But I grinned.

“Not another word,” Tod warned.

Indy opened her mouth to give him another word.

He gave her The Hand. “No. Sadie’s a millionaire. I have no budget. None at all. I’m pulling out all the stops. She told me I could. And anyway, Stella and Mace are going to be married on a beach in Hawaii.”

“We are?” Mace muttered to Stella, and I heard Stella’s throaty laugh.

Tod must not have heard any of that because he kept going.

“And everyone knows Ally’s going to do something like elope to Vegas. So this is my last shot at greatness. Not that I didn’t kick butt with your wedding,” he said to Indy, then turned his attention to Jet. “And yours too, girlie.”

He had, indeed, kicked butt with both of their weddings. It seemed practice made perfect because Indy’s was awesome, Jet’s was fantastic, and Roxie and Hank’s was the bomb. Not to mention, plans for Ava’s were far from shabby. So without a budget, Sadie’s was undoubtedly going to rock.

It also should be noted that going to Vegas was what I had always wanted to do.

However, I wasn’t certain how Catholics felt about Vegas.

I added this on my mental list to discuss with the nun or priest who Ren set me up with for my literal come to Jesus (and Mary, God and the Holy Spirit) meeting and shared, “I’m thinking it might be a full mass.”

Tod’s head snapped to me, his eyes alight.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Jet, the voice of experience, said under her breath to me.

“Seriously?” Tod cried.

“Unless there’s a Catholic priest who dresses like Elvis and has a wedding chapel in Sin City, yeah,” I answered.

“Oh girlie,” Tod’s eyes were getting bright, “you’ve made me so happy.”

Don’t think I was crazy. I was a Rock Chick. In for a penny, in for a pound.

Tod lifted his hands to the sides of his head and wriggled his fingers, announcing, “I feel it! It’s coming over me! You!” He suddenly pointed at me. “Buttery yellow, the creamiest of creams and a bright grass green. You,” he pointed at Stella, “a white bikini, I’m thinking crochet, a lei, maybe a band of flowers around your forehead, and a fabulous sarong.”

Again with Mace muttering, this time through a smile, “That works for me.”

“Tropical island paradise will be your theme,” Tod kept at it and looked at Indy. “And Sadie, ice blue and shimmery glittering winter white.”

That wasn’t bad for Sadie. In fact, perfect.

But no way I was doing yellow and green.

Red and maybe black.

If the Pope approved.

I didn’t share this with Tod. Mostly because the door opened, Ava blasted through it and sauntering in on her heels was Luke with a half-grin going.

Ava did not have a half-grin. She was fuming.

“Tod,” she snapped. “I’m here, but not for the final-final-read-through-preliminary-to-the-finalized-final-final-read-through.”

Clearly she’d got the memo.

“I’m here because the wedding is off!” she finished.

“No!” Tod exclaimed, then proceeded not to react to the dire news that it appeared Ava and Luke were at odds (then again, that happened occasionally; she busted his chops often and Luke, having chops of steel, got off on it) but to something else. “It’s too late to get any of the deposits back!”

“Calm down, man, the wedding isn’t off,” Luke announced.

“It is,” Ava retorted angrily, whirling on her man.

“It isn’t,” Luke replied calmly, staring down his nose at his woman.

“Are you going to dance with me?” she asked.

“Vertically?” he asked back, and I pressed my lips together in order not to laugh.

“Yes!” she snapped.

“Yeah, baby,” he said. “I’ll dance with you vertically, in the bathroom on the plane on the way to Bermuda.”

This was not the answer she was looking for, therefore she whirled back to Tod and ordered, “Start making calls. It’s over.”

“I’m not… I can’t… it’s…” Tod stammered, hand to his throat, eyes wide and filled with panic. Then he shrieked, “The custom order baby blue, aqua and teal M&M’s have already arrived! There’s nine pounds of them already parceled out and ribboned up for wedding gifts! What am I going to do with nine pounds of baby blue, aqua and teal M&M’s?”

“Give them to me,” Ava retorted. “I intend to eat them all in one sitting.”

“Don’t make any calls, Tod,” Luke contradicted Ava’s order as he also ignored her response to Tod.

Ava again whirled on Luke. “I’m not marrying a man who can’t set aside the badass for three minutes in order to dance at our wedding.”

“Yes you are,” Luke replied.

It was at that, Ava had had enough.

I knew this when she shouted, “I’ve been in love with you since I was eight! And I’ve been dreaming of dancing with you at our wedding,” she leaned toward him, “since I was eight! And if you can’t give me three minutes of that drea—”

She didn’t finish.

This was because Luke’s hand flashed out, caught her behind the neck and pulled her to him so she landed face first in his chest. He then bent his neck and his face disappeared from my view as he spoke in Ava’s ear.

But I saw Ava’s face get soft. Then softer. Then the hands she had curled in his tee at his sides uncurled so she could wrap her arms around him.

Luke’s head lifted.

Ava’s neck twisted so she could look at Tod. “Don’t make any calls, babe.”

Tod heaved an audible sigh of relief prior to collapsing into a chair by his albums.

I did not know if this meant Luke was dancing with Ava at their wedding or not.

I just knew that whatever he said made Ava happy.

And seeing that, thinking on how Eddie was with his pregnant wife, and knowing Mace was standing with Stella only a few feet away and she’d barely been out of the curve of his arm in the fifteen minutes they were, what Ren said in that motel room two days before hit me.

And it hitting me made me reach to my back pocket and pull out my phone. I started it up, touched the button to send a text and typed in, Tonight. Post date. Cowgirl, lotus, doggie. Then I hit send.

With the most recent crisis in Fortnum’s diverted, I shoved my phone back in my pocket and moved out from behind the counter to do a sweep of the tables to gather empties when I heard the store phone ring just as my phone at my ass binged.

I yanked it out and saw I had two texts from Ren.

The first, Not positions. Locations. Stairs. Wall. Bed.

His plan was way better than mine.

The second, Love you, baby.

I smiled and sent back, Back at ‘cha just as Jane called, “Phone for you, Ally.”

My brows drew together as I looked at her.

No one called me there. Not friends, definitely. And my informants and “clients” all knew my cell was the only acceptable form of communication.

I walked to the book counter, took the phone and put it to my ear. “Yo.”

“You want Rosie to stay alive, you deal,” a man’s kinda whiny, definitely weasely voice said to me, and my back went straight. “We want Rosie alive ‘cause we want him growin’ for us. We wanna talk about what it’ll take to buy him outta your protection. You don’t deal, face to face, you comin’ alone, we find a farmer who can take over the crops and his pain in our ass gets dead. You hear me?”

My heart pumping, blood singing, I made a split second decision. I lifted my head and hand and snapped my fingers, my eyes moving from Luke to Mace.

They were both already studying me and they immediately moved my way, their hands going to the back pockets of their jeans.

“You’ll understand I’m not big on a meet seeing as your last approach was detonating a bomb in my apartment,” I replied, eyes to Luke.

“That was before we knew your connections,” the voice returned. “We want no beef with you. We just want Rosie.”

My eyes moving to Mace, I said into the phone, “I may have misunderstood. Do you currently have Rosie?”

“Not yet. But you askin’ that means you don’t either. Which, gotta say, has us confused as to why your crew is searchin’ for him when he has your protection.”

I decided not to share with Lee that these idiots thought his crew was my crew and stated (mostly lying), “Rosie knows I’m not a big fan of explosions. Firefights, okay. Car chases, I dig. Rescues, a specialty. Shattered kneecaps, not my gig, but I got a guy who does that. Everything me or those under my protection owns burning to a cinder, not so much. He brought that down on me, he knows to avoid me for a few days.”

“We apologize for that error, and you can tack reimbursement onto us buyin’ out your protection on Rosie,” he offered.

Thinking on the check I wrote to Roxie the day before to reimburse her for the bags of clothes currently sitting on the floor in Ren’s bedroom, I thought this actually wasn’t a bad deal.

I heard a snap. I focused on Luke, saw he had his phone to his ear and he jerked his head to Mace.

Mace was bent over the counter, phone to his ear, other hand scribbling. He straightened and turned a pad of paper around to me.

On it, it said, Take the meet. Tell them you’re sending an intermediary.

I shook my head.

Mace jerked a finger at me then down to tap the pad.

I slid my eyes away and said into the phone, “Lincoln’s Roadhouse. Today. Three o’clock.”

“Fuck.” I heard Luke bite out quietly.

“Nowhere public,” the voice said in my ear.

“It’s public or it doesn’t happen. If it doesn’t happen, I have more time to focus on getting Rosie under my wing, unleashing the dogs to deal with you, and moving his operation back to Denver where I can keep an eye on him.”