As I mix the biscuit dough, I realize it feels good to be fixing breakfast for someone else. I enjoy cooking, but it gets old cooking for one and sitting down to an empty table every night with a lonely glass of wine.

I roll out the biscuit dough and cut the biscuits with a glass turned upside-down. The rental house is furnished with only the bare kitchen basics, and that doesn’t include a biscuit cutter. I guess most people renting a lake house for the summer don’t plan on spending their vacation in the kitchen.

After sliding the pan of biscuits into the oven, I boot up my laptop. My boss thinks I’m working surveillance again today from the building down the street from the tattoo shop. I have a much better idea of how to spend my time. Like hacking into the local pastor’s computer who tipped off the ATF about the Steel Infidels’s bootlegging activities. Without his firsthand statement, I’m not sure there would have even been an interest in the Steel Infidels.

Everyone has secrets and something to hide. If he’s hiding something, I’ll find it.

Next on my list is the local judge who approved the wiretapping on the Mason brothers’ landlines. He wasn’t super eager to go along with it and balked at placing taps on the other Steel Infidels. At the time I was pissed off about it, but now I’m glad. It won’t hurt to dig into his background too, along with the Bardsville Police Chief and any other high-level law enforcement officers in town.

A plan is beginning to form in my mind. I need time to think it through carefully.

Sam wanders into the kitchen barefoot, shirtless and sexy as hell. I glance at the clock on the wall. Not enough time to drag him back to the bedroom and feed him too before he goes to work.

He walks over to where I’m sitting at the kitchen table and places his hands on my shoulders.

“You’re up early,” he says, kissing my cheek. “Working hard on a story already?”

“Yes, but I’m almost finished with this paragraph,” I answer. “Then I’ll cook your breakfast.”

“Breakfast?” he says in surprise. “I didn’t know you were running a bed and breakfast.”

“I’m making an exception today,” I say.

He glances at the screen to see what I’m writing about, an article on Southern home remedies that I copied from the Internet and pasted into a word processing document.

“Do you need any help with that?” he teases.

“No, please. I’m begging you. No more help from you.”