noses. A few—”
Lily put her hand over the mouthpiece of the phone and whispered to her son, who’d wrapped his arms around her waist, “I’m going to hell for lying to your grandma for you.”
Pippen lifted his face from the front of her shirt. He grinned and showed a mouthful of braces with blue bands. Sometimes he looked so much like his daddy it broke her heart. Golden hair, brown eyes, and long sweeping lashes. “I love you, Mama,” he said, warming her heart. She would gladly go to hell for Pip. Walk through fire, kill, steal, and lie to her mother for her son. He was going to grow up strong and healthy and go to Texas A&M.
Phillip “Pippen” Darlington was going to be somebody. Somebody better than his parents.
While her mother prattled on about Milton Farley and his hidden boyfriends in Odessa, Lily bent and kissed the top of her son’s head. She scratched his back through his Texas A&M sweatshirt and felt him shiver. Ronnie Darlington was a rat bastard for sure, but he’d given her a wonderful little boy. She hadn’t always been the best mother, but she thanked God she’d never messed up so bad that she’d messed up her son’s life.
“ . . . and you just know he was tricking everyone with his . . .”
Lily closed her eyes and breathed in the scent of Pippen’s hair. She’d made sure that her son didn’t go to school and have to hear stories about his weird mama. She knew what that was like. And she’d worked hard to make damn sure she never embarrassed him, and that he never had to hear other kids calling his mama Crazy Lily Darlington.
CHAPTER TWO
Fingers of gray crept across Lovett, Texas, as Officer Tucker Matthews pulled his Toyota Tundra into the garage and cut the engine. Full dawn was still half an hour to the east and the temperature hovered just above freezing.
He grabbed his small duffle and the service Glock from the seat next to him. He’d just started his third week with the Potter County Sheriff’s Office and was pulling his second twelve-hour night shift. He moved into the kitchen and set the duffle and pistol on the counter. Pinky meowed from the vicinity of the cat condo in the living room, then ran into the kitchen to greet him.
“Hang on, Pinkster,” he said and shrugged out of his brown service coat. He hung it on a hook beside the back door, then moved to the refrigerator. The veterinarian had told him milk wasn’t good for Pinky, but she loved it. He poured some two-percent into a little dish on the floor as the pure black cat with the pink nose rubbed against his leg. She purred and he scratched the top of her head. A little over a year ago, he hadn’t even liked cats. He’d been living on base at Fort Bliss, ready to be discharged from the Army after ten years of service and preparing to move in with his girlfriend, Tiffany, and her cat, Pinky. Two weeks after he moved in with her, she moved out—taking his Gibson custom Les Paul guitar and leaving behind her cat.
Tucker rose and moved back across the kitchen. At that point, he’d had two choices: reenlist or do something else with his life. He loved the Army. The guys were his brothers. The commanding officers, the only real father figures he’d ever known. He’d enlisted at the age of eighteen, and the Army had been his only family. But it was time to move on. To do something besides blow shit up and take bullets. And there was nothing like a bullet to the head to make a guy realize that he actually did care if he lived or died. Until he’d felt the blood run down his face, he hadn’t thought he cared. It wasn’t like there was anyone but his Army buddies who gave a shit anyway.
Then he met Tiffany, and thought she cared. Some of the guys had warned him that she was an Army groupie, but he didn’t listen. He’d met groupies, swam a few times in the groupie pool, but with Tiffany he’d been fooled into believing she cared about him, that she wanted more than a soldier deployed months at a time. Maybe he wanted to be fooled. In the end, he guessed she’d cared more about his guitar. At first, he was pissed. What kind of person abandoned a little cat? Leaving it with
So what did a former Army gunner do once he was discharged? Enroll in the El Paso County Sheriff’s Academy, of course. The six-month training program had been a piece of cake for him, and he graduated at the top of his class. Once his probationary period was over, he applied for a position in Potter County, and, a few months ago, moved to Lovett.
Sunlight spread across his backyard and into the neighbors’. He’d bought his first house a few weeks ago. His home. He was thirty, and except for the first five years of his life, when he’d lived with his grandmother, this was the first home to which he truly belonged. He wasn’t an outsider. A squatter. This wasn’t temporary shelter until he was shuffled off to another foster home.
He was home. He felt it in his bones and he didn’t know why. He’d lived in different parts of the country—of the world—but Lovett, Texas, had felt right the moment he arrived. He recognized Lily Darlington’s red Jeep even before he ran her plates. For the past week, since he moved in, he’d be getting ready to hit the sack as she backed out of her driveway with her kid in the car.
Before he shined his light into her car, the impression of his neighbor was . . . single mother with big blond curls and a long, lean body. After the traffic stop, he knew she was thirty-eight, older than she looked and prettier than he’d imagined from his quick glimpses of her. And she’d clearly been annoyed that he had the audacity to pull her over. He was used to that, though. Generally people weren’t happy to see the rolling lights in their rearview.
Across his yard and Lily’s, separated by a short white fence, his kitchen window faced into hers. Today was Saturday. There weren’t any lights on yet, but he knew that by ten that boy of hers would be outside bouncing a basketball in the driveway and keeping him awake.
He’d been out of the Army for two years but was still a very light sleeper. One small sound and he was wide awake, pinpointing the position, origin, and exact nature of the sound.
He replaced Pinky’s milk, then she followed him out of the kitchen and into the living room. A remote control sat on the coffee table he’d made from a salvaged old door. He’d sanded and varnished it until it was smooth as satin.
Tucker loved working with his hands. He loved taking a piece of old wood and making it into something beautiful. He reached for the remote and turned the big screen TV to a national news channel. Pinky jumped up onto the couch beside him as he leaned over and untied his tactical boots. A deep purr rattled her chest as she squeezed her little black body between his arm and chest. With his attention on the screen across the room and the latest news out of Afghanistan, he finished with one boot and started on the other. The picture of tanks and troops in camouflage brought back memories of restlessness, violence, and boredom. Of knocking down doors, shooting anything that moved, and watching his buddies die. Adrenaline, fear closing his throat, and blood.
Pinky bumped the top of her head against his chin and he moved his head from side to side to avoid her. The things he’d seen and done in the military had certainly affected him. Had changed him, but not like some of the guys he knew. Probably because he had his share of trauma and stress before signing up. By eighteen, he’d been a pro at handling whatever life threw his way. He knew how to shut it down and let it all roll right off.
He hadn’t come out of the military with PTSD like some of the guys. Oh, sure he’d been jumpy and on edge, but after a few months, he’d adjusted to civilian life. Perhaps because his whole life had been one adjustment after another.
Not anymore, though. “Jesus, Pink.” The cat’s purring and bumping got so annoying he picked her up and set her on the couch beside him. Of course she didn’t stay and crawled right back onto his lap. He sighed and scratched her back. Somehow he’d let an eight-pound black cat with a pink nose totally run his life. He wasn’t sure how that had even happened. He used to think cats were for old ladies or ugly chicks or gay men. The fact that he had a five-foot-square cat condo that he’d built himself, and a pantry stocked with cat treats, pretty much shot his old prejudice all to hell. He wasn’t an old lady or ugly or gay. He did draw the line at cat outfits, though.
He stripped down to his work pants and the cold-weather base layer he wore beneath his work shirt. He made himself a large breakfast of bacon and eggs and juice. As he rinsed the dishes, he heard the first thud of the neighbor’s basketball. It was eight thirty. The kid was at it earlier than usual. Tucker glanced out the window that faced the neighbor’s driveway. The kid’s blond hair stuck up in the back. He wore a silver Dallas Cowboys parka and a pair of red sweatpants.
When Tucker worked the night shift, he liked to be in bed before ten and up by four. He could wear earplugs, but he’d rather not. He didn’t like the idea of one of his senses being dulled while he slept. He pulled on his jogging
