The woman looked up and saw Parker standing there. “Are you a friend of Zoe’s, or do I need to call the police because you’re stealing Oreo?”

  Oreo stopped anointing every single bush lining the driveway and sat on Parker’s feet. Parker patted the dog’s big head. “Friend,” he said. “Parker James.”

  The woman looked at Oreo.

  Oreo leaned on Parker, nearly knocking him over, and the woman laughed. “Okay, so you are a friend. I’m Manda. Can I help you with something?”

  “I heard crying,” Parker said. “Just wanted to make sure she was okay.”

  “I’m not okay!” Kaylie sobbed. “I don’t want the kittens to go! They’re not ready, Mama!”

  Manda sighed and crouched low by her daughter. “When you found Socks in the yard a few months ago, I let you keep her on one condition. Do you remember that condition?”

  “No more strays,” Kaylie said. “But—”

  “No buts,” Manda said gently but firmly. “You’ve had six weeks with the two kittens, baby. They’re old enough to be adopted at the humane society.”

  Kaylie sniffled noisily, still clutching the kittens. “But how will we know if they go to good homes?”

  Parker remembered the sign he’d seen at the animal center where Wyatt worked. “There’s a kitten adoption next Saturday at Belle Haven,” he said.

  Manda shook her head. “I can’t keep them another week.”

  “Mama!”

  “I’m sorry, Kaylie, but when the gray kitten climbed into the venting system yesterday, I lost the whole day of work. They’re too rowdy.”

  Parker looked into Kaylie’s wet eyes and felt his heart roll over in his chest and expose its tender underbelly. “I can keep them until adoption day,” he said.

  Kaylie immediately stopped crying and smiled brightly. “And then I can come visit them!”

  “You don’t have to do this,” Manda told Parker.

  “Mama, he already said he would!”

  “You don’t,” Manda repeated to Parker.

  “It’s okay,” he said, and channeled his inner Zoe. “I’ve got this.”

  Twenty minutes later he was the proud new temporary owner of a gray girl kitten and an orange tabby boy kitten, and a bag of supplies. The both of them could easily fit into the palm of one of his hands and maybe weighed half a pound soaking wet.

  They immediately set to exploring their new world, both getting stuck behind the TV shelf in the living room in less than three minutes.

  Parker rescued them and set them up in the bathroom to corral them. Oreo whined to get in but when Parker opened the door, Oreo took one look and took off. Parker snapped a few pics of the kittens and texted them to Amory, who immediately called him.

  “I want one!” she yelled enthusiastically into the phone.

  Balancing the kittens in his lap, he laughed at the sound of her voice, happy to have something take his mind off Zoe, who was still out on her damn date. “You know Mom and Dad would kill me.”

  “I turned eighteen last month. I get to make my own decisions now.”

  “I know,” he said. “And I’m happy for you.” He’d hoped she would take the opportunity to stretch her wings a little. Maybe get out more, travel—albeit very carefully—something, anything, to expand the four walls of her life.

  “Henry wants a kitten, too,” she said.

  Henry had been her best friend since the fifth grade. He had Down syndrome as well and worked at the Home Depot right next to the florist where Amory worked. They spent a lot of time together and for the past few years Amory had referred to Henry as her boyfriend. Lately she’d made noises about wanting to marry him.

  Parker wasn’t sure she understood the meaning of being married, but regardless, there was no way he wanted to see her go from being under their parents’ thumb to being married. He wanted so much more for her, wanted her to get out and see the big world and all that was out there for her.

  But he was alone in this. Their parents, Lowell and Tess James, had always been severely overprotective with their younger child, sheltering Amory from everything. Including him.

  “These kittens are a long way from Arizona,” Parker told her. “How’s it going? What are you up to?” he asked, trying to get her off the subject of the kittens. The last thing he needed was to further alienate his parents by giving his sister a pet. “How’s school?”

  She was in a year-round school. The current plan was to keep Amory enrolled until she could get her GED. After that, she hoped to graduate from cleanup girl at the florist shop to actually making floral arrangements.

  “School is stupid,” Amory said. “But work’s good. They let me make an arrangement last week!”

  “Yeah?” he asked, smiling at her excitement. In his world, he often operated from a place where he was knee deep in the garbage of the world. Amory had always been his happy spot. This past week he’d added Zoe and Oreo, and now a pack of two kittens to that happy spot. Look at him, expanding his world without getting on a plane to do it . . .

  “I made it for Tiffany,” Amory said. “She works at the rec center. It was her birthday and I got to put it together all by myself!”

  Parker could practically hear her beaming. “That’s great, Am. Did you go on that rec-center-sponsored camping trip last weekend?”

  “No,” she said. “I had a cold. Mom thought I should stay home.”

  Parker rubbed the tension between his eyes. “I’m sorry to hear that. I know how you wanted to sleep under the stars and stay up late, and go on that full moon hike.”

  “It’s okay. I mean, I’m sorry I didn’t get to go. I know you paid for the trip, but me and Henry got to sit in the backyard. Mom made us hot chocolate.”

  “How’s Henry?”

  “Great! He got moved from the gardening department to inside! He gets to sweep the store every night before it closes! The whole store! He’s got the best job ever. So when will you bring me a kitty?”

  Parker wanted her to get everything her heart desired. She deserved it, but he wasn’t going home again anytime soon, and when he did, he wouldn’t bring her a kitten unless it was parent-approved, which it wouldn’t be.

  “Please, Parker?” she asked. “Please come to see me. It’s been like a year.”

  “It’s been two weeks,” he said with a laugh. He’d slipped into town and visited her at work, and then vanished again like smoke just before coming to Idaho. Although, granted, it had been six months before that since his last visit.

  The truth was, his parents made visiting difficult and uncomfortable, and selfishly he let that keep him away from Amory. He’d have loved to show her the world in person instead of through pictures, but that wasn’t going to happen. For years their parents had said she was too young, but more recently, after he’d brought danger to their front door, the subject had been dropped completely.

  And he got it. He got it all too well. It had been a year since someone—Parker suspected Carver—had shown up on his parents’ doorstep asking for Parker.

  With a gun.

  The police had never figured out who it was, and it hadn’t happened again, but it was yet another reason to stay away. Zoe might call him Mr. Mysterious, but the truth was he was just extremely cautious. Borderline OCD cautious. He had to be.

  He got that it kept people from getting too close to him, that it was a big turnoff to Zoe and just one more reason not to get involved.

  But he’d already opened up to her much more than he should have, certainly more than he’d ever intended. More than he’d ever done with another woman.

  “I’ve texted you every day, Amory,” he reminded her.

  “Not the same thing, Parker!” she said, imitating his tone and making him smile. “Oh!” she said suddenly. “I can do a free throw now, just like you taught me! You need to come see it!”

  His chest ached at the beseeching tone in her voice. She missed him. Yeah, she had Mom and Dad, but they’d continued to hold the reins just a little too tight. Their hearts were in the right place and they operated from fear for her, that she’d get hurt or worse, with absolutely zero intentions of abuse or neglect, but Amory was starting to chafe under their constant supervision.

  Or at least Parker would be chafing. Hell, he’d be going insane by now. “I’ll come by soon as I can,” he promised.

  “Today?”

  “No,” he said, wincing when she let out a sound of distress.

  “Tomorrow?” she asked.

  “Soon as I wrap up this thing at work I’ve got going on, okay?”

  “But that could be a very long time,” she said. “Right?”

  “Right,” he said. “But hopefully not.”

  “But maybe!”

  He sighed. Amory didn’t have a good sense of time; she never had. Last year he’d bought her an iPhone and had taught her how to schedule in all her work shifts and anything else important so that she wouldn’t miss anything.

  She’d put in her entire life on that calendar, and his. She was forever texting him asking about his upcoming appointments so that she could program them into her calendar. “Maybe,” he conceded. “I’ll tell you when ahead of time and you can put it on your phone then. You’ll be the first person I come see, okay?”

  “Promise?” she asked.

  “Promise.”

  “Pinkie-swear and hope to die?” she pressed.

  “Never hope to die, Amory.”

  “It’s a saying! And it means you have to keep your promise!”

  “Fine.” He caved with her. He always did. “Pinkie-swear and hope to die,” he said dutifully, wincing again at the happy squeal that nearly pierced his eardrums. “Gotta go, Am.”

  “Love you, Parker.”

  “Love you back.”

  “See you next week!” she yelled.

  “Am—”

  But she was already gone. Parker slid his phone away, the movement causing the kittens to get a second wind, mewling and climbing on top of each other to try to get up his body. He set them back on the floor, where they immediately once again began to try to crawl up his legs.

  With their claws.

  He nabbed one in each hand before calling Oreo back in.

  Oreo came sliding into the bathroom, panting in happiness at being needed. At the sight of the kittens still there, he suddenly stopped short, skidding on the linoleum, eyes wide in terror even though they were smaller than his paws.

  “They’re just silly little babies,” he told Oreo.

  He whined unhappily and tucked his tail between his legs.

  “They’re not going to hurt you,” Parker said, and set the kittens down in front of him to sniff. “See? Harmless.”

  The tabby stalked underneath a mistrustful Oreo and stopped between the dog’s legs, eyeing the long tail with a curious eye. Then the kitten crouched low, wriggled his butt, and . . . pounced.

  And missed Oreo’s tail by a mile.

  Still, Oreo cried.

  “It’s okay,” Parker said. “I promise they’re not going to hurt you—”

  Too late. Because Oreo lifted his leg and . . . peed on them.

  Fourteen

  A half hour later, Parker had bathed the kittens and calmed Oreo down with a big bowl of food and some hugs, and the four of them were trying the meet-and-greet thing again.

  Oreo lay on the floor, still wide-eyed but allowing the kittens to crawl all over him. The gray one climbed up the big dog like Oreo was Mt. Everest, ending up on top of his head.

  Oreo’s eyes rolled up and they eyeballed each other, scaredy-cat dog and mountain-conquering, fearless kitten.

  Parker’s cell rang. “You forget dinner?” Wyatt asked.

  Shit. “Yeah,” he said, “sorry.”

  “No problem. Hightail your ass to the bar and grill; we’ll meet you there.”

  “Which bar and grill?”

  “The only one in town—Pete’s.”

  Parker trusted Oreo with the kittens but he didn’t trust the kittens with Oreo, so he set the two troublemakers up in the bathroom with kitty litter, water, and food, and shut them in. “There,” he said to Oreo, who was watching from the hallway. “You’ll be perfectly safe until I get back.”

  Oreo yawned, and Parker patted him on the head before heading out.

  At Pete’s, Wyatt introduced the beautiful brunette standing next to him as Emily, his fiancée. The three of them sat and shared a pitcher of beer, Emily listening in avid fascination as Parker and Wyatt told stories.

  “Remember our bar brawl in college?” Wyatt asked.

  Emily gasped. “Bar brawl?”

  “Not our fault,” Wyatt told her. “We were jumped.”

  “How could I forget?” Parker asked. They’d been jumped because Wyatt had smiled at the wrong girl. “I still have the scar.” He ran a finger along his left eyebrow, which the scar bisected.

  Wyatt grinned. “Good times.”

  “How about on your twenty-second birthday?” Parker asked. “When you decided to give everyone free shots from the bar, started a wet T-shirt contest, and got us both shit-canned.”

  Emily stared at her fiancé. “You started a wet T-shirt contest?”

  “Yep,” Parker answered for him.

  “Thanks, man,” Wyatt said. And then to Emily, “You heard the part where I was twenty-two, right?”

  Emily smacked him upside the head. “That was for the twenty-two-year-old girls.”

  Parker laughed. It felt good to do so. He’d been so busy for so long he couldn’t even remember the last time he’d done this. Had fun. Relaxed.

  They ordered food, and when they started eating, the talk turned to Parker’s stint in Sunshine.

  “I’m so sorry you couldn’t stay with us,” Emily said. “My sister’s just back from her honeymoon and they’re in our only spare bedroom.”

  “No worries,” Parker said. “Zoe’s house is great.”

  “And Zoe?” Wyatt asked.

  Parker smiled. “Just as you described her.”

  Wyatt grimaced. “Uh-oh.”

  Emily smacked Wyatt on the arm. “How did you describe her? As warm and caring and lovely as she really is, right?”

  Wyatt slid a look to Parker. “Right.”

  Emily narrowed her eyes on her fiancé, and it was fascinating to watch Wyatt grin at her with unabashed love and affection as he leaned in and kissed her on the end of her nose. And then her mouth. “Don’t look at me like that, sweetness,” he murmured. “Zoe’s all of those great things on the inside, but we both know she’s stubborn as hell and easily irritated on the outside.”

  Parker laughed at the accurate description. “No worries, it’s been great.”

  Wyatt did a double take. “Great?”

  Shit. Redirect. “Have you had her French toast?” Parker asked.

  “She made you French toast?” Wyatt asked. “She won’t make it whenever I ask, says if she did then I wouldn’t appreciate it as much.”

  “I only got her leftovers,” Parker said, hopefully coming across as harmless. Because that was what he intended to be—completely harmless.

  Sure, he’d never been harmless a day in his life, but there was a first time for everything.

  “Where is she tonight?” Wyatt asked. “I thought she’d come with you.”

  “She’s on a date.”

  “Oh yeah,” Emily said. “With that really good-looking dentist from Hennessey Flats.”

  When Wyatt looked at her, she laughed. “Hey, I’m engaged, not dead,” she said. “I Googled him because Zoe refused to do so. I wanted to make sure he wasn’t a wanted felon or anything.”

  “Tonight’s date isn’t with the dentist,” Parker said, leaving out the part where she got stood up. That was Zoe’s tale to tell. “It’s Joe.”

  Wyatt choked on his beer. “Joe, the airport manager Joe? What the hell is she doing out with that horndog?”

  Back at the house, Parker had managed to shelve his frustration about the date. For one thing, Zoe hadn’t dressed like a woman planning on getting any action. And for another, he’d sensed absolutely zero chemistry between her and Joe.

  But after Wyatt’s comment, he realized it didn’t mean that Joe wouldn’t try . . .

  Fuck. He stood up and tossed some money down on the table. “Gotta go.”

  Wyatt narrowed his eyes. “Gotta go where?”

  “Work,” Parker said.

  “At . . .” Wyatt looked at his watch. “Nine o’clock at night?”

  “My job’s twenty-four-seven.”

  Wyatt cocked his head. “You’re on vacation.”

  Shit. “It’s a working vacation, as it turns out.”

  Wyatt only stared at him, but Emily laughed. When she realized Wyatt wasn’t amused, she nudged him. “Wyatt Stone, he’s your friend and a good man. Be happy for them.”

  “Whoa,” Parker said with sudden understanding. “There’s nothing going on between me and Zo—”

  “Why, don’t you think she’s good enough for you?” Wyatt asked.

  “No—I mean yes!” Jesus, Parker was starting to sweat. “She’s . . . amazing. I just meant we’re not going anywhere with anything. We’re not . . .”

  Emily patted him on the hand. “It’s okay,” she said, still smiling. “You’re going to survive this. Tell him, Wyatt. Tell him he’ll survive it.”

  Wyatt just continued to stare at Parker.

  “Would you rather she end up with Joe?” Emily asked Wyatt. “Or some dentist?”

  Wyatt grimaced and scrubbed his hands down his face. “I’m half tempted to let him go storming into her date,” he muttered. “But knowing Zoe, she’d marry Joe just to spite me.”

  “I’m telling you, it’s not like that,” Parker said again. And Christ, now he was protesting too much.

  “Just sit,” Wyatt said looking resigned. “Because trust me, I’m doing you a favor stopping you from going after her tonight. If you bust open her date, she’ll bust your chops. Zoe likes to make her mistakes on her own. No one can tell her what to do.”

  Emily beamed at Wyatt. “Aw. You’re so sweet.”

  Parker sighed and sat back down.

  And then to prove a point to all of them—especially himself—he stayed out as late as possible so he wouldn’t have to see Zoe return from her date and possibly invite Joe in and upstairs to her room.