Page 87 of Real Good Love
If I hadn’t seen it happen and heard it myself, I wouldn’t believe it either.
Cody slams the door of the police cruiser and says something to Logan. After the men shake hands, Logan strides toward me, anger etched into his every feature.
“I told you to stay—”
“Wednesday. This Wednesday.”
He stops in front of me. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“You told me not to get out of the truck until I picked a date. I picked Wednesday,” I tell him.
Logan closes his eyes for a moment, and I’m pretty sure he’s praying for patience.
“Don’t you ever put yourself in that kind of danger again.”
I drop a hand onto my hip. “I could say the same thing to you. What the hell would I do without a real man to keep me in line? My vibrators might be amazeballs, but they’re no substitute for you.”
Logan yanks me into his arms and buries his face in my hair. My shoulder twinges where the bullet winged me, and I stiffen.
Logan drops his arms. “Fuck. I’m sorry, baby. You sure you don’t need the hospital?”
“I’m sure. Let’s go home.”
He wraps an arm around me and leads me toward the truck. “I will turn your ass red if you ever do anything like that again.”
A smile tugs at the corners of my mouth. “You promise?”
Epilogue
Logan
One year later
Vibrators race across the bar, one pink and one blue.
Banner bounces as much as her belly will let her when the pink one wins. “I told you she’s a girl!”
Julianne shakes her head. “I demand a rematch. I swear, you’re carrying a boy.”
The other women chime in with their opinions, including Holly and Greer and Sofia, Banner’s friend from New York, with her weird little dog, Jordana.
Nicole went all out for Banner’s baby shower. Pints and Pins, which she bought from Ben with a loan from my wife, is decorated with pink-and-blue streamers. Of course they’re not playing normal baby-shower games because that would be way too boring for my wife.
And yes, even eleven months and twenty-five days later, I still love sayingmy wife.
The only person of note who’s missing is Banner’s mom. She apparently had some kind of important experiment running and couldn’t be bothered to attend her only daughter’s baby shower. Not that Banner’s parents came to the wedding either, which ended up happening on Friday and not Wednesday after the cabin shootout. We’ve invited them down for the baby’s birth, but I’m not holding my breath there.
Emmy is currently incarcerated in a women’s prison after taking a plea bargain and providing information to end most of the meth trade in Gold Haven. They expect she’ll serve about fifteen years before getting out.
My shop, which she admitted to burning down out of spite, was up and running faster than I would have thought possible, courtesy of Creighton Karas’s crews. Now business is booming, and even with triple the space, we still have a waiting list.
Banner tried to pay for the rebuild, but I wouldn’t let her. That’s when she decided to make the loan to Nicole for Pints and Pins instead. Nicole, for the record, was not trying to buy drugs to sell to make meth. She had a cold and an expired license the night Banner and I saw her at the pharmacy.
Ben came forward as Memphis’s anonymous tipster. He said he’d seen too many things happen in this town over the years, and he was sick of waiting for Timmons to get off his ass and figure it out. Now, he’s officially retired and living in Florida.
Other people might have been changed by inheriting $30 million, but all Banner asked for was a woman cave to be built behind our house to hold her office. It ended up becoming a full-blown warehouse on the property to hold all the inventory she keeps in Gold Haven. She’s since hired two full-time employees for shipping and administrative stuff, and Blush is already making a profit. She also started the Myrna Frances Memorial Scholarship at five different community colleges to help women who want to take business classes, one scholarship for each year Mrs. Frances was in her life.
To say I’m proud of her would be an understatement. To celebrate the one-year anniversary of her company, I surprised her with a fully restored cherry-red SS convertible with blush-pink pinstripes.
