“Like Brooks doesn’t have it,” Jasmine said. “He almost ended things with you not that long ago over baggage he carried for years.”

  “That’s right,” Ivy said. “Almost. No more. He’s not that person anymore.”

  “Everyone has baggage,” Dahlia said. “The three of us have it from our upbringing. It is what it is. Ivy, you know that more than anyone so that is you just throwing things out without thought.”

  “Sorry,” Ivy said, stuffing her face. “You’re right. Let’s get back to the good stuff. I’d ask how Hugh kissed, but you can’t tell from a peck on the cheek. So...I’ll ask, do you want to see him naked?”

  She laughed but didn’t answer.

  “Leave Dahlia alone,” Jasmine said.

  “Her blush is giving me the answer that I need,” Ivy said. “Why can’t she just say yes?”

  “Because I don’t want to,” she said. “I’m not you. We had one date and will most likely have another. That doesn’t mean I’m going to have sex with him anytime soon.”

  “Party pooper,” Ivy said. “When is the next date?”

  “No clue. He told me to think about it if I was interested. Before he got in his car I said I was.”

  “Aww,” Ivy said. “That is so you to do that and leave him hanging. Text him now.”

  “No,” she said. “It’s not even seven thirty. He could be sleeping.”

  Though she doubted it. Something told her he was up and probably working. He hadn’t said what he had planned this weekend and they didn’t get to talk much about it.

  “Text him today,” Jasmine said. “Don’t wait. You’re blushing and smiling. Your voice has dropped a few times. You like him, right?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I do.”

  “Then text him today,” Ivy said. “I’ll make sure you do. I’m going to blow your phone up all day until you give me a verification that you’ve got another date set up.”

  Her sister would do that too.

  “We’ll see,” she said.

  “That is good enough for me,” Jasmine said, popping the last bite of her breakfast in her mouth. “I’m out of here.”

  She watched as Jasmine left and turned to look at Ivy. “I’ve got a few minutes still. I need to change before I go in.”

  She could tell Ivy had showered at Brooks’s. Her hair and makeup were done, but her sister was in shorts and a T-shirt.

  “You always go to work from Brooks’s house. Why are you dressed like that?”

  “Because I used it as an excuse to find out about your date,” Ivy said. “I didn’t even pack work clothes.”

  “Brat,” she said.

  Ivy moved over and hugged her. “I just want you happy. It seems like for so long you haven’t been. You’ve seemed it for months then the past week or so were quiet. I was hoping nothing was wrong, but now I think you’ve got a crush and you were trying to hide it from me. I’m good at figuring those things out.”

  “That’s it,” she said. She’d let her sister think she knew what was going on.

  “I’m good that way,” Ivy said. “Seriously though, you should reach out today and set up another date. It’s a long holiday weekend and you aren’t working like the rest of us.”

  “Are you working the whole weekend?” she asked. She and Ivy didn’t talk much about those things. She’d normally just find out when Ivy was walking out the door or coming in. The most she got was when Ivy would be home at night and she was fine with that.

  She didn’t want anyone keeping track of her so she wouldn’t do it to her sisters. They were all adults.

  “I’m only there this morning to set up with Sage. I’ll stay a few hours and then Brooks and I have plans. He’s got a friend with a boat and we are going out on it later. I’ll be home on Monday at some point.”

  Dahlia nodded. “Have fun this weekend.”

  “You too,” Ivy said, eating her last bite. “Work up to seeing that big man naked. You know you want to.”

  She laughed rather than agreeing. That would only encourage her sister and she’d never been one to talk about her personal life that much.

  She wasn’t going to change now.

  9

  PEACE IN HIS DECISIONS

  Hugh was on his second cup of coffee Saturday morning.

  He’d been up since five. Awake since four.

  A few hours of sleep was better than nothing even though he’d lain in bed hoping for more.

  He’d learned to just stop hoping for much in life. It didn’t make a difference at this point.

  Best to just go after what he wanted and could control.

  Even the things he could control didn’t always give him the best endings.

  His phone rang and he looked over hoping it was work and it’d give him something to do other than sitting on his deck staring at the boats on the water contemplating his life and wishing he could find some peace in his decisions.

  Work at least was a distraction even if it was on the boring end.

  He welcomed boring now after the last few years he’d had.

  But it wasn’t work, it was his mother.

  He could ignore the call. Or he could take it and it’d give him something to do for ten minutes.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  “I thought I’d be leaving you a voicemail,” his mother said. “I figured you might have been at work even though it’s a Saturday, a holiday weekend and only ten in the morning.”

  “The government never sleeps,” he said.

  “As I’ve heard one too many times. How are you sleeping?”

  “Not bad,” he said.

  “Which means not good either.”

  “Don’t lecture,” he said. “I know that tone of voice.”

  “Hugh,” his mother said. “Are you taking your meds?”

  “No,” he said. “I don’t like the way they make me feel. You need to be able to have eight solid hours of sleep with them and I don’t always know if I can get it. What if I get called in? Then I’m groggy and not at my best. You don’t want me putting someone else in danger let alone myself, do you?”

  His mother snorted. “How much danger are you in arresting men stealing money through transactions? They probably don’t have any blood on their hands other than from a paper cut.”

  Freya Crosby always did have a dry sense of humor and wit. He’d like to think he’d gotten it from her. “Good point,” he said. “But you never know and it’s not worth taking the chance. I’ve taken enough of them in my life.”

  His mother sighed. “How is coastal living?”

  “I’m on the river not the coast,” he said.

  “Don’t play with me. You’re close enough. Answer the question.”

  “It’s boring,” he said.

  “Good,” his mother said. “I think you need that in your life. It’s been a horrible year. I don’t suppose you’re talking to anyone.”

  His mother meant a shrink. He’d done his mandated time like any other agent who’d gone through what he had and then he walked out the door.

  The transfer here got him away from it more than anything, but he hadn’t seen anyone in an official capacity in over six months or so.

  “Only myself,” he said. “I do it all the time. You know that.”

  “You did like to talk to yourself, but that isn’t what I meant.”

  “I know what you meant,” he said. “I’m fine.”

  “I suppose fine is better than bad, but I’d like to hear you say you’re doing well at some point.”

  “I’m doing well,” he said.

  “Too late,” his mother said. “You already answered the other way.”

  He hated to worry his parents and he heard by her tone she was worried.

  The least he could do was offer something else up. An olive branch of sorts.

  “I went on a date last night.”

  “What?” his mother asked. “I need to clean my ears out. Did you just say you went on a date?”

  He laughed. “I did.”

  “Hugh, I’m not sure you’ve told me about you going on a date since you met Keri.”

  “It’s been that long,” he said.

  “I’m glad you’re moving on. She had no problem doing it.”

  “What?” he asked. “Do you talk to her?”

  “No,” his mother said. “But Hannah follows her on social media. Keri has been posting pictures of her and some guy for months. Before you left. You didn’t know that?”

  “No,” he said. “Why would I? We’d been separated for six months. Been divorced for three. When we signed the papers we had nothing to say to each other.”

  “She was a bitch,” his mother said. “I told you that when you got engaged.”

  “No, you didn’t,” he said.

  “Well, I was thinking it.”

  “You said you liked her.”

  “I liked her fine as someone else’s wife. Not my son’s. She wasn’t what you needed in your life. She wanted more than you were able to give and she didn’t understand.”

  “That’s right,” he said. “That is on me.”

  “Hugh,” his mother said. “She knew your job long before you got engaged let alone married.”

  “She did.”

  “And she loved to tell people what you did for a living. But Monday through Friday at five, she wanted you to shut off being an agent and turn on being a husband.”

  His father was a retired agent and now did consulting work for the government. If anyone understood the life it was his mother.

  Maybe he should have listened more back then to the warning signs.

  It’s not like his mother was quiet about them, but she wasn’t always so straightforward either.

  He just wanted to find someone like his mother.

  Someone who could understand the life that being an agent entailed. That you could pick up and move at any point. You could fly out in the middle of the night if the case called for it.

  “It was never going to happen,” he said. “I don’t even know if that was all of it.”

  Keri said she could handle it. At times she did. It just meant when he was off he couldn’t shut down and chill on the couch with a beer and chips like other people could.

  He had to go out and mingle as if he hadn’t been around people all day long in his job.

  “No,” his mother said. “It wasn’t. It’s that she thought you could flip the switch of emotions for your job. Your father and I worried when you went into that unit. But Dad said it’d just be a few years. You’d get out before it got to you.”

  “I should have listened better,” he said.

  “Hugh, you’d made plans to get out in a year or two. We knew it. No one could have known that was going to happen.”

  “Mom,” he said. “I appreciate what you’re saying, but we know daily that could happen and just hope it doesn’t.”

  He was the one who went to bed at night and still saw Kevin’s face.

  The dirty six-year-old kid that ran out of the woods in the middle of the night when they were searching for a serial killer.

  He was there on one case and another landed in his lap.

  They’d gotten the killer they were looking for. But he’d stayed to help with the child he’d almost run over in the road.

  Deer in the headlights had brought on a new meaning.

  The fact the kid could barely speak and might have weighed thirty pounds on a good day. It just turned his stomach.

  When they tried to get him in the car and calm he’d acted like a caged animal being set free in the wild.

  It made sense when they discovered where he’d been held and the conditions of his imprisonment.

  “I know, Hugh. I worry.”

  “No need to worry. As I said, I’m sitting out by the water, drinking coffee and watching boats.”

  “Why don’t you get a boat?” his mother asked.

  “Because I don’t know how to drive one and don’t have the desire to learn.”

  Just one more thing he’d have to take care of. This was the first house he’d owned and had to maintain. Everywhere else they’d lived were condos or townhouses and maintenance came at a monthly fee.

  There weren’t that many of them around here and since he was trying something different in life, he went for home ownership.

  So far, it was working out.

  Not that he was a fan of mowing the lawn, but he’d get to that today too. The snow in the winter, yeah, he wasn’t dealing there. Someone else could do it.

  “Tell me about this date last night,” his mother asked.

  He wondered if she was going to get back to that.

  “Her name is Dahlia Greene.”

  “That’s a pretty name,” his mother said.

  “She’s a pretty girl.”

  “Girl?”

  “Woman,” he said. “Sorry.”

  “What does she do and how did you meet?”

  He wouldn’t lie to his mother. “She’s the Director of Finance for Blossoms. It’s the local big business. They make candles and lotions, soaps, have lines of jewelry and other fashion accessories.”

  “I know of Blossoms,” his mother said. “They have products all over the US in stores. I’ve seen them.”

  “Oh,” he said. “Not me.”

  “No reason you would have unless Keri used them and she was more of a high-end department store label shopper.”

  Always the best for his ex. She didn’t care what things cost.

  Not that she didn’t have a good job and make decent money, but she always felt it was on him to pay for their lifestyle while she got to spend her money on fun things.

  She didn’t like the condo they lived in and he now wondered if she’d sold it. He’d just signed the mortgage over to her. She got all the equity in it too. He didn’t want anything at that point other than a fast divorce.

  By doing that, he didn’t have to give her anything else and they both walked away happy.

  Or Keri did.

  He wasn’t sure what happiness was anymore.

  Though he had to admit he felt some of it last night with Dahlia.

  “If we could stop talking about my ex today?” he asked. “I met Dahlia as part of an investigation.”

  “Oh?” his mother asked.

  “You know I can’t tell you anything.”

  “As long as she isn’t the one you’re investigating,” his mother said. “Then I’d be really worried you didn’t have your priorities straight.”

  Shit. His father had contacts and could find out. He’d have to be honest.

  “She’s not under investigation,” he said. “This has to do with a case in Chicago where she used to live and work. She’d lived here for almost a year by her sisters. They called our office to see if they can get some information. Nothing more than that.”

  “Sounds simple enough,” his mother said.

  It was anything but, but again he’d keep that to himself.

  “Yep,” he said. “It was one date.”

  “Will there be another?” his mother asked.

  “I think so,” he said.

  “Then I won’t bug you too much. If there is another then I will. I’m sure on one date you didn’t get a lot of information. Personal information. You would have had facts if you had to question her.”

  “Facts are the same thing,” he said. “So yeah, not too much personal to share.”

  His mother sighed. “I’m trying not to sound concerned. You do sound good. But I wonder if you’re forcing it so we aren’t worried.”

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “Life is slow. I don’t know what to do with myself. That isn’t a bad thing. If I weren’t in a new place, then maybe it would be a different situation. I just don’t know too many people other than coworkers.”

  “And you don’t want to get together with any of them after hours?”

  “Maybe in time,” he said.

  He thought of Grant and all his questions, then shook his head.

  Nope, he liked his life private.

  “I’m sure Dad will check in with you at some point.”

  “He always does,” he said.

  His father would text him now and again. His sister too.

  It was his mother that called.

  He hung up the phone, got up to put his cup in the dishwasher and turned it on.

  Next, he grabbed his dirty clothes and started his laundry.

  Grocery shopping would be the next thing to tackle this weekend. Might as well do it today.

  An hour later, he was ready to grab his keys and leave when his phone went off with a text.

  He picked it up to see it was from Dahlia saying she had a good time last night.

  The smile filled his face and he went to sit on the couch and reply that he did too.

  They went back and forth for five minutes before he finally asked if she had any plans this weekend and if she wanted to get together again.

  She’d said no to plans and yes to getting together. They had another date for tomorrow.

  He’d take it as a win for now.

  10

  SECOND DATE

  “Looks like the weather is going to cooperate today,” Dahlia said on Sunday at ten.

  He’d just knocked on her door. She opened it quickly and was standing there in a pair of jeans that hit her calves. They weren’t plastered on her like some women wore, nor so baggy that you wondered how they stayed on.

  These were...perfect.

  She’d be no fuss or nonsense about trends he was guessing.

  Just like the blue T-shirt she had on. There was a bouquet of flowers on the front, which was her only color. She had white slip-on sneakers on her feet, the same necklace she’d worn the past few times he’d seen her with a rose charm on it and a ring on her finger this time.

  “It seems it,” he said. “You look pretty.”

  “Thank you,” she said, grinning. “I’m going to assume you don’t have high standards.”

  Hugh laughed. It was the dry tone she’d had. “I’m not into fancy and flashy. I don’t think you are either, though I’m sure you could pull it off.”