She ignored it, only to find it ringing again.

Expecting to see Luke or maybe Wyatt checking on them, she was shocked to see Miss Gina’s inn flash on the screen.

She turned away from Jo and Mel, who were accepting Jell-O shots like they were teenagers, and answered the phone.

“Hey, lady.”

“Zoe?”

The music in the bar was too loud to hear every word. “Is everything okay?”

“Zoe, hon . . .”

She didn’t hear a thing Miss Gina was saying, but her tone said something was wrong.

“Hold on.”

Zoe pushed away from the crowd and out into the street, which was marginally better this early in the Vegas night.

“What’s going on?”

“I don’t know how to tell you this.”

The hair on Zoe’s arms stood on end as she waited.

“It’s your dad.”

Air escaped her lungs. “Oh, no.”

“He’s out, Zoe. Zanya called and told me your mom brought him home.”

Chapter Fifteen

Jo watched as Zoe slipped out of the bar with a phone to her ear. She didn’t think much of it until she returned fifteen minutes later and started pounding drinks. All weekend she’d been pacing herself, making sure none of them got wasted. A nice break for Jo, since that was normally her role once she took the badge.

Only now she watched Zoe accept her first Jell-O shot of the night and follow it with a round of tequila.

There was something different about her friend’s smile. She flirted with the guy who’d been trying to capture her attention since they’d walked in.

Jo took a moment to text Luke.

Have you talked to Zoe?

There were plenty of bodies between Jo and Zoe. Mel was talking with a group of other women celebrating the same thing they were.

Luke answered. Not since we dropped you off at the hotel.

When Zoe grabbed a second shot of tequila in the time it took to text Luke, Jo knew something was seriously wrong.

Jo told Luke where they were and suggested the men head over.

If he questioned her, he didn’t do so with a text.

The next time she glanced at her cell phone, it was a message from Deputy Emery.

Ziggy Brown is back in town.

Jo’s arm reached out and stopped Mel from taking another swig of her drink.

“What?”

Jo flashed the message on her screen in Mel’s face.

They both twisted around to lay eyes on Zoe.

The thing about drinking when you were an adult was the unique ability to sober up in a heartbeat when needed. There was always that point where you were too far gone . . . but most of the time, unless the sky had fallen, you could pull yourself out of the fog to focus.

It helped that Luke had been pacing himself, since the headache he woke with that morning wasn’t something he wanted to repeat. The flight back home wouldn’t treat his seatmates well if he overindulged. He left that for Wyatt and hoped that when it came time for him to celebrate his last days of being a bachelor, someone would look out for him.

Instead of telling Wyatt where they were going and why, Luke did what he’d been doing all weekend: he directed.

The taxi drove them to the hotel that housed the nightclub. Jo had told him where they were. Zoe was a beacon . . . her dark hair flowed down her back, her laughter sounded animated in a room full of music and plenty of overindulging adults.

It was obvious to him the man by her side was doing everything he could to get her drunk . . . it seemed to be working.

Luke caught Jo’s eyes, and she nodded toward her friend.

Mel jumped out of her seat and into Wyatt’s chest. “Hey, sexy.”

Luke moved aside as Wyatt grabbed his future bride and pulled her into his arms.

Zoe caught the scene and looked around.

Her eyes landed on Luke, and she blew past the man working to get her naked and wrapped an arm around him. “What are you doing here?”

She was one drink shy of stumbling. “I need my girl.” He let the lie sound good.

“Hey, dude.” The guy at her side stepped in.

Zoe started to laugh, and Jo took that moment to slide between them. “Don’t.”

The guy took a step forward, and Luke saw Jo remove something from her purse.

“Whatever, man.”

Jo turned with a nod in Luke’s direction and tapped her cell phone in her hand.

“Buy me a drink,” Zoe told him.

Luke lifted his hand to capture the bartender’s attention.

“Have you ladies had a good time?” As he asked, he removed his phone from his back pocket, hoping there would be some clue as to why Wyatt and Mel were staring at them like the earth had just shattered and he was oblivious.

“It’s fabulous. Mel needs to get married every year.”

“I don’t think that’s the plan.”

Jo’s message was quick and to the point.

Ziggy Brown is back in River Bend.

Suddenly everyone’s expressions made sense and Zoe’s lack of sobriety was understood.

Instead of calling her out, Luke ordered a round of drinks and stuck by Zoe’s side the rest of the night. Reality would crash in the morning.

He’d be there to help pick up the pieces if she let him.

The girls’ suite at the Venetian was twice as big as theirs.

Luke was fairly certain Zoe was oblivious to the fact that she was shitfaced drunk while everyone else had sobered up and was talking in a separate room while she slept.

“How the hell did this happen?” Luke voiced the question to Jo, not that it was her fault that Ziggy had managed to get out of jail.