Page 35 of Hell & Back

“Uh,” his mouth opened and shut and opened again, clearly searching for the right response to her question that wouldn’t send her over the edge into a fit of tears.

“It’s okay. I don’t really need doughnuts anyway.” She cast her gaze down to her computer screen, essentially ending the discussion.

“I’ll go with Cutter to get your doughnuts. Do you want chocolate milk?” He ran a hand over the top of his head.

“Yes, please.”

Tuck walked back over to her desk, spun her chair so that his hands settled on the arms and grinned. “Love you, baby. Be back in a few.” He leaned in and kissed her. He pulled back, studied her face and smirked. “Be good while I’m gone.”

“Love you, too,” she tossed to his retreating back.

No sooner had Tuck left her office, than Race stepped inside, his hands tucked in his front pockets and a look of amusement on his face. “Nice job.”

“What?” she pretended to not know what he was talking about.

“The way you handled Tuck. You needed him to find something to do and get out of your hair for a while. Well played.” He stopped in front of her desk.

“How do you know I was doing anything?” Kylie bit her bottom lip.

“If I hadn’t heard the way you manipulated him, seeing you biting your bottom lip just confirmed it.” He dropped into a chair. “That, and Bellamy has worked it on me a time or two.” He shrugged his shoulder like it was no big deal that his wife used her pregnancy to get away with something.

“Yeah, well, he was driving me bonkers. I know he worries about me and the baby, but it can be a little suffocating sometimes.” She leaned back in her chair and rocked it gently. She clasped her hands over her belly and gave him her full attention.

“Just cut him some slack. After getting shot and watching Darren get taken, he’s terrified something might happen to you and the baby. It would kill him if something happened to you. He’s also pissed that he’s not exactly back to 100%. He wants to blow off therapy until we find Darren. I had to promise that as soon as we found something that would lead us to Darren, we’d bring him in on the plan, but for now, he had to keep up histherapy.” He sat forward, resting his arms on his legs. “He feels useless because his leg is keeping him from riding his bike or doing surveillance. So take it easy on him. He means well.”

Race was right. She needed to be more patient with Tuck. He was going through a lot of stuff on his own. She didn’t need to pile more on top of it by being a brat.

“I asked the guys to send pictures of the Phantoms like you asked. I forwarded them to your email for you to check out.” He tipped his head toward her computer.

“That’s great! I can’t wait to get started on them.” She leaned forward and positioned her hands over the keyboard. “Oh, I almost forgot.” She reached for a stack of papers to her left and handed them to Race.

“What are these?” he asked before looking at them.

“Some of the applications I vetted for you. I put the ones most likely to work out on top and the ones who have a revolving door work history are at the bottom.”

“Thanks,” he waved the papers at her and got to his feet. “I’ll leave you to it.” At the door he turned and said, “The pictures you’re going to run was a good idea. Let me know what you find out.”

Kylie smiled to herself, happy that Race thought her ideas were good.

Sending Tuck off to get doughnuts not only gave her time to work on things Race asked of her, but it also gave her a chance to work on a project she had working on the side. The idea for the project had come to her yesterday. She’d been so pissed off that the Phantoms were messing with every part of their lives, she’d felt a little payback was in order. So, to that end she pulled up a tab she’d minimized while Tuck was in here and scanned the information. “Perfect.”

With a couple of clicks of her mouse yesterday, she’d put Crockett’s wife’s car in arrears with their bank. She made it looklike they hadn’t made a payment in six months and brought it to the attention of one of the bank’s loaner officers by bumping it to the top of her emails. Then she waited and watched as the officer turned it over to a repo man. “Take that, asshole.”

She thought she heard Tuck’s voice down the hall and quickly backed out of anything incriminating. She was pretty sure she shouldn’t have taken it upon herself to make a play for Darren, but she was desperate to get him back. Who was she kidding? She definitely shouldn’t have done what she’d done. If Race ever found out, he’d be pissed. It didn’t matter, she would do whatever it took to get him back and pay the consequences later.

“Hey, baby. Got your donuts,” Tuck announced as he cleared her door. He came to a sudden stop and dipped his head to the side. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” she could feel the big goofy grin on her face. He probably thought she was crazy. Crying one minute and grinning like an idiot the next. “I’m good. Just glad your back.”

His brow shot up, “I didn’t think I was gone that long.” He approached her desk as if frightened of what she might say or do next.

“You weren’t. I just missed you.” He shook his head and chuckled as he handed her the box of doughnuts along with her chocolate milk.

“They had the chocolate covered custard filled?” They were her favorite and he’d gotten her two. He allowed her to take hers out and place them on a napkin, then went to the couch to eat his four glazed. Out of all the many possible choices he could have made, he always went with glazed. He said there was no way you could go wrong with the original.

Remembering what Race had said about taking it easy on Tuck, she had an idea. She got up and went to the door, locking it with asnick.

TUCK

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