Page 89 of The Secrets She Keeps

“I prefer determined, Miggy-kins. Determined. I learneddeterminedfrom Heather. Until she’s back to beingheragain, I’m going to channel my inner Heather, you know.”

“I think we all should, Baby Hope. She is Super Heather, after all.” Joy went to her younger sister and checked her pulse. “You should be in your own bed, sleeping. Heather is going to be okay; we’re…going to make sure of it.”

Gunnar didn’t miss how her voice broke. Hell, these women had been through some seriously dark shit in the last several years. Maybe even longer.

“Well, I’m here to see her for myself.” Hope’s voice was just as watery. They were both going to cry at any moment. He shared a look with Mac. Technically, Powell’s brother shouldn’t be in the room with them while they were talking about the case. Neither should Heather’s two sisters—but Gunnar didn’t care. Not like Daniel was running Hope out or anything.

Even Daniel wouldn’t argue with a woman fresh from open heart surgery and a bullet wound in her chest—who had a man like Miguel hovering over her playing nursemaidor something.

Gunnar had the impression that if anyone evenlookedat a Coleson sideways right now, Miguel would go rabid. Especially at Daniel. Miguel was practically licking his chops right now.

“I know,” Joy hugged her close. They resembled each other more than either looked like Heather. “But we have her back now, Baby Hope, we have our Super Heather back, and now I am going to lock her in her room so she can’t keep doing this stuff to me. I’m locking you in yours right next door, too, just so you know. You two…I can’t lose you two, okay? I’ve lost one sister already. I am not losing another.Ever.”

Gunnar envied them each other. The Colesons loved one another, would doanythingfor each other. Gunnar didn’t have many people in his corner like that. Less than a handful. Theywere all busy with their own lives, now too. He had never forgotten that.

“Joy, we have some questions you might be able to answer,” Gunnar said after she’d fussed over Heather for a moment.

“I’m not sure I should, actually,” Joy said after a significant look at Hope, who shrugged. “Heather…won’t wantanyof us talking to the TSP without her listening in. Her, or Norm, with Cara, just in case. Cara isn’t a criminal attorney, but she knows the laws. And let’s be honest, she’s the only attorney any of us can really afford.”

“Why?” Daniel asked. “It’s just answering questions.”

“Questions you’ll somehow use against us? We’re not fools, McKellen. Remember that.” The look Joy sent at Daniel had Daniel visibly squirming a little.

“Because she doesn’t trust anyone in the Finley Creek TSP to care about us,” Hope told them all bluntly. “After Kimball. And we voted; our family decided we are going to be really, really careful with the TSP now. That’s just the way it goes.”

“Joy, I know you all don’t trust Daniel and the rest of Major Crimes now, but I’d like to think you trust me,” Miguel said, actually lifting the woman up so he could kiss her on the forehead. “You know I would never do anything to hurt any of you. Or let anyoneelse.”

Miguel shot a look at Daniel that said he meant it. “Anyone.”

“We just keep forgetting you are one of the TSP, Mig. We made you a Coleson in my Nick’s honor, remember?” Joy told him as he lowered her to her feet. “You are a Coleson before TSP. Just so you know.”

“I told you all, we are not adopting a pet Miggy this year!” Hope said, scowling up at Miguel before leaning back with a wince. She had no business out right now, and they all knew it. “I voted against keepinghim but forkeeping his babies,remember? He has this really weird habit of trying to tell mewhat to do. The man arrested me. He put me in handcuffs.”

“Sweetie, what the two of you do with his handcuffs is something I do not want to ever know about. I just don’t, okay?”

Hope just eyed her sister suspiciously. “You know what, I so don’t want you to clarify that. You are as bad as Cara; half the time, you don’t make any sense at all. You say weird things.”

“You’ll figure it out eventually, Baby Hope. Eventually,” Joy told her, smirking. “I’m sure Miggy will show you his handcuffs again…eventually. You spent way too much time with your nose in science books. I think you’ve missed a few…um…lifereferences along the way.”

“Huh?”

“Honestly, how you can be this naive about men with Heather and Summer and Eden around, I just do not know…”

“What did I miss now?” Hope really didn’t get it.

Mac snorted.

Miguel made a strangled sound at that. Gunnar looked at him. Miguel just shrugged, crossed his arms over his massive chest, and leaned back against the air conditioning unit next to Heather’s bed.

“The man who hit Heather said he had waitedalmost two decadesto get to her again,” Gunnar said bluntly. “Who could possibly hold a grudge against your sister for that long? Long enough to do this?”

Joy just blinked at them all. She had the same dark eyes as her sisters, as every member of her family Gunnar had ever met. Family. That…Witch’s own eyes. Like all of them. “I bet it has something to do with yourfamily,Joy. Who would have had a grudge against the Colesons for almost twenty years?”

Joy’s surprise was in her eyes. “Except for—oh, I don’t know—the man using our evil older sister’seggsto genetically engineer super-genius babies, you mean? Or some of his—or Denita’s—good buddies? Or enemies, for that matter. How would we know? No one ontheirside will tell us.” She waved a hand at Mac.

“Maybe we can ask the freaks that email us or send us letters on an every-other-day basis now?” Hope suggested.

“Or the people who read in theGarlicthat we were kept as Eastman’s breeding stock, then started calling ushereon our shifts wanting information about his specialty program. Or wanting to know which one of us isavailablenext? Because—get this, guys—these dudes want super-intelligent, really hot women to carry their babies for them too. And they want to make those babies withus as soon as possible. The…um…old-fashioned way.”

---