“Sorry,” Frank mumbled again.

“Tell me you got this guy,” Tate demanded.

“Why you think I’m here?” Frank asked.

“Because you don’t f**kin’ got this guy,” Tate bit out.

“We need you, Tate,” Frank stated and there was the thin, but desperate, thread of a plea in his four words.

But I was surprised. Why would they need Tate?

I looked up at him to see a muscle leap in his jaw.

Then he clipped, “Outside.”

Betty moved from the door and Frank moved out of it but Tate gave my waist a squeeze before he curled me into his front. Right into his front, our h*ps and bellies were touching and everything!

Looking down at me, he ordered, “Close that door, make your coffee and don’t f**kin’ listen. I’ll be back.”

Then he let me go and followed Frank.

“Oh dear,” Betty said and I looked at her.

“Tonia,” I whispered and my eyes filled with tears.

I mean, I didn’t know her very well and I didn’t like her but to be raped with a knife?

Betty nodded, grabbed my hand and led me to the bed. Once there, she put her hands to my shoulders and pressed down.

“I’ll make coffee,” she whispered after I was seated and then turned to the kettle.

Betty was silent while she made coffee and I got myself together. Then she brought two mugs to the bed, sat down beside me and handed me mine.

That’s when I asked, “Why would the cops come to Tate?”

“Well, he used to be one of ‘em,” she answered and I stared at her.

“Really?”

“Yeppo… and a good one.”

“Why isn’t he now?” I asked.

“Neeta,” she answered.

“Sorry?”

“Neeta.” She saw my face then patted my knee. “Long story and a sorry mess it was. I’ll tell you later. But now isn’t the time with Tate outside. Okay?”

I wanted to know then but she was right so I said, “Okay.”

“Anyway, it’s good they came to him,” she said. “Tate’ll find him.”

“But, how can the cops ask him to help if he’s a bartender?” I asked and she smiled.

“He isn’t a bartender, sweetie, he’s a bounty hunter.”

“What?” I breathed.

“Good one ‘a those too, I hear. When Bubba isn’t playin’ hooky and Krystal’s got a full staff, Tate gets called all over the country to find fugitives from the law.”

“Really?” I was still only talking in breaths.

“Yeah, Laurie. Tatum Jackson’s not the kind of man to spend his life behind a bar.”

My eyes moved to the door.

“Wow,” I whispered.

“Drink your coffee,” Betty urged and I looked back at her and just sat there so she prompted, “Coffee, sweetie.”

“Right,” I whispered and I drank my coffee.

* * * * *

Five minutes later there was a knock on the door.

Betty ran to get it because I was sitting cross-legged on the bed taking a sip of coffee.

Tate nodded at Betty when he walked in but he came right to me, stopped, tossed a phone charger and a shiny box on the bed and looked down at me.

“Night swims are done, Ace,” he declared in a hard voice.

I stared up at him and whispered a shocked, “Sorry?”

He bent at the waist, put a fist in the bed on either side of my hips, got in my face and I was too stunned to move.

“No more swimmin’ unless its daylight and Ned or Betty are around,” he ordered.

“But, how do you –?”

“You get in your room, you put the chain on and you stay in it, got me?”

“But –”

“You don’t open the door unless you know for a fact who it is and that they’re alone,” Tate went on.

“I –”

“I programmed my numbers into your phone. You need to go somewhere and it’s night, you call me, I’ll come down and you’re on the back of my bike.”

I swallowed but the tears still filled my eyes.

“She’s bad,” I whispered.

“She’ll be lucky to survive,” he whispered back.

“Tate,” I kept whispering, calling him by his name for the first time ever.

I watched with some fascination as his eyes closed and something weird rushed into his features. It was weird because it appeared both warm and painful.

He opened them and said quietly, “I cut her loose last night.”

My hand moved to wrap my fingers around his forearm. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“I cut her loose,” he repeated.

“Tate, don’t,” I whispered.

“I wasn’t nice about it,” he went on.

“Don’t –”

“Last thing she heard from my mouth was me callin’ her a bitch.”

“Tate –”

“She was on shift –”

My fingers squeezed and I leaned closer, “Honey, don’t.”

He was silent and we stared into each other’s eyes for awhile.

Then he ordered, “No more nighttime swimmin’, babe.”

“Okay,” I replied softly.

He pushed away and walked to the door, saying to Betty, “She may need some aloe vera.”

“Right, Tate,” Betty replied to no one because he was out the door.

Betty turned to me and grinned in a way that, if I wasn’t strung out on a variety of emotions, I would have thought, especially considering the circumstances, was bizarrely, happily hopeful.

But all I could say or think was, “How did he know about me swimming?”

“Why he was a good cop, why he’s a good bounty hunter, Tate Jackson knows all,” Betty answered.

I didn’t think that was good news, not for me.

I just hoped it was equally bad news for the man who hurt Tonia.

Chapter Five

Exhausted You

The next day, it was just passed two in the afternoon and it was another slow day at Bubba’s when he came in.

I was on and Dalton was behind the bar.

My body ached from boot camp, all over, and I spent some time that morning trying to figure out if it was my leg muscles, arm muscles, ab muscles or butt muscles that hurt the most but I couldn’t decide since they all hurt equally bad.