Page 84 of The Woman By the Lake

“Whatever you want,” he murmured.

She grinned at him, then she leaned forward to put her laptop on the coffee table and grab the remote.

The instant she sat back, he commandeered the remote, because there weren’t many rules at his house, but the man having the remote in his hand was one of them.

It was a brand-new rule he’d made just then, but he was sticking by it.

She settled back into him, grumbling, “Macho man.”

“Whatever,” he replied, and he switched on the TV.

He could see how it would have been easier for her to have the remote, since she had to tell him what service the show was on and guide him to finding it.

But he didn’t give a fuck.

And she didn’t either, seeing how she curled up into the couch as well as into his side when he lifted his feet to the coffee table and stretched out his legs.

He didn’t want to like it.

But he saw from the get-go, she was right.

The show was damned funny.

EIGHTEEN

Puppy

Riggs

They tried to be quiet.

They failed.

Still, his sleep had been such shit, he let them have at it the next morning, Nadia making breakfast for his kid, his kid eating it, until, from where he was stretched out on his couch in the living room, his gun on the coffee table, he heard Nadia say quietly, “Go brush your teeth, sweetheart. We’ll let your dad sleep. I’ll run you to school.”

Riggs heard his son’s sneakers clambering up the stairs and sat up.

He looked over the back of the couch at her and caught her staring murder at him.

Seemed she hadn’t had cup two of coffee.

He pushed up, the throw falling off his body, and he let it remain where it fell, still in his jeans and Springsteen tee from last night, socks on his feet.

He went direct to the coffee pot, managing to do that without being mortally wounded by the daggers she was shooting out her eyes, and he made himself a mug.

He turned, leaned his hips against the counter, and before he took a sip, he took his life in his hands and asked, “Is it the caffeine level or did I somehow do something in my sleep to piss you off?”

She stopped rinsing plates in the sink, turned off the faucet, and got dead in his face.

Fuck, it killed him not being able to kiss her, even as pissed as she was right then, and he could see she was seriously fucking pissed.

Her eyes slid up to the ceiling, as if trying to sense where Ledger was in getting his shit sorted, then back to him.

She launched in. “First, a nine-year-old and a gun on the coffee table do not mix, Andrew Doc Riggs.”

“My gun is always locked, except last night. Even if it wasn’t, he knows I’ll lose my mind if he even touched it. And I was right there, and I’ve been awake since you two came downstairs.”

Nadia didn’t miss a beat.

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