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.