“You wouldn’t say that if you’re in the shower and they’re all staring at you.”

“Bad, but not as bad. No, we go for the gold—and red and black. We take on the beast. Show me what to do.”

Thirty minutes in, Zane looked at his partially stripped wall—and the screaming blue paint uncovered. He glanced over to check Darby’s progress. Slightly better than his, but she’d had practice.

“Reinforcements,” he announced. “I’ll draft Micah.”

“Zane, I can’t ask him to—”

“You’re not. I am. You got beer, wine, snacks?”

“Yes.”

He pulled out his phone, so Darby swallowed objections. Especially when she looked at the walls, the room, and estimated hours before they’d eradicate her bedroom nightmare.

“He’s in. Cassie’s coming, too. She’s actually done this before.” He pocketed the phone. “She still has the tools.”

She liked Cassie, who taught yoga, made pottery, and added a kind of bouncy, New Agey touch to Micah’s laid-back geek.

“That’s beyond nice of them. I’m just a little worried.”

“What? They know you bought the house this way.”

“Not that. It’s … What if, in these close quarters, Micah’s distracted by my hotness and hurts himself?”

“Funny.” Zane grabbed her, pulled her in.

* * *

While Zane and Darby stripped wallpaper with the affable Micah and the chatty, cheerful Cassie, Eliza cleaned the dinner dishes.

Graham had actually complimented her attempt at chicken and rice, had eaten well despite the sticky rice and dry chicken.

No wonder she adored him.

She felt he’d adjusted very well. When he’d first gotten his driver’s license reinstated, he’d insisted she accompany him everywhere. But he’d gradually regained his confidence.

She knew he disliked his job. Working in a medical supply store was lowering, but it fulfilled the terms of his parole, and now that he could drive to and from the strip mall, he’d gained some independence.

She hadn’t cared for her job at first either—terms of her own parole. But now that Graham was back, and he’d insisted she quit, she found she missed the interaction.

She had no social contacts, and since he took the car, nothing to do all day but stay home.

Her old life, the parties, the club, the lunches with friends, all of it lived inside her like a dream.

Calculating his mood, the timing, Eliza mixed them both an after-dinner drink. The dishes could wait. After all, she’d have the entire next day, alone, to deal with them.

After carrying the drinks to the living room, she sat beside him. He kissed her cheek as she curled her legs up.

“Thanks, lover.”

“It’s such a nice night. Maybe we could take a walk.”

“Too many nosy neighbors.”

“I guess you’re right.” She tipped her head to his shoulder. “Graham, I’ve been thinking I should get a car.”

“What for?”

“To shop, run errands.”

“You do all that on my days off.”

“Yes, but sometimes I think of something in the middle of the day, and I know how you dislike me asking you to pick something up on your way home.”

The lines around his mouth only dug deeper. “You should be more organized. It’s all you have to do, Eliza. You don’t have to get up every morning and go to a humiliating, menial job, do you?”

“No.” Instinctively, she rubbed a hand on his thigh. “I hate that you do. I hate it for you, but it won’t be forever. When this is over, we’ll be able to go wherever we want, start a real life together again. It’ll be like it used to be, Graham. We’ll buy a lovely house, join the country club. We can travel. We can—”

“Are you just stupid?”

“Graham.”

“How are we supposed to pay for all that? Goddamn lawyers took nearly everything.”

“I know, I know.” She rubbed his thigh. “But we still have some money, and I have my trust. We—”

He threw the drink in her face, blinding her so she didn’t see the first slap coming.

“Don’t. Please. You promised after the last time you wouldn’t hit me anymore. It’s not like it used to be, Graham, and I can’t—”

“Nothing’s like it used to be.” He slapped her again. “Your trust, you stupid, selfish bitch.” He shoved her to the floor, hitting her again when she tried to scramble up and away. “You want a big house, the country club, a goddamn car so you can go wherever you please while I’m humiliated selling blood pressure cuffs?”

When he dragged her up, pushed her against the wall, she tried to twist away, but he wrenched her arm, shooting pain through her that buckled her knees.

“What do you do? What the fuck do you do? Sit around all day thinking of what to complain about? You can’t even make a decent meal. You useless cunt.”

“Stop, stop, stop.”

“You want a car? You want a car so you can drive to some motel with whoever you were fucking while I was locked up like an animal?”

“I never—not with anyone. I waited for you.”

“Liar.” The gut punch would have doubled her over if he hadn’t pinned her to the wall. “You could never go two days without sex. Who knows better?”

“With you. With you.”

“With me.” He shoved up her skirt, yanked down her panties. It hurt, it hurt. When he raped her against the wall, there was only pain, no thrill, no deep, dark excitement.

And when he’d finished, when she dropped weeping to her knees, he stepped back, zipped his pants. “You’re not even good at that anymore.”

He kicked her, but put no real force behind it. That glorious, energizing rage had faded. He walked into the kitchen, glanced with disgust at the dishes yet to be washed.

And mixed himself another drink.

* * *

After his clients left, Zane sat at his desk. Clint and Traci Draper had given him a bad feeling. The consult had been odd enough, a bound ary dispute, with the potential clients’ desire to sue a neighbor over what amounted to about twenty-five square feet of land.

Seeing as Draper claimed the land after a self-conducted new survey, his case was shaky at best. But what concerned Zane were the clients themselves.

The fact that Draper—down to the rebel flag belt buckle—appeared to put the red in redneck didn’t bother Zane. His assertion that his neighbors had a faggot for a son did, considerably.

What had troubled him even more than Draper’s brash, bigoted bullshit was the fact that his wife spent most of the consult with her eyes cast down and her mouth shut.

He knew the Draper family—hill people who kept to themselves. They’d had a reputation as hard-assed, bigoted troublemakers even when he’d been a kid. It struck him that Clint, the youngest of them, wanted to keep that rep going.

Rising, Zane circled the room, picked up his baseball, rubbed the stitching as he paced.

He remembered Traci’s older sister, a little.

And wasn’t it odd, when Zane had mentioned her sister, or asked any question of Traci directly, she’d glanced at her husband—as if for permission—before answering.

Not odd, Zane corrected.

Telling.

He put the ball back on his desk, walked out to reception.

“The Drapers didn’t look happy when they left,” Maureen commented.

“They wouldn’t be after I pointed out that doing his own survey—one that two professional surveys dispute—wasn’t going to fly on his claim for a foot-wide strip of land. Added to it, his neighbors have used said foot-wide strip of land, maintained it, have a hedge planted on it, for over twenty years. Pointing that out, suggesting if they wanted to pursue this boundary issue he hire a reputable surveyor made me, in Draper’s opinion, an asshole city lawyer who didn’t know shit about shit.”

“Did you see the bumper sticker on his pickup?” Gretchen, a trim, petite streaky-haired blonde with a sharp legal mind, spoke up from her desk. “Sorry, interrupting.”

“No, that’s okay, and I didn’t. What about it?”

“It said: You won’t get my guns, but you might get my bullets.”

“Charming.” Zane sat. “What do you know about Traci, Maureen? I don’t remember her at all, but I knew her sister a little.”

“Not much. She’s younger than my kids. Her dad’s a mechanic. We still take our cars to his garage. Nice guy, friendly enough.”

“Right, right, I forgot. Mr. Abbott, sure.”

“The mother’s a little shy, but affable. Works at the bakery here in town. The Drapers, now, they’re more hill people than lake people.”

“That I remember, too.”

“Well, it seems to me the kids—four boys—were mostly homeschooled. I’m stretching my memory and talent for gossip,” she added, “but I think one of them went into the service, another one just took off and ended up in jail for cooking meth. One’s married, lives out there with his wife and kids on the Draper land. Clint would be the youngest, I think, and he and Traci got married about a year ago.”

“Okay.”

“If you want to know more, you might ask Lee. I know he’s had the two youngest as guests—in jail—a time or two. But I’m wondering why you’re asking if you’re not taking them as clients.”

“She never looked me in the eye, not once. She couldn’t have said as much as ten words.”

“She might be shy, like her mama.”