in debt and having a wife who lied to him consistently. For Audrey’s part, even though she never admitted it, it had to do with feelings of guilt that mingled with anger at herself that she couldn’t control her addiction.

And since she couldn’t, he got free of her. And, free of her, he enjoyed himself.

Of all the women he enjoyed himself with, Dusty was the one he’d enjoyed the most. Not only in bed, and she was by far the best he’d had since Audrey, before Audrey and including Audrey, but also out of it. Funny, engaging and open, Dusty let it all hang out. She didn’t hide shit. Not her pain. Not her humor. Not her anger at her sister. Not her thoughts about the world.

And he liked that. Too much. And with her being Dusty, their history, the special bond that they had when they were younger that seemed to snap right into place and tighten exponentially nearly the instant they were back together, he let himself be reeled in. Just like Vi who had done the same, straight off the bat giving him that open sharing, having the opposite for years with Audrey, he let himself get caught up in it.

But apparently, unlike Vi, who was going through some serious shit too when he met her, Dusty’s openness was bullshit. She had a night in a hotel room with her family close but her anger at her sister wouldn’t allow her to be with them. He walked right up to her room and gave her an opportunity not to spend that time alone. So she took it and, doing it, used him.

And Jesus, he hadn’t even been with her an entire fucking day and that shit stung too.

“Fuck,” he whispered as he heard the lock click on the door.

He turned and watched her walk in. Her masses of hair was down and tumbling around her shoulders and over her chest. Her face was free of makeup and the pallor he noticed yesterday was gone, her cheeks pink from the cold. She was wearing the black turtleneck from yesterday and the black boots but she’d added the faded jeans. She wasn’t wearing the denim blazer but instead a gray suede jacket that hung long on her hips and had fringe along the arms. Any other woman, fuck, anyone, female or male, wore a suede jacket with fringe, Mike, a small town Indiana man through and through and not a cowboy by a long shot, would find that amusing.

It looked fucking great on Dusty.

She had her black also fringed purse dangling from her shoulder, a big, white baker’s box in her hands and balanced visibly precariously on top were two large, white paper cups he knew by their plastic lids and cardboard sleeves were coffee.

Her eyes hit his, she smiled and said, “Awesome, you’re up.” Then he lost her attention as she moved through the room toward him, eyes on the box she was balancing and she muttered, “Grab the coffees, babe. We do not need tragedy in the form of the genius of Hilligoss consumed without coffee to wash it down.”

She stopped in front of him, he took the cups and tried to calm his temper. The minute he took them, she moved to the bed, put the box on it and then shrugged her bag off her shoulder, turning and tossing the clearly expensive purse carelessly across the bed to the chair.

She did this talking.

“I learned this morning you never lose the sixth sense only those born and raised in The ‘Burg have.” Her gaze came to him and she was grinning, her dark brown eyes dancing as she announced with mock gravity, “The Hilligoss Sense.” She turned away and was shrugging off her coat and ditto with tossing it across the bed to the chair as she continued, “Got there upon opening on a Sunday. Meant I was fifth in line.” She turned back to him, still smiling. “Got my choice of the whole plethora of Hilligoss delights. I bought two dozen. A Hilligoss smorgasbord. Babe, at home, I dream of a white baker’s box filled with Hilligoss goodness. Outside of my family, it’s the best part of coming home.”

“Beau called.”

She blinked at his words. Then her eyes moved over his face.

“Three times,” Mike finished.

Dusty held his eyes.

Then, to his surprise, she shifted so her back was to the bed and she flopped right down on it.

Lifting both her hands to her face, she muttered from behind them, “Fuck. Beau. Clueless. Clue…less! Fuck!”

“Gave me a message,” Mike carried on, walking the coffees to the nightstand and shoving shit aside to put them there. He straightened and concluded, “Says he wants his woman to call him. Immediately.”

Her hands went away from her face and just her head bent up so her eyes could find his.

“He called me his woman?”

“Yep.”

“To you?”

“Yep.”

“And you’re sure he wasn’t talking about, say, some other woman who is absolutely not me.”

“Yep.”

She stared at him.

Then her head fell back as her hands came down hard, her arms and palms slapping the bedclothes.

“That fucking fucker!” she snapped to the ceiling.

Mike stared at her.

It appeared he’d made another erroneous call about Dusty Holliday.

Fuck.

He walked to the bed and entered it, settling on a hip with one hand to her stomach, the other hand in the bed. Looming over her he watched her glare at the ceiling.

“I take it he’s full of shit,” Mike muttered and just her eyeballs rolled to him.

“Yeah, Mike, Beau is full…of…shit.” She paused then snapped loudly, “Shit!”

Then she suddenly knifed up and leaned to the side. Reaching out, she snatched her phone off the nightstand. Then she sat back and Mike fell to a forearm as he watched her finger sliding and jabbing on the screen of her phone.

She put it to her ear, waited as she crossed her legs then irritably started bouncing a cowboy-booted foot and within seconds began talking.

Or, more to the point, hissing.

“Are you fucking nuts?” Pause then, “No, Beau, don’t answer that. I know you are. First, my brother is dead, it isn’t even seven in the morning my time, in Texas it’s earlier and you’re phoning me?” This ended in a question but she didn’t give him time to answer before she continued sarcastically. “You think, maybe, if I’m sleeping, I might want to sleep instead of getting a phone call from my ex-boyfriend who didn’t catch the big, honkin’ clue I shot his way when I kicked his ass out that we…are…over?” Again, she didn’t wait for a reply, she kept going. “And second, we’re over! For the last time stop calling me!”

Then she took the phone from her ear, jabbed her finger at the screen, hit a button on the side then twisted her torso and tossed it over Mike to the chair. It bounced on her clothes and bag and settled.

She flopped to her back in front of him again, her body bouncing too before it settled.

Then she grumbled, “He ruined Hilligoss goodness shared with a hot guy.”

Mike couldn’t help it. Five minutes before, he was pissed and convinced he’d been played.

Right then, he thought she was fucking hilarious.

So he burst out laughing.

When he was done and looked down at her, she surprised him again. This was because she no longer appeared pissed, she was grinning.

“So I take it you and that guy are over,” Mike drawled and then he got to watch as Dusty burst out laughing.

Fuck, her laughter was as musical as her voice. He’d forgotten that too. Until last night when he got that gift back. And just like everything about her, with maturity, it had gotten a fuckuva lot better.

He settled his hand on her stomach again, felt it tremble with her laughter and watched her hilarity play out, enjoying every second.

Still chuckling, her eyes came to him and she confirmed, “Yeah, babe, Beau and me are over.”

This was good news.

But what went down that morning was not and he wasn’t thinking about his again jumping to conclusions but Beau whoever-the-fuck acting like a psycho.

“Do I need to be worried about this?” he asked quietly and, with regret, watched the humor die from her eyes.

“I wanna say no,” she answered just as quietly. “But, it kills me, this shit this morning, he called yesterday and asked if I wanted him to come up to be with me…I’m not getting a good feeling.”

Mike wasn’t either.

She got up on her elbows and gave him her entire focus which included her openness.

“We were together a while, two and a half years. Part of that, he was moved in with me. It went bad a while ago. I’m not getting any younger, I want kids and in the beginning, it was good. I fought for it. Beau’s clueless and he didn’t. I kicked him out four months ago. That woke his shit up but it was too late. It was just over and I was moving on. I wasn’t going back. I’m not going back. He’s not getting that. He can be stubborn and I know he cares about me so, at first, it was just a nuisance. Now, it’s getting a little crazy.” Her gaze drifted to her phone. “And this morning, whacked.” Her eyes came back to him. “He really told you I was his woman?”