Page 120 of The Woman By the Lake

I jostled him with my arm. “She was actually being gentle. It was just that she explained, succinctly, why my mother lied to me about my dad having died in a plane accident when I was a baby. It’s been something that’s been screwing with me, now I get it, so you can let it go.”

“Right,” he grunted.

“Yeah. Right,” I confirmed.

The steel came back. “Moving on.”

So, Andrew Doc Riggs didn’t like to be wrong.

Noted.

I let him have it. When he yelled at his mom, he was being protective of me, which I had no problem with, and his mom not only held no ill-will, she liked that he was, so it was all good.

“That’s how your mom explained it to you?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Honey,” he whispered gently.

I’d already faced as much of that as I could in one night, so I didn’t say anything.

Riggs read I was done on that subject, thankfully.

“Ledger seemed good,” he noted.

If him crowing victoriously, “I knew it!” when he told his gramme what she already knew (though Riggs didn’t know she did at that time, I hadn’t had a chance to tell him) was an indication, yes, he did.

“Yes,” I agreed “Though I think he thinks we’re getting a dog.”

“We are. She’s just staying with you at the cabin.”

I got up on a forearm and looked down at his shadowed face.

“Oh no you don’t,” I warned. “You two Riggs boys can’t be sweet and charming and affectionate and steal Gia from me.”

“From what I saw, it was instant devotion both ways.”

“You didn’t get close. She didn’t get a good whiff of you. She’s a girl. She’s susceptible.”

Amusement was tingeing his voice when he said, “We’ll try not to steal your dog from you.”

I collapsed into him, because two big orgasms and emotion, and a huge meal (slice of cake number two, I saw upon reflection, was a bad idea) had taken it all out of me, and I mumbled, “Appreciated.”

He started twirling my hair.

And his voice was actually tender when he asked, “Are you like your mom?”

Okay, maybe Riggs didn’t read me.

I closed my eyes tight.

Then I told him. “No. She was like your mom, times a thousand. She was a ballbuster. I grew up in the cocoon of her love and protection, and my grandfather’s, so I got to be…well, me.”

“I owe her, huge.”

God.

So sweet.

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