Dinner was as chaotic as a Morgan family gathering usually got. But what I’d once found enjoyable was now plain exhausting.
Conversations flew back and forth across the large table over the country music playing in the background. It went too quickly for me to keep up with let alone participate in, even if I had the energy, which I didn’t. I’d spent all day at the station and being shadowed by a U.S. marshal who seemed to take great joy in pissing me the fuck off.
I was bone tired. But I’d come here for one reason, and that was to get answers from Lina “Insurance Is So Boring” Solavita. She’d lied to me and my family, and I was going to find out why.
I’d brought Piper along for company. The dog looked as weary as I felt. She was passed out in a tiny ball against Kitty on a dog bed in the corner. The rest of the canine crew had been too rambunctious to join the party and were banished outside.
Food was passed and drinks were topped off, sometimes without even being asked. I stuck to my one and only beer and forced myself to eat just enough not to draw anyone’s attention. We Morgans were plain bad at talking about feelings, which meant I’d get a free pass from my brother and grandmother. But Naomi and her parents were the kind to spot a problem and talk it to death while doing their damnedest to solve it.
When I’d been discharged from the hospital, it had been to a clean apartment, fresh laundry, and a refrigerator stocked with meals. The Witts had made it clear that they’d adopted not just Knox and Waylay but me as well.
After a lifetime with the comfort of Morgan family dysfunction, it was more than a little disconcerting.
Half the table erupted in laughter at something I’d missed. The suddenness of it startled me. Piper too apparently. She let out a worried yip. Unfazed, Kitty put her big head on Piper’s body and within seconds both were fast asleep again.
This was more life than this old house had seen since my own childhood, more than I could handle. I’d been prepared to do what I’d learned to do, white knuckle my way through. But Lina’s presence on my left gave me a tangle of feelings that knotted themselves up in the middle of the emptiness that now lived full-time in my chest. That burn of attraction that I didn’t understand was still there, along with a sliver of guilt for using her to get a few jabs in at that asshole Nolan. But more than anything, I was pissed.
She’d deliberately misled everyone when it came to her work. And that was as good as a lie to me. I didn’t tolerate lies and liars.
Our exchange this morning left me with questions.
I’d done a little digging between slogging through paperwork and helping Animal Control capture one of Bacon Stables’ pain-in-the-ass runaway horses after it shit its way down Second Street.
But the dinner table wasn’t the place to start the interrogation. So I bided my time and tried to limit the number of times I glanced in her direction.
She was wearing tight jeans and a gray cardigan that looked soft as a cloud. It made me want to reach out and touch it, to rub my face against the fabric. To—
Okay, creeper. Get a hold of yourself. You’re depressed and pissed off. Not a sweater-sniffing stalker.
I shook myself out of the fog and made a weak attempt to join the conversation.
“Lou, how’s the golf game?” I asked.
On my right, Amanda kicked me under the table. Naomi choked on her dinner coffee.
Lou pointed his fork at me from the foot of the table. “Lemme tell you. There’s no way Hole Nine is a par three.”
“And now we all have to suffer,” Amanda whispered as her husband broke into a discourse on his trials and tribulations on the green.
I made an effort to drag my attention away from Lina while Lou gave us all his top ten reasons why Hole Nine was mislabeled.
Piper was snoring that strangely loud nose whistle that had startled me awake twice the night before. The tip of her tail flicked out a beat or two as if her dreams were happy ones. At least it beat waking to the other noise, the one that lived only in my head.
Naomi’s eyes sparkled as Knox slid his hand to the back of her neck and whispered something in her ear. Waylay waited until she was sure her guardians were occupied before slipping two green beans into her napkin. She caught me looking and feigned innocence.
Night had fallen on the other side of the glass, making the woods and creek vanish. Inside, the lights were low and the flicker of candles made it even cozier.
“Pass the chicken, Nash,” Liza J called from the head of the table. I picked up the platter and shifted to my left. Lina’s fingers got tangled up with mine, and we nearly dropped the dish.
Our eyes met. There was a spark of temper in those cool brown eyes, most likely carried over from our run-in that morning. But in the overall tally, I had more reasons to be pissed than she did.
She’d added makeup and styled her hair differently. Edgy pixie was what it made me think of. Her earrings were tiny bells that dangled flirtatiously from her lobes. They jingled every time she laughed. But she wasn’t laughing now.
“Any day now would be nice,” Liza J said pointedly.
I managed to hand off the plate without sending the chicken to the floor. My fingers felt warm from her touch and I balled my hand into a fist in my lap to hold on to the heat.
“Your face looks like shit,” Knox announced to me.
“Knox!” Naomi said, exasperated.
“What? If you’re gonna grow a beard, grow a damn beard or have the decency to make an appointment and sit in my fuckin’ chair. Either way, commit. Don’t go walking around town with a half-assed stubble farm all over your face. It’s bad advertising for Whiskey Clipper,” my brother complained.
Waylay put her head in her hands and muttered something about a jar and vegetables.
I rubbed my hand over my jaw. I’d forgotten to shave again.
“Have some more green beans, Nash,” Amanda insisted on my right, dumping a scoop on top of the one I hadn’t touched yet.
Waylay caught my eye from across the table. “This family is obsessed with green things.”
My mouth quirked. The kid was still getting used to the whole “family” thing after a short lifetime with a bad influence.
“Waylay, isn’t there something you want to ask Knox and Nash?” Naomi prompted.
Waylay looked down at her plate for a second before shrugging in preteen annoyance. “It’s just something dumb. You guys don’t have to do it.” She made a show of spearing a green bean with her fork and scrunching up her face when she took the tiniest bite possible.
“You might be surprised. We like dumb stuff,” I told her.
“Well, there’s this Girl Dad challenge on TikTok where dads let their daughters put makeup on them. And paint their nails. And some of them do their hair too,” she began.
Knox and I shared a frozen look of terror.
We’d do it.
We’d hate every single second of it. But we’d do it if Waylay wanted us to.
Knox swallowed. “Okay. And?” He sounded like he was being strangled.
Naomi sighed. “Waylay Witt!”
The girl’s grin was diabolical. “What? I was just priming them with something worse so they’d say yes to what I really wanted them to do.”
I relaxed as the threat of lipstick and fake eyelashes dissipated.
Knox rocked back in his chair, rolling his eyes to the ceiling. “What the fuck am I gonna do with her at sixteen?”
“Oh man!” Waylay groaned.
“Jar!” Stef said.
“If you would stop f-bombing every sentence, maybe we could be eatin’ potato chips and pepperoni bites instead of dang green beans,” Waylay groused.
Lina’s earrings jingled as she tried to hold in her laughter.
“What do you really want us to do?” I asked.
“Okay. So my school is doing this dumb Career Day thing and I guess I thought maybe it wouldn’t be the most horrible thing if you and Knox came and told my class about your jobs and stuff. You can say no,” she added quickly.
“You want me and your uncle Nash to talk to your class?” Knox asked her.
I rubbed my forehead and tried to chase away all the “hell nos” that were echoing in my head. Community relations was a big part of my job, but I’d avoided all public events since…before.
“Yeah. But only if you’re gonna do a good job, because Ellison Frako’s mom is a district court judge and she’s going to do like a mock trial thing. So don’t, like, show up and talk about paperwork and bank statements.”
I smirked. Paperwork and bank statements were ninety percent of my brother’s job.
Waylay looked at me. “I thought maybe you could do something cool like shoot one of the annoying boys with a Taser.”
Lina choked out a laugh and some of her beer next to me. Wordlessly, I handed her a napkin.
Naomi shot a pleading look my way.
Like I didn’t know how much it cost Waylay to ask for what she wanted.
“I might not deploy any weapons in the classroom, but I could probably come up with something,” I said. A cold bead of sweat snaked its way down my back. But the happily stunned expression on Waylay’s face made it worthwhile.
“Really?”
“Yeah. Really. Fair warning though, my job’s way cooler than Knox’s.”
Knox snorted. “Oh, it’s on.”
“What are you gonna do? Reenact a lottery win?” I joked.
He threw a chunk of red-skinned potato across the table at me.
I volleyed back with a scoop of green beans.
“Boys,” Amanda warned.
Waylay gave me one of those small smiles that I prized. It was one thing to make a happy kid smile, but to pry one out of the girl who had a lot of reasons not to was like winning a gold medal.
“So seriously. Who wants to take Piper home with them?” I asked again.
“Oh, now, Nash. You know that wouldn’t be fair to that sweet little girl. She’s already obviously bonded with you,” Amanda pointed out.
After pie and coffee, the party broke up to a Patsy Cline song, one of my mom’s favorites.
Knox started on the dishes while Naomi went upstairs to supervise Waylay’s homework. Lou and Amanda volunteered to walk Liza J home. Piper whined pitifully at the front door as Kitty disappeared into the night.
I wanted to disappear too, but good manners wouldn’t let me leave without at least lending a hand. I headed back into the dining room and found Lina collecting empty dessert plates.
“Gimme those,” I said. “You round up the utensils.”
She set the dishes down on the table rather than handing them to me.
“So you and Marshal Graham seemed friendly this morning.”
It was the wrong thing to say.
The forks and knives she’d collected clattered as she dropped them on an empty platter. “Seriously?” Her eyes flashed as she crossed her arms. “What’s your problem with Nolan?”
My problem was that he was Nolan to her, not U.S. Marshal Graham.
“My problem is your pal Nolan is shadowing my ass. He followed me here. Hell, he’s probably parked out there in the driveway right now.”
She drummed dark red nails against the sleeves of her sweater. Hard and sharp over soft. “He’s not my pal. And you could have at least invited him in.”
The fuck I could have.
There was a crash in the kitchen followed by half a minute of swearing. “Why in the fuck are wet dishes so goddamn slippery? Where the fuck do we keep the broom?” Knox snarled.
“Jar times three,” Naomi yelled from upstairs.
“Sit,” I said.
Lina’s eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?”
I pulled out a chair, pointed to it. “I said sit.”
Waylon galloped into the room, plopped his ass on the rug at my feet, and looked around for a treat. Piper joined him, looking hopeful.
“Now you’ve done it,” Lina said.
Muttering under my breath, I dug out two of the treats I had in my pocket and gave one to each dog. Then I pulled out another chair and sat.
“Please s-i-t,” I said, gesturing to the empty chair.
She took her sweet time doing it, but she sat. “This isn’t an interrogation room, hotshot. And I’m not a suspect. Any relationship past or present between me and Nolan is none of your business.”
“Here’s where you’re wrong, Angelina. See, I don’t believe in coincidences, especially not when there’s a whole mess of ’em. You’ve never visited my brother in his hometown before. All of the sudden, you just up and decide to surprise him with an open-ended visit. Unlikely, but okay. You also show up after I get myself shot and right before Naomi and Waylay get taken. Again, could be just a coincidence.”
“But you don’t think so,” she said, folding her arms.
“Then you just happen to have a history with the marshal in charge of being a pain in my ass.”
Lina interlaced her fingers on the table and leaned forward. “Nolan and I had a sweaty, naked forty-eight-hour fling in a motel in Memphis five or six years ago.”
“That was right about the time you recovered $150K in stolen jewelry for your bosses at Pritzger, wasn’t it? And those fellas you recovered it from just happened to be the subject of an FBI investigation, didn’t they?”
She studied me for a long beat. “Where did you get that information?”
“The bust was big news. Made some headlines.”
“My name wasn’t mentioned in any of them,” she said coolly.
“Ah. But it was mentioned in the local PD’s incident report.”
Okay, so I’d done more than a little quiet digging today.
She blew out a breath through her teeth. “What do you want?”
“Why are you here? And don’t give me some bullshit about missing your old pal Knox,” I warned when she opened her mouth. “I want the truth.”
I required the truth.
“I’ll say this slowly so you’ll be sure to catch it all the first time around. I’m none of your business. My business, including who I am or was ‘friendly’ with, what I do for a paycheck, and why I’m in town are also none of your damn business.”
I leaned in closer until our knees brushed under the table. “All due respect, Angelina? I’m the one with holes in me. And if you’re here for any reason relating to that, then it’s very fucking clearly my business.”
Her phone rang and the caller ID on the screen read “Dad.”
She stabbed the Ignore button and pushed the phone away, tension in her movements.
“Talk. Now,” I said.
She bared her teeth, her eyes going dark and dangerous. For a second, I thought she was going to lay into me, and I relished the thought of her anger rising up to slam into mine, waking it up and fanning it into an inferno.
But the inferno was interrupted by a shrill beep.
Lina slapped her hand over the watch on her wrist, but not before I saw the number on the screen next to the red heart.
“Is that a heart rate alert?” I asked.
She came out of her chair abruptly enough to startle the dogs. I got to my feet.
“That, like everything else involving me, is none of your damn business, Chief,” she said, then started for the doorway.
She almost made it, but we’d both underestimated my level of mad. I caught her, my hand clamping around her wrist and drawing her back.
She spun. I stepped. And that was how I found myself standing flush against her with her back to the wall.
We were both breathing heavily, our chests moving against each other with every inhale. She was a tall, long-legged woman, but I still had enough inches on her that she had to tilt her head to look up at me. I could see the pulse at the base of her throat.
Yes. It was a whisper in my blood. The closer I got to her, the louder it grew.
With control, I ran my hand down her opposite arm to her wrist and lifted it. She watched me without pulling away. I broke eye contact to glance at her watch. “That’s a pretty high heart rate for sitting around talking,” I observed.
She tried to pull free, but I held on.
“I wasn’t sitting around talking. I was sitting around trying not to break a cop’s nose.”
I still had her hand in mine. Her other one was fisted in my shirt. But she wasn’t pushing me away. She was holding me where I stood.
“Let’s both calm down,” I said mildly.
“Calm down? You want me to calm down? Gee. Why didn’t I think of that?”
I’d scaled the volcano and now I was looking down into pure, molten lava. All I wanted to do was jump into that glorious heat.
“Tell me what we’re dealing with here,” I insisted. “Do you need a doctor?”
“Oh my God, Nash. If you don’t let me go right now, no jury on earth will hold me accountable for the damage I do to your testicles with my knee.”
That threat combined with the way she was moving against me had me going from halfway hard to flag-flying, pitch-a-tent, that’s-the-ball-game-folks fully aroused.
Fuck.
Then we were both moving.
I had her fully pinned against the wall, one hand at her waist just under her breast, the other flat on the wall next to her head. Meanwhile, her hands were white knuckled in my shirt, holding me to her.
I could follow her breath as she sucked it in, expanding her chest, before the exhale warmed my face and neck. I breathed her in and shifted against her.
I needed to back off. Not only was it a shitty idea to get involved with a woman I knew was lying to me, there was the fact that my head was messing with my dick.
“You want me to back off?” I said, running my nose along her jawline.
“Yes,” she hissed. But her hands pulled me tighter to her.
“You want me to stop touching you, Angel?” I prayed to every religious deity I could think of, then threw in a few celebrities and musicians for good measure. Sweet Dolly Parton, please don’t let her say yes.
Her lashes flickered. Surprise and something else sparked to life in those beautiful brown eyes.
“No.” It was a whisper. A smoky plea that started my blood simmering.
Our gazes met and held as I skimmed my hand an inch higher until my fingers brushed the underside of her breast. My dick throbbed painfully behind my fly. Little licks of flames warmed my muscles.
Lina let out a sexy little whimper, and I swear to Dolly, I almost came then and there. I committed the sound to memory, knowing I’d pull it out over and over again. Knowing even if my dick never worked again, I’d still wrap my fist around it remembering that sound coming out of those parted lips.
She bucked her hips against me and nearly broke me. Maybe it would have. Maybe I would have dragged her to the floor and used my teeth and tongue and fingers on her until she was naked and begging for me.
But maybes weren’t in the cards.
“What in the fucking fuck are you doing?” Knox snarled. He was holding a broom in one hand and a beer in the other and looked as though he wanted to break both over my head.
“We’re havin’ a private discussion,” I snapped.
“The hell you are,” my brother growled.
“Actually, I was just leaving,” Lina said, her cheeks flushed a tantalizing pink. “If you want to have another private interrogation, Chief, I’ll make sure I have my lawyer present.”
“Swear to God, Nash, if you don’t back the fuck up, I’m gonna break this bottle over your head and then make you clean it up with this fuckin’ broom.”
Being happily engaged was definitely affecting my idiot brother’s ability to craft threats.
Still, it wasn’t smart for me to keep my back to him. I removed my hand from Lina’s waist and tried to take a step back. But she was still clinging to my shirt.
“You’re the one who’s gotta let go, baby,” I whispered.
She glanced down at her hands clamped on my shirt and slowly released her grip.
“Are you okay to drive?” I asked her.
“She had one fucking beer. You gonna run a sobriety checkpoint in my dining room?” Knox demanded.
“I wasn’t talking about the beer,” I said to him through clenched teeth.
“I’m fine. Thanks for dinner, Knox. I’ll see you around.” She slipped past me and headed out the front door.
“What. The. Fuck. Was. That?” Knox punctuated each word with a jab from the broom handle into my ribs.
“Ow.”
“No,” he said.
“No what?”
Using the broom handle, Knox pointed to the door Lina had exited through, then back at me. “That. It’s not happening.”
I ignored his comment. “How much do you know about Lina?”
“What the hell do you mean? I’ve known her forever.”
“Do you know what she does for a living?”
“She works in insurance.”
“Wrong. She’s an insurance investigator for Pritzger Insurance.”
“Not seeing a difference.”
“She’s basically a bounty hunter for personal property.”
“So what?”
“So she shows up in town right after I take a couple of bullets. She lies about what she does for a living, and she knows the U.S. marshal who’s up my ass. You don’t think those are some interesting coincidences?”
“Why does everyone in my fuckin’ life wanna talk shit to death?” Knox muttered.
“Why does she wear a watch that monitors her heart rate?”
“How the fuck should I know? Don’t all those idiots who run for fun do that? I’m more concerned with why my brother had one of my best friends pinned up against a wall.”
“You got a problem with that?”
“Yeah. A big one.”
“Care to elaborate?” I asked.
“Fuck no. You and Lina ain’t happenin’. End of story. No elaboration necessary.”
“That strategy ever work with your girls?”
Wearily Knox pulled out one of the chairs and sat. “Not so far, but I’m hopin’ one of these times they’ll let me take the win. Sit your ass down.” He indicated the chair Lina had vacated.
As soon as I sat, Piper scrabbled at my shins and I picked her up. She cuddled up against my chest and let out a sigh. As if I made her feel safe. Damn dog.
“You wanna talk. Fine. Shut the hell up and listen. Trust me when I say Lina’s the kind of friend you want on your side. Not just cause she’s hell on wheels when you’ve pissed her off, but because she’s one of the good ones. If she ain’t runnin’ her mouth about job descriptions and stupid smart watches, she’s got a reason for not sharing. Maybe that reason is you haven’t earned her trust. Or maybe that shit’s because it’s none of your damn business.”
But there was something in me that knew it was my business.
“I know—”
Knox cut me off. “Shut it. She’s one of the best people I know. So are you. Fix things with her and then leave her alone. I’m not lettin’ you two play games with each other. And stop pinning her to goddamn walls. The woman hates to be touched. I can’t believe she didn’t detach your balls on her way out.”
Lina hated being touched? This was news.
“We’re goin’ out tomorrow night. You, me, and Lucy,” my brother continued.
I shook my head. “I’ve got a lot on my plate—”
“We’re goin’ out tomorrow night,” he repeated. “Honky Tonk, 9:00 p.m. It’s your day off, and if you try and cancel, Lucy and I are gonna show up at your place and drag you out. We’ve got shit to discuss.”
