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works.”
     
    “I can call you later tonight?” he asked.
     
    “Yeah. That will be nice. I can tell you how my day went before the next day.”
     
    “I would like that. But I have to run. There’s a problem.”
     
    “Oh?”
     
    “Yeah. There is a rival club that is stirring up trouble.”
     
    I felt my blood run cold. This was the very thing I had been worried about. “Trouble, how?”
     
    “Nothing to worry about. They are like one of those barky little dogs. They are trying to steal one of our customers away.”
     
    “You’re not in any danger, are you?”
     
    “No. If they manage to steal our customer, then my name will be Mudd with the club, but other than that, no danger.”
     
    “How can they do that?” I asked.
     
    “Just like every other business… they are offering better merchandise at lower prices. The thing is, I think it’s all a scam. I thought I had this headed off once already, but they are like the bad penny. They just keep turning up.”
     
    “But you can handle it?”
     
    “Don’t worry. You worry about your new job and taking care of yourself. I’ll handle the Bulls.”
     
    “Bulls? Is that the name of the other club?”
     
    “Blacktop Bulls. Yeah.”
     
    “Okay,” I said slowly, wondering how much was the truth and how much was him lying to protect me.
     
    “Don’t worry. I will keep sending the money.”
     
    “That’s not why I was asking!”
     
    “Okay. But don’t worry, okay? The Bulls are always trying shit like this. We’ve dealt with them before; we’ll deal with them again.”
     
    “Just be careful.”
     
    “Don’t worry! You’re worse than my mother.”
     
    I snickered. “I’ll try.”
     
    “See you in a couple of weeks for your next appointment, okay?”
     
    “Okay.” We said our goodbyes and I hung up the phone. I stared at it a moment. Just when I was starting to feel comfortable with his whole motorcycle club thing, I get a splash of cold water in the face. This was exactly the kind of thing that I worried about: other clubs trying to move in and take over. Cain didn’t seem that worried, but it was always hard to tell over the phone.
     
    I opened my door and sat down at the computer. I would worry about Cain later. The first thing I had to do was to figure out exactly what The Claw had in inventory. I opened Excel and began to enter all the brands and sizes of liquor from Peter’s handwritten inventory sheet. As I typed, I realized that getting a handle on this was going to be a real pain in the ass. No wonder Peter had given me this assignment. He wouldn’t have to do it himself anymore, and if it made me quit, that was one more problem he didn’t have to deal with.
     
    ***
     
    I bounced to the door when I heard the Harley pull into my drive. Cain was going to spend the night tonight then go with me to the doctor in the morning. Despite my cut in pay, I was making ends meet, barely, but I was feeling a lot better. Whether it was because my morning sickness was ending on its own, I was sleeping normal hours, or it was getting out of the bar and sitting at a desk that made the difference, I didn’t know and I didn’t care. All I knew was, I wasn’t as sick as often, and that was a huge improvement in my quality of life.
     
    While the loss of income was a bit of a downer, of more concern was Cain. He had started sounding more and more depressed on the phone. He kept assuring me that everything was okay, but I was certain that he was lying to me. I was hoping that now that he was here, I could find out what was bothering him and could cheer him up a little.
     
    I opened the door just as he stepped up onto the porch. It was late, nearly nine o’clock, and he looked like hell. “Cain?”
     
    “Hey,” he said quietly as he stepped inside. As I shut the door, he turned me to face him, placed his hands under my jaw, and kissed me like it was the single most important thing in his life to do.
     
    “Are you