I walked into the hospital waiting room where Tate and Mack were sitting, Mack in a chair with his feet propped up on a low table, his eyes glued to a TV that had the sound down low, Tate in the same position but on a couch.

When I walked in, Tate’s eyes moved to me.

“He’s settled,” I announced and then lifted a knee high to maneuver over Tate’s outstretched legs. I got to the other side and collapsed onto the couch beside him.

“He good?” Tate asked as his arm slid around my shoulders and he pulled me into his side.

I lifted my feet and put them on the table close to Tate’s, nodding and relaxing into his heat.

“It okay for me to go in?” Mack asked, I looked over my shoulder at him and nodded again. Mack pulled his feet off the table, put his hands to the armrests and shoved up. “I won’t tire him out,” he muttered and strolled out of the room.

Dad had been moved out of ICU. He was conscious a lot more that day and talking. This was all good.

He still was an alarming color and weak in a way that both freaked me out and made me so sad I didn’t know what to do with the feeling. So I just let it happen and decided to process it later since there was nothing else I could do.

Tate’s arm gave me a squeeze and I lifted my head from his shoulder where I’d rested it to look at him.

“You need to get outta here,” he declared when my eyes caught his.

I shook my head and his arm curled me toward him so my front was pressed to his side and, to be comfortable, I was forced to uncross my feet and lift a knee until it was resting on his thighs. This was, by the way, very comfortable because I was wearing white shorts and the feel against my bare skin of his soft, faded denim and the hard muscle under it was really nice.

“Laurie, can’t stay here all day, your Mom either. She’s barely left. We’ll get her, check out of the hotel, take her back to the farm. She doesn’t have to be this close anymore. He’s good, she needs a break, she needs to connect with home and he needs to rest,” Tate stated.

I nodded because he was right but said, “In a little while, maybe for lunch.”

“Mack says he and Carrie need to get back to work,” Tate told me and I knew this to be true. Mack owned his own construction firm, he was probably good but he also couldn’t be away forever. Carrie was a paralegal and her boss was a jerk. From what I knew of him, he’d lay into her the minute she got back.

“I know,” I said softly and then dropped my cheek and rested it on his pectoral while my arm slid around his abs. “When they come out, we’ll arrange things,” I finished, settling into him.

Tate kept his arm tight around my shoulders and we fell silent.

I contemplated his boots thinking they were hot. I had no idea what he contemplated.

Then he told me.

“What’d you do?” he asked.

“Do?” I asked his boots.

“Before Carnal, where’d you work?”

I lifted my head, twisting my neck to look up at him, fear slithering through me because I was thinking this was dangerous ground with ex-football player, ex-cop, current bartender-slash-bounty hunter Tatum Jackson.

“Where’d I work?” I asked in an effort to stall.

“Yeah,” he answered.

I looked at his chest and mumbled, “Um…”

“Ace,” he called and my eyes reluctantly went to his.

“Yes?” I asked and he stared at me for several long moments.

Four tawny flecks in his left eye, three in his right.

“Did you forget?” he asked and I focused on him and not the tawny flecks in his eyes. When I focused I noted he looked impatient.

“Forget?” I parroted.

“Jesus, babe, where’d you work before you left suburbia?”

I bit my lip. Then I realized this was it, us starting out, getting along, learning about each other.

Therefore, I said on a rush, “I was an executive.”

“An executive,” he repeated slowly.

“For an airline,” I told him.

“What airline?” he asked.

“Um…” his arm gave me a squeeze, “Kites?” I said it like a question as if he could confirm its validity.

“Kites,” he repeated.

“You heard of it?” I asked like it was a small airline that had a fleet of about twelve planes when it wasn’t small. It wasn’t international but it was national, based in Phoenix, flew mostly west of the Mississippi but also had flights all over the country and had so many planes sometimes Dean, the man in charge of keeping track of them, lost track (though he only told me this but they figured it out, I knew that because one of the e-mails I read three days ago was from him telling me he got fired).

“Yeah, Ace, I’ve heard of it,” Tate drawled. “Executive of what?”

“Um…”

“Babe.”

“Senior Vice President of Labor Relations,” I said swiftly then downplayed it, “kind of the HR Guru.”

Tate stared at me.

Then he looked to the TV and muttered, “Jesus.”

That fear started taking hold.

“Tate,” I called and his eyes came to me.

“You make a lotta cake?” he asked.

“I did,” I whispered.

“Now you’re a waitress,” he said.

“Now I’m a waitress,” I confirmed.

“Livin’ in a hotel,” he remarked.

I bit my lip.

“Where’d you live before?” he asked.

“Horizon Summit,”

“Suburb of Phoenix?”

“A housing development in Scottsdale.”

“Scottsdale,” he murmured.

“Um…”

“What’s your ex do?” he asked.

“Executive Vice President of Sheer Aeronauticals,” I whispered.

Tate stared at me.

“He makes a lot of cake too,” I was still whispering.

“Martinis and manicures,” Tate mumbled.

“I don’t miss it,” I told him quickly but Tate didn’t respond, didn’t speak, didn’t move, his face didn’t even change. “I promise, I don’t.”

“Right,” Tate muttered and his eyes went back to the TV.

I pulled up his chest so my face was in his line of vision.

“We lived in a gated community, our backyard butted a golf course,” I said. “Every time I drove through that gate I wondered if it was there to keep people out or lock me in. I hated that gate. I hated living behind a gate and what that said. I hated golf and I still do. I had a girl who cleaned my house and I liked cleaning my house. It was a big house but I didn’t do anything in my life where I saw the results unless they were on a graph in some report and what does that really mean?” I planted a hand in his chest and kept going. “I didn’t even paint my own nails. I rarely cooked because Brad was never home and both our hours were crazed, not to mention he was carrying on an affair. If I wasn’t cleaning my house, I didn’t like it. It was too big, too shiny, too new. I didn’t drink grape Kool-Aid there because Brad’s not a Kool-Aid type of guy but I was scared I’d spill it on the furniture. Everything was so perfect. Nothing had personality.” I took a deep breath and kept babbling. “I didn’t like my job, I liked the people I worked with but I didn’t like my job. It was all about rules, about policy. I’m all for rules and policy, I just don’t want to be the one pushing them down people’s throats. I don’t know why I did it. I was lost after college and I got into human resources on a fluke. I liked it. It fascinated me, people fascinate me. And it just took off from there. My Dad taught me to be a good employee, work hard and smart, be loyal. It just ballooned and there I was, where I didn’t want to be, at work and at home. Sometimes I’d sit in my office and look at my computer and wonder how I got there and then I’d wonder why I stayed. But Brad liked the life we could live on our salaries and I loved him so I –”