“You call the DA and you tell him to tell that asshole’s attorneys that if he doesn’t desist in harassing Tess, his boatload of legal problems will become a shitload. He already forged her fucking signature on bank documents. And we already got taped testimony and phone records that show for six months he’s been dicking with her. So, when the DA talks to his legal team, he needs to use the words stalking, harassment, assault, and sexual assault.”

I felt my chest rise with my indrawn breath and I knew Brock saw it but he kept trusting me and thus talking.

“Statute of limitations is not out on that. No way in fuck that Tessa O’Hara, who runs a bakery and sprinkles fuckin’ confetti on her cakes, will take the stand, describe her nightmare and he won’t go down. I don’t give a fuck if we have no physical evidence. She’ll have any jury eating out of her hand. His lawyers will know that. Now, I smell that guy’s fuckin’ cologne, Calhoun, she’s pressing charges. This ends for her tonight. Make the fuckin’ call.” He listened for about two seconds, then grunted, “Yeah,” and flipped his phone shut.

I waited for him to shove it back into his pocket before I asked softly, “Are you okay?”

“No,” he answered harshly. “I had my tongue in my woman’s mouth and my hand on her ass for the first time in three months. I like your ass. For three months, I spent a good deal of time thinkin’ about havin’ my hand back on your ass. What I didn’t spend time thinkin’ about is havin’ my hand on your ass and someone knockin’ on the front door and that someone being your slimeball motherfucking ex.”

Well, there you go.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Kentucky is becoming more attractive.”

He stared at me.

Then he grinned.

His eyes swept the length of me and back again before he said low, “Great nightie, babe.”

“Thanks,” I replied, tipping my head to the side then, to shift the mood and probably breaking all the rules of the game by doing something that would get me kicked out of the sisterhood, I shared, “If I’d have known you were spending the night I would have carved out some time to take a trip to the mall to buy a silky, sexy nightie that shouted, occasion.” With this, I lifted up my hands and shook them then dropped them and continued. “Though it would be carefully selected so when you saw me in it you’d think that was what I wore to bed every night when it isn’t. But since I didn’t know, I had to make do and this is what you get.”

To that, I flicked my hand to my cotton-candy nightie.

“I’m thinkin’ you did all right in a pinch,” he noted.