He pulled her toward the rest of the stalls. He smiled when, after walking for ten minutes, she stopped at the opening of one specific tent Carter knew well. Kat remained quiet while they stood watching a young blonde girl have a tattoo inked across her right hip. It was a Big Dog Motorcycles stamp, and Carter had to admit it was sexy as hell.

“You thinking about getting one?” he asked as he wrapped his arms around her. She made a kind of coughing sound and shook her head under his chin. He laughed. “Shame. I think you’d look fucking amazing with some ink on this gorgeous body.” He rubbed himself against her ass.

“Don’t they hurt?” she asked, taking a couple of steps closer with Carter still attached to her like a damned limpet.

“Nah. Of course, it depends where on your body you get it, but really it’s more of a discomfort than a pain.”

“Where did yours hurt most?”

“Under my bicep.” That one had smarted. The ones on his chest had been sore, too, but Kat didn’t need to know that. No fucker with a needle was going anywhere near her tits.

He wrapped his arm around her shoulder, grinning when she slid her palm into the back pocket of his jeans and led her back into the crowd toward the food and beer tent. Petey, a guy Carter had known his whole metal-loving life, stood at the humongous grill, serving chicken legs, steaks, burgers, ribs, sausages, lamb chops, and chili that he ladled out of a giant pan. He was a huge mammoth of a man with tattoos and a bald head, which he always wrapped in a red bandanna.

He grinned wide, showing off three gold teeth. “Carter!”

Carter shook Petey’s hand. “Mr. Yates.”

“Long time no see, my friend! I heard you were in Kill.”

“Unfortunately. Got parole a few weeks ago.”

Petey smiled. “So, are you here with Max? I haven’t seen his ass in forever.” His face grew somber. “I heard about Lizzie. That shit was rough.”

“Yeah, it was.” Carter turned to see Kat looking more than a little awkward, and took her hand, pulling her to his side. “But no, I’m here with my …”

What the hell was he meant to say? My Peaches. My Kat. My woman. My tutor?

He cleared his throat. “My friend Kat Lane. Kat, this is Petey. He’s a legend ’round these parts, been here since the dawn of time.”

Kat smiled at Petey and held out her hand. “Nice to meet you.”

“You too.” Petey eyed Kat appreciatively. “Well, I can certainly see why you’re his friend. You’re a stunner, kid.” He glanced at Carter. “I’ve never seen Carter here with a girl before. This fucker must like you a whooooole lot.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He responded with his middle finger, making both Petey and Kat laugh. “Shut up and feed us, asshole.”

With food on their plates and a draft beer each, they sat on a picnic bench and talked, ate, and watched the world go by. Kat asked him questions about the time he’d spent with Max and Max’s father and what trouble they’d gotten into. He told her stories about the first time they’d gotten shitfaced in the back of Max’s dad’s vintage first-generation Camaro, and how Max had spent the following morning hungover, cleaning the vomit he’d splattered on the wheel trims.

“You two sound like you got into a lot of trouble,” Kat stated with a smile into her beer. “You care for him very much, don’t you?”

“Max is a force to be reckoned with sometimes. But he means well. He’s been through shit I wouldn’t wish on anybody.” He took a deep breath, willing himself to tell her the full story, praying that she wouldn’t run away. “You know that it was coke I got caught with that sent me to Kill for three years, right?”

Kat nodded.

“It wasn’t mine.”

“What?”

“When we were sixteen, Max saved my life,” he explained carefully. “Pushed me out of the way of a bullet during a car boost that went wrong.”

“Jesus.”

“I owed him.” Carter stared out across the field. “Before I was sent down, Max had a woman, Lizzie. They’d been together for years. He worshipped the ground she walked on.” He sipped his beer. “Long story short, Max managed to get into some messed-up shit. Drugs. The coke I was arrested for was a setup. It wasn’t his; he had nothing to do with it. Neither of us did, but some asshole dealer with a grudge tipped off the cops. I took the heat and the thirty-six months.”

Kat blinked. “Why?”

Carter exhaled heavily. “Lizzie was pregnant.”

“Oh.”

“With his history with the cops, if Max had been caught with that shit he’d have been sent down for years. I couldn’t let that happen. Man should be with his woman while she’s pregnant with his kid.”

“So you served time for him.” Kat’s eyes shimmered. “Just like that?”

Carter worried his lip with his teeth. “Didn’t have much going on at the time. Nothing important, anyway.”

Not like now.

“That was … Wow, Carter. I don’t know what to say.”

“There’s nothing to say.” He shrugged. “It didn’t make much difference. Not long after I arrived at Kill she left him.”

“What about the baby?”

Sadness gripped Carter’s heart. “He died.”

“He?”

Carter bobbed his head solemnly. “Christopher. Max’s son.”

“Oh God.”

“Engaged, pregnant, planning their lives together, and then …” Carter closed his eyes. “Just like that. Lizzie took it so hard. They both did.” Carter rubbed a hand across his head. “So she left. After promising that she’d be with him forever, she left without a word, no note. Nothin’. Max never got over it, losing Christopher and then Lizzie. Now he tries to find the answer to it all in booze, blow, and women.” Carter shook his head. “He’s on a downward spiral, and I have no fucking idea how to help him. He won’t admit that he needs help. Sad thing is I lost something the day Lizzie walked away, too.”

“What?”

His eyes met hers. “My best friend.”

Kat slid her hand across the bench and clasped Carter’s pinkie. With no words said, her touching him was enough.

For the next hour, she sat with her chin in her palm, watching Carter intently, never judging, never interrupting or commenting on the things he told her. It was liberating, cleansing, almost like therapy, to be so open and honest with her. He stopped talking and smirked in embarrassment. He’d been boring her to death with his life story.

“Jesus, sorry. Just tell me to shut the hell up.”

“Never.” She sighed. “I love listening to you. I want you to tell me everything. Carter, you’re … you’re like no one I’ve ever met.” She glanced at their hands, linked on the tabletop. “I have something to ask you.”

“Hit me.”

“You know I told my grandmother, Nana Boo, about you … and me.”

“Yeah,” Carter replied, feeling his heart give an appreciative thump. He liked that she’d done that. It made what they had together feel more real, like what they shared was valid and true.

“Well.” She hesitated and looked away.

“What is it?”

Kat dropped her chin and spoke in one long breath. “She’s invited you to Chicago, to her house, to spend Thanksgiving with her, with us … I mean, you and me, she’s invited us both, and I’d really like to take you and have you meet her, but I understand if you don’t want to. I get it; I do—”

Carter cut off her adorable blathering with a searing kiss. He pulled back and smiled when he saw that her eyes remained closed and her lips were still in a needy pout. “You’re cute as hell when you ramble.”

“Shush,” she retorted, opening her eyes.

Carter laughed. “So you’re asking me if I’d like to spend Thanksgiving with you in Chicago, with your grandmother.”

Kat nodded. “I still have her car, which I need to take back, so we can drive there.”

Carter exhaled, a finger of anxiety creeping up his spine. “What about your mom? Will she be there?”

Kat shook her head. “No. They always spend Thanksgiving with Harrison’s family. She spends Christmas with Nana Boo.”