Page 153 of The Woman By the Lake

So “go inside,” “go ahead,” and “go out” were all a bust, though the canine did all of them for Hutch no hesitation, even if she was leaving Nadia standing beside Hutch.

In the afternoon, Riggs had to leave her to get Ledger from school, and they’d decided again to give his son a break from all Nadia all the time. This meant they spent last night without her, even if Ledger was dying to meet Gia. Riggs had told him they needed some time alone to get to know each other and for Gia to get the lay of the land.

The next morning, Ledger was done with waiting and asked in a way that was more like a demand to meet “their” new dog when he got home from school.

And Riggs was done with not having Nadia around.

His head wasn’t fucked up about it anymore. He didn’t have to consider how she was after Lucille spilled. The way she literally and then verbally took his back when Bubbles showed. Her hilarious fake chartering of a plane after Storm and him talked. How good her stout cake was. How good she was with Ledger. How much his mom liked her. How cool-headed and ice-cold she was with the two dumbasses who were screwing with her. How real she was about how she was dealing with her mother’s death. How she hooked her thumb in his beltloop when they walked close. How mind-blowingly phenomenal she was in bed.

He was there. She didn’t hide she was there.

But they had to have a talk about it, because she had a life to get back to it was clear she enjoyed, and a lot of people she’d leave behind. But he had a life in Misted Pines he couldn’t leave because he had a son.

She needed to know where he was at, what he wanted for their future, that being them looking at getting serious about working on having one together, and she had to think on that, because if she was in, she was the one who’d be making the big sacrifices.

He didn’t get into it with her that day.

Instead, he’d walked over in the morning, and they’d spent another hour looking for evidence of trespassers before he took her back to the cabin in order to fuck her.

They’d then gone to his workshop where she’d hung with him while he worked, scribbling in her journal, and she’d walked home to meet Hutch for more training about an hour before Riggs had to go get his son from school.

Which brought him to now.

The only thing of note beyond that was, he’d taken the time to draw out the quadrants before he’d sent them to Cade, Jess, and Jace. The latter two didn’t fuck around and texted they were heading out within half an hour of getting his text. And Rus had also gotten in touch, saying he heard about the search, and he wanted to help out, so Riggs needed to send him details of his patch, which he did, along with his gratitude for helping out.

Riggs was pissed he had to spend time doing that shit.

But if their theory was correct, and it wasn’t just asshole kids over the years getting bright ideas, instead, it was someone looking for something, and maybe that someone was a person who killed two and possibly three people already, he had his son and his woman on that land.

He needed to know what he was dealing with.

He heard the car pull up before Nadia did, but it didn’t take much longer for her eyes to go to the front door, then come to him.

He shook his head, moved from where he was cutting potatoes into wedges to the sink to rinse his hands, and he took the kitchen towel with him as he dried them and walked to the front door.

Harry’s cruiser was parked out front and Harry himself was headed up the walk.

Riggs pushed out the storm door and called, “Hey, brother.”

“Hey, Doc. I’m not interrupting dinner, am I?”

“Nope. We’re in the middle of making it.”

“You got a few minutes to take a break for a quick brief?”

“Sure. But wanna stay longer and have dinner with us?” Riggs offered. “We got plenty.”

Harry looked to the house and back at Riggs. “What are you having?”

“Homemade, pickle-brined fried chicken sandwiches, slaw and fried potato wedges.”

No hesitation from Harry before, “I wanna stay.”

Riggs grinned, jerked his head to the door and went in, Harry following him.

“Hi, Harry,” Nadia called from where she was mixing slaw.

“Hey, Nadia,” Harry replied.

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