Page 98 of Trigger Happy

He kisses the top of my head. “This is a hard life. I get dreaming about something soft.”

“Do you ever get tired of it?” I ask. “The endless jobs? Oiling your guns? Never being able to take your bloody clothes to the dry cleaner down the road? It’s exhausting. I want to water flowers.”

He thinks about it. “Sometimes. I never used to mind the chaos, but lately I’ve been wanting to slow down and enjoy what’s left. I’d rather spend a weekend at the ranch than hunting a serial killer, but also, a man’s gotta eat.”

I sigh. True. “It’s been nice, though.”

“What?”

“Pretending to be normal.”

A pause. “Yeah, it has.”

Crickets chirp in the breeze. My phone buzzes with a notification. ONYX PRIORITY ALERT: T-72:00 until contract closure.

I snap out of it. “But you’re right, we have to eat. You remember our cover?”

“You made me practice it five times last night, and all you changed was our How We Met story.”

“I thought it would be more believable if we met at a bar. Like you said, everyone meets in a bar in small towns.”

He leads us up the porch steps until we’re standing in front of a dangling Open sign. “I don’t understand why a jewelry shop owner needs to know our How We Met story.”

“Better to be prepared,” I say.

“But it’s more fun to be chaotic,” he retorts, pushing the door open with a jingle.

We step inside the shop, and the air carries a faint scent of floral perfume. There’s no one in here. I feel like I need to whisper. All the shelves are stacked with antiques—mantel clocks, china tea sets, silver lockets—and there’s an old woman peering over a glass display case lined with gold rings.

She’s wearing a hand-crocheted sweater, red cat-eye glasses, and her white hair is neatly pulled back in a clip. “Can I help you?”

I read her name tag: Call me: Bea!

Lawton leans toward me and whispers, “She seems normal.”

“So do we.”

“Valid.” Lawton dips his hat and walks deeper into the shop. “Howdy, ma’am. I’m—”

“You look familiar,” she cuts across, studying him from behind the glass display case.

Lawton’s brows come together. “I don’t think we’ve met before.”

I check for signs of dementia like balance issues or reduced facial expression, for someone suffering from memory loss.

I hold out my hand. “Hi, Bea. I’m Sophie and this is my husband, Luke.”

“We met at a bar,” he interjects, winking at me.

“We wanted to talk to you about a sapphire ring we found. We were curious if you recognized it since it has the D and Co. trademark. We spoke with one of your employees at the harvest festival, and they said that used to be the name of your shop.”

I fish the ring out of my pocket and set it on the glass case. She looks down at the ring, stares, and stares some more. The woman picks it up, examines the markings, and then her eyes water. “This was my granddaughter’s. I made it for her and engraved Mine into it because it was her first word.”

“Really?” Lawton says. “I thought kids had trouble with the mm sound at first?”

I smack his chest.

“Where—where did you find it?” Bea stutters.