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own dealings I’d forgotten something. “Are we talking part of an HVAC system, or the kind that goes in the window?”
    Babs shrugged. “I didn’t see it.”
    I stood. “I’ll go check it out.”
    As it turned out, what sat in the basement was an old window unit air conditioner that worked like a dream. Since Ashlyn refused my offer to stay at my place, I figured she could use it to cool down that furnace she called an apartment. I’d made a plan to stick by her side, making sure she accepted and followed through with Lucas’s scheme, no matter if the plan was outrageous. And I didn’t want to sweat myself to death doing it.
    Even as I strapped the unit to a dolly, I knew my justification was partly a ruse. Remembering the way she’d fit against me in her bed turned me on again. I could still hear the breathiness of her whisper echoing in my ears. I want you.
    Jesus, this line of thinking had to stop. The fastest way to lose a friend was to go after said friend’s baby sister, and I didn’t want to lose Quinn as a friend.
    But even if I went after her, what of substance could I offer her—or any woman, for that matter? There was something toxic in my system. Something given to me by my father. Some inheritances are good—and some are dangerous.
    Ashlyn had gotten a glimpse of that bad side when I’d found her alone in my apartment with Pritchard. It was no wonder she’d held a twelve-year grudge against me. Why she despised me.
    If only I hadn’t left her that day.
    Nothing I could do to rectify the past, though. Shaking myself from my funk, I shoved the AC, strapped to the dolly, through the main area of the bar and called out to Babs, “Heading out for a while.”
    She hollered back, saying, “How did Ashlyn take hearing Kyle Pritchard is in town?”
    It had been out of necessity to keep Ashlyn safe that I’d broken my promise and told Quinn about what had happened between Ashlyn and Pritchard. Babs, on the other hand, had known all along. Babs had been to Ashlyn what she didn’t have—a mother figure to guide her—and what I couldn’t be—a shoulder to lean on.
    “Last night wasn’t a good time,” I said. Just as I was about to shove open the main doors, I caught a glimpse through the front window. Pritchard had rounded the corner, moving in the opposite direction of the theater, thank God. At least I didn’t have to go chase him away from Ashlyn.
    In pressed khakis and a white shirt, he looked like he should’ve been headed for lunch at the yacht club rather than wandering the streets of Phair. From the looks of it though, those pants were about to get dirty. Because of my angle inside the bar, I could see what he couldn’t—the mayor’s youngest kid hauling ass down the sidewalk on his skateboard along the cross street.
    Pritchard noticed the kid and back-stepped, missing the boy by no more than a hairsbreadth, then his arm shot out and he caught the kid by the back of his shirt, wrenching him out of the way a split second before a silver minivan accelerated through a red light. Pritchard catapulted himself to brace the boy’s fall with his body, and the van sped on, crushing the skateboard beneath spinning tires.
    Holy shit.
    Pedestrians and street vendors looked on, mouths open like big-mouthed bass, before rushing to give aid. Another bystander stepped from behind a car, pulled out a cell phone, and snapped photos.
    “Did Pritchard just do what I think he did?” Babs asked, coming up beside me.
    “Yup.”
    “He saved that boy’s life. Huh.” Babs stood silent for a moment, then asked, “Any chance the leopard changed his spots?”
    I shrugged, then stared at the crowd of people making a fuss over Pritchard, fawning all over him like he was some sort of hero. Hero, my ass.
    Leopards don’t change anything. Once a predator, always a predator, in my mind.
    …
    Pulling sixty pounds up three flights of stairs to Ashlyn’s apartment was no easy feat when the path from point A to B