When I’d told the woman Miss Wainright was now in a relationship, she’d been pleased for her. Unlike North, who when she found out what I’d done, would want to cut out my spleen with a butter knife.

“Hot and heavy for seventeen,” he replied. “I guess. We went on dates. The lake. Ice cream at Dot’s. Hell, even bowling. I wasn’t a high school Casanova. What is it you’re wanting to know?”

“She said her father had a deal going with Mom and Dad.”

“You saw her?”

“I went to the wake.” I wasn’t going to offer more than that. Unfortunately, to make my cover as legit as possible, Jock thought I’d been kicked out of the FBI and that I was working for John Marshall. He wasn’t thrilled about it. No one around here liked Marshall. But I was forty and he didn’t have much say in what I did.

We were pretty close, especially since our parents had been killed in a car accident and we were the only family we had, but I was ten years older. I’d left for college when he was still in elementary school so there was a lot we didn’t know about each other.

“I heard Macon Wainright died,” he said. “Man, he was an ass—special kind of guy.” One of the kids laughed followed by a huge splash.

“Ass! Ass!”

Jock groaned. “Tyler, don’t let your mother hear you say that. And leave the water in the tub.”

I turned off the main road and headed east.

“I went once, to Billionaire Ranch, to pick her up,” Jock continued. “Macon opened the door, offered me a beer.”

He offered a seventeen-year-old kid who was going to be driving his daughter a beer?

“I first thought it was a test and told him no. But he’d been serious. You’d think he wanted to know what time I’d be bringing his daughter home, not getting me drunk.”

“Yeah.” I had no idea what else to say.

“First, he told me how he was real friendly with Mom and Dad. Then… get this.” I could hear him laugh through the phone. “He gave me a strip of condoms. Told me that while fucking North was fine and all but making him a granddaddy wasn’t.”

“Daddy said a bad word! Ass! Fuck!”

“Holy shit,” I mumbled, and not about my nephew’s growing vocabulary.

“No kidding. I had no choice but to take the things, tuck them in my pocket. After that I’d been too scared to do more than kiss North.”

“You never slept with her?” I was surprised and I was sure it sounded in my voice.

“Laugh at me and I’ll kill you, but I couldn’t get it up. I mean, all I could think about was her dad practically giving me his blessing to fuck her.”