It took only seconds for her brain to catch up with everything that was going on, and then she bolted into action as her mind raced.

What in the world? Is he seriously just going to punch my ex and walk away like nothing happened? Seriously? I haven’t even had a chance to say more than thanks before he had marched away. Is that it? Is he mad because I haven’t said anything else? Is he mad that he has to defend me? I’m not his problem anymore, yet I relied on him to send the cavalry for me. I have to say something else. I can’t leave it like that. This whole situation is so surreal. I have to go make amends and show my appreciation, and I need to stop relying on Sean freaking Everett. He will be gone soon enough, and I need to figure out how to do this whole living thing on my own. But first? Apologize.

When she finally reached him, huffing and puffing, holding the stitch in her side, he looked over at her in surprise and immediately slowed his pace to one more appropriate to her height.

"Really, Sean, I appreciate you coming to my rescue back there. I don't know what I would have done if you hadn’t shown up when you did. When I heard the door open and knew you were there, it was such a relief. He sure has a quick temper. I didn't know about it in the beginning, but then,"—she couldn't stop the shudder that wracked her body—"well, he's just not a good guy, so thanks."

He pulled her to a stop and reached up to gently push her hair behind her ear. "Hey, Peach, I'm just looking out for you. It was no big deal. I’m heading over to the house to close it up; I have all the info I need. So why don't you lock yours up and we can head out for some lunch? Pizza and beer?"

She looked up at him, using her hand to shade her eyes, admiring for a second the way the sunlight played with his hair before she answered with an "Uhn-kay," not exactly sure what she had just agreed to.

***

AS THEY WALKED INTO the diner with his arm casually slung over her shoulder, she swore she felt every single pair of eyes in the place turn to her and stare. It felt as if a bright spotlight was directly on her as they followed the waitress to their booth. He gently squeezed her shoulder and leaned down to whisper into her ear, "Relax, they're curious, but nobody here wants to hurt you. They all love you. Come on, let's eat."

She slid into the bench across from him and smiled at the waitress who came to take their orders. They both opted for draft beers, and she had to fight back a huge grin when Sean said, “Make sure you put lotsa jalapeños on her half. My girl is all about the heat.” So soon, a large pepperoni with jalapeños covering half was sitting between them waiting to be shared, and Katherine finally started to loosen up after her third beer. When Sean stopped with his glass halfway to his mouth, she watched as several expressions crossed his face. Finally he spoke, and she understood why he looked somewhat panicky. “Katherine, when did you take your last pill? I don’t think you are supposed to be drinking with it.”

She shrugged off his worry and told him, “I haven’t taken it in two days. It’s all good. I’m more responsible than you give me credit for, you know.”

There was a brief awkward pause before she said, laughing, “Do you remember the first time you ever got drunk? I will never forget that, as long as I live.”

Smiling and shaking his head at the memory, he said, “I remember the broken arm I had from jumping out the second story of the barn. What about you? Remember the first time you ever got drunk?”

Her face turned bright red and she busted out laughing. “Are you seriously never going to let me live that one down? I was fifteen, for Pete’s sake.”

“Yep, and you spun in circles in the chair at my desk forever until you started to feel sick, and then you couldn’t get steady to stand up, so I had to scoop you up and run to the bathroom so you didn’t get sick all over my room. I would have never been able to sneak that one by our parents. I sat on the bathroom floor with you for hours, waiting for you to get sick, but you never did. You did count the tiles in the shower, though. Seventeen times, as a matter of fact.”

“Yep, all five hundred and sixty-two of them. Every time I saw them after, well, you know... Anyways, it always reminded me of that. I can’t believe they never caught on to the watered-down liquor bottles, though. Surely, they noticed the difference, right?” She giggled at the memory. “As bad as we were, I am going to have to keep everything locked up when I have kids.”

Sean stared at her with an intense look on his face as her laughter slowly died down.

Before either of them were forced to fill the awkward silence with a comment, their waitress came back over to their table, and with bright red cheeks, she awkwardly rushed out, “Boss says lunch and beer are on him tonight, so you all just let me know if you need anything else, you hear?” She turned and started to walk away, and then turned back to them and cleared her throat. “Umm, Sean, I realize that you probably don’t remember me, but, uh, we were in the same year at school. I have a six-year-old, and he would just absolutely love it if I could get you to sign something for him. He has followed your career real close and can’t believe his mama went to school with somebody famous.”

Sean, having dealt with this kind of situation before, immediately turned on his ‘nice to meet ya’ smile and said, “I don’t mind at all. What’s your son’s name?”

“Dennis.” The waitress beamed, and Katherine saw that Sean was struggling to place her, so she interjected to help him out. “Why, Jo Ellen Nichols, how is that little man of yours? I haven’t seen him since y’all brought Scooter in for his yearly rabies shot, and that was what? Six months ago? How about Frank? Is he doing alright?”

Sean made eye contact with her in silent thanks, and then Jo Ellen sat down in the seat next to Katherine and started to chat with her. “Well, Dennis is growing like a weed! I think in another year he’s gonna outgrow me.  Katy, I have been meaning to come by and have a sit down with you. We sure are really sorry about your mama and pop. They were great people, and we are going to miss them.”

Katherine reached over and laid her hand on top of Jo Ellen’s. “Honey, don’t worry about it. I’ve been overrun lately with everything. This is my first time to get out of the house since everything happened. Let’s plan to have a good long sit down real soon, so we can get all caught up, yeah?”

Jo Ellen turned her hand over and gave Katy’s a squeeze. “We will sure do that.” And with a sly wink at her, she said, “And we’ll make sure we get all caught up, darlin’.”

Sean handed her the napkin he had written on, and she rose from the table. “Sorry for interrupting you guys. I really appreciate this, Sean; it’ll mean the world to my boy. You just let me know if you need anything. I’ll be right over there.”

Smiling, Sean and Katherine watched as Jo Ellen turned the corner and disappeared from view. Sean nudged the hands clasped on the table in front of her. “Thanks for the save. I blanked on her name and couldn’t place her to save my life. Is that Jo Ellen Roundtree?”

“It sure is. She’s Jo Ellen Nichols now, though, wife to your high school nemesis, Frank Nichols. There was talk she married him to get back at you after you left town.”

“That is utterly insane. Surely, you didn’t believe that I cheated on you or anything?”

She shook her head. “No, of course not. She might have had a slight crush on you, but Jo Ellen has always been sugar sweet. There is no way she would have done something like that to the sisterhood. And everyone who mattered knew that she was using you to make Frank jealous because he kept wavering on settling down or going off to live the dream. You left not long after, and he decided that getting hitched to a pretty girl wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to him, so he married her and they’ve been happy ever since.”

The irony of the two men doing the exact opposite of what was expected of them weighed heavily for a moment before the bell over the door chimed, letting the hostess know she had someone coming in to be seated. Katherine continued speaking. “I had no more to worry about from Jo Ellen than your Courtney does from me. There’s a code to the sisterhood, you know.”

Sean’s body jerked to attention at her words and he opened his mouth to speak, but just as the words were about to leave his mouth, someone patted his shoulder and they both looked up to see the Doctor Beachum smiling down at them.

“Katy, Sean, I see the two of you are out and about. Katy, I am going to assume since you are having a beer that means you haven’t taken your meds today, right?”

Grinning in a guilty way, she met his eyes and said, “Well, what happened was, I, uh, haven’t taken it for a couple of days. I am trying to only use it when I really need it.”

The doctor squeezed Sean’s shoulder once more and then patted it a couple of times before saying, “Ok, just making sure. Remember not to mix alcohol with that medication, yeah? Are you planning to go back to work soon?”

“Yes, sir, I have another week off, and then I am going to hop back into my normal routine. I am just ready to get back in the swing of things and try to find a new normal.”

“Ok, but if you need anything, you be sure to let us know, you hear? You have a whole community behind you; you are not and never will be alone. We take care of our own.”

Katherine’s eyes began to tear up, and she stood and wrapped her arms around him. “That means so much to me. I don’t know what I would do without you guys.”

Excusing herself, she went to the bathroom to clean up her face, and when she came back out, Sean was alone once again. He looked like he was about to start into her, so she quickly cut him off. “You know what we need to do? We need to get the old crew together for a dominoes match. That’ll be a fun way to catch up with everyone while you are in town, huh?”

On a sign, Sean let her change the subject, saying, “That does sound like fun. We should definitely set something up soon. Excuse me, I need to run to the restroom before we leave.” When he made it back to the table, the wait staff had already cleared their table and Katy was rising from her chair and gathering her things so they could leave. The ride back home was silent as they were both lost in their thoughts.

Once they got home, she realized the flag was up on the mailbox; she had not left it that way, so out of curiosity she asked Sean to check the mail. He pulled down the black and slightly rusted lid and quickly passed over the paper inside. Pushing the lid back into place, he pulled into the drive and asked, "So, what’s that?"

"It’s a piece of paper with URGENT written on it and an out-of-area phone number, that’s it. I have never seen this area code before. Have you?" she asked, handing over the paper in confusion.

"Oh yeah, that’s a Dallas area code. Who do you know from there?"

She quickly thought over the question. "No one that I know of. Who do you think it could be?"

He shrugged his shoulders and said, "Maybe someone from when you went to school? I don't know. Let’s get inside and call them back. Maybe it’s some good news. Lord knows you could use it."

Sean put a hand on her elbow in the customary manner to help her onto the porch to open the door. She slid the paper into her back pocket, and forgetting to put the key into the dead bolt, she tested the handle and found the door unlocked.

Her heart lurched into her stomach with a feeling of shock. The door wasn’t locked, and she always locked the door. Always. She looked up at Sean, and judging his response, he must have seen the fear light in her eyes, because he immediately went into protection mode; without an explanation, he was pushing her behind him and looking in every direction to see what was causing such a reaction from her. As this was happening, her mind was replaying everything that had happened before they’d left, and suddenly she wasn't so sure her reaction was logical, so she tried to step around Sean and go through the door. All this had happened so quickly, he had no idea what was going on, so she told him, "I didn't mean to freak you out, but I tried the door knob and it wasn't locked. I went into full-on alarm mode before I thought about it, and I may not have locked it when we left. I rushed out the back door to thank you. I thought the front door was locked, but I can’t swear to it, because when I came back, I went to the back door and locked it then went to meet you at the truck."

Still, she was extremely cautious when she opened the door and walked into the entranceway. She gasped and her jaw dropped at the sight she was met with. All her things were thrown around the house, glass on the floor everywhere from picture frames that had been filled with beloved, irreplaceable images of her family that someone had carelessly tossed to the floor in their unknown pursuit of something. Walking further into the house showed even more horror. In the kitchen dishes had been knocked out of the cabinets; in her room her clothes had been ripped from their hangers in the closet and her makeup was scattered, the bag having been opened and dumped out. She found drawers opened and unmentionables thrown onto the floor like a child’s discarded toys, and as she took this all in, she turned toward her door in a slow circle and found the worst of it yet. In what was her favorite shade of lipstick, a brilliant red that she only wore on special occasions, was the word BITCH written in huge letters across her vanity mirror. Sean ran across the room to steady her right as she wavered slightly on her feet.

"Here's what we're going to do. Are you listening?" he inquired in a whisper by her ear. All she could do was nod. "I’m going to carry you out of here, and then once you are safely outside, I am calling the police. OK?"

Once again, all she could do was nod helplessly and wrap her arms around Sean’s neck when he picked her up bridal style to carry her back outside. As soon as they exited the front door, he gently sat her back onto her feet before pulling out his cell phone and dialing 9-1-1. Any other time she probably would have cracked a joke about him moving into the twenty-first century, but the levity of their situation was such that she could not even make the effort. So instead, she stood with her head against the corner post of the porch, uncaring of the peeling and chipped paint that was sure to litter her hair when she pulled away, her arms wrapped around herself hugging tightly as she counted on Sean to work it out for her. She could catch brief snatches of conversation as he paced back and forth.

"Yeah, that’s right; someone broke into her house and trashed it... ‘Bitch’ on the vanity mirror... Thanks, we'll be right here."

She heard his phone shut with a snap and felt strong arms embrace her from behind. Sean rested his chin on her shoulder and held her snuggly against him. She leaned into him, feeling her heart rate immediately slow and relaxing warmth spread through her body as he lifted his chin slightly, the scruff on his face catching at her hair and his warm breath tickling her ear. "Now, we wait."

It didn't take long for the sheriff to get there, seeing as how the police department, which was really just a room in the county library, was only a dozen miles away. He and his deputy walked through her house taking pictures and making note of everything, occasionally asking questions about where something had been. After two very long hours, it was determined that absolutely nothing was missing and that whoever it was had set out to vandalize the place.

She did not want to think about the pictures of her parents that were ruined and could never be replaced. It was taking everything in her not to break down. As the officers were turning to leave, she decided to accompany them outside to see if there was anything else she could do to help. They asked her some "routine" questions about anyone with a grudge or any strange occurrences lately. She told Sheriff Pike about the trouble with Chad as she wondered if he could possibly be behind this, but quickly discarded the idea because although he was a bully, this was his town, too, and she couldn't see him doing something so childish and destructive. The sheriff told her they had all the evidence they could gather and that as soon as they had any leads, they would let her know.

As she entered the house, she was surprised to see Sean on the floor, on his hands and knees, picking up glass from the broken pictures, the photos still in their frames stacked neatly on the hardwood floor. Following his lead, she made her way to her bedroom, where she picked up her makeup and clothes, shaking them out then hanging them neatly in the closet, setting aside some comfortable pajamas to change into after a shower when everything was set to rights. After a few brutal hours of putting away her belongings that could be salvaged and throwing away what couldn't, they finally sat down to a frozen pizza and Coke, not having the time or energy to make anything more elaborate for dinner. Tossing the briefly rinsed dishes into the dishwasher, she headed upstairs to take a shower and go to bed, calling it an early night after such a tumultuous day.

It was several hours before she remembered the mysterious message with no name and a Dallas phone number.