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“Then sell the man his lot,” Preacher said. “Rent to who you like. Farmers, churches, some fool who thinks Salvation needs a yoga studio. That’s your business and we’ll stay out of it.” He leaned forward, forearms on the desk, and the civil went out of his voice. “But if Tomas Rivas or anybody connected to him so much as asks you about a parking space, we’ll hear about it. And there won’t be a conversation like this one. No talking, Harry. None at all.”

Harry held his eyes. Then he nodded once, the way he’d accept a clause in a contract he didn’t like but meant to honor.

“You got off easy, Harry,” Preacher said.

“I know what I got.”

Preacher stood. I opened the door. And Harry spoke without looking up.

“She’s with you, isn’t she?”

“Yeah. She’s with me.”

His pen stopped. He looked down at the pad.

“Is she all right?”

“No thanks to you,” I said.

“No,” he agreed. “I suppose not.” Then his pen started moving again.

Outside on the sidewalk, Preacher lit a cigarette and squinted back up at the office window.

“Thought you’d want to hit him,” he said.

“I did.”

“Why didn’t you?”

I thought about it. Harry Laine had lost his tenants and his money and his daughter’s trust in the space of a week. He’d be exactly the same man at seventy, a little poorer, sitting under that stained ceiling with his dying plants.

“Didn’t seem worth the knuckles,” I said. “Besides, you warned me.”

“Since when did you ever listen to me?” Preacher asked.

“Prez, I’m hurt,” I said as I swung my leg over my bike.

Preacher got on his bike too, shaking his head before we headed back to the clubhouse.

That night I parked the bike outside Sweet Thing Bakery, right under the streetlight. I had no intention of hiding anything tonight.

She was wiping down the case with every light in the shop still on. She came to the front door with the cloth still in her hand.

“You’re parked out front?”

“I am.”

“Linda will see it.”

“That’s the general idea.”

She stood on the threshold, lit up from behind, and searched my face like she was checking I meant it. I came up the step and kissed her right there in the open door, with the whole of Main Street dark and empty behind me and every window in her shop blazing. Anybody driving past would’ve had a front-row seat. I kissed her long enough to make sure of it.

“I love you,” I said. “Have for a long time.”

Her eyes were wet. She was smiling anyway. “And how long would that be?”

“Since the morning some trucker called you sweetheart and you charged him double for his coffee.” I pushed a curl off her cheek. “Smiled the whole time. Told him to drive safe.” I shook my head. “That was it for me.”