Page 98 of The Woman By the Lake

He looked down at Nadia who was peering questioningly up at him.

“Angelica,” he said.

“What’s she doing here?” Lucille asked.

“She’s my kid’s mom,” Riggs shared something she already knew.

Riggs didn’t have a good feeling when Lucille whirled, appearing suddenly panicked, and sounding it when she said a quick, “Doc.”

Ledger joined them, with a little huff from his run, announcing excitedly, “Mom’s here!”

Angelica was striding toward them, and yeah.

Riggs had a type.

Leggy. Great rack. Easy.

But brunette.

Until recently.

Riggs was learning a lot that day.

“Hey, Mom,” Ledger called.

“Hey, kid,” Angelica called back.

When she arrived at them, she gave Lucille a once-over and dismissed her.

Then she gave Nadia a much longer one, and Nadia let him go and moved a step away.

Only then did Angelica look to Riggs. “This the bitch you put on Ledger’s pick-up list?”

At that, it was Riggs who stiffened.

“Mom!” Ledger yelled.

“Maybe you should go inside,” Angelica ordered her son through a suggestion.

“No!” Ledger shouted, and Riggs’s eyes sliced to him. “Not if you’re gonna?—”

“Son, what did your mother say?” he asked quietly.

Ledger looked up to him. “But…Dad!”

“We have a deal, right? You mind your mom and me. Yeah? Even if you don’t agree, later, we’ll talk it out. But when it happens, what happens?”

“I mind,” he said to his sneakers.

“Please, kid. Go inside. We’ll talk later,” Riggs finished it.

Pink hit Ledger’s cheeks, he glanced at Nadia, glowered at his mom, and after kicking the dirt, he bolted toward the house.

“I see how it is. Like father like son, both hankering after the hot neighbor,” Angelica sneered.

“Gross!” Lucille snapped. “He’s just a boy.”

“A growing boy,” Angelica shot back. “They learn what girls are, you know. Seein’ as you’re fuckin’ the biggest boy in all of MP, you should know.”

---