Eddie didn’t care that I was good and pissed off or that he’d just had breakfast two hours ago. He wanted food now. He expressed this desire by winding his way in and out of my feet as I warmed up a bowl of stew that I was too mad to eat.

“You want more food? Well, I wanted my dad to keep his big fat nose out of my life. Guess neither one of us is gettin’ what we want,” I told the cat. He was young. But he needed to learn that life wasn’t always fair.

I couldn’t believe my father had sabotaged my chances with Bowie back then. Bowie had felt something for me, and I’d spent the last thousand years questioning my instincts and wondering what was wrong with me. I slammed the utensil drawer shut.

George padded into the kitchen to add his two cents to the lack of food issue.

“You’re already borderline overweight,” I told him.

I’d stormed out of the station, middle fingers mentally flying, and decided to take a little PTO to stew in my rage. Better to do it at home than anywhere near Connelly should he come back to the station. I wished I could be like Scarlett and throw a fit, get it out of my system. But I had the icier kind of temper, freezing people out with my chilly politeness.

My phone rang on the counter. I planned to ignore it, but I saw Scarlett on the screen and picked up.

“Okay, it’s tomorrow,” she said by way of a greeting. “I need to know how you may or may not have had sex with Bowie and why the whole town’s talking about you screaming at your daddy and then him showing up in Bowie’s office, hat in hand.”

“If those two do any more colluding behind my back I’m going to…” I trailed off. I didn’t even know how to threaten people.

“You’re going to turn your best friend loose on them to make them rue the day they were ever born,” Scarlett filled in for me. Her loyal vindictiveness was one of the many things I loved about her.

“Yes! That’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

“I already have the perfect place picked out for their bodies,” she continued on. “All you have to do is tell me exactly what happened.”

I sat down in a kitchen chair and proceeded to do exactly that.

When I was done, Scarlett was real quiet. Too quiet.

“Well?” I demanded.

“I’m tryin’ to remember where I put that second blue tarp. I don’t think we can fit both bodies in one.”

“So I’m not crazy for being madder than a wet hen?”

“Your daddy steps in to interfere with your love life and the guy of your dreams decides not to fight for you? I’d be bustin’ down the wall between your houses so you can steal all of Bowie’s shit. Then drive it over to your daddy’s house and throw it on the lawn. If those two are so cozy they might as well live together!”

“I spent years thinkin’ there was something wrong with me for him not wanting me,” I confessed.

“Oh, sweetie. The only thing wrong with this situation is those two dumbasses shoving their heads up each other’s butts. I get where your daddy was coming from. He saw the way you two were lookin’ at each other, all smoldery like. He didn’t want you making him a pappy too early and ruining your life like my mama.”

“I know how birth control works,” I pointed out.

“And amen to that. But what your daddy stupidly did was out of love. Stupidity and love. So hang on to that. You can and should be mad at him for a while. But Cass, Harlan loves you. He made one mistake.”

“A big one.”

“Yeah, but one big mistake is better than 36,000 small to mid-sized ones.”

I got what she was trying to tell me. It was okay to be mad, but I shouldn’t be forgetting how lucky I was to grow up with a Harlan Tucker instead of a Jonah Bodine. “I’m still going to stay mad at him for a good long while.”

“As you should,” Scarlett said, loyally. “Now, what about Bowie? And I want best friend points for not immediately dusting off my Bowie and Cassidy’s wedding scrapbook from seventh grade.”

“Burn it,” I told her. “He made his choice. He would rather have my father’s approval than me. There’s no way I’m forgiving him for that.”

“I can’t burn it,” she argued. “It has your junior high vows that you wrote about always letting him have the top thumb in hand-holding.”

“If you don’t burn that thing, I’m coming over right now and doing it for you!”

“Okay. Okay,” she relented. “Let’s talk about the almost sex.”

“Almost sex,” I repeated. “So it wasn’t actual sex, right?” For some reason, I’d been in a panic thinking that my first sexual experience with Bowie had gone unfinished. First and last experience, I decided vehemently.

“For it to count as sex, you have to have at least fifty-one percent of the penis,” Scarlett instructed.

I heard a knock at my front door and headed in that direction. “Fifty-one percent, huh?” I opened the door to a riotous bouquet of flowers. “What the—”

“What? What’s happening?” Scarlett asked from the phone.

The flowers lowered to reveal Bowie’s face.

“I’ll call you back, Scarlett. I have to murder your brother.”

“Wait! Do you need the tarp?” she asked.

I started to shut the door in his flowery face, but Bowie stuck his foot out and cheerfully shoved his way inside.

“Now listen here, Bowie Bodine—” I started.

With careful precision, he set the vase down on the floor and turned to me. He slid his hands into my hair, thumbs resting on my jaw. Before I could yell any profanities at all, he was kissing me.

Gentle and slow like he had all the time in the world. Like he was reassuring us both that this was exactly right. I felt the thawing, like a hair dryer on sidewalk ice. Parts of me were puddling up nicely.

He applied just the right amount of pressure that had me opening my mouth like I was under a spell. When his tongue danced into mine, I let out a whimper. He kissed me long and soft, and my entire body came to life. I couldn’t quite remember why I shouldn’t be letting him do this. I was too busy scrambling to remember what underwear I was wearing and if I’d remembered to shave my legs last night.

Then I heard a voice coming to me from the phone I hadn’t hung up. “What’s happening? Are y’all neckin’? Did you murder him?”

Bowie’s little sister.

My brain grabbed hold of that. Scarlett was Bowie’s little sister, and he’d once lied to my face and told me he saw me as nothing but the same.

I pressed my palms to that crisp dress shirt he was wearing and shoved.

“Hold your horses! There’s not gonna be any more kissing!” I told him.

He grinned down at me looking like he hadn’t a care in the dang world.

“Cass, honey, kissing isn’t the only thing I’m after.”

I looked down at his crotch, and sure enough it looked like Bowie Bodine, Jr. was very happy to see me.

“I can still hear y’all,” Scarlett chirped through the phone.

He plucked it out of my hand and disconnected the call. I realized I was still plastered up against his chest like a bug on a windshield.

“We’re not having sex. Not ever, Bowie,” I said taking a big step back. “You picked my father over me.”

“I did no such thing,” he argued, advancing on me. I found myself pinned up against the back of the couch and his long, lean body. Sir Edmund Hillary dashed across the top of the cushions. Bowie skimmed his hands from my shoulders to my wrists in one long stroke. “I wanted to be good enough for you, Cass.”

“You backed off of me because my father asked you to.”

“I thought he was saying I wasn’t good enough for you.”

“You told me you didn’t have feelings for me, Bowie!” It was like we were having two different conversations.

“I lied,” he said simply. “I’ve had big feelings for you for as long as I can remember.”

A panic was welling up inside me. He was saying all the things I’d wanted to hear for so damn long. And now they weren’t enough.

He released my wrists and threaded his fingers into my hair again, moving in on me in slow motion. His lips found mine, and it was like my body was hypnotized into accepting the pleasure he was offering. I kissed him back like my life depended on it. It wasn’t so slow and leisurely now because there was a fire growing between us.

Why did this feel so good? So right?

“Nope. No. Not happening,” I said, pushing him back and then dug my fingers into his shirt to hold him in place.

“I’m gettin’ some mixed messages here, Cass,” Bowie said with that damned boyish grin.

“I’m furious with you.”

He traced a finger down my nose. “I’m gonna make you forgive me, Cassidy. Then I’m gonna spend about a year kissing you to make up for lost time.”

I shook my head. “I’m not forgiving you, Bowie Bodine. You broke my heart.” Stop admitting things, Cassidy, you damn moron!

He cupped my face in his hands. “I broke mine, too. Now I’m gonna put them both back together and you and I are gonna spend the rest of our lives together.”

“Did you confiscate some hallucinogenic drugs today from a student? Do you even know what you’re sayin’?”

“I sure do. I’m saying I’m gonna marry you so you might as well hurry up and forgive me so we can move on to the good stuff.”

“You’ve lost your damn mind. I just got cats. Cats, Bowie! I’ve committed to the cat lady lifestyle and now you come runnin’ and expect me to marry you? You are the damnedest man on the planet!”