Chapter Twenty-Six
Sunday, Feb 3rd
Kate was going to kick Butch’s sexy buns all the way to Mexico. Maybe even to the South Pole.
Earlier this morning while eating breakfast together, he’d asked Kate to run to the store in place of Ronnie, who, according to Mississippi, was now on high alert for incoming assholes. Kate had practically bounced off her chair with excitement.
“Yes! Yes! Yes!” She’d hopped up and kissed him like she’d just landed back on Earth after a long, lonely trip to the moon and back. Finally, she had a chance to take care of a few extracurricular activities without having to sneak and plot behind Butch’s back.
A trip to the store meant Kate could meet with Millie, who’d called this morning while Butch was in the shower and mentioned that she had a “top-priority” pickup for Kate. And “top secret,” too. The sheriff was not to hear about it, nor Ronnie or Penny. Claire wasn’t mentioned, but Kate assumed Millie had forgotten about her other sister.
After having secretly hired Millie last week to dig up some dirt on Elizabeth, Kate couldn’t wait to get her hands on whatever the Geritol Gangster and her girls had found.
But when Butch and Kate pulled into the parking lot at The Shaft an hour later, Chester was waiting, his truck idling. It didn’t take someone with an IQ even half of hers to see the big picture.
“Really?” she snapped, giving Butch not just one evil eye, but two. The son of a gun was lucky she wasn’t a black widow spider with eight evil eyes in her arsenal, along with fangs and venom. “I thought we’d reached an understanding yesterday morning about my lack of freedom.”
“We did.” Butch caught her hand, holding onto it when she tried to pull away. “But things are different today.”
“I don’t need a babysitter, Valentine.”
“Chester isn’t a babysitter, sweetheart. He’s a bodyguard. You think that Ronnie is the only one in the high-risk category now? You’re her sister and you’re pregnant. If someone wanted to get to Ronnie, taking you hostage is a sure way to lure her out of hiding.”
Good point. “I need to start packing heat.”
He winced. “How about you start packing Chester instead. He’s licensed for concealed carry in Arizona.”
“He is? Since when?”
“According to him, since he established residency here last month.”
“But his license plate isn’t an Arizona one.”
“Grady pointed that out, too. Chester promised to have that fixed before the end of the month when his old tags expire.”
Kate guffawed. “Between the sheriff and Mac, nobody can get away with anything shady around here.”
“So, Chester offered …” Butch started to speak and then changed course. “What kind of shady things, Kate?”
Oops. She shrugged, avoiding his searching gaze, focusing on Chester’s pickup instead. “Just the general, harmless, slightly dodgy sort of stuff.” She needed to get the spotlight off her and fast. “I didn’t realize Chester planned to stick around for good.”
Although it made sense since Gramps and Manny, his two best buddies, had both settled here. Kate understood the pull of someone you love drawing you in and holding you in place. As soon as Claire had made it clear last spring that she wasn’t returning to South Dakota, Kate had started planning on joining her some way or another. Falling for Butch while she was here visiting had sealed the deal.
She’d only gone back north once since, and that was with Claire to grab more of their things. And, unfortunately, their mom’s, who’d decided to stay here in Arizona, too.
Shit, her mom. Kate frowned.
“Kate.” Butch tugged on her hand. “What sort of dodgy stuff? More crap that will land you in Grady’s jail cell if you’re caught?”
“No.” Which was the truth, because she was changing her tactics and wouldn’t be caught the next time.
Now that Kate knew Deputy Dipshit had been spying on her while she was at the library, she was going to turn the tables on him. She was ninety-nine percent certain he was the asshole who’d tucked the anonymous, threatening notes under the windshield wiper on Gramps’s Winnebago where Ronnie had been temporarily living. Before catching Ernie with Grady’s ex at that bar, Kate had been wondering why he was leaving the notes. What his motivation was. If it were some kind of small-town version of a hate crime, or if someone were paying him to harass her sister. But now, Kate was pretty sure she had it figured out, and she simply needed to prove it. Or maybe not so simply. Time would tell.
“Kate, if you’re going to—”
“Valentine.” She needed a distraction, and she had a real doozy. “I have a problem that I’m not sure you or Chester can help me fix.”
Butch loved trying to fix her problems, whether she wanted him to or not. Some days it made her want to throw fruit at his head during breakfast. Right now, though, she would be happy to have his help with this newest issue.
“What’s wrong?”
“Mom called me yesterday.”
He grimaced at the mere mention of her mother. Kate couldn’t blame him. The poor guy had been stung enough by Deborah’s pointed tail.
In her mother’s eyes, it was bad enough that Butch had made her daughter fall in love with him and give up Deborah’s lofty career dreams for her youngest child to end up a school district superintendent by age thirty-five. Add to that a pregnancy without a sparkling diamond on Kate’s ring finger, and poor Butch currently ranked near the top of Deborah’s shit list, in line behind Kate’s dad and Grady. Mac was on that list somewhere, too, but lower since her mom had pretty much given up on “fixing” Claire a while ago.
“She wants to meet somewhere private to talk about our mother–daughter relationship struggles over the years and come up with a plan for going forward. She said that according to her therapist, this is a necessity, so that she can put the past behind her for good and move toward a healthier, sober future.”
“So, the demon Lamashtu has not only returned,” Butch said. “But she wants to have tea and crumpets, too.”
Kate knew that name from one of her literature classes back in college. “Was Lamashtu the Greek monster demon who would devour children if they disobeyed?”
“No, that was Lamia. Lamashtu was Mesopotamian. She menaced women during childbirth, and then tried to kidnap the kids so she could gnaw on their bones and suck some of their blood. You know, all of that fun demon goddess stuff.” Butch held up his fingers to make a cross. “You’re going to need a priest to perform this exorcism, mama jama.”
“How do you know so much about demons? Is there a dark side of you I don’t know about yet?”
“Sure, but not as dark as your mother’s heart, so no worries.”
She chuckled, but then groaned. The thought alone of having that conversation with her mom … Crudballs.
To make matters with her mom worse, her father had sent a message last night saying that his house was now up for sale in South Dakota. Randy Morgan was following through with his plans to move south and join his girls, no matter if his ex-wife were living close by or not. Kate and her sisters needed to do what they could to help Manny make sure their mom was as stable as possible before their dad arrived and set up camp in the same county.
“Did you agree to meet with her?” Butch asked. “If so, I could kidnap you for a few weeks and take you to a secret tropical island where she can’t find us.”
That sounded lovely … and boring. There was too much happening around here with Elizabeth pulling her shenanigans and Ronnie needing Kate’s help keeping a lookout for hitmen. Not to mention working with Claire to figure out the mystery behind the ancient knife and Joe’s death.
“I put her off for now.” She sighed, staring out the windshield without really seeing anything, her thoughts stuck somewhere back in long-ago. “The past is full of emotional land mines and buried frustrations that are better not trespassed, but she’s determined to find a shovel.”
“How’d she take your rain check request?”
“I don’t know. She didn’t text back.”
“No response, huh? That makes me nervous.”
“Me too.” She frowned his way. “I’m all for her being sober. But if we start digging up the past, I might need to lock myself in Grady’s jail for a whole new set of crimes.”
Chester honked the horn. When she looked his way, he held up his arm and tapped his watch.
She flipped off Mr. Impatient, then turned back to Butch. “Okay, give me the damned grocery list.”
Ten minutes later, she was on her way to Yuccaville in Chester’s rig, singing about counting flowers on the wall along with the Statler Brothers on the radio.
“You should’ve let me drive, slowpoke,” Kate said when the song was over. She’d been waiting for Chester to put the hammer down for the last five miles. He could at least go the speed limit.
He snickered. “And risk you trying to run down one of Grady’s deputies with my rig? No way. I’m no tenderfoot when it comes to wild and whacky women.”
“Yeah, well I sure wish you had a lead foot when it comes to driving. At this rate, I’m going to deliver my kid before we make it to the store and back.”
“What’s your big rush? You heard Butch. We have an hour to kill before opening time. My ol’ granddad used to always tell me to be the tortoise, not the hare. Hell, you even look like you’re wearing a tortoise shell backward in that plaid shirt.”
Kate smoothed the brown and green flannel shirt she’d borrowed from Butch over her round belly. She needed some new prettier maternity clothes, but Yuccaville’s pickings for expectant mothers were slim.
“I’m not in a big rush, Chester. But I do have an errand I need to run.”
“What kind of errand? The baby sort? I can help you pick out a crib for Chester Jr.”
An errand that she’d rather do on her own, but if Chester were going to be her bodyguard for the time being, she might as well knight him so he was prepared to go into battle alongside her.
“A secret errand.”
He grinned. “Those are my favorite kind. Where are we going? Does it involve women’s underwear?”
“Before I tell you, I need you to pinky promise that you’ll keep your lips zipped if anyone asks where we’ve been. And if you go back on that promise …”
“You’ll cut off my pinky?”
“Worse. I’ll pay one of the girls at Dirty Gerties to put the squeeze on you so hard that your days of wrestling in the mud with bikini babes will be history.”
Chester’s grin flipped upside down. “Don’t go ruining a good thing.”
She held out her pinky. “Do we have a deal?”
He pursed his lips. “I promised Butch I’d keep you and the baby safe.”
“What I have in mind won’t hurt either of us.”
“What about me?”
Kate thought about her and Claire’s experiences with Millie and her gang. “You might end up with a few scratches.”
“Will this be illegal?”
Kate wasn’t about to ask Millie how she went about getting whatever information she had. “Maybe.”
He laughed, taking her pinky in his for a short squeeze. “Deal. So, where to?”
“Behind the library.”
“I thought you were banned from that place.”
“Only for six months, but my business isn’t in the library. It’s in the parking lot behind it.”
“How many orders of business do we have scheduled for this morning?”
“Only one today. But as far as anyone else is concerned, we went to the supermarket, dilly-dallied in the produce department, and then returned to The Shaft.” She pointed at the stoplight up ahead. “Turn left there.”
Chester followed her order. “You know what I think, Katie?”
“That I’m crazy?”
So what? Maybe she was hovering just this side of deranged, but better to be a little cracked and enjoying life rather than be tediously sane. Life was meant to be a fun, slightly bumpy, and sometimes hair-raising adventure, not a tethered walk on a smooth path under a temperature-regulated bubble.
“There’s nothing wrong with a little craziness.” Chester shot her a wild-eyed grin. “My first wife was chock full of it. Every other time we’d fight, she’d chase me around the house with wire snippers, threatening to castrate me.”
“That’s more than a ‘little’ crazy, Chester.”
“Yeah, but we were really good at making up.” He winked.
Before they traveled any farther down this R-rated version of memory lane, she returned to his original question. “What do you think, Chester?”
“I think that you and I are going to make great partners in crime.”
She liked the sound of that. “And I think having a bodyguard isn’t such a bad idea after all.”
“Darn tootin’!” He pulled into the lot behind the library. “Now, how about you try to stay out of jail this morning, so that I don’t get fired my first day on the job.”
* * *
This wasn’t working for Ronnie. This whole normal, mundane, bookkeeping shit. Not today. Not after what happened yesterday in that freezer.
She sat alone in Ruby’s basement, closed away from the world, but she couldn’t focus on the numbers in front of her no matter how much she pounded her head on the antique Queen Anne–style desk. And pounding her head on the desk only reminded her of the sickening thunk when she’d clocked the guy with the leg of lamb. Not to mention what followed after that.
Burying her face in her hands, she wondered what to do about Sadie. She didn’t want to hide things from Grady. Nor Mississippi. Not telling them the truth meant not warning them about why Sadie was in town—to clean up after Ronnie’s demise. Not to mention that if they listened to the FBI’s latest advice, they were going to be focused on finding the wrong man. One who was already dead.
But telling them the truth threw Sadie under the bus with both the feds and maybe whoever hired her. While Sadie might have started out playing for an opposing team, she seemed to have changed sides thanks to Ronnie saving her life multiple times. With her access to inside information, Sadie also had a leg up on Grady and Mississippi. Ronnie couldn’t risk losing Sadie’s eyes and ears “out there,” could she?
Lowering her hands, she stared down at the column of numbers. It was basic accounting, just a matter of adding. Easy-peasy. Time to get back to work.
She started in again, punching the numbers into the calculator. A third of the way down the list, she jumped when someone knocked on the door.
“Jessica,” she said with a frustrated growl in her voice. “I asked you to stop interrupting me while I’m working on your mom’s books.”
“It’s not Jessica.”
Grady!
Ronnie looked up in surprise. What was he doing here right now? He was supposed to be at work.
Uh-oh! This wasn’t about Katie doing the run to the store in Ronnie’s place, was it?
“It’s unlocked,” she said, rising as he stepped inside and closed the door behind him, locking it.
Her heart sank at the sight of his khaki uniform and sheriff’s badge, his hat in hand. “What did Katie do now?”
He pulled back the chair across from her, placing his hat on the floor next to the desk as he sat down. “Nothing.” He made a wry face. “At least nothing I’ve heard about yet.”
“Oh. Good.” She lowered back into her chair. “Is there something else wrong?”
“Why would you ask that?”
“Because you’re on duty.”
His whiskey-colored eyes watched her from behind narrowed lids. “Actually, I’m here because of you.”
A panicked voice shrieked in her head.
Had he found out about the dead guy? Or about Sadie? Or about the dead guy and Sadie, along with Ronnie’s participation in yesterday’s kill?
She licked her suddenly dry lips. “What did I do?”
“It’s what you didn’t do.”
He almost sounded like he was teasing her now.
Ronnie was too strung out to play a game of suspicious cops and secretly guilty suspects with him.
“Grady.” She picked up the calculator, threatening to throw it at him. “Don’t mess with me. I’m not in the mood.”
“That’s the exact reason why I’m here.” He crossed his arms and took a slow breath. Released it even slower. “You’re still upset about Elizabeth being at my place yesterday.”
“No, I’m not.” And that was no lie.
Grady’s ex-wife and her petty bullshit were the last things weighing on her mind, especially after Ronnie had finally calmed down enough yesterday afternoon to call Grady back and learn the truth of his ex’s visit. He’d explained the whole situation to her, about how he was trying to help his sister and derail Elizabeth before she struck again.
Ronnie was pissed on Penny’s behalf, but that was it. She had bigger problems at the moment. Problems that resulted in people dying. That might result in her own death.
Besides, if Elizabeth thought she could win back the man she’d hurt and thoroughly humiliated with a coy smile and a few blinks of her long lashes, then her biscuit was clearly not done in the middle.
Grady shifted in his chair. “Then why did you spend last night here instead of coming home with me?”
She waved her hand at the paperwork surrounding her. “I told you, I wanted to get up early and make some progress on this bookwork for Ruby.”
That held an element of truth to it. Waking up in Jessica’s room, heading down to the kitchen to grab a yogurt and a cup of coffee (since Gramps and Ruby brought home a replacement carafe from Tucson), and then walking down a few more stairs to go to work was a lot easier than commuting from Grady’s bedroom.
But there was more to it than that.
She loved Grady, and she wasn’t sure she could hide all of her angst and fears from him first thing in the morning. It was one thing to sit on the other side of a desk and assure him all was sunny and fine with their relationship, and another to wake up curled into him and stare into those all-seeing eyes before she had time to raise her shields.
“I think there is something more going on here,” he said, still watching her closely.
Ronnie bristled under his searching gaze. “Are you here to interrogate me, Sheriff Hardass? Or is this a visit from the guy I’m sleeping with on a regular basis?”
“Not regular enough.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “This is not an interrogation, and I don’t like sleeping alone anymore, which is your fault.”
“I would think you’d enjoy a break from all of the females who are making your life hell lately.”
One dark eyebrow lifted. “There is only one female giving me grief at the moment.”
“You mean your sister?”
He blinked. “Make that two females.”
“What about Katie locking horns with your deputy?”
“Three females, then.”
“And then there’s your ex, telling everyone around town that you two are an item again.”
He shook his head. “I was already counting Elizabeth in that list.”
“Oh, I thought I was the first female.”
“You’re not giving me grief, Veronica. A little heartburn every now and then from worry, but that’s not your doing.”
“So, to clarify, you’re only here right now because you think I’m still upset about finding Elizabeth at your house?”
“No. I’m here because I’m nuts about you, and there is something going on in that beautiful head of yours that keeps making you scowl at the woodwork when you think nobody is looking.”
Criminy, he was too good at his job. Which was the exact reason why she’d avoided being alone with him yesterday.
“I’m just scared,” she said.
And she was. Yesterday’s adventures at the grocery store had made this whole crazy hitman business real. As for knowing the purpose behind Sadie’s presence in town—well, that had knocked the wind clean out of her.
“Then let me take care of you. Let me protect you.”
The angst edging his voice tugged on her heart. “You already take care of me as much as you can, Grady. You can’t keep me locked up in your jail day and night.”
“Maybe not, but if you’d move in with me, we might both sleep better at night.”
“You think someone can’t get to me at your place?”
He sighed, glancing around the room. “It’s a lot safer than here, where you have strangers coming and going every day.”
That was true, but a killer could find out where Grady lived with ease and wait for her to take the trash out or go for a jog or any other mundane task. He—or she—could park down the street, waiting for Grady to leave for work and then …
The gray pickup!
The one on Grady’s street with the hulking shadow waiting inside.
That was the morning when Ronnie had been reading Butch’s grocery list on the way out to Grady’s rig. Sadie had jogged up to Ronnie and scared the daylights out of her.
Who ran in combat boots? Sadie did, that was who. Someone who was trained to fight to the death, apparently, and clean up the mess afterward.
Sadie had needed a lift to the store that morning, and when Ronnie had passed by that gray pickup, trying to get a look inside, Sadie had distracted her. Something about a lizard crossing the road, of all things. Ronnie should have known something was off right then. Too many things hadn’t felt right in that scene.
Had there been someone in that pickup waiting for Ronnie? Someone scoping out where she was staying? Or someone waiting to kidnap her and start cutting pieces off her to send to Lyle? She needed to ask Sadie about that, and see if Ms. Combat Boots had removed a threat that day.
That gray pickup showed that living with Grady wouldn’t solve Ronnie’s problems, only add to his, most likely.
“Grady, I don’t want to move in with you.” Not yet, anyway. Not until sleeping in bed next to him every night didn’t put his life in danger. “It’s too risky.”
He raked his hand through his hair, his fingers leaving a rumpled mess of waves in their wake. “I’m not afraid of risk, Veronica. It’s part of my job.”
“That’s what worries me. You’ll go and do something wonderfully heroic to save me and end up being a name on a sign along one of the highways around here. Or on a park bench. Or on something else dedicated in your memory.” Ronnie shook her head. “I can’t live with that. I like you alive way too much.”
He stared down at his palms for several seconds as if studying the lines on them. When he looked up at her, his face was etched with uncertainty. “What if I asked you to marry me?” His voice was barely above whisper level. “Would you move in with me then?”
It took a moment for his words to register. When they finally sank in, her heart stumbled to its knees. She’d daydreamed about a future with him so many times. Pictured a life at the new place he was building, filling it with laughter, pets, maybe a kid or two, and love. Lots of love.
But this felt wrong. Forced. Blackmailed into marriage. Offering himself as a sacrifice.
“You don’t really want that,” she whispered back.
His gaze hardened in a blink, his cheeks darkening a shade. “You don’t know what I want, Veronica,” he charged in a clipped tone.
She recognized his self-preservation tactic. She’d used something similar herself many times, especially when the FBI was trying to tear away her last remnants of dignity so she’d squeal on Lyle. Unfortunately, she’d had nothing to tell.
“I have an inkling, Grady.”
“Oh, really? Tell me then.”
She shrugged. “A big house in the country, a law-abiding wife, a couple of dogs, and no worries about having to watch over your shoulder all of the time because a dickhead holing up in a South Dakota prison rolled over on some really vicious criminals.”
His eyes stayed narrowed. “One dog is enough.”
“My mistake.”
“And you forgot about cats. I’d like a passel of them to help keep the vermin away.”
So, she was nearly on target. “What about kids?”
“What about them?”
His question didn’t really answer what she’d been wondering about off and on since they’d taken their relationship to the next level. But his expression had softened enough for her to make offspring part of this equation.
“Think how much you’d worry about children if I were involved in their making.”
He looked at his hat, a frown settling in on his forehead. “I’d worry a hell of a lot more about your mother wanting to move in with us.”
A laugh erupted from her before she could contain it. “We could put her out back in a tiny house.”
“I’d rather she live with Butch and Kate in that huge house of his.”
“Good idea. I’ll suggest it to Butch when I head over to The Shaft later.”
He looked back at her, frown still in place. “Veronica, I’m serious here about you and me. I love you.”
“I love you, too, Grady. But we need to face reality. I won’t make a good, wholesome county sheriff’s wife.”
There was a time in her past she might have, but she didn’t want to go back to being Veronica Jefferson, the hostess with the most-est, with a tray of champagne glasses in one hand and a dust mop in the other.
“I don’t care if you’re law-abiding all of the time or not.”
“That’s not true and you know it.”
“Okay, so it would make my job a hell of lot easier if you were, but I’m not looking for some 1950s television housewife.”
Had he been reading her mind?
“Good, because I’m more like Daisy Duke in the 1980s, trying to run under the radar at all times.”
His grin was fleeting. “Stop trying to distract me with an image of you in short-shorts and a tank top.”
“We could play that fantasy out some night, Sheriff Hardass.” She wiggled her eyebrows at him. “I might like being arrested under the right circumstances.”
He stared at her for a minute, then took a breath and grunted. “Damn.”
“We have a good thing going here, Grady. It’s fun and flirty. Nobody gets hurt in the end.”
“Too late. I’m in way over my head.”
That made two of them.
“Live with me,” he pressed. “Even if you don’t want to marry me.”
But she did want to marry him. Just not yet.
“What would your constituents say to that? I’m a tarnished woman with a stained past, and Elizabeth has done her best lately to make sure local folks know that.”
“I don’t give a damn what anyone else thinks about you. About us.”
“You’re up for re-election this fall,” she reminded him.
“Maybe I’ll drop out of the race.”
She leaned across the desk. “Don’t say that. Don’t make it as if I’m forcing you to choose, because I’m not.”
He shrugged. “I choose you.”
“No.” She hit the desk with her fist, a makeshift gavel. “You can’t.”
“It’s my choice in the end.”
She pointed at him. “You’re a good man, Grady Harrison. The people of this county need you at the helm, serving and protecting.”
This time both of his hands raked through his hair, leaving it as chaotic as the torment in his eyes. “Let me serve you, Veronica. Let me keep you safe. Especially with this Blue Hornet killer coming to town.”
“Damn it!” She pushed out of her chair. He was making it nearly impossible to hold her ground, blowing her defenses to smithereens. She walked over to the bookcase and rested her head against the cool wood.
And now this business about that freakin’ dead asshole in the freezer—or wherever Sadie had buried him. If she hadn’t cut him into pieces and scattered him to the four corners of the state. Actually, maybe if she … never mind!
Ronnie sniffed, knowing what she needed to do. She had to tell Grady that the Blue Hornet was no longer a threat. Not to waste his time watching for the bastard. She couldn’t let him hunt the wrong killer. She would have to warn Sadie later and deal with the repercussions of that in turn.
Before she could get a word out, someone knocked on the door.
“Ronnie?” Deborah called through the wood. “Are you in there?” The doorknob twisted. “Open the door, please.”
Grady cringed. “Shit,” he said under his breath, sliding lower into his chair.
Ronnie would have laughed at the big, tough sheriff’s reaction to her mom if she hadn’t been on the verge of spilling her guts seconds before. “I’m busy, Mom.”
“I know you’re working on Ruby’s bookkeeping with some help from a certain sheriff—wink wink—but your grandfather is looking for you, and he’s in a bit of a huff. If you’re not in the kitchen ASAP, he’ll be down here to get you and probably even more grumpy.” Deborah snorted. “If that’s possible.”
Now what? Was this something about Kate or Claire? Because Ronnie hadn’t done anything of late, had she?
“So, get your clothes back on and get up here,” Deborah added.
“Mom, our clothes are on. Grady’s on duty, for crissake.”
“Ohhhh, kinky. Maybe Manny and I should do some role playing, too. Does the sheriff have any extra handcuffs or badges?”
Was her mom drinking again? She certainly sounded sober, but normally any talk about the sheriff was through gritted teeth and involved a swear word or two.
“Dear Lord,” Grady whispered, looking a little green around the gills. “I think I liked it better when she hated me outright.”
“Mom!” Ronnie moved closer to the door. “Go away, please.”
“Okay, but I’m not kidding about your grandfather. He’s got a bee up his ass, and he’s looking for someone to sting.”
After her mom left, Grady picked up his hat and stood. “I’ll let you deal with that.”
“Chicken.”
“Damned straight.”
She closed the distance between them. “Grady,” she started and then hesitated.
Maybe there was a way to give him everything else he wanted from her except for Sadie. At least not yet. Ronnie could help lead him in the right direction, using Sadie’s inside knowledge. Somehow.
He waited, brow raised, eyes wary.
Taking his face in her hands, she went up on her toes and kissed him. He held back for a second, but then let out a low groan and kissed her back. His free hand slid down her side, rounding her hip, squeezing while drawing her closer.
“Can I spend the night with you?” she asked when he leaned back to catch his breath.
His smile was half-hearted. “You know that answer.”
“Can I spend the next many nights with you?”
The smile widened, reaching his eyes. “And that one, too.” He wrapped her in his arms, resting his chin on her head. “But bring your own underwear. I’m tired of you borrowing mine.”
She laughed into his chest. “Who needs underwear?”
A growl came from his throat. “You’re right. Just bring your birthday suit.”