“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 the 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.