Page 85 of The Woman By the Lake

“This brings me to my second, which has two parts, since obviously you didn’t sleep great last night if you had to fake sleep for the last half an hour instead of getting up and joining us for breakfast, and I’m guessing that doesn’t have to do with the fact you slept on the couch.”

It’d be good if sometimes, like this time, she wasn’t as sharp.

“So that leads me to part two,” she went on, “you on the couch at all. Were you keeping something from me last night when you told me all was good with what was going on and the bad guys got what they wanted when they got that wine?”

“I haven’t even had a sip of coffee yet,” he growled back. “So I don’t know how many parts my comeback has, but I love my boy, I give more than a passing shit about you, and someone wrecked your door, not to mention, wrecked Bubbles’s skull. So I didn’t lie. As far as we can tell, it’s about the wine. But that doesn’t mean I’m taking any chances.”

“So you’re not keeping anything from me to protect me like you protected me from ghost stories?”

“I am.”

Her eyes got huge.

“But it’s not a lot, and I’m doing it because this county’s sheriff, and my good friend, told me in confidence, and in no uncertain terms I couldn’t share it, even with you. But if I was worried, or hell, Harry was, we’d be moving more than a few nights’ worth from your closet to the one in my guest room.”

She backed off.

But since they were on this subject.

“I know you’re worth a lot of money, Nadia,” he stated. “And that’s not difficult intel to come by. So I’m gonna say straight out, it worries me, you alone in that cabin.”

“How do you suggest I live my life, Riggs?” she asked. “Have a security guard follow me around. Get dogs? Build a twenty-foot wall around me?”

An idea sprang to mind.

“I’m getting you a dog.”

She blinked.

“Are you two done fighting?” Ledger called, the echo of it telling him it was from the stairs.

She started it, so Riggs cocked his head before he righted it and took a sip of his coffee.

She’d lost the attitude (and it was around the time he’d said he gave more than a passing shit about her, but he wasn’t going there—he had to think on it, but he’d do it later, when she wasn’t right in front of him after cooking his kid breakfast).

Now that attitude came back.

“We’re fine!” she yelled.

Ledger showed.

She looked to him. “And we weren’t fighting. We were discussing.”

“Guns are stupid, and they’re used to kill kids in schools. Dad has one because we live in the middle of nowhere and there are bears. But he doesn’t like them either. Harry made him get it. Because crazy stuff happens in MP a lot.”

“You can say that again,” she muttered under her breath.

At that, Riggs hid his smile behind another sip of coffee.

“And you were fighting,” Ledger contradicted. “You shouldn’t lie to kids. It teaches us to lie.”

“I’m understanding now why Jenny fell in love with Forrest,” Nadia griped.

Riggs choked on his coffee.

“What does that mean?” Ledger asked.

“Nothing,” she said. “Got everything?”

---