All three of them moved fast, but Mary was the fastest. She spun and jabbed out her right fist—a short hard jab that connected with Thomas Northcliffe’s nose.
Her men had drawn their weapons and Adam—who’d sprinted ahead of his family, gun drawn probably because he’d recognized Northcliffe from his mug shot—put on the brakes and pulled up short.
They all watched as Northcliffe collapsed to the ground, out cold.
The men all looked from Northcliffe to Mary.
Adam shook his head and holstered his weapon. “Gentlemen, I’d call that a solid reason to not ever piss your woman off.”
“He’s got a glass jaw, something I found out last time.” Mary looked up at her men and then shrugged.
“Come on into the restaurant, and we’ll get some ice for your hand,” Ginny Kendall said. She, Jake, and their kids had caught up. “The menfolk will join us once they haul that to the jail.” She nodded down at Northcliffe. She turned to her badged husband. “They’ll join us, once their duty is met.” She kissed Adam on the mouth but not before Mary saw the look that she gave him.
I bet you she sends him off to work on Monday. Mary knew she was right. For just as much as Adam loved his wife and had stayed off work longer than he wanted to, Ginny would send him off to work sooner than she wanted to—for the same reason.
That was just how folks rolled in Lusty.
Everyone in Lusty Appetites applauded her when she stepped into the restaurant with Ginny. Then Grandpa Noah got to his feet. “Now just where have those two scoundrels run off to?”
Ginny gave a brief explanation, which had set some of the male cousins—led by Morgan and Henry—to whispering. “Plotting their verbal digs, most like,” Ginny explained.
Cousin speak, Mary thought. You gotta love it. She felt herself going all sentimental inside when she caught sight of the banner hanging over the buffet. It read, “Congratulations Mary, Anthony, and Toby!” and there was a drawing of three wedding rings in the corner.
It didn’t take the men long to make their appearance, and there was close to a full house when they arrived. Of course, Anthony and Toby were applauded, as she had been.
“Hey, little brother, I hear you bagged yourself an escaped fugitive.” Morgan Kendall, eldest child of Samantha, Preston, Taylor, and Charles had a way of ensuring that his voice carried far as he addressed Adam.
“Nah, I just supervised the carrying off to the jailhouse of same. The person who bagged the wily fugitive was our Mary. With a single right jab to the middle of his sniveling, deluded face.”
Adam’s voice carried just as well as his brother’s had. Mary felt her face color as the cheers erupted.
“Yes, indeed. Mary, you fit right in here with the rest of us,” Ryder Magee, one of Susan Benedict’s husbands, said.
“She does,” Colt Evans, Susan’s other husband, said. “And she didn’t even need a fu….um, shovel, either.”
Laughter rippled through the room as, at the last moment and in deference to all the children attending the party, Colt wisely chose not to drop an F-bomb.
“I can’t take the credit,” Mary said. “The man has a glass jaw.”
“Take the credit, dear.” Samantha Kendall raised her glass to her. “You certainly deserve it.”
“And the bonus of this situation, of course,” Samantha’s husband Preston said, “is that those two detectives can rest easy at night, knowing Mary’s there to defend them.”
Laughter rippled again, and then people returned to their chatter and their food and their children or grandchildren, while Adam and Jake and Anthony and Toby came over to the large table that Mary currently occupied with Ginny, who’d indeed fetched her some ice for her hand.
Having never just punched a man in the face without being in the “zone” Mary slipped into when she practiced martial arts, she’d had no idea how sore and swollen her hand could be.
Adam and Jake settled in after first taking the time to locate their twins. The boys were settled in a back corner, with the other kids—some of the older ones like Ben, Libby, and Bonnie, along with Libby’s new aunt Danielle Langley, had seen to procuring food and drinks for them.
Adam nodded over to the group. “Ben’s first crush was Bonnie. Now they’re best friends, and if I’m not mistaken, he’s taken a shine to Libby.”
“He had that crush as a much younger lad. Now he’s a teenager, and those crushes can be a bit more…interesting to deal with,” Ginny said.
Mary grinned at her. “Especially in a town called Lusty?”
“Boy howdy, girlfriend, you had to say it, didn’t you?” But Ginny was chuckling, so Mary knew it was all good.
After each of them gave her a kiss and then examined her hand, Anthony and Toby went to get her some food and, because they knew her so well, a cup of coffee.
They returned and settled in to eating and generally visiting with the Kendalls and whoever else happened to come by.
“Are you going to keep Northcliffe in jail?” Mary asked her cousin.
Adam shook his head. “Not for long. First, I called New York and told them you had nabbed their escapee.” He grinned at her and winked. “I may have embellished the scene, just a little. Then I got in touch with Clint Parrish of the DPS. He’s going to arrange for Thorncliffe to be delivered to the Rangers. It shouldn’t take long for the extradition papers to be filed and processed, but he might be held longer in Texas. Not that we want him, but New York is in a mess at the moment.”
“As long as he’s going to be in custody for a good, long time, I really don’t care where he is. Well, not here in town. But Texas or New York, makes no difference to me,” Mary said.
“We feel the same way,” Toby said.
Robert, David, and Jillian, along with their daughter, six-year-old Colleen, arrived. They immediately came over to offer their
