Thanksgiving morning arrived with me in a post-orgasmic bliss coma with Bowie’s warm body wrapped around mine. We’d had sex eight times, gone on two dates, and had enjoyed one very satisfying Netflix and chill. I still had a job. And no one—besides Jonah—was any the wiser.

My smugness was replaced with the realization that it was one thing hiding a relationship behind closed doors. It was quite another to get through an entire Thanksgiving afternoon with both our families and come out unscathed.

Reluctantly, I wiggled out of Bowie’s grasp and moved to the edge of the bed. I studied him. That thick dark hair, tousled from sleep and my hands. The straight nose, firm lips. He had a subtle hollow under the high Bodine cheekbones and above the strong jawline.

The man was something to look at. And he was mine. Unable to help myself, I reached out and skimmed my hand over his bicep. I loved the feel of his skin against mine. My heart did that odd little pitter pat. I loved him. How exactly did I think I was going to hide this from my mother? Or Scarlett? Or Gram-Gram? Or any of the other two dozen people who’d be downing carbs and shouting at football players through the TV screen?

One last look, one last stroke and I grabbed my pajamas off the floor and headed out. I needed to strategize.

Strategizing got the coffee brewed, two pumpkin pies in Bowie’s oven, and a broccoli casserole in my own. The cats were fed and enjoying their first round of morning naps. My kitchen looked like a cooking war zone with dirty dishes everywhere and a neat stack of food storage containers hopeful for leftovers.

The small scanner whirred away on my kitchen table kicking out old case files like it was in a watermelon seed spitting contest. The digital files neatly organizing themselves on my laptop.

I peeked out the back door and took in the view of my top secret boyfriend grilling up fresh vegetables Jonah had shoved at him before heading out for the Turkey Trot 5k. Suede moccasins, sweat pants slung low on narrow hips, and a thermal shirt that fit him just right. Bowie was prettier than a picture. I had no idea how I was going to get through an entire afternoon without looking like I wanted to devour the man instead of the feast.

As if he sensed me, Bowie looked up from the grill. He shot me that good guy grin and my insides went to goop. Warm wonderful goop. I ducked back inside and tried to focus. Secrets. Keeping them from the people who knew me the best in the world. If I could hide my relationship with Bowie from them, then keeping it from Connelly for the next five weeks should be a cake walk. It should be enough time to prove to the man that I wasn’t some lame duck. I was a cop and a good one.

The scanner beeped, telling me it was time to feed it some more documents. I’d paid for it out of my own pocket when I realized that technology had advanced beyond the ancient dinosaur that practically hand drew recreations of documents at the station. I one-clicked this puppy faster than a pair of 50-percent-off Uggs.

I let Connelly think he was forcing me into overtime with the menial task, when in reality I took the stack of files home every night and wrapped it up in an hour. Handy. And totally worth the look on his scowly face every morning when the files were neatly stacked on the conference table.

Not only could I write off the expense, I could finally go through Gram-Gram’s photo albums and get everyone digital copies of our sordid family tree. I poured a second cup of coffee, propped my feet up on the table, and considered it a win. It was a wonder what a night of lovemaking and a day off did to the optimism.

The next file was a thicker one. I opened it wondering what Bootleg lore awaited me.

My feet hit the floor.

It was an accident report. One fatality. Weather-related.

Constance Bodine, age 40.

The memories hit me one after the other like hammers.

Dad coming home ashen-faced, soaked to the bone. Mom wrapping him up in a hard hug not minding his sopping rain slicker.

Scarlett sobbing into my shoulder while June made tea that no one wanted.

Bowie in a suit staring down at the cheap pine coffin in the cemetery.

Jonah Sr. had been too drunk to attend his own wife’s funeral. So it was the Bodine kids who stood for their mother.

Bad luck. That’s what everyone had said when word spread. Nothing but bad luck for the Bodine family. Scarlett and her brothers had propped each other up that day and from then on. The four of them—five now with Jonah—were a unit.

I paged through, finding my father’s handwritten report on the scene. Low visibility. Foggy. The skies had held off long enough before opening up on the first responders. Connie had gone through a guardrail halfway down Winding Hill Road, a mountainous stretch of serpent curves and steep drop-offs. She’d had some kind of appointment in Perrinville. No one had bothered to ask her what it was about. No one had the chance to.

The coroner’s report was included. Blunt force trauma. The car had smashed through the guardrail and tumbled thirty feet down the embankment into a tree. She’d been dead when officers arrived on the scene.

Someone, my father most likely, had neatly clipped the obituary from the newspaper. They’d run it with her high school senior picture. Connie had been full of big dreams that she’d never realized. She’d shouldered the disappointment of young motherhood, of never having enough, with sheer stubbornness. I often got the feeling she was holding out hope that her lot in life would change someday. But it hadn’t. It had simply ended.

There were a handful of pictures of the road, the guardrail, the car. Grainy with the flash of a cheap camera trying to cut through the wet, dark night. Growing up, I’d spent as much time in Connie’s sedan as I had my mother’s Jeep Cherokee.

I wondered if they’d been close, my mother and Scarlett’s.

Something nagged at me, and I went through the pictures again one at a time, willing it to the surface. But nothing materialized. Just a lingering sadness at what felt like a life wasted. She’d lived her days unhappy and overextended. And she’d died too young. She’d never see Scarlett finally get engaged to the debonair Devlin. Never bounce Jameson and Leah Mae’s babies on her lap. She’d never dance while Gibson sang at The Lookout. Never meet Jonah. Never see Bowie get married.

There was a knock on my back door, and Bowie waved tongs in the window before letting himself in. I slammed the folder shut and stuffed it under my laptop.

He gave me a look.

“Police business,” I told him, jumping up from my chair and meeting him in the middle of the kitchen. I didn’t know how Bowie would take it if he knew I was combing over his mother’s fatal accident report.

“Jonah’s veggies are done and I heard the oven timer for the pies,” he said, jerking his thumb toward his side of the house.

I yelped and jogged through the downstairs door into Bowie’s kitchen. He followed me, and when I leaned down to pull the pie from the oven, he ran his hands down my sides to my hips.

I jumped and nearly bobbled the pie.

“You okay?” he asked, amused.

I felt guilty, like I’d been caught doing something wrong. Maybe I had been.

“Fine. Great,” I chirped. I got the pies out of the oven and onto the stove top.

Bowie closed the oven and turned me around carefully. “I know what’s goin’ on,” he told me.

“You do?”

“You’re nervous about our first Thanksgiving together.”

“I am?” I cleared my throat. “I mean, I guess I am.” We’d spent every Thanksgiving together since the year Connie died. Our families deep-fried turkeys and swapped pie recipes and shouted obscenities at the football game on TV together. I couldn’t imagine a Thanksgiving without the Bodines bellied up next to me. “I hope you’re a good actor because you’re gonna have to be if we’re going to keep everyone from finding out that we’ve been spending our nights naked together.”

“Everyone’s gonna be too busy stuffin’ their faces to notice when I sneak you out to the garage to make out with you,” he teased.

“I was thinking about your parents,” I admitted. “This is your first Thanksgiving without your dad.”

Bowie blew out a breath. “Yeah.”

“How do you feel about that? Do you miss them?” I pressed.

He busied himself digging through a drawer for aluminum foil. “Sometimes. I mean, not my dad from the last years. But sometimes I miss them when we were all younger. When we all had…hope.”

It was my turn to approach him. I laid my cheek on his back and wrapped my arms around his waist. “I wish it would have worked out differently for them.”

He turned in my arms and wrapped me in a hug. “I do, too. But it didn’t. So all I can do is make sure it turns out differently for me. You’re part of that.”

My heart did a little tap dance in my chest. It wasn’t quite as scary now. The idea of a future. Bowie was already in my bed and at my parents’ table.

“What do you think about kids?” I asked him. “And before you get any ideas in your head, I’m asking for far into the future purposes.”

He laughed and slipped his hands into my hair. “I like kids. I’d like some with you.”

“How many?”

“Five or six.”

“Five or six? Do you want my uterus to fall out when I’m chasin’ down Rhett Ginsler on his damn lawn mower?”

“With five or six one of ‘em is bound to turn out right,” Bowie said with a straight face.

“You are an insane person. Is this why you’ve never had a relationship that lasted longer than three months?”

“No, Cass. That’s because I was holding out for you.”

Mr. Charming. I swooned internally.

“Jeez. Are you guys just constantly making out?” Jonah groaned, looking pained from the doorway. He was sweating and dressed as a turkey. The turkey head was tucked under his arm.

“What the hell happened to you?” Bowie demanded.

“It’s a Turkey Trot, man. You have to have a turkey.”