He smiled and it looked almost conniving. “Yeah. You’ve been out of the loop since you got your dream job on Madison Avenue. I’ve been helping out more than you know because I didn’t want you to know.”
He looked to the counter and back to me. “Now, you get Penny’s sandwich ready, I can give her a side dish of peanuts to go with it. Got news for you, hot-shot, I don’t give her that many peanuts at a time, so you think I’m gonna stop bein’ her ‘snack supplier,’ you better think again.”
I glared at him as he strode to the pantry, and I noticed he carried two grocery bags filled with cans of boiled peanuts.
He looked to me, cocking a brow. “Better hop to, Rae. Your mama gets mighty ornery if she has to eat her lunch after the news.”
The sooner I made Mom’s lunch, the sooner I could get Clint out of the house. As I plated her sandwich, Clint’s phone rang. I kept my eyes to the plate of food, but I heard how distracted he sounded.
“Ramsey,” he answered.
Pause.
Then, “I got a moment. What’s up?”
Unfortunately, I wondered who might be on the line. Since it was the middle of the day, I figured it might be his boss.
“What the hell for?”
I glanced his way, and found him staring at me. My head jerked as I refocused on cutting Mom’s sandwich into four triangles.
He guffawed. “Now that’s a first. Uh, can I bring a woman?”
My stomach sank. It wasn’t like I thought he had been celibate in the past ten years, but I never thought I’d have to hear him making plans to take his woman somewhere.
“What’s for dinner?”
Another knife to my dead heart. In the past ten years, I often thought of Clint because of his semi-foodie ways. He appreciated only the best food, which didn’t mean it had to be healthy or expensive –as evidenced by the boiled peanuts. When we were living together, he often asked me what was for dinner as he scrambled his eggs for breakfast, such was his focus.
My head hung with those thoughts.
“Oh yeah. Definitely better be Beef Wellington. That’s right up my girl Raegan’s alley. Time?”
My head jerked up at the end of his statement, and I glared at him.
Oblivious to my ire, he grinned at me.
“We’ll be there, man. Lookin’ forward to it, but just to say, you didn’t need to do this.”
Pause.
“Later.”
As he tucked his phone away, I crossed my arms on my chest. “Have you lost your mind? Or is there some other woman in your life named Raegan you’re taking to this dinner date?”
He eyed me up and down, again, before he stepped closer and I caught a whiff of his scent. It was different from years ago. Maybe even better than before, but I couldn’t think about that.
“Thinkin’ I lost my mind the day I told you to follow your dreams. It’s just dinner with my buddy’s younger brother.”
I shook my head and opened my mouth to speak but he put his finger on my lips.
“Caring for your mother is draining on the best of days, Rae. Wynnie hardly ever had a moment for herself. Try as I might to get her to take a few hours for herself, she rarely would. So, it’ll be a cold day in hell when I watch you do that shit to yourself. You’ll get two hours out of the house, tops. You don’t trust her alone that long, I got a buddy who can drop by.”
Ignoring the familiar feel of his finger on my lips, I pulled my head away to say, “That’s not the point.”
He shook his head. “You don’t have a point, Raegan. Breaks like this don’t come around often, you need to take advantage. You got five hours to prepare yourself. Besides, you damn sure don’t have time to make Beef Wellington yourself, and rumor has it, while in the Big Apple, you developed a taste not for the finer things in life, but only the finest things.”
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Releases February 16, 2021
About the Author
Karen Renee is the author of the Riot MC, Beta, and O-Town series of books. She once crunched Nielsen ratings data but these days she brings her imagination to life by writing books. She has wanted to be a writer since she was very young, but it’s taken the last twenty plus years for her to amass enough courage and overall life experience to bring that dream to life. Some of those life experiences came from the wonderful world of advertising, banking, and local television media research. She is a proud wife and mother, and a Jacksonville native. When she’s not at the soccer field or cooking, you can find her at her local library, the grocery store, in her car jamming out to some tunes, or hibernating while she writes and/or reads books.
Other Books by Karen Renee
Please visit your favorite eBook retailer to discover other books by Karen Renee:
The Riot MC Series
Unforeseen Riot
Inciting a Riot
Into the Riot
Calming the Riot
Foolish Riot
Respectable Riot
Starting the Riot
A Friendsgiving Riot – a short story found in Romancing the Holidays Available Now!
THE BETA SERIES
Beta Test
Beta Sites Coming in 2021
RIOT MC BILOXI CHAPTER Series
Harm’s Way Coming April 2021
Brute’s Strength
Roman’s War
THE O-TOWN SERIES
Relentless Habit
Wild Forces
Abrupt Changes
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