Maybe it was time to face some cold, hard facts, like his mother said. He was fine in the short term obviously, but if it went further than that, it seemed as if he was destined to be alone.

Too late, Ward realized that he shouldn’t have answered the phone or started thinking about Melanie. He was already in physical pain and now he could add emotional pain to the mix – and that was dangerous.

He needed to take the edge off but he’d sworn to Johnny (and Shelley) that he’d stay off the pain meds. There was no way he’d go back on a promise to his friend.

But while Ward had promised that drugs were off the table, there was nothing to say he couldn’t fall back on a little something else.

Chapter 15

HANNAH

Hannah stood at Central Park’s 7th Avenue entrance as arranged, and checked her watch. McKenzie was running late again. The guy was really beginning to test her patience. She shouldn’t have to work with someone who didn’t respect that her time was important.

She wandered into the park and sighed, deciding to take a load off while she waited. One of the reasons she hated client meet-ups in public spaces was that the blasted benches might as well have been designed by experts in medieval torture.

Five minutes sitting on one and she was almost ready to confess to being a witch. Then rearranged her vexed expression when she saw that her client had decided to grace her with his presence. She pasted on a relaxed smile as McKenzie ambled toward her.

No, wait, he was shuffling. Yikes, the injury really wasn’t getting any better, she mused, biting her lip. As he drew closer, however, she saw that he was unshaven and his eyes were bloodshot. He sat down next to her – although ‘sat’ was too generous a way to phrase it. He all but collapsed and it was then that she caught a distinct whiff. Beer and something else too … was it fish?

Hannah wrinkled her nose, wondering why she’d been worrying about his initial appeal that first time in Frank’s potentially clouding her judgement. Appearances truly could be deceptive.

‘You’re late,’ she stated, despite not wanting to get things off to yet another bad start.

‘Is it that I’m late – or you’re early?’ he asked, grinning stupidly as if he’d just made some kind of brilliant point in a courtroom.

‘So how are you?’ she asked, biting back her frustration that this meeting was surely another wasted effort on her part. ‘Knee playing up again?’

He straightened up suddenly. ‘I’m good. Had some more physical therapy earlier and it … uh … took a lot more out of me than I expected.’

‘You sure you’re up for this then?’

‘Yeah. I’m just a little wrung out, that’s all. Though maybe I should grab a coffee.’