I started giggling.

I stopped giggling when Johnny rested an arm behind us on the booth.

Uninvited, Margot started flipping through the photos on my phone by sliding her finger across the screen.

“I see your horses. They’re gorgeous. And this cat is so sweet. Now who’s this? Is this your sister’s husband?”

She turned the phone around and showed me a picture of Kent.

I instantly tensed.

Johnny instantly tensed beside me.

“No,” I forced out.

“So, your brother?” she asked, shaking my phone side to side in front of me. “Do you have a brother?”

“No,” I pushed out.

“Margot,” Johnny rumbled at the same time Dave said the same thing.

Her face changed, her hand with my phone moved back slowly, and she whispered a disappointed, “Oh.”

I didn’t like her disappointment or her face falling so I stated quickly, “That’s Kent. My ex.”

This was not a good move.

Not in the slightest.

And it was only going to get worse.

She brightened but looked to me and asked, “If he’s your ex, darlin’, why do you keep his picture? I always say, if you’re movin’ on, move ’em out, leave ’em in your dust and start with a blank slate.”

This seemed not only directed at me, but even if her eyes didn’t slide to Johnny like they had when I talked about my animals, it was not lost on anyone it was mostly directed at someone else.

“Margot,” Dave growled, and Johnny shifted uncomfortably beside me.

But in order to comfort me, he wrapped his hand around the back of my neck.

Which did not comfort me at all.

“Well, I—” I began.

“Do you want me to delete it?” she asked helpfully, finger poised.

“Margot,” Dave clipped.

“No!” I cried.

A death pall spread over the table.

“I can’t delete it. It’s evidence,” I said swiftly and felt something else spreading over the table, coming from all directions, but especially Johnny.

I’d started it and from the avid attention I was getting from all quarters, I had no choice but to carry on with it.

“The police told me to save it. That milk glass he’s holding was my mother’s. Actually my grandmother’s. He broke in, stole it, sent me that picture and then sent me the next one where he’d smashed it.”

Woodenly, Margot shifted the picture to the next one and I watched her face pale.

“I should have put it on my cloud but I haven’t gotten around to it. But, um . . . he’s a big reason I moved to Matlock,” I finished weakly.

As I spoke, all the time I spoke, Johnny’s hand on my neck got tighter and tighter . . .

And tighter.

“Evidence,” Margot whispered, staring at my phone.

“He kind of didn’t want me to break up with him,” I told her.

“Oh, child,” Dave murmured.

But Margot’s eyes narrowed.

On me.

“What else did he do to you?” she snapped.

“Excuse us,” Johnny growled.

And they had no choice but to excuse us because Johnny was out of the booth and his hand capturing mine and dragging me meant I had to get out of the booth too.

Once I made my feet, he twisted our hands so they were held tucked to the side of his chest, which meant I had no choice but to be tucked tight to his side as he marched me out of the restaurant, straight out the front door, down the walk to the far side of the front where he whipped me around. He let my hand go, put his to my belly, shoved me against the clapboard and moved in so the rest of the world disappeared and the whole of mine became Johnny.

He then made a noise that I’d never heard come from any human before, a low, rolling, reverberating, hushed—what could only be described as—roar.

My eyes drifted up his throat to his just as he bit out, “Kent?”

“Did you just drag me out of a restaurant?” I whispered.

“Your ex broke into your house to steal something that meant something to you just so he could destroy it?”

I turned my head to look down the path and ascertained for myself that he did, indeed, just drag me out of a restaurant because there I was.

Outside the restaurant.

“Look at me, Izzy.”

My eyes snapped back to his at the unerring command in his tone.

“Why didn’t you tell me that shit?” he demanded.

“I—”

“Are you safe now?”

“Well—”

“You said the cops know. Did they do something about this fuck?”

“It’s a little—”

“Do these friends know? The ones you say live close to you.”

He was in such a state, I couldn’t stop myself.

I arched into him, putting the fingers of both my hands to both of his bristly cheeks, and whispered, “Johnny.”

A blaze of black fire continued to sear me for a moment before his eyes closed.

They opened and he asked a lot less terse now, “Did he hurt you?”

I dropped my hands from his face.

“He was just a nuisance.”

“A nuisance doesn’t break into your house and steal shit from you. A psycho does that.”

I decided against telling him he’d broken down my door to steal Dempsey.

Or any of the other stuff.

“The cops know. I have a restraining order against him. Deanna and Charlie also know. The last time I saw him, Charlie was in my doorway with a baseball bat explaining that if I saw him again, Charlie would cave his head in with that bat. I think he took Charlie at his word, which is good because I have a feeling Charlie was serious and I don’t want him in trouble. But I haven’t seen or heard from Kent since. I’m not even sure he knows where I live. It’s been months. It’s over.”

Johnny stared into my eyes before he looked at the clapboard over my head.

“It’s very sweet you’re concerned but—”

His gaze cut down to mine and he interrupted me.

Shockingly.

And breathtakingly.

“You look good. You smell good. That dress is so fucking hot I want to haul you around to the back, shove the skirt up, rip your panties off and fuck you against The Star.”

My mouth dropped open.

Johnny wasn’t done.

“Eat dinner beside you knowin’ you can’t put on your torn, useless fucking panties and I’ll keep them in my pocket while you eat steak that isn’t half as good as the one I made you, sitting beside me feeling thoroughly fucked.”

“Johnny,” I breathed, not right then feeling thoroughly fucked, alas, but definitely suddenly thoroughly wet.

“I thought I’d give it some time and come back, build something different with you, but I’m not thinking this friend thing is gonna work, Iz.”

“Please don’t say that,” I begged.

His forehead came to mine, one hand went high on the wall beside me and his other hand slid down my side over the ruched, soft, stretchy white fabric of my dress that skimmed my figure from neck to knee, had no sleeves and even I had wondered if it was too sexy to wear to work (guess I had my answer).

“He comes back, you call the cops then your next call is me,” he ordered.

“I can’t promise that. Charlie already made me promise my next call would be him.”

“Then you call this Charlie guy and then you call me.”