I chuckled on my way to the kitchen. “Comin’ right up, Mamá.”
Twenty minutes later, in a strange twist of fate, I felt like the third wheel without Laura. Mamá and Raegan had fallen into a rabbit-hole of girl talk which threatened to make my eyes cross. Initially, I loved it because they were both acting like the past nine years hadn’t changed a thing. Now, I had a full belly, and I had things I wanted to do to Raegan and with Raegan.
They both erupted in howls of laughter, and when they calmed down, I cut into their conversation. “Mom, Raegan and I really do need to—”
She narrowed her eyes before she interrupted. “I know. I know. I’m going.”
The three of us stood on my porch saying our goodbyes. When she hit the end of the stoop, Mamá turned around with her arms open.
I met her on the sidewalk and hugged her as usual, but in an unusual move she cupped my cheeks to pull my face to hers as though to kiss my cheek. At my ear she whispered, “She does you wrong again, hijo, it won’t be a letter she gets from me.”
I leaned away with huge eyes on Mamá. “I can’t believe you would—”
“No need to walk me to my car. Love you, son,” she said.
I watched her get in her Elantra. When I joined Rae on the porch, she said, “I’ll grab my—”
“No. You will not. We’re not going any damn where.”
Her head tilted. “We’re not? But who’s going to stay with—”
I wrapped my arms around her and nuzzled her neck. “Penny’s good.”
She tried to pull away. “Clint! Gabe can’t stay there with her all day on a Saturday
I raised my head. “He isn’t. She’ll be fine for a few hours.”
She gasped.
I shook my head. “I’m not saying we aren’t headed back there. Just not right now.”
Her brows furrowed.
I grinned. “She hates football. It’s game day Saturday and for once, I don’t have to work a case. We’re watching a game. Tanya’s dropping in on Penny at eleven, and as long as my team isn’t losing or otherwise fucking things up, we’ll get over there around three-thirty.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You certainly have thought of everything, haven’t you, Clint?”
I grinned. “I’d like to think so.”
Chapter 16
The Women in My Life
Raegan
DONUTS NEVER STUCK with Clint very long. By noon, the pizza delivery person had come and gone, leaving us with a large pizza, an order of wings, a small salad, and some sort of dessert pizza. We consumed this carbohydrate-fest with beer.
As I snuggled with Clint on the sofa, something Laura had said came back to me.
During a commercial, I leaned up and caught his eyes. “What did your sister ‘want answers’ about?”
A confused look crossed his face, but I knew it was an act even before he asked, “What do you mean?”
I tilted my head. “Don’t play coy with me, Ramsey. I heard more than you realize when she got here. She said she’d brought donuts, you need to put on pants, and she wanted answers. Maybe not in that order, but that was the general idea.”
He glanced at the TV just before he muted it. “I was working yesterday. Seems Erica’s man, Carlos, frequents the convenience store close to my subject’s employer. He thought I was trailing him.”
“But you weren’t.”
“No. Who’s gonna pay me to follow Carlos? But his accusation makes me think he’s hiding something. Not that Erica would listen to me about it.”
I shook my head. “She was always prone to drama way back when. I’m sorry that hasn’t changed.”
He grunted. “You don’t know the half of it.”
I tried to sit up, but his hold tightened. “What’s that mean?”
“Nothing. We’re not talking about that.”
My eyes widened. “Clint, you can’t say shit like that and expect me to let it go!”
He leaned back, closing his eyes. “If Air is prone to drama, you gobble it up like a kid with candy.”
“So?”
He laughed. “God save me from the women in my life.”
I swatted his shoulder. “You love the women in your life.”
His eyes opened, the heat in them scorching my skin. “I love one woman in particular.”
My heart fluttered as my breath hitched. I didn’t know what to say to that.
Okay, that wasn’t right. I did know what to say, I just wasn’t brave enough to say it yet.
I smiled. “Yeah, you’ve always been fond of your Mamá.”
He arched a brow. “Gonna give you that, but we both know better, mi corazón.”
I loved him calling me ‘his heart’.
My thought was rudely interrupted when Clint yelled, and I saw Boston College had scored.
During the commercials, I asked about Erica. To hear she’d hooked up with a gang member –no matter how briefly– stunned and scared me equally.
“Well, thank God she got out of that.”
His lips pulled to the side for a moment. “Yeah. Though Carlos isn’t much better.”
“What?” I cried. “She could have any man she wanted.”
His smile was rueful. “We tell her that all the time. Still, she finds the assholes.”
“Could be the other way around,” I murmured.
His eyes slid to the side. “I guess.” Then he focused on me again. “That what happened with Garrity?”
I leaned away. This time he let me. “You might say that.”
His phone lit with a text and I noticed the time. “We really should get to Mom. Or, at least, I should.”
He pulled me back to him. “You’re not alone until whoever’s after you is caught, Rae.”
As I got ready to go to Mom’s, I asked, “So, what makes Carlos bad?”
Clint snorted. “Better question, what makes him good?”
“That’s harsh.”
“That’s the truth. He’s not dedicated enough to be in a gang. Also why he has no steady job. Where he gets his money is a mystery and she won’t admit it, but I suspect he mooches off Erica.”
“Good grief.”
“Yeah.”
I looked at him from the corner of my eye. “Even you don’t know how he gets money?”
“Nobody’s paying me to find out and I don’t want
