THERE SHE WAS, HE THOUGHT, HER CANINE COMPANION AT her side and those eyes of hers so carefully guarded he just knew they held secrets.
She didn’t project annoyance this time, and still she watched every move he made when he climbed out of the truck with the pizza and a six-pack of Rolling Rock.
They kept watching him when he stepped onto the porch, leaned in and kissed her.
“Hi.”
“Hi.” She stepped back, then went through the locking-up routine. “You brought beer. I have wine breathing, but—”
“That’ll work, too. We’ll just put this in the fridge.” He passed her the six-pack, then pulled a rawhide bone out of his pocket. “Something for Bert, if it’s okay.”
The gift touched her. Ploy or not, she thought it showed kindness. “He won’t take it from you.”
“You give it to him, then.”
He handed her the bone, saw Bert’s eyes click between the two of them, the rawhide. But the dog didn’t move a muscle.
“It was very nice of you. He likes them.” She turned to the dog, murmured a command. Bert’s butt hit the floor.
“That wasn’t French.”
“Italian.” She gave Bert the bone, followed it with another command.
“He speaks Italian, too. That’s some sophisticated dog. He’s smiling.”
“Dogs don’t smile.”
“Give me a break, look at those eyes. He’s smiling. Where do you want the pizza?”
“The kitchen’s best. You’re in a good mood.”
“I’m about to have pizza with a pretty woman, one who goes for hot peppers, a personal favorite. And she opened wine. I’m off duty until eight hundred hours. I’d be stupid not to be in a good mood.”
“You’re not stupid.” She got down wineglasses. “And though your job includes a high-stress factor, you rarely appear stressed. That I’ve observed.”
“I like the job.”
“But if your father hadn’t become ill, you’d still be in Little Rock.”
“Yeah, probably. I was meant to come home, take this job and settle back here.”
She shook her head as she got out plates. It occurred to her she did have more conversation. “There’s no such thing as predestination or fate or destiny. Life is a series of choices and circumstance, action and the reaction, and results of other people’s choices. Your father’s illness influenced you to choose this position at this time. I think it was a loving and loyal choice, but it wasn’t meant.”
He poured the wine himself. “I believe in choice, and in fate.”
“How? We can’t have choice and free will and still be fated.”
“It’s a puzzle, isn’t it?”
He looked so natural in her kitchen, in her space, with his jeans and T-shirt, his high-top sneakers and battered leather jacket. Should she be concerned about that?
“Why don’t we eat out on the back porch? It’s a pretty night.”
That threw her. She never ate outside, and never went outside without a weapon.
“Look at the wheels turn.” He flicked a finger down her temple. “You’ve been cooped up working most of the day, I imagine. I can’t believe you bought this place if you don’t appreciate a soft spring night.”
Just another choice, she thought. “All right.” She opened the drawer, took out her holster. “I don’t go outside without my gun.”
“Okay.” The Glock 19 again, apparently a favorite. “I wish you’d tell me what you’re afraid of.”
“I’m not afraid.” If it was a lie, it was a small one. She considered herself too well prepared and secured for real fear. “I prefer to have a gun when I’m outside.”
“All right.” He waited while she put it on, unlocked the kitchen door. “But when you decide to tell me, I’ll find a way to help you.”
“How do you know I’m not a criminal? A fugitive from justice?”
“Do you believe in instinct?”
“Yes, of course. It’s—”
“You don’t have to explain. Just put it down to instinct.”
She had a little table on the porch, a single chair. Brooks set the pizza down, went inside for her desk chair.
“It’s nice out here, the view, the air. You’ve started your garden.” He took the desk chair, sipped his wine. “What do you have in the greenhouse?”
“Plants. Flowers, some vegetables. I have some small fruit trees. They do very well in the greenhouse environment.”
“I bet.”
At her signal, Bert lay down by her feet and began to gnaw on his bone. “He’s smiling again.”
This time she shook her head but smiled a little, too. “You have a fanciful nature.”
“Maybe it offsets that stress.” He took the pizza she served him, balanced the plate on his lap, then, stretching out his legs, held his silence.
She did the same.
“You’re not going to ask,” he decided. “That’s some control you’ve got there, Abigail.”
“Excuse me?”
“I said I had news, but you’re not going to ask about it. Most people wouldn’t have waited three minutes to ask.”
“Maybe it was another ploy.”
“Not this time.” He waited a few beats, sighed hugely. “Now you’re not going to ask because you’re messing with me.”
Her smile bloomed again, and damned if he didn’t feel a sense of victory every time he made those lips curve. “All right, all right, if you’re going to nag about it, I’ll tell you. I took your advice. Rescued a pup from the pound for my mother.”
“Is she pleased?”
“She cried, in a good way. My sister texted me today that I was a suck-up, and Ma still likes her better. That’s the middle of us. She was kidding,” he added, when Abigail frowned. “We like to rag on each other. After an intense debate, during which I ate my burger and kept my mouth shut, the happy parents named their new child, because, believe me, he’ll be treated like one, Plato. My dad wanted Bob or Sid, but my mother claims the puppy looked philosophic and very bright, and deserves an important name.”
“It’s a good name. Names with strong consonant sounds are easier to use in training. It’s good news. Happy news.”
“I think so.” He pulled his phone off his belt. “Got a picture of him.” He scrolled through, offered it.
“He’s very handsome, and has bright, alert eyes.” And it softened her to look into them, imagine him in a good, loving home. “You’re a good son.”
“They make it easy to be. How about your parents?”
“There’s only my mother. We’re estranged.”
“I’m sorry. Where is she?”
“We haven’t communicated in several years.”
Off limits, Brooks deduced. Way off limits. “I end up communicating with my parents damn near every day. One of the ups, or downs, depending on your viewpoint, of living in a small town.”
“I think in your case it must be an advantage, and a comfort.”
“Yeah. I took it for granted when I was growing up, but that’s what kids do. Take for granted. When I lived in Little Rock, I talked or e-mailed a lot. And I came up every month or so, to see them, my sisters, my friends who still live here. But I never thought about moving back.”
“You were happy in Little Rock, and with your work there.”
“Yeah, I was. But when my father got sick, I not only felt I had to come back, I realized I wanted to.”
He pointed a finger at her. “Fated.”
She gave that little head shake and smile he was growing very fond of. “You have a close nuclear family.”
“You could say that. How’s the pizza?”
“It’s very good. When I make my own, I make a whole wheat crust, but I like this better.”
“Make your own? Like from a box?”
“If it’s in a box, it’s not making your own.”
“Most everything I make’s out of a box. You make pizza from scratch?”
“Yes, when I want it.”
“Even my mother doesn’t do that.” He put another slice on her plate, one on his, then topped off their wine. “Maybe you’ll show me the greenhouse later.”
He laughed, so quick, so delighted, it made her jump a little. “Wouldn’t that be interesting? But it’s not what I was thinking. I grew up with gardeners, so I’m interested. Not to say we don’t have a few around these parts growing some weed, for personal use or as a second income. My own mother did until she started having kids. And she’d still argue at the blink of an eye for legalizing it.”
“Legalizing, inspecting and taxing marijuana would eliminate the funds spent on the attempt to enforce the current laws, and generate considerable revenue.”
“There’s that viewpoint thing again.”
The dog shifted, sat up, stared at Abigail. “Allez,” she said, and he climbed off the porch, headed for a tree.
“Back to French. Did that dog just ask permission to pee?”
“He wouldn’t leave the porch without my permission.” She shifted herself, took a sip of wine. “I’ve reconsidered.”
“Too late, you’re already into your second slice.”
“Not the pizza. I’ve reconsidered having sex with you.”
He was grateful he’d just swallowed or he’d have choked. “Is that a fact?”
“Yes. After weighing the pros and cons, I’ve decided sex with you would be mutually satisfying. You’re attractive and pleasant. And clean. You kiss very well, and while I’ve found that’s not always a reliable gauge for skill in bed, it often follows. If you’re agreeable, we can finish dinner, I’ll show you the greenhouse, then we can go in and have sex. I’m on birth control, but I would require you wear a condom.”
He was damn near speechless. “That’s an offer, all right.”
“You don’t accept?” She hadn’t factored in a refusal. “I thought you wanted me, physically. You don’t?”
He put his plate down, got to his feet. Too wound up to give a damn what the dog thought—or did—Brooks pulled Abigail up, gave her a good, hard yank against him.
No soft kiss this time, no easy exploration. This exploded, firebombing shrapnel through her senses. Her balance swayed, crumbled. She had to cling to him or fall.
“Wait. Wait.”
Perhaps it was the tremble in her voice—or the low, warning growl from the dog—but though he didn’t let her go, he eased up.
“Ami. Ami.” Her hand trembled like her voice as she laid it briefly on Brooks’s cheek. Then she added a hand signal for the dog. “Ami, Bert. Pillow.”
When the dog sat, Abigail let out a shaky breath. “He thought you were hurting me.”
“Was I?”
“No. But I’d like to sit down.”
“Look at me.”
She took that breath again, then lifted her gaze to his. “You’re angry.”
“No, I’m not. I’m not sure what I am, but I’m not mad.”
“You don’t want me.”
“Do I have to answer that question again, and if so, will I need an ambulance when your dog gets done with me?”
“I … oh. Oh.” He heard the humiliation in the sound as she closed her eyes and nodded. “I understand. I was too blunt, too matter-of-fact. I should have waited for you to approach the subject, or, failing that, I shouldn’t have been so calculating. I’d really like to sit down.”
He let her go, sat beside her. “First, I’ve got nothing but good feelings about the idea you’re willing to go to bed with me. The problem, on my side, is having the feeling you’re handling it like a chore you want to cross off your to-do list.”
Exactly true, she thought, in delivery and intent. “I’m sorry. I thought it was the right approach. You’re not angry, but you’re at least a little insulted. I am sorry.” She gathered enough courage to look at him. “I know approach matters to some people. I know that. This was as poorly presented and demeaning as the woman in Ozark Art.”
“I wouldn’t go that far. And I hoped you’d reconsider at some point.”
“I wasn’t going to, then … I was nervous, and I mishandled it.”
“Nervous?”
“This isn’t how I usually … I don’t know how to explain.”
“Not without telling me more than you want to. All right. Let’s try this. We’ll finish this glass of wine, and you’ll show me the greenhouse. We’ll see how things go from there.”
“I’m not good with seeing how things go.”
“I’m real good at it. Let’s give it a try. If you don’t like how they go, we can always do things your way. I figure I can’t lose.”
“You mean you’d have sex either way.”
He laughed again, reached out and took her hand for a squeeze. “What a woman. Let’s just see—damn it.” He broke off when his cell phone rang. “Hold that thought. Yeah, Ash, what’s the problem?”
She saw his face change as he listened, saw it go quiet and a little hard. “No, you did right. I’m on my way. You wait, you hear? Wait until I get there.
“I’m sorry,” he said to Abigail as he closed the phone.
“It’s all right.” But she didn’t look at him as she rose to pick up the plates.
“This kind of thing is part of the package,” he began.
“I understand that, of course. But you’re off duty.”
“So I must be using it as an excuse? No.” Gently, he laid a hand on her arm. “No, Abigail. This particular problem is one I ordered whoever got the call on it—which was inevitable—to contact me. On or off duty. I need to handle this situation.”
“I see. I do understand.”
“I’d like to come back.”
“You don’t have to feel—”
“Abigail, I’d like to come back, if I can. If I can’t, I’ll call you. I’m not sure which it’s going to be.”
“Because you have to see how it goes.”
“That’s exactly right. I have to go.” He leaned down, kissed her. “I’d rather stay.”
She believed him, and the belief warmed something inside her as he strode off the porch and around the house toward his car.
So tonight, the job sucked, Brooks thought, as he drove toward Tybal and Missy Crew’s. But he’d given this situation considerable thought since the last time Ty had drunk himself mean. Tonight, one way or another, Brooks intended to fix it.
EVERY WINDOW IN THE CREWS’ HOUSE glowed up like Christmas, while neighbors gathered on the lawns as if the domestic disturbance qualified as a party. Ash kept them back from the house where bluegrass blasted through the wide-open door and the occasional crash rang out.
As Brooks got out of his car, Jill Harris—house on the left—walked over.
“Somebody’s got to go in there before he wrecks what’s left of that place.”
“Is Missy in there?”
“She ran out, barefoot, crying, her mouth bleeding. I can’t keep making these calls if nothing’s going to be done about it.”
“Will you file a complaint?”
“I have to live next door.” At five-foot-nothing, Jill folded her arms across her pink cardigan. “I tried talking to Missy about it once, while she sat in my kitchen holding a bag of my frozen peas to her black eye. She ended up calling me a dried-up old bitch who couldn’t mind her own business. Now she doesn’t speak to me. You think I want him banging on my door one drunken night?”
“All right, Ms. Harris. Come on, Ash.”
“Do you want to send someone out to find Missy?”
“No. She’s around here somewhere, or she hightailed it over to her sister’s. She knows we’ll respond.”
Part of him wondered if she’d come to enjoy the drama of it all, and he didn’t like the wondering.
“She’ll wait for us to haul him off,” Brooks continued, “then she’ll come back home, wait till morning to come tell us she slipped on the soap or some shit. I want you to stand by, but don’t talk to him. I don’t want you to say anything.”
“I can do that.”
Brooks didn’t have to knock, as Missy had left the door wide open when she fled. He stayed on the stoop, called out.
“I don’t know as he can hear,” Ash began.
“He’ll hear. We’re not going inside. We’re staying out here, where we’ve got better than a dozen witnesses.”
“To what?”
“To what happens next. Ty! You got company at the door.”
“I’m busy!” Brooks watched a lamp fly across the living room. “I’m redecorating.”
“I see that. Need a minute of your time.”
“Come on in, then. Join the fuckin’ party!”
“I come in there, I’m hauling you to jail. If you come out here, we’ll just have us a conversation.”
“Chrissake. Can’t a man get some chores done in his own home?” Ty stumbled to the door, big, glassy-eyed, blood pockmarking his face where Brooks assumed flying glass had nicked it. “Hey, there, Ash. Now, what can I do for you officers of the goddamn law tonight?”
“Looks like you’ve been sucking down that Rebel Yell pretty hard,” Brooks said, before Ash forgot himself and responded.
“No law against it. I’m in my own home sweet fucking home. I ain’t driving. I ain’t operating heavy machinery.” He cracked himself up, had to bend over and wheeze as the laugh took his breath away.
“Where’s Missy?”
“Hell if I know. I come home. There’s no supper on the table. But she had time to whine. Whine, whine, whine, nag, nag, nag. Where I been, what I been doing and who I’m doing it with.”
“Is that when you hit her?”
The glassy eyes went sly. “You know how clumsy she is. And when she’s on the whining and nagging she can’t see straight. Stupid bitch walked right into a door. Then she takes off.” He gestured, spotted the neighbors.
“Buncha assholes got nothing better to do than stand around outside. I’m in my house.” Ty pointed to his own feet to prove a point.
“Redecorating.”
“That is key-rect!”
“Maybe if you spent less time redecorating and more time fucking your wife, she wouldn’t walk into walls and take off.”
“I’m gonna get me some paint and … What’d you say?”
“You heard me.” Beside him, Ash goggled, but Brooks kept his eyes trained on Tybal. “I guess you can’t get that pea-shooter you call a dick up anymore.”
Ty swayed back and forth on his size-fourteen boots, blinked his bloodshot eyes. “You better shut your fucking mouth.”
“Then again, when you’re equipped with a cock the size of a gherkin, what’s the point in trying to get some wood?”
“Get off my property, you fucker.” Ty shoved him, and that was enough. But Brooks wanted to nail it shut.
“That the best you got?” Brooks put a sneer on his face. “I guess it figures a dickless wonder does the pushy shove like a girl. Next thing, you’ll be pulling my hair and crying.”
Though he was prepared for the punch and Ty was teetering drunk, it still carried some weight. Brooks tasted blood as Ash let out a wondrous Jesus Christ beside him.
And on a roar, Ty charged.
Brooks sidestepped, turned his foot just enough that Ty tripped over it and went flying into the yard.
“Now you’ve done it. You’re under arrest for assaulting an officer.”
“I’ll kill you.” Scrambling to his feet, Ty came at Brooks, fists flying.
“Add resisting arrest.” Brooks dodged or blocked most of the blows. “You want to give me a hand securing the prisoner, Ash?”
“Yes, sir.” Breaking out of his openmouthed shock, Ash ran forward.
“You keep your hands off me, you pissant cocksucker.” He swung at Ash, went wide, but connected with his shoulder.
“That’ll be a second count of assaulting an officer. I think it’s clear we’ll be throwing drunk and disorderly into the mix.”
Between the two of them, they got Ty down on the ground, cuffed him. As they hauled a struggling, cursing Ty up, Brooks scanned the faces on neighboring lawns.
“I’m sending a deputy out shortly,” he said, raising his voice. “He’ll get statements from y’all. I don’t want any bullshit, you hear? You say what you saw. Anybody doesn’t, I’m charging with obstruction of justice. Don’t test me.”
He put a hand on Ty’s head, boosted him into the back of the cruiser, then swiped the back of his hand over his bloody lip. “Deputy Hyderman, you follow me in.”
“Yes, sir, Chief.”
He ignored Ty’s rantings as he drove to the station, did his best to ignore his aching jaw as well. The warning look he shot Ash had the deputy keeping his mouth shut as they loaded Ty into a cell.
“I want a lawyer. I’m suing your ass, then I’m kicking it for saying that shit.”
“What shit?” Brooks locked the cell door.
“That shit about I ain’t got a dick, and I can’t get it up to do Missy. You fucker.”
“Damn, Ty, you must be drunker than you look. I haven’t seen your dick since the showers in high school PE, and I can’t say I paid it much mind then. I never said anything about it.”
“You lying sack, you said it was the size of a—a—something small.”
“You’re drunk, you had the music blasting. You don’t know what you heard. Deputy, did I say anything to impinge the prisoner’s manhood?”
“I … ah. I didn’t hear anything.”
“I’m going to have Deputy Fitzwater go out and take statements from the witnesses. Here’s what’s going to happen now, Ty, and this time you should listen good. You can get a lawyer, all right. You’ll need one. I’m filing charges for assault, for resisting, for D-and-D and for creating a goddamn public nuisance. You’re going to jail, and not just overnight. Not this time.”
“Bullshit.”
“Assault on a police officer? That’s a felony, Ty. You got two counts, plus the resisting. You could do five years.”
His rage-red face went white. “Bullshit.” And the word shook.
“You think about that. A lawyer might get that down to, oh, eighteen months in, with probation. But you’ll do real time for it, that’s a promise.”
“You can’t send me to jail. I’ve got to make a living.”
“What you’ve been doing the last couple years? I don’t call it living.”
He thought of Tybal out in center field—fast on his feet, an arm like a rocket. Of Ty and Missy shining all through high school.
And told himself what he’d done, what he would do, was for that bright, shiny couple.
“You think about that tonight, Ty. Think about spending the next year or two, or more, down in Little Rock. Or the chance I might give you of spending that time on probation, contingent on attendance and completion of alcohol rehabilitation, anger management and marriage counseling.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Ty dropped down on the bunk, putting his head in his hands. “I feel sick.”
“You are sick. You think about it.” Brooks stepped back, secured the door to the cells.
“What’re you talking about, Ash?”
“Come on, Chief, he can’t hear us out here. You baited him into the assault.”
“Ash, I’m going to say this once. Sooner or later, it wasn’t just going to be Missy with a split lip or black eye. The neighbors, they’d get tired of calling us in. Maybe one of them would get it into his head to stop it himself. Or Missy would get tired of getting smacked and pick up one of the guns they’ve got in that house. Or he’d get tired of having her run out and hit her hard enough she couldn’t run anymore.”
“He never broke up the place like he was doing tonight.”
“No. He’s escalating. I don’t want to get called out there to deal with one—or both—of their bodies.”
“Can you do like you said? Make him go to rehab and stuff?”
“Yeah, I’m going to make sure of it. Officially? What you heard me say to him tonight was the same as you’ve heard me say before. Did he hit Missy, where was she, what was the problem, and so on. You got that?”
“I got it.”
“All right, then, I’m going to write it up, have Boyd go on out there to get those witness statements, and check to make sure Missy’s back home.”
“She’ll come in tomorrow, like always.”
Yeah, she would, Brooks thought. But this time she’d have to make a different choice. “And I’ll deal with her. You can go on home.”
“No, sir. I’ll stay here tonight.”
“You caught it last time.”
“I’ll stay. You should ice down that jaw. You took a pretty good shot. In the morning, maybe you could bring in some of those sticky buns from the bakery.”
“I can do that. Fancy coffee, too?”
“They got that one with the chocolate in it and the whipped cream on top.”
“I know the one. How’s that shoulder?”
“It’s not bad. Probably bruise up some, but that’s more weight on it. Tybal’s okay when he’s not drinking. Maybe, if what you did sticks, he’ll be okay.”
IT TOOK LONGER THAN HE’D HOPED, but Abigail’s lights were still on when he got back to her house. The four Motrin he’d swallowed took the throbbing in his jaw down to an annoying ache. That would’ve been good, but the lessening there made him aware of the few other spots Ty had landed a fist or a boot.
Should just go home, he told himself as he eased out of the car. He should go home, take an hour-long hot shower, drink two fingers of whiskey and go to bed.
The whole business with Ty had ruined his mood, anyway.
He’d just ask her for a rain check, since he’d driven out here.
She opened the door before he knocked, stood there in that braced and ready way of hers, studying his face.
“What happened?”
“Long story.”
“You need an ice pack,” she said as she stepped back.
The first time, he thought, she’d let him in without him asking or maneuvering. He went in.
“It took a while. Sorry.”
“I did some work.” She and the dog turned, walked back to the kitchen. She opened the freezer, got out an instant cold compress and offered it.
“People usually go for the frozen peas.”
“These are more efficient, and less wasteful.”
He sat, laid it against his jaw. “Get punched in the face often?”
“No. Do you?”
“It’s been a while. I forgot how much it fucking hurts. You wouldn’t have any whiskey handy, would you?”
Saying nothing, she turned to a cupboard. She took out a bottle of Jameson—and right there he wanted to kiss her feet—and poured him two fingers in a thick lowball glass.
“Thanks.” The first slow sip eased the rawness in his mood. “Anything you don’t have handy?”
“Things I don’t feel I have any use for.”
“There you go.”
“Do you want to tell me the long story?”
“Honey, I’m from the Ozarks. Long stories are a way of life.”
“All right.” She got out a second glass, poured more whiskey, and sat.
“God, you’re a restful woman.”
“Not really.”
“Right now you are, and I sure need it.” He sat back, ignoring twinges, and took a slow sip of whiskey. “So, Tybal and Missy. Back in our high school days, they were the golden couple. You know what I’m saying?”
“They were important in that culture.”
“King and queen. He was the all-star athlete. Quarterback with magic hands. Center fielder with a bullet arm. She was head cheerleader, pretty as a strawberry parfait. He went to Arkansas State, mostly on an athletic scholarship, and she went along. From what I hear, they sparkled pretty good there, too. Up until junior year, when he messed up his knee on a play. All the talk of him going pro, that blew up. Ended up coming back home. They broke up, got back together, broke up, that sort of thing. Then they got married.”
He sipped more whiskey. Between that, the Motrin and the restfulness of the woman, he felt better.
“He coached high school football awhile, but it didn’t go well. He didn’t have the wiring for it, I guess. So he went to work in construction. Missy, she tried some modeling, but that didn’t work out. She works at the Flower Pot. They never prepared, I’m thinking, for things not to keep on sparkling, so dealing with the dull took a toll. Ty, he started paying that toll with Rebel Yell.”
“He yells?”
“No, honey, it’s a whiskey not nearly as nice as what you poured me. My predecessor in this job let me know about the problem. The DUIs, the bar fights, and the D-and-Ds—that’s—”
“Domestic disputes. He becomes violent and abusive when he drinks.”
“That’s right. The last year or so, it’s been worse.”
“Why hasn’t he been arrested?”
“He has been, then he ends up with a warning or community service. Missy won’t press charges when he smacks her around, and denies it ever happened. She fell, she slipped, she walked into a door.”
“She enables him.”
“That she does. And the fact is people gave them a blind eye on the trouble. The kind of shine they had lasts a long time in a small town like this. But I spent some time away, so maybe I see it—them—differently. Since repeated attempts at getting them into therapy, rehab, counseling have failed, I went another way.”
“That resulted in your injury.”
“You could say. When my deputy called to report they were at it—which means Ty came home drunk, hit her, she ran out—I got Ty to come out on his stoop, in full view of the fourteen people outside to watch the show. He had music blasting to accompany his wrecking of every breakable in the house he could get his hands on. This was a plus, as nobody but Ty and my deputy could hear me incite this drunken asshole to violence by questioning the size and virility of his penis. If that hadn’t worked, I was prepared to suggest that his long-suffering and idiotic wife might find the size and virility of my penis more to her liking.”
On a long breath, he shook his head. “I’m glad it didn’t come to that. He punched me in the face in front of witnesses, and is now contemplating serving time for a felony or two.”
“That was very good strategy. Men are sensitive about their genitalia.”
He choked a little on the whiskey, then rubbed his hand over his face on a laugh. “God knows we are.” Then he sobered, took a small sip. “God knows we are that.”
“Your method wasn’t conventional, but the result was good. But you feel sorry and a little sad. Why?”
“He was a friend once. Not best, not close to best, but a friend of mine. I liked them, and I guess I liked seeing that sparkle, too. I’m sorry to see them brought low like this. I’m sorry to be a part of bringing them low.”
“You’re wrong. It’ll be up to them to address and seek help for their problems, but as long as they were both unable to do that, they’d never resolve those problems. What you did gives him only two choices. Jail or help. It’s more likely that, when sober and faced with those choices and consequences, he’ll choose help. As she appears to be codependent, so will she. I would think your actions fall well within the function and spirit of your job description. As well as within the parameters of friendship.”
He set the whiskey he hadn’t finished aside. “I was telling myself I should just go home with my mood and my aches and annoyances. I’m awfully glad I didn’t.”
He reached out, took her hands. “Let me take you to bed, Abigail.”
She kept her eyes on his. “All right.”