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helping her out, but he knew it definitely wouldn’t come to that. He wasn’t joking about having decent savings. He was boring. Even in San Antonio he’d been a bit of a homebody. He had his apartment, his cheap beer, and his NFL satellite package. If he wasn’t at home, he was working ungodly hours that they throw at rookies, then beat cops. Hell, that’s why no one had wanted to date him. Even if he was a “catch with a good job” as Mama liked to say, he didn’t have time because of that job.
    Even now, his schedule was more lax than he was used to since he was on a smaller force. But he still worked a lot.
    “We’re good, Will. One—”
    “Day at a time. Yeah, yeah.” His brother gave him one of the rare-these-days teasing grins Jase had missed these last few years. “You should get that tattooed on your ass so you don’t gotta say it all the time.”
    What could Jase say? That’s how he’d made it for so long, it seemed like the best mindset to have. It’d certainly help in this situation with their mama.
    “I’ll think about it,” Jase said, with a chuckle. “You get home to those babies. I gotta go make sure there’s enough lumber to build those ramps.”
    “You need help with that?” Will seemed honestly willing to help, which surprised Jase.
    “Nah. It’ll give me something to do.”
    Will was never going to comment on Jase’s social life—or lack thereof—because that brought up awkward shit for both of them, so he gave another of his nods and made his way to his own truck.
     
    Jase jumped in his truck and pulled his phone out, blissfully happy there were no messages or calls; there were no emergencies to handle or fires to put out.
    It was late enough, and Jase was tired enough that he didn’t want to do anything but go home, eat, and drop into bed. He decided to pull through the little barbecue joint on the way out of town and grab dinner so he didn’t have to cook. A pulled pork sandwich with a beer nightcap sounded like a damn fine way to end a long day. Bachelor’s delight, tonight.
    After driving over and placing his order, he was told to have a seat to wait, so he pulled up at the end of their small bar and sipped on a proffered glass of water. He’d left his cell phone in the truck with no intentions of socializing unless he got an emergency call from the sheriff’s department. But in his month there, that hadn’t happened once, so he figured ten minutes of radio silence wouldn’t hurt anyone.
    A pretty bottle-blonde waitress, who was probably younger than Jase but looked thirty, stopped by a couple times to check on him, assuring him his food would be out shortly. Her fluttering lashes made him uncomfortable.
    Plus, his attention was more on her very male co-worker who he could see through the open door to the kitchen. Nice ass, face worth writing home about, clearly straight if you were going by the way he leered at the cute blonde waitress. Jase’s usual, then.
    “Long time no see.” A familiar feminine voice in his ear drew his attention. Lacey’s smiling face was inches from his when he turned on his stool. She took a step back, smiling. “Hey, you.”
    “Hey, Lace. What’s up?” He wondered if he was just being an egomaniac earlier when he’d assumed she was feeling more for him than he’d intended or could follow through with. She seemed back to her normal, friendly self. She was cute with her button nose and curly brown hair tied back in a ponytail. She was closer to thirty, but still looked twenty-one, even without a stitch of makeup, wearing a t-shirt, jeans, and Crocs. That’s one thing he liked about her, she was low maintenance and down to earth. She was also a good friend. Friend.
    Lacey had been one of Jase’s friends for years. They’d had an arrangement his first couple months after the Army, before he’d disappointed the whole damn world—or so they’d acted—and took the job in San Antonio instead of Hope Springs. She’d been one of