Panda gazed out at the dark water. Lucy had been fourteen when her mother had died. If he and Curtis had fallen in with Mat and Nealy Jorik, his brother would still be alive. Lucy had accomplished what he couldn’t pull off—she’d kept her sister safe—and now Curtis lay in a grave while the sister Lucy had protected prepared for her first year of college.

Curtis had hooked up with a gang when he was only ten, something Panda could have prevented if he hadn’t been in juvie. They’d let him out long enough to go to his little brother’s funeral.

He blinked his eyes hard. Memories of Curtis only led to other memories. It would be easier not to think if he had music to distract him, but he couldn’t listen to the heavy drama of Otello, Boris Godunov, or a dozen other operas with Lucy around. With anybody around.

He wished she’d come out and talk to him. He wanted her close; he wanted her farther away. He wanted her to leave, to stay, to take off her clothes—he couldn’t help that. Being with her all day would test any man, especially a horny bastard like himself.

He rubbed the bridge of his nose, pulled his cell from his pocket, and carried it around to the side of the house where he couldn’t be overheard.

PANDA KEPT GOADING HER INTO going for morning runs, and even though she held him back, he refused to run ahead. “The second I’m out of sight, you’ll start walking,” he said.

True. She walked for exercise and had a gym membership she used semi-semi-regularly, but she wasn’t a running enthusiast. “When did you make yourself my personal trainer?”

He punished her by kicking up the pace. Eventually, however, he took pity and slowed.

Her conviction that he wasn’t entirely the Neanderthal he wanted her to believe had grown along with her curiosity about him, and she embarked on a fishing expedition. “Have you talked to your girlfriend since you’ve been gone from wherever you’re gone from?”

A grunt.

“Where is that, by the way?”

“Up north.”

“Colorado? Nome?”

“Do you have to talk?”

“Married? Divorced?”

“Watch that pothole. If you break your leg, you’re on your own.”

She pulled some extra air into her burning lungs. “You know the details of my life. It’s only fair that I know some of yours.”

He moved ahead again. Unlike her, he wasn’t out of breath. “Never been married, and that’s all you’re getting.”

“Are you involved with anybody?”

He looked at her over his shoulder—faintly pitying. “What do you think?”

“That the pool of lady alligator wrestlers isn’t big enough to give you a lot of dating opportunities?”