Page 79 of On the Chase
“Are you sure about this?”
She shifted, turning to face him. Hugh stared straight ahead as if watching Dee’s movie selection intently, but Grace was pretty sure he wasn’t that interested in the cartoon penguins dancing on the screen. “Are you pouting?”
“No.”
“Then why is your bottom lip sticking out like that?”
“I can’t help it if I have the mouth of a model.”
She laughed so hard that she tipped sideways against the back of the couch. Lexi, curled on the floor next to the couch, raised her head briefly and then went back to sleep. “I love it when you say ridiculous things like that, Mr. Badass Cop.”
“My friends just call me Badass.” Although she could tell he was fighting it, a smile curled the corners of the mouth under discussion. “You didn’t answer my question.”
Her laughter fading into a sigh, she lifted his arm and snuggled underneath it. “The question of whether I’m sure that I want to live in a house with five other people and one bathroom? Yeah, I’m sure.”
“I have the past four years ofTattered Heartson DVD.”
Sitting up, she sucked in an excited breath.
“At my house.”
Slumping down again, she gave him her best hungry-puppy look. It wasn’t as effective as his, but it seemed to get her what she wanted from Hugh a little over half the time. “Can you bring them here on a day I’m not working at Nan’s? Please?”
“No. They’re for residents of my house only.”
She widened her eyes even more.
“Fine. I’ll bring them tomorrow.” He scowled at the waddling birds on the TV screen, and she poked him in the side.
“Quit sulking. You should be glad I’m not moving back to California, instead of just living five minutes away.”
Rather than flinching away from her prod, he squeezed her closer to his side. “I am glad. I’d just be gladder if you moved in with me.”
“I’d love that.” She really, really would. In the past two weeks following Noah’s arrest, she’d realized how much she’d undervalued privacy when she’d lived alone. Jules, the kids, and even Theo acted as an effective and entirely frustrating chastity belt.
Because of Hugh’s casted arm, he’d hired some people to help him reconstruct the deck, so his house was a beehive of activity during the day. Several times, Grace and Hugh had ended up parking his new pickup in some remote spot and then making out like teenagers despite their various injuries and the confines of the truck cab. The only reason they had the couch to themselves at the moment was that Jules and the boys were at the high school for an informational meeting about new safety measures implemented since the shooting, and Dee had gone to bed. Grace was reveling in the rare alone time with Hugh.
“Everything just happened really fast with us, and I want to give normal a chance, I guess. It’ll be different now that I know we’re both safe here, with the Jovanovics and Truman locked up.”
He frowned. “You always were safe. Noah and Martin had no idea you were here. If it hadn’t been for me…”
“Stop.” She gave him her best glare, but it only made him smile at her. “That’s all on Truman. Your only fault in all of that was being too good at your job. We’ve won, good has prevailed over evil, and there’s nothing the bad guys can do to us anymore. We get to live normal, boring, uninteresting lives now.”
“We could live a normal, boring, uninteresting life together at my house.”
“Nice try,” she retorted, “but you don’t get to skip the dating part.”
What she didn’t mention was that her confidence in her man-picking abilities had been shaken to her core. The FBI had searched Noah’s house and office, and what they’d found had led to eight other arrests—including Martin Jovanovic’s. Not only had Noah known about his uncle’s illegal pursuits, but the younger Jovanovic had actually been the leader of their expansive criminal organization—and the one who’d ordered the three men’s torture. Both Jovanovics were now in jail, waiting to be tried on charges ranging from drug trafficking to money laundering to murder.
Grace felt like an idiot. How had she mistaken the head of a crime family for a Disney prince? She suddenly had sympathy for the baffled people who were interviewed on the news after a serial killer was exposed, saying how they didn’t understand it because he seemed like such a nice man. Noah had seemed perfect, but he’d actually been as far from perfect as a guy could be. Although Grace trusted Hugh completely, and loved him so much her heart hurt, her trust in herself was a little shaky. Plus, she wanted a little more time to get to know her newGraceself outside her relationship with Hugh.
“So…we date?” Hugh scrunched up his face.
“Yes.” Shoving Noah’s perfidy out of her head, she laid her head on Hugh’s chest. “We date.”
“Do we have to?”
“Yes.”
