Page 160 of Back in the Saddle

My eyes wandered to Titto, who was engrossed in what he was reading, then I returned to Stella.

“I think your stories are scarier than ours.”

“Give it time,” she muttered, but even in a mutter, it was authoritative.

It was the authoritative part that made my body give a little shudder.

“Are you out without a bodyguard?” I asked.

“I have a stun gun,” she said breezily. “And so does Daisy. And Kai knows I don’t like to be shadowed. Which is why Gabe is lurking in the parking lot. Because Kai saw my car leave the house and sent Gabe after me. I pretend I don’t know I have a detail. Gabe pretends he doesn’t know we made him. Kai pretends he isn’t ticked that Gabe got made.” She smiled. “Works beautifully.”

I smiled back.

Sensing the hard part was over, Daisy slid onto the stool by her side.

“I know we only had lunch two hours ago, but Harlow told me what toad-in-the-hole is and now I’m feelin’ peckish. Wanna share a plate?” she asked Stella.

Stella looked at her watch and then asked me, “I have to go get Tallulah from school and Walsh from daycare in an hour and a half. Do we have time?”

“I’ll fast track it,” I said.

“That’d be awesome.”

I dashed into the kitchen to give Lucia the VIP order, telling her who that VIP was, and in pure Lucia style, she simply nodded and pulled a metal pan of oil out of the oven. She poured some thin batter into it. It started sizzling immediately.

I watched in fascination as she plopped some sausages in it, slid it back into the oven, and with no further ado, got back to work on the order she’d been preparing when I showed.

Okay.

Maybe she wasn’t into rock and roll.

Okay part two.

I was totally making toad-in-the-hole for Eric.

By the time I made it back to the bar, Harlow, Luna and Raye were huddled close to Stella and Daisy.

They were looking at a piece of paper on the bar.

I approached and Raye said, “Glad you’re here. We finally have a lull, so I wanted to go over the stakeout schedule with you guys.” She tapped a finger on the paper. “Cap said that all the people who have been snatched were snatched when it was dark. So we only have to cover sunset to sunrise. Cap cleared this with Mace and the team this morning, and then dropped it by.”

I looked down at the paper.

It said:

5:30–9:00 Luna & Knox

9:00–12:30 Harlow and Brady

12:30–4:00 Raye and Cap

4:00–7:30 Jess and Eric

Although these pairings didn’t say multi-tasking corn-themed snacks girlie time while nailing the bad guys, I was pretty danged thrilled I got to do my stakeout with Eric.

Thus, the schedule seemed perfect to me (I could share my corn theme with Eric). It’d give Harlow some time to chill a bit after work, but plenty of time to get some sleep. It’d give me time to get some shut-eye before I had to head out. And Luna and Raye could get to work on time.

In fact, only Raye and Cap’s allotment sucked.

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