Page 116 of The Woman By the Lake

Here we go.

She didn’t delay.

“I thought you were returning home after Doc completed his work on your house,” she noted.

“I was. But he’s not comfortable with me going back until I get Gia. And Hutch says I can bring her home on Monday.”

“Gia?”

“The guard-dog-slash-pet I’m getting. She’s a trained guard dog. But she’s also very cute and slobbery and cuddly, so I sometimes forget that, thus, I’m kind of a bad influence on her.”

Abigail’s lips quirked.

“You should know,” I started. “My name is Nadia Williams, but I’m an Antonov, as in an Antonov Vodka Antonov. My grandfather sold the company, but he did it for a lot of money.”

“I see,” she said softly.

“Which means I’m loaded, and that means Riggs is worried about me being alone in that cabin, especially after the break-in. Even though we’re assured as much as we can be that they got what they came for, Riggs is a lot less assured than me.”

“You use the word ‘we’ a lot with regard to my son.”

Well, one could say I blew that.

“Um…”

“Let me guess, Doc wants to get into that at dinner,” she deduced.

“Got it in one,” I mumbled.

“I hope you don’t mind, but I went in and had a few words with Harry,” she stated. “And I can assure you, he did his best to guide me to discovering what I wanted him to tell me from the source. Though, I’m the kind of woman who doesn’t take no for an answer when something is important. So I knew you’re an Antonov.”

“Okay,” I said slowly.

Her face changed, and I braced against the change.

“I also know what happened recently, and I can’t tell you how sorry I am,” she said gently.

“Thanks, but no offense, I’m not really good at talking about it,” I said in a rush.

“No offense in return, darlin’, but you better get good at talking about it, or it’ll eat you up.”

“Abigail—”

“My friends call me Gail.”

That was nice.

“Gail, I’m not good at talking about it because I haven’t fully processed it.”

“It’s a lot to process.”

It sure was.

“I will share that Riggs is all in to help me when I’m ready,” I admitted.

“That’s my son. From a young age, he was so determined to prove to everyone he wasn’t his father, he learned to be helpful. Did it so much, and he was so good at it, it became a part of him. It’s now just as much of what makes Doc as that brain he has, which works in miraculous ways, and the dark hair on his head.”

“Yes,” I agreed.

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