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violence.
    If they were Dooleys, his grandfather would handle the real discipline once they got out of jail. They didn’t cotton to any harm of women and children. Once a Dooley violated that rule, the sentence would be brutal and nearly immediate. And permanent.
    Thankfully it was mostly small stuff. Drunks and dumbasses, but they generally avoided the crime plaguing human cities.
    Jace booted his computer up before heading to get himself another cup of coffee because his PC was a hundred years old and slow as molasses.
    “Getting a cup of coffee,” he called out to Connie. “You want any?”
    “Too hot for coffee just now. I’ll stick to soda. Thanks though. I hear you have a new tenant over the mercantile now.”
    He goggled at her. That was fast, even for small town gossip.
    She laughed. “You think everyone isn’t buzzing around about Katie Faith being back and how pretty she is? And you go and move her in across the hall? Granddaddy must be giggling all day long.”
    That made Jace laugh. “She needed a place to live. We rented her one. But you’re right that JJ is in heaven. I’m sure he’ll find a dozen ways to rub it in some Pembry face before the week is out.” Hell, part of Jace wanted to do that too.
    Connie said, “He does like to stir the pot. Not that Dwayne Pembry and his litter don’t deserve a good lesson in how not to alienate a gal as powerful and pretty as Katie Faith Grady. We’re smart enough to see her value to Dooley.”
    This again? He gave his cousin a serious look. “ Leave her be. Let her come back and make her way here. All this politicking is going to spook her.”
    As he spoke he knew how futile the effort was. Diablo Lake was what it was. Chances were, Katie Faith knew the same and was already steeling herself for the inevitable when she moved in.
    “You’re getting old. She’s pretty. Good family. She’d be a good addition to the pack. Why not you instead of any other idiot in town?” Connie shrugged before turning her attention to the ringing phone.
    “Any other idiot? So I’m an idiot too?” he asked but she continued to deal with the call.
    Sure he was going to settle down. Someday. And sure he’d had a thing for Katie Faith for a long time. But this would be on his damned terms if it happened at all. And he wanted it to. At least to take it a little further to see how they were together. Still, the way his family tried to marry him off like he was sixty instead of twenty-seven annoyed him.
    “There’s been some vandalism down over at the Baptist church. I told Snuffy you’d be right round,” Connie said once she’d hung up.
    Lucky him. Snuffy Carson was a pain in Jace’s ass. If he wasn’t such a sour old jerkoff, his trees wouldn’t get toilet papered by the youth of Diablo Lake all the time. But he took being offensive as his duty.
    “Don’t tell him I’m rushing over there for TP’d oak trees, Connie. The man has to understand where his problems lie in the big scheme of things.”
    “Like behind that big murder case you’re trying to crack? Or the bank robbery that never happened because this is Diablo Lake and more toilet papered trees down at First Baptist is pretty much the most egregious thing you’ll be dealing with today? He’s lonely and old and his wife died ten years ago. He probably hasn’t had any since way before that. I’d be grumpy too,” Connie told Jace. “You know how to handle him.”
    The old guy would rant and rail. Jace would take pictures and a report and he’d most likely have some time to stop over at the Counter to check up on Avery Grady’s health and have a chocolate malted.
    It was the neighborly thing to do.
    * * *
    Katie Faith put a glass of iced tea in front of her father. He wanted to come into work for a little while that day and both she and her mother thought it would do him some good.
    He wasn’t able to handle much. He was still healing. He had to use a wheelchair if he was going to be out for any real