“I was trying to intrigue you,” Troy said. “The dinner invitation was obviously mine. In my handwriting.”

“It was printed,” Iris said in her own defense. And then she began to laugh. “Oh, my God,” she said, laughing some more. “Well, here we are,” she said, trying to regain her composure.

Seth was smiling but Troy was not.

“What?” she said, looking at Troy. “That was all very nice, Troy, but we’re not dating. We’ve talked about this. We work together.” A slight sound came from Seth and she turned to see he was smirking. “And don’t you get all superior, because I’m not dating you, either. Although apples and cookies are very neighborly.”

Like a man on a mission, Cliff delivered their drinks. When they were all on the table, Iris lifted her glass and toasted them. “To the two very nicest men,” she said. “Friends,” she emphasized.

Seth looked at Troy sympathetically. “Believe it or not, that’s progress. For me, anyway.”

Iris half expected Troy to say that in his case, he was backsliding. She sipped her wine but laughed into the glass. These two, both very handsome, sexy men, had no idea that she’d known both of them in the biblical sense. One of them couldn’t quite remember it and the other one was remembering it too well.

She studied her menu but she barely saw it. No matter, she knew everything by heart. She was thinking about them. On the surface, there wasn’t much that made one more appealing than the other. It was what had happened to her heart that separated them. After making perfectly satisfying love with Troy, she just wasn’t swept away. She didn’t long for more of him. After making completely unsatisfying teenage love with Seth, a clumsy and inexperienced lover, she couldn’t drive him from her mind for seventeen long years. How was something like that decided by a heart? It certainly wasn’t intentional. If she could choose, she would adore Troy and tell Seth to go pound sand. Troy was safer, less complicated, had wanted her since almost the first second he’d laid eyes on her.

Cliff approached their table again and she closed her menu. But Cliff wasn’t there to take orders.

“Deputy Sileski,” Cliff said formally. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but I have a situation in the bar and it isn’t pretty.”

“What is it?” Seth asked, getting to his feet.

“Some love triangle thing that started as arguing turned loud and there’s been a little physical stuff. Shoving. Struggling. I can call the cook, Ram, out of the kitchen. But since you’re here...”

Seth walked to the archway that led to the bar and looked at two big guys on either side of a small blonde woman. One brawny man pulled on her left arm, the other pulled on her right arm. “They drunk?” he asked Cliff.

“I only served the guy on the left,” he said. “The guy on the right came in just a minute ago, found them, started a scene. I don’t know those people, Seth. They’re not from around here.”

“Did you call Pritkus? He’s got the town tonight.”

“He’s on his way but he’s maybe fifteen minutes away.”

“Okay. Clear the bar area, then get behind the bar.” He turned to Iris. “I’ll be right back.”

He walked into the bar and approached the two surly men, noting they were both big. He had his backup gun, a pistol, on his ankle, something he never expected to have to use, but it was there. If this had happened anywhere else, he’d wait for local law enforcement. But this was his town. The people here were his friends and he didn’t want Cliff to lose any glassware.

“Gentlemen,” he said calmly. He showed his badge. “I’m Deputy Sileski and I need you to let go of the lady and step apart. Right now. Ma’am, I’d like you to go over to that table by the window, away from these men, and have a seat.”

“She’s my wife! She’s not going anywhere except home with me!” one of the men said.

“She’s separated!” the other yelled. “We’re just having dinner here!”

“Please, Carl, stop this,” the woman said. “Paul, let go.”

“Gentlemen, let go of the lady. Now!”

Carl was the one to make the first mistake. “We don’t need no goddamn Andy of Mayberry in our business!” he shouted. And then he took a swing at Seth.

Seth grabbed the man’s wrist and, in the blink of an eye, twisted Carl’s arm behind his back and pinned him to the bar. Seth met the eye of the other man, Paul. “Sir, I want you to sit at that end of the bar,” he said, giving his head a tilt. “I don’t want you anywhere near the lady. Ma’am, go where I told you to go. Now.”

“But we are separated!” she said. “We haven’t done anything wrong! And my husband is drunk!”

“This will get sorted out when Deputy Pritkus arrives. For now, everyone go to your corners.”

“We’ve been separated for two days—because I caught the whore doing that bastard,” the husband said from his compromised position against the bar.

Seth’s phone vibrated in his pocket. “Do not move one muscle,” he said to his captive. He glared at the other man, then the woman. “Did I speak a foreign language?” he asked. They separated.

Seth reached into his pocket with one hand, still holding Carl’s arm with the other. “Sileski.”

“I’m on my way. What’ve you got?” Pritkus asked.

“Twelve-twenty-nine in the bar, two males and one female,” he said, calling it a domestic disturbance. “Light it up, will you? This is pretty inconvenient.” Then he slid his phone back into his pocket. He leaned over the captive Carl. “You and I, we’re going to walk outside and wait for the deputy on duty.”

“No way,” Carl said. “I’m taking my wife home and you can go f**k yourself!” He whirled around and hit Seth in the mouth with an elbow. In one fluid move, Seth shoved him back on the bar, facedown, pulling both hands behind him by the wrists. Seth gave a sharp jerk upward, causing Carl to yelp.

The place became very quiet. Seth reached up to his mouth with one finger and came away with blood. “And now you’re going to jail.” Holding both wrists firmly in one tight grasp, he reached down and pulled his gun out of the ankle holster and slid it into his belt at the small of his back. He straightened and looked at the man who was called Paul. “Do you want to go to jail, too?”

Paul, whose eyes had become very large, shook his head slowly.

“Good decision. I want you to put your hands on the top of your head and precede me out of the restaurant. Give me six feet so I can see every move you make and if you run, I’m just going to shoot you. I am not getting hurt in this ridiculous nonsense. Do we understand each other?”

The man stood and put his hands on the top of his head. “Like this?” he asked politely.

“That’s very good, Paul. After you.”

Seth straightened his suspect with a jerk on the back of his collar and by pushing up on his arms at the same time. “Behave yourself, Carl, or you’re history.”

Paul, very creative, used his butt to open the exit door. Seth used Carl. Once outside in the cold October night Seth directed Paul to his truck. “I want you to put both your hands on the hood and spread your legs.”