Page 5 of Against The Tide

“How’s the stalker?”

“Jesus!” I turn so fucking fast that I spill half of my coffee down my shirt. It’s too early for this shit, and Rowan knows it with the way he’s standing in my kitchen doorway with a smug grin on his face. “You ever gonna knock?”

“You ever gonna lock the door and make use of the alarm system?”

“I wouldn’t need to lock it if you didn’t keep breaking in.” I drink what’s left of my double espresso and put another pod in the Keurig.

“Listen.” He blows out a sniggering breath, throwing another pod next to the machine as he pulls out a barstool and makes himself at home. “I’m not the one with a crazy stalker ex. Besides, it’s not really breaking and entering if it’s my house.”

“Was yours. It’s mine now.”

“I had it first.” He shrugs, looking around at the freshly decorated interior.

“Tanya isn’t an ex, and she’s hardly a stalker—she just got too attached. In hindsight, I should’ve stuck with the one and done.”

“Yeah, sure. Of course, one and done.” Rowan does a fair copycat of his wife’s whatever expression. “Isn’t that getting old? Aren’t you getting too old for it?”

Pot, meet kettle. Rowan may have settled down now, but he wasn’t exactly a saint before Callie and the kids. He seems to forget that sometimes, normally when he’s trying to guilt-trip me into something.

“What do you want, Rowan?” I hand him the fresh coffee and make myself another.

“My twenty dollars,” he smirks.

“Are you ever going to get over it? Pamela Anderson was never that hot.”

“She was a babe and so your type.” He holds his hands out over his chest and pretends to grope invisible tits. “Worth so much more than Mom’s cookies.”

He brings this shit up almost every time we see each other, playing more on it when he wants me to feel bad enough that I’ll entertain whatever favor he’s about to ask. He’s an asshole like that.

“Whatever you’re after, I’m not doing it. I don’t have time.”

“You don’t even know what I’m going to ask you yet! Besides, you can’t be that busy. The ones and dones in this town must be in short supply by now.”

“Still no,” I tell him blankly and head to the bedroom to change.

I’m stripping out of my shirt when he walks in and sits on my bed. He’s never had boundaries. Rowan has his own crazy rhythm that he dances along to. I’m not sure how Spencer puts up with having him as a business partner at their private security firm. Maybe they balance each other out because where Rowan is a funny asshole, Spencer is a broody motherfucker.

“Get the fuck out of my room!”

“You realize I used to shit in your bathwater, right?”

“You realize we’re not three anymore, right?”

“Touché.” He salutes and goes to stand right outside my doorway, still looking around as though he’s assessing the new look of the place. “I need to head to Cali this weekend to go over some business with Spencer. Callie and the kids are going to spend some time with Nora before she decides to come stay indefinitely again.”

“Yeah, I don’t recall that working out well for you last time.”

He gives a nice big fuck you sneer before he carries on. “I didn’t want to leave Josie with no one to help her see to the ranch.”

“Yeah, of course.”

I’ll never hesitate to help out when it comes to Jo. Her husband, Duke, sold me half of his practice here in Silverlark Harbor when I relocated from Boston almost twelve years ago. I was thirty-four, freshly divorced with a bruised ego, and looking for somewhere to disappear. It meant a lot that he trusted me to come in and modernize the business. Of course, at the time I had no idea that he’d been diagnosed with an aggressive and rare form of brain cancer. We signed the papers in October, and he passed the following May.

When he died, he left me his half of the business. Although I didn’t want it at first—it didn’t feel right to take something that should belong to Jo—she refused to sign all the shares I tried to put into her name or accept any of the checks I gave her. Instead of pushing and pressing about it, I started helping her out around the ranch, and I still do. She’s stuck with me and Rowan whether she likes it or not. Besides, his kids love her and all the animals.

“You said something about a clinical trial last month?” he asks, following me back to the kitchen.

“Yeah, it’s worth a shot. It might help slow down her symptoms at best if we can’t reverse the damage. But Jo’s refusing to talk to me about it.”