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back. She never agreed with the stripping later on, but it was the best I could do to help out with the bills.” Candi smiled. “Anyway, that’s when I met Zane and Koda. She was raising them, too. She’s had them since they were babies, barely old enough to crawl.”
    “Are they twins?”
    “Koda’s older, but only by a year. You’d never know it, though. He’s an old soul, always has been.”
    Koda . The tall deputy with the striking features that made her toes curl. He’d looked serious and drawn when Maggie had met him that day. She’d chalked it up to a cop thing. But there was probably more there. Much more, by the sound of it.
    “He’s always running around after Zane to keep him from making the next big mistake. Trying to keep him out of trouble. Koda got into a lot of fights at school over his baby brother.” Candi’s smile widened at this, and Maggie couldn’t help but smile, too. “You should have seen them. These two skinny Indian boys, one hell-bent on taking on the world, the other hell-bent on protecting him from it.”
    “And you liked Zane? Right away?”
    Candi looked at Maggie, her eyes twinkling, her earrings glinting merrily. “Who wouldn’t like Zane right away?”
    Maggie kept her mouth shut.
    “He’s kind of like…” She paused, looking past Maggie now, into the night beyond the foggy windowpane. “He’s kind of like this force to be reckoned with. He draws you in before you even know what’s happened. Or, at least, that’s how it was with me.”
    “Did you…date?”
    “Not sure you could call it that. It was the summer between our junior and senior years in high school. One day he just looked at me different . Out of the blue. He didn’t even have to work at getting me into bed. We couldn’t keep our hands off each other for months. We were joined at the hip.” She winked. “So to speak.”
    “Have you been together since?”
    “Oh, no. There’ve been others in between breakups and jail time. The most persistent is one of Koda’s cop friends, Alan. He asked me out just the other day, but I think he knows there’s no real chance. Someday Zane will straighten out and want to settle down. And when he does, I’ll be there.”
    Maggie swallowed. “Jail time?”
    “A long time ago, Zane’s trouble making caught up and Koda was too late to help.” Candi looked pensive. “He started changing after high school. He’d disappear for long stretches of time, never told anyone where he was going or when he’d be back. Drove poor A crazy with worry. Koda worse.” She paused, taking another sip of coffee. “I never understood how he could hurt us like that. Especially me.”
    “Of course.”
    “Then one day, we got word that he’d stabbed somebody up north in a bar fight. Zane says it was self-defense, and maybe it was. But the guy almost died. Zane did six years. Hard time.”
    Maggie’s mouth went slack.
    “When he came back, he was different. Really different.”
    “Different, how?”
    Candi frowned and leaned away.
    “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t push.”
    “No,” Candi said, running her fingers lightly across her cleavage, as if making sure it was still there. “I don’t mind. I like talking to you. It feels like I’ve known you forever.”
    It was such an open, honest statement, that Maggie felt it tug at her heartstrings. “Me, too.” It wasn’t a lie. She felt a connection with Candi, though why, she had no idea. She’d never been the kind to believe in fate and chance encounters. She supposed her mother was responsible for that. Things were what they were. Period.
    But she was comfortable around this woman with the makeup and big hair. She was more comfortable with her than she’d been with anyone for a long time. Though she’d be hard-pressed to admit it, it almost felt like moments of talking with Aimee. And again, there was the familiar, unrelenting ache.
    Candi smiled, and the glow was back. “Good.” Crossing her long legs, she set her