Total pages in book: 188
Estimated words: 185811 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 929(@200wpm)___ 743(@250wpm)___ 619(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 185811 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 929(@200wpm)___ 743(@250wpm)___ 619(@300wpm)
“I’ll do it in the car. Thanks, Lottie,” Carla called back.
“Don’t mention it. Do you need help back there?”
“Uh…kinda,” she answered.
Yeah, she needed to hit the hospital.
I gave Mo then Smithie a look and headed behind the screen.
We got Carla dressed, I went, grabbed her purse and gave it to her before giving her a kiss on the cheek and a wish of good luck, and then Mo picked her up to take her out to the car.
I trailed them close at Mo’s heels so he’d know I was doing as ordered.
I started to lock the door practically before it was fully closed.
When I turned back to the room, I realized it was weird to be alone. The only time I’d been alone for days was in the shower.
I barely got Carla’s address texted to Mom and my false eyelashes off to do a full makeup cleanup in order to do a full makeup put on when there was a pounding at the door and a shout of, “Mo!”
Well, he didn’t jack around.
I felt my mouth turn up as I hustled to the door to let him in.
He crowded my space to get back in, which meant back to guarding me, and I realized with him, falling in love would probably be incremental.
He’d do things like that, every day. Little ones, maybe some big ones, but things like that every day that would make me fall more in love with him.
Which, taken to its natural conclusion, meant, if we worked, I’d be falling in love with him, little by little, more and more every day until the day I died.
And that soooooo worked for me.
I hid my smile at this thought and quickly backed out of his space so I didn’t have the urge to pounce on him (or didn’t give in to the urge I already had) and didn’t make things harder for him to fight his urge to pounce on me.
I moved back to my station.
“I’m surprised you didn’t make Smithie call a bouncer to take Carla out.”
“They have four persons of interest out there. They need eyes on the crowd.”
My head whipped around to him. “Really?”
He dipped his chin.
“New guys?”
“All of them regulars who haven’t been back in a while. All of them guys who creep the waitresses out. All of them guys who bouncers have red flagged since they started coming. None of them guys who’ve been here since the letter was sent.”
I felt a tickle at the back of my neck.
“You think one of them—?”
“I think they’ll have tails tonight and Hawk will have men in all of their houses the minute they leave for work tomorrow morning and we’ll know.”
Holy shit.
This might be over soon.
And holy shit.
They were searching houses.
“They’re searching houses?” I asked.
“Yup.”
“They can do that?”
“They can do whatever they want if they don’t get caught.”
Whoa.
“But, won’t it be inadmissible if they search like that?” I queried. “I mean, they can’t get it to law enforcement and have the cops be able to get a real search warrant if they find something illegally like that.”
Mo had moved closer to my station while I spoke.
What he didn’t do while doing that, arriving, and stopping to stand close to my table was reply.
“Right, Mo?” I pressed.
He was silent a moment, but before I could push again, he spoke.
“When this guy is caught, Lottie, the jury that matters right now is still out as to what to do with him.”
“The jury that matters?”
“Hawk, Smithie…” he said no more.
“And you,” I whispered.
“I’ll make my case to Hawk that I get a say.”
“And that case will be?”
“I got claimed in a King Soopers. I don’t mind I did. As in I way don’t mind it. And seein’ as I belong to you, you belong to me, so I get a say.”
Oh my God.
I totally needed to pounce on my mound of hunkalicious, soon-to-be (I hoped) boyfriend.
“You need to move away, baby,” I whispered.
His head jerked. His eyes went dark. The muscles in his neck stood out in a sexy way that was so not helping matters.
Then he moved back to the door.
I tried deep breathing.
Then I turned to my mirror to deal with my makeup.
It didn’t help because I could see Mo in the mirror.
His wide shoulders were to the wall and his gaze was cast to the floor, I knew, so he wouldn’t be staring at me.
God.
They needed to catch this guy.
They so needed to catch this guy.
I moved a shaky hand toward my cleansing wipes.
And for right then, I got down to business.
“Start with your toes, Lottie.”
Mo’s deep voice coming to me in the dark told me not only that he wasn’t asleep, but that he was hearing me toss and turn.
I rolled to my back and stared at the ceiling. “I tried. It’s not working.”
“You want me to help?”