Not fancy, but something she thought she’d wear to a family picnic.
She opted to leave her hair down, leave it straight. It fell past her shoulders now so the lack of fuss added to the lack of fancy. Low, casual espadrille wedges, her tiniest hoops for earrings.
Taking stock in the mirror, she put herself into the role. First maybe-date in the company of his friends, in a roadhouse for dancing.
She thought it worked, and the flow of the dress would have a nice swing to it on the dance floor. Not overdressed—she hoped—but showing she’d taken some care instead of just throwing something on.
Besides, she’d fiddled around so long she didn’t have time to change.
She spotted him walking down the path—right on time. Jeans and high-tops—but not the sort she’d seen him wear around the ranch. A pale green shirt, open at the collar, but one she thought of as a dress shirt that would do fine under a suit jacket with a coordinating tie.
First hurdle—dress code—cleared.
She went to the door, opened it. And liked—what woman wouldn’t—the way he paused, the way he looked at her.
“California poppies work on you.”
“I was hoping.” After closing the door at her back, she slung her little cross-body bag on. “You’re prompt. I thought I’d head up to the house, save you the walk, but you beat me to it.”
“Nice night for a walk.”
“Nice night period. Do you do this often?”
“Do what?”
“Go dancing.”
“Not especially.” Jesus, she smelled good. Why did women make themselves smell so damn good? “Unless one of my friends says, ‘Hey, let’s hit the Roadhouse,’ I don’t think about it. I’m not big on the solo hunt.”
He pressed a finger to his eye. “And that sounded all kinds of wrong.”
“No, it didn’t. Women have wingmen, too. So, you haven’t been seeing anyone?”
“Not in a while, no.”
He’d borrowed Gram’s car—at her insistence. (“Boy, you don’t take a woman dancing first time out in a pickup truck.”) He opened the passenger door, waited until she’d pulled the colorful skirts inside before closing it.
“Because?” she said when he got behind the wheel.
“Because? Oh.” With a shrug, he started the engine, headed down. “I was seeing someone last year for a while, but things get busy in the summer. It just didn’t suit her, so we let that slide. Hailey, that’s Leo’s wife, she’s always trying to fix me up. It’d be annoying if I didn’t like her so much.”
Pleased to find yet more common ground, she settled in.
“I got that back in New York. Oh, you’ve got to meet this guy, or that guy. And I’d think: You know, I really just don’t.”
He flicked her a glance. “Because?”
“I’d go out with somebody in the business, it ended up being a mess. I’d go out with somebody not in the business, it ended up being a mess. Fraught,” she remembered. “Fraught’s the word that comes to mind.
“So tell me about Hailey, and the woman your other friend’s bringing.”
“Hailey teaches fifth grade and hits that balance between sweet-natured and steely spined on the money. Smart, funny, seriously patient. We all went to school together back in the day. She and Dave were the ones always screwing the curve for the rest of us.”
Fifth grade, she thought, her personal watershed year. One she’d ended with tutors—and no childhood friends to hold through life.
“You’ve all known each other that long.”
“Yeah. You’d have thought, back then, Hailey and Dave would’ve hooked up. You know, nerd love. But that never happened. And she came back from college, and Leo dropped like a stone. They’re good together. Probably have some fraught in there, but they’re good together.”
“And Dave’s date?” Had to have a grip on the cast, after all.
“Tricia. She’s a craftswoman, works in wood. Damn good at it, too. Artistic. Athletic, too. Likes to hike. She and Red hit it off because she surfs. I like her. She and Dave have a nice rhythm. Except Dave has no rhythm. He has algorithms.”
“We’ll see about that.”
He turned onto a back road, pulled into the crowded parking lot in front of what really did look like a house. Single story, though long and deep, with a flat roof.
Big bulb lights strung their way across the front eaves over a porch where a number of people stood around drinking bottles of beer.
Since the doors stood open, she heard music pumping out.
“It’s already busy.”
“The band’ll start soon,” he told her. “It’s early, I guess, by what you’d be used to, but we’ll have a lot of ranchers, ranch hands, farmers, farmhands. They’ll be up before dawn tomorrow, Saturday or not.”
She got out before he could do as he’d been taught and come around to open the door for her. She gestured to the line of motorcycles. “Ranch hands?”
“Bikers like to dance, too.”
A couple of people called out his name as they walked across the gravel lot. Some of the porch people wore Stetsons or ball caps, some wore bandannas and tattoo sleeves.
Inside she saw a lot of wooden tables crowded together, a decent-size dance floor, a long bar. And a stage at the front, raised up, equipment and instruments already waiting.
She felt some mild disappointment not to see chicken wire across it, Blues Brothers style.
Recorded music bounced off the walls—walls decorated with beer signs, bull heads, and cowhides.
“Looks like Leo and Hailey already grabbed a table.” He took Cate’s hand to lead her through the tables, chairs, benches, people.
His friend Leo wore his black hair in short dreads, looked over at their approach with big, appraising brown eyes. Hailey, her honey-blond hair cut in a side swing, had one hand on the mound of her belly as she studied Cate.
Decision pending, Cate thought.
“Hey, man.” Though his eyes stayed watchful, Leo offered a smile.
“Cate, this is Hailey and the guy she married instead of me.”
“Somebody had to. It’s nice to meet you.”
“It’s nice to meet you.” Cate took a seat. “Coming soon?”
Hailey gave her baby bump a pat. “Eight more weeks and counting. The nursery’s finished, Dillon. You’ll have to come by and see.”
“I’ll do that.” With the ease of an old friend, he gave her bump a rub. “How’s she doing?”
“So far, so perfect. If we don’t count the times—you’ll excuse me,” she said to Cate, “she parks herself on my bladder.”
“Do you have a name?” Cate asked.
“We think Grace because—”
“She’s going to be amazing.”
Hailey cocked her head, and the smile went all the way into her eyes this time. “That’s exactly right.”
The waitress stopped by.
“House nachos,” Leo told her. “Four plates.”
“I thought we were going to be six.”
“Dave and Tricia are always late. With luck, we’ll have polished them off before they get here. Want a beer?”
“I actually don’t drink beer.”
After a beat of silence, Dillon turned to her. “But you’re Irish.”
“And a disgrace to all my ancestors. How’s the house red?”
“In my before memory?” Hailey wagged a hand in the air.
“I’ll risk it.”
Maybe in protest, Dillon ordered a Guinness. Then he smiled. “Hugh bought me my first legal beer. A Guinness.”
“He would.”
“So . . .” Leo lifted his own beer. “You do, like, voice-over work.”
“I do.”
“And Dil said you did the voice for Shalla.”
Cate all but heard Hailey roll her eyes. She leaned forward, looked deep into Leo’s, called up the voice.
“We do not surrender today. We will not surrender tomorrow. We will fight until t
he last breath, until the last drop of blood.”
Leo pointed at her. “Okay. All right. That is cool. That is seriously cool.”
The crowd whistled and cheered as a group of five—four men, one woman—hit the stage. With a crash of drums, a screaming guitar riff, the live music erupted.
Hailey leaned toward Cate, spoke directly in her ear. “Be grateful the music started, and it’s loud. Otherwise, he’d have wanted to hear every video game voice you’ve ever done.”
Twenty minutes into the evening, Cate learned several things. Hailey had been right about the wine—though so-so was generous. It wasn’t hard for four people to polish off a plate of nachos before the latecomers arrived.
And Dillon could dance.
When a man knew how to rock to a hard, driving beat, and had the skills to hold a woman exactly right and move to a slow, sinuous one, a logical woman had to wonder about his skills and moves elsewhere.
Plus, he had the twirl-her-out-and-snap-her-back down to a science.
When he snapped her back, heated body to heated body, slow steps silky and smooth, she tipped her head back. Faces as close as they’d been in the milking parlor, music pulsing, other bodies swaying around them.
“Your ladies taught you well, Mr. Cooper.”
“Could be they had my innate skill to work with.”
“Could be. But a superior teacher can’t be discounted. Which I’m about to prove.”
She brushed her lips lightly over his, then pulled back and away before he could make more of it.
She was killing him.
She walked back to the table on those really terrific legs where Dave tried to convince Hailey they should name the baby after him because “I’m the one who convinced Leo to get his nuts up and ask you out the first time.”
Cate leaned over Dave’s shoulder, quoted an icon. “Shut up and dance with me.”
“Who, me? Sure!”
Tricia, earrings sparkling with flowers and fairies to her shoulders, wildly curling burgundy hair spilling past them, offered a smirk. “I hope those shoes have steel toes.”
Cate already found Dave, with his Elvis Costello glasses and Ron Howard freckles, adorable.
The fact that, with the beat hot again, he moved like a malfunctioning robot on crack just made him more adorable.
He flushed pink under the freckles when Cate gripped his hips.
“Use these.”
“Um.” He glanced back toward the table.
“Not your feet, just your hips. Tick tock, loose in the knees.”
She laughed when he obediently loosened his knees enough to sink three full inches.
“Not that loose. That’s the way, but let’s tick and tock to the beat. Let’s try an eight count, go with me. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Close your eyes a minute, listen to the beat, try it again. Keep going, add your shoulders, just a little bop to go with the hips.”
He still blushed, but he followed directions. Potential, she decided.
“I’m going to do for you what Ren did for Willard.”
Dave’s eyes popped open, and the blush died on a wide grin. “Footloose!”
“I’m your Kevin Bacon. We’re going to try a two-step. Anything’s possible with a two-step. Look at my feet.”
He did so with (adorable) intensity. “Just like me, and just your feet. There you go, there you go, on the beat. One-two, one-two, one-two. Add your hips, loose knees. Don’t stiffen up. There you are.”
She had his hands now, keeping the connection. “One-two, one-two, one-two, tick-tock, tick-tock. A little shoulder now, bop, bop, loose, loose. And you’re dancing.”
She sent a smug look toward the table where Dillon lifted his drink in acknowledgment.
“How the holy hell did she do that?” Tricia demanded, sending the flowers and fairies at her ears spinning as she jumped up. “I’m cutting in. This may never happen again in our lifetimes.”
Cate strolled back to the table. Sat, shook back her hair. “I believe I deserve another glass of wine.”
About the time Cate ordered another glass of wine, Red drove away from the ranch and along the coast. Maggie had her monthly hen party—not that he’d ever call it that within her hearing for the very basic reason he liked his balls just where they were.
Sometimes when the house filled with women, he hung out with Dillon, had a couple beers, watched some tube. But since the boy had himself a date—and anybody who hadn’t seen it coming didn’t have eyes in their head—he decided he’d spend a night at his own place.
He might even put on a wet suit and take his board out in the morning.
It suited him, just like it suited Maggie, for him to keep his own place. They’d been together, in their way, about twenty years now by his reckoning. And they liked their way just fine.
He had himself an independent, opinionated woman, and through her had the family he’d missed building for himself in his youth.
A part of him missed the police work, and always would, but he’d discovered a real affinity for ranch life. He’d come to depend on sitting around the table at the end of the day, eating things he’d helped raise and grow and make.
A bone-deep satisfaction.
He had the windows open to the sea-swept air, and found some classic Beach Boys on the satellite radio to put him in the mood for a morning surf. He had a pint of fresh milk in the little cooler for his morning coffee, along with some bacon, a couple of eggs he’d cook up after he caught a few waves.
He figured he’d stop by and see Mic before he headed home.
The little bungalow outside of town was his place. The ranch was home.
But part-time rancher or not, he’d been a cop a long time. Any cop with a brain knew when he was being tailed. Especially when the tail wasn’t any damn good at it.
He watched the headlights in his rearview, how they kept the same distance whether he eased off the gas or punched it a little.
He figured he’d made a few enemies along the way, but none he could look back on who’d care enough to want to cause him serious harm.
Maybe somebody took a shine to his truck. Force him to the shoulder, rob him, leave him stranded—maybe kick his ass for good measure. Or worse.
Not the sort of thing that happened along this stretch as a rule, he thought as he took his nine-millimeter Glock out of the glove compartment, checked the load, laid it within easy reach.
If they tried anything, they’d be in for a hell of a surprise.
He considered calling it in, then considered he might be having a paranoid old man moment.
Then the headlights leaped forward, and he knew his cop instinct hit bull’s-eye.
He punched it. He’d driven this road all his damn life, knew every curve and bend.
But he hadn’t expected to see a man—black, red do-rag, indeterminate age—rear out of the passenger window with a goddamn semiauto.
The first volley shattered his rear window, peppered his tailgate.
Definitely not a carjacking. They wanted him dead.
He gripped and whipped the wheel, drove the accelerator to the floor. The car—a freaking Jag he saw now as it skidded on the turn—fishtailed, fought for control, found it.
Creek coming up. He envisioned it, the way the road would veer toward the canyon, ride the bridge, veer back toward the sea.
He gained a little distance there, just a little. But the Jag kept coming, and so did the bullets.
He had to ease off the gas to navigate one of the blind turns, then headlights streaming toward him blinded him for an instant. He watched the oncoming sedan swerve, bump the shoulder as he roared past.
And hoped they had the sense God gave a moron and called it in, as he was a little too occupied to do so himself.
The Jag had the speed, it had the muscle, but its driver didn’t have the skill. The wasp-sting bite along his right shoulder told Red he needed to put that to the test.
He had the drop to the sea on his rig
ht, the cliff wall on his left, and a hairpin coming up only a desperate man would take at seventy miles an hour.
He took it at seventy-five, fighting to control the truck that tried to two-wheel it on him while his shoulder burned and bullets blew through the shattered window.
Behind him, the Jag lost its grip, overcompensated. And flew, just fucking flew over the guardrail.
His tires screamed and smoked when Red hit the brakes. He smelled burning rubber and blood—his own—as he battled the truck to a spinning stop. Behind him the smash and grind of glass and metal screamed. His hands trembled—he could admit that—as he loosened his death grip on the wheel, pulled over.
As he raced down the skinny shoulder, the explosion rocked the air. Fire seared it. He looked down at the twists of metal, the roar of flames, and calculated the chances of a survivor next to zero.
As cars began pulling over, he slid the gun in his hands to the back of his waistband.
“Keep clear,” he shouted. “I’m a cop.”
Or close enough, he thought.
He pulled out his phone.
“Mic, it’s Red. I’ve got a serious problem out here on Highway 1.”
And bending over, bracing his hands on his thighs as he pulled his breath back, he gave her the gist.
Along with cops, the fire department, paramedics, she came herself. Crime scene, accident detail, all of that went on around him. First responders, rappelling or climbing down the cliff to the wreckage, lights blasting and spinning.
She stood beside him while one of the medics treated his shoulder.
She had a husband now, and two kids—good kids—wore her hair in rows of braids that ended on a long tail of them.
And had put on the uniform before coming out. Because she was Mic, he thought, and would always choose structure.
He glanced down at his shoulder as whatever the medic did increased the sting. But he offered Mic a smile.
“Just a flesh wound.”
“You really see this as the time to quote some old B Western?”
“I was going more for Monty Python. Just nicked me, and trust me, I know I’m damn lucky. Best guess is the shooter—black, slim build, passenger seat—used an AR-15. Tailed me a couple miles before they made the move. Can’t give you dick on the driver, except he didn’t know how to handle the Jag, so it’s probably stolen. Add I don’t know anybody who can afford a Jag who’d want to shoot me dead.”
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