“To answer your question, I have a restraining order against one of my ex friends,” she explained. “We had a big falling out, and she started to get really ugly. I asked her to back off, and she started to send her friends around to terrorize me, as well as coming herself. Toilet papering my house, egging my car, forking my yard.”

My mouth opened and closed. “Forking your yard…”

She smiled. “Yeah, they stab the plastic forks into the yard, and then break them off at the base so you can’t get them out.”

Ahh that made sense.

“And what did you do to deserve that behavior?” I asked her.

She grimaced. “When I was in college, we shared a room together. She said that I stole her boyfriend and her ‘stash.’ I didn’t know what stash she was accusing me of stealing, but I most definitely didn’t steal her boyfriend, nor her stash.”

I snorted. “Stash of drugs, probably. And has she come around lately?”

She shook her head as she started opening her box, revealing sterilized scissors and other stuff that I had no clue what it was.

“I haven’t seen her in a while. I moved about a year ago, and either she doesn’t know the new address, or she’s obeying the law,” she informed me.

“Mmmm,” I said. “It’s more likely that she doesn’t know where you live. Try to keep it that way.”

She narrowed her eyes at me. “I try to do that. Yet some police detective I know looked me up in the system when I didn’t want him to.”

I smiled at her. “I’m not a detective. Only a lowly patrol and SWAT officer.”

She snorted and then snapped her gloves on before she started to cut the pieces of thread from my hand.

It pinched slightly, but didn’t hurt anywhere near as bad as they had going in.

Once done with that, she started to pick them out with a small set of tweezers.

While she did this, I studied her hair. Her face. Her clothes.

Her hair was up today in a messy bun on top of her head, and her face was free of any makeup.

I found that I liked both sides of her, but this one had to be my favorite.

If she looked this beautiful in the first place, why in the hell did she wear makeup?

She was wearing a pair of black knit shorts that were extremely short, and the tank she was wearing barely covered her belly. However, I found that I liked the two in combination with the other. She looked freakin’ hot.

Her tan proved that she was outside a lot, and most likely in just about the same amount of clothes if the tan lines were anything to go by.

Ruff! Ruff!

My eyes went to the French doors on the other side of the table, and then down to see her dog, the massive white beast that looked like it’d grown in the week and a half that I’d seen it.

“Aren’t you worried that he’ll break that door?” I asked when he stood onto his hind legs and put both paws up on the glass.

She looked over and smiled. “No. It’s safety glass.”

“Why? Have you experienced him breaking the glass before?” I asked.

“Mmm-mmm,” she said, shaking her head. “Corrinne again.”

“Corrinne?” I asked in alarm, the name pulling me rudely out of my perusal of how great her hair smelled.

She nodded. “Yeah, Corrinne. Threw rocks through my last house’s windows. That’s why every one of my doors, as well as windows, have safety glass.”

“Where’d you go to college?” I asked warily.

“UT,” she answered quickly.

What were the odds of two Corrinne’s, in Kilgore or around the vicinity, both being crazy as fuck?

“What was her last name?” I asked, really not wanting to hear the answer, but knowing it would need to be done. Just in case.

Don’t say Calloway. Don’t say Calloway.

“Beamer….” she answered.

I breathed a sigh of relief. Thank God!

“Bennett?” She called from behind me. “What’s the deal? Do you know her?”

I turned to find her standing, tweezers in her hand, and looking at me like I’d grown at second head.

“No. My Corrinne isn’t your Corrinne, thankfully. That’s my girl’s mother,” I explained. “It’s just the sound of that name really freaks me the fuck out. Not that I’ve seen her in five fucking years, but to hear her name still gives me chills.”

The last time had been by accident, too.

I’d been out to eat with my family, and Corrinne had been out to eat with hers.

I’d never know why she’d bothered to come over when she did, looking at Reagan like she was her long lost daughter that she cared for.

She never wanted her and only acted like she did when she was wanting money from me.

That day, though, was the day she’d thrown out a little hint that maybe she really did want Reagan.

It’d freaked me out so much that I’d had my mother speak with a lawyer about any and all possible options Corrinne might have, in case she ever got the whim to try to get Reagan back.

Luckily, there weren’t any, but I still broke out into a cold sweat whenever her name was mentioned.

She really could make my child’s life a living hell, even if she couldn’t get her under the letter of the law.

“Seems to me if she was so bad you wouldn’t have made a kid with her,” she surmised.

I shook my head. “I was a teenager at the time. Young and dumb. I have some stories that will turn your skin inside out to hear.”

She shivered. “How does she get along with your daughter?”

My face hardened. “She hasn’t seen my daughter since she was born…at least not purposefully. I’ve had full custody of her for the majority of her life. She only knows that her mother was a very bad person, and that she’ll never be seeing her, at least if it’s within my power.”

“So does your girlfriend, Meg, like her?” Lennox asked, taking my hand once again and finishing the job.

I scrunched my face up in confusion. “Meg?”

She looked up at me with her brows high.

“Don’t you have a Meg?” She asked casually.

I shook my head. “No.”

“You were talking to her the last time we were together,” she said suspiciously. “You asked her if she wanted you to bring dinner.”

I didn’t let on that I knew who she was talking about. It really cracked me up that she was trying to be so aloof about Meg, and still get information at the same time.

I smiled.

“Meg is my babysitter when I’m working. She has a seven year old of her own, and she’s married to a Marine,” I said with a laugh at the look on her face.

“Oh,” she laughed a little under her breath before taking out the final stitch.

After inspecting the skin, she curled my palm into a fist with both of her hands and said, “Try to open your hand.”

I did, easily.

“Well, you could at least make it look like I have some strength,” she grumbled.

After throwing all her trash into the trashcan, she smiled at me.

“What are you doing now?” She asked.

I looked at my watch. “In about an hour, I’m supposed to be having dinner with a few of the guys off the SWAT team and their wives…do you want to go?”

She shook her head. “No, that’s okay. I don’t want to impose.”

Then the moaning started, followed shortly by barking.

I looked towards the backdoor to see the dog barking at the back window of the house beside Lennox’s. It looked like the two houses shared a yard.

“What the fuck is that?” I asked sharply.

Lennox smiled. “That would be my next door neighbor and best friend. He’s a little…loud when he’s…ummm….you know.”

I raised a brow at her. “When he’s fucking?”

Her mouth dropped open.

“Yes!” She hissed in affront at my language. “But you don’t have to be so vulgar about it!”

I grinned. “We’re all adults here. Fucking is fucking. No other way around it.”

She shook her head and went to the backdoor and opened it before calling the dog.

“Cola, come!”

Cola didn’t stop barking. Plus she didn’t move, either.

“Your dog looks like she listens real well,” I observed dryly.