Page 152 of The Woman By the Lake

“Absolutely,” I replied. “I hear the fines in these parts for trespassing are pretty harsh, and carry jail time, so I hope you didn’t have any assignments due on Monday. And I hope your parents aren’t too pissed that they’ll probably have to dip into savings to deal with your crap.”

The red in his face got redder.

Yes, his parents were going to be pissed.

I was done so I stood and turned to Riggs.

“Ice cold,” he murmured, his lips tipped up in approval.

I wanted to think my return smile was lethal, but it was probably just normal.

“I’m going to go inside,” I shared. “It’s chilly out here. Do you want me to bring a throw out for you or something?”

“I’m good,” he replied.

“I’m just going to put on some more clothes. I’ll be back out in a second.”

“You got it, honey.”

I rolled up to my toes to brush my lips on his.

Then I walked on my cute Birks inside to change clothes, pleased as punch the ghost of Roosevelt Whitaker (or Sarah) was finally laid to rest.

THIRTY-ONE

Thousand-Piece Puzzle

Riggs

It was Tuesday, early evening, and Ledger was out somewhere in the woods, showing Gia the lay of the land.

Riggs and Nadia were in the kitchen, making dinner.

And he hadn’t asked her, but he knew they were both riding the wave of three days where no irritating shit went down.

On Sunday, after they fucked, cooked breakfast and ate it, they went out into the cold and threatening wet to start looking around her cabin for evidence of trespassers.

They didn’t find anything, and Riggs marked trees so they wouldn’t waste time going over old ground.

Considering their convo about Angelica the day before, he and Nadia made a deal, so he alone headed back to his place around the time Kirk was returning Ledger from his sleepover.

So it wouldn’t be all Nadia all the time, he took his son out on the boat for some bud time, but they had to go in when it started raining. They hung out in front of the TV, until Riggs got a call mid-afternoon from his mom asking them over for dinner.

He called Nadia and had a chat with her about whether she should come or not, since his mom invited her, with Riggs pushing for her to come. She’d be moving back to the cabin the next day, and although they had plenty of time during the day while Ledge was at school to connect, he’d lose her beside him in his bed at night, and he wasn’t looking forward to that, for more than one reason.

She wasn’t sure, but she caved, walked over, and as was his way, Ledger showed how excited he was to see her the second he saw her.

At that, Riggs had raised his brows to her, because she was the one who suggested she back off and give the Riggs men some time. In response, she had rolled her eyes.

And they went to his mom’s.

Monday, they met Hutch at the cabin so they could accept delivery of Gia, and Hutch took that opportunity to do some more training.

This meant Riggs got to see how hopeless those two females were with that.

They had “sit,” “down,” “stay,” “close,” “here” and “heel” all set.

But they sucked at anything that started with “go,” seeing as going meant Gia couldn’t be with Nadia, and being highly trained, Riggs figured part of that was because Nadia wasn’t committed to the command because she didn’t want her dog to go.

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