“You suck,” his sister said. “I’d say worse, but your nephew’s asleep on me right now and he has tender ears.”
“Laura,” Lucas’s mom admonished and Molly caught a very pleasing to the ears hint of her Portuguese accent “And I know you haven’t forgotten that it’s game night,” she said to Lucas. “Tell me the truth. Did you take on another case just to avoid it?”
Lucas nodded his head yes to Molly but to his mom, he said, “of course not.”
“Fine,” she said. “I get it. You hate game night. But Laura says you still have the Cards Against Humanity game in your trunk from when she borrowed your car a few week ago. Drop it by?”
“You have other games. A whole cabinet of them.”
“We want that one.”
“Or this is a trick and you just want to see me.”
“Are you calling your mama a liar?” she asked sweetly.
Lucas blew out a breath. “Fine. But I can’t stay.”
“Baby, you have to eat dinner.”
“No can do tonight, sorry.”
“I made cozido a portuguesa.”
Lucas groaned. “The big guns.”
“No, the big gun is the bolo de bolacha I made for dessert. And if you don’t come by, I’m going to let Laura and my grandbaby take them all home.”
“You’re evil to the bone.”
“And don’t forget it. You love me anyway.”
“I do.” Lucas glanced Molly’s way and she did her best to look like she hadn’t been very busy eavesdropping. “I’m five minutes out, but I can’t stay, I really am on a job.” He disconnected and blew out a breath.
“Don’t not stay on my account,” Molly said. “I don’t know what it was she was cooking, but it sounded amazing.”
“Portuguese stew and cookie cake.”
Her mouth watered. “Well, far be it for me to be the reason you miss out.”
Molly could cook. If she had to. But she didn’t enjoy it at all and tried very hard not to do it unless she had no other choice, such as it was the end of the month and she was low on funds or if there was a zombie apocalypse. Joe cooked, but only because he’d discovered women thought a man in the kitchen was sexy. Molly had inherited her dislike of cooking from her dad, whose idea of cooking was opening a can of Chef Boyardee. “Sounds like you’ve got a nice, normal family.”
He glanced over at her and caught her looking at him. A small smile touched his lips as he turned his attention back to the road. When she didn’t say anything more, he glanced over again. “Was that a personal question?”
Was it? “No.” Liar . . . “Maybe.”
“Well for starters, I wouldn’t exactly use ‘normal’ to describe my family,” he said. “They love loud, but also fight loud. At any given moment, my mom could throw her shoe at you or hug you. It’s always a calculated risk to let her get too close until you know if you’re in good standing.”
Molly smiled. “Sounds nice.”
Again he looked over at her. “You and Joe are close.”
She shrugged.
“I’ve seen you smack him upside the back of his head so hard that he nearly swallowed his tongue,” Lucas said. “I’ve also seen the look on your face when he’s hurt. Like on that job last year when he took a bat to the skull, you lost it. Understandably, of course.”
It’d been one of the scariest moments in her life, and that was saying something. He’d fully recovered, but there for a while it’d been touch and go, and the memory of that, the gut-clenching, heart-wrenching fear that her brother might die and leave her alone in this world with no one but her dad, had terrified her to the bone. “Yeah, we’re close,” she said. “But it’s a different kind of close. It’s like we’ve had to be in order to survive.”
He glanced over at her. “I get that. More than you might think.”
It was her turn to look at him, but he was concentrating on the road. He made a few quick turns and ended up on a street that was well lit and lined with older Victorian homes, well lived in but all extremely well taken care of, many of them decorated for the holidays in holly and garland and twinkling lights.
Lucas stopped in front of a house that was lit up from top to bottom, complete with reindeer cutouts on the grass. The driveway held six cars. Two more were parked on the lawn with the reindeer. The street was filled with cars.
“Holy cow,” Molly said.
Lucas squeezed in between the reindeer and the cars. “Family game night’s pretty popular.”
She stared at all the vehicles. “How many people are in your family? All of San Francisco?”
“Not quite, but still way too many.” He looked over her. “I’ll be two seconds, tops.”
The message was clear. Stay here. Instead, she got out with him.
He grimaced. “Listen, you heard my mom and sister on the phone. My entire family is like that. Certifiable, really. It’s too late for me, but save yourself and wait here.”
“Not a chance,” she said as he grabbed the game from the trunk.
The front door opened and people spilled out. A woman in her fifties was the leader of the pack, looking a lot like Lucas with his dark eyes and dark hair, though hers was sprinkled through with gray. Two younger women flanked her, also dark hair and dark eyes.
“My mom, my sister, Laura, and cousin Sami,” Lucas said to her. “Brace yourself.”
“What for—” Before she could finish the sentence, Lucas’s mom had bounded down the walk and engulfed him in a hug. The other two women each hugged Molly in turn, smiling and saying how nice it was to meet her.
Then the Knight women all switched spots and it was Lucas’s mom’s turn to hug Molly while his sister and cousin pounced him. An arm full of each, he turned to catch his mom hugging Molly. “Mom, stop abusing my coworker’s space bubble.”
“Oh.” His mom looked so disappointed as she pulled back from Molly. “I was hoping she was your girlfriend.”
Lucas blew out a breath, grabbed Molly’s hand and rescued her from his mom. “We work together.”
“Is there a policy at Hunt that forbids coworkers from dating?”
“Don’t answer that,” Lucas told Molly when she opened her mouth. “Trust me.”
“There’s not!” his mom said gleefully.
Laura and Sami both laughed.
“It’s because we’re both married, you see,” Laura said to Molly. “And I’ve even provided a grandchild.” She waved a baby monitor, which presumably would lead to a sleeping kid. “Now Mom’s luckily focused in on Lucas to provide more grandchildren.”
“Do you like children?” his mom asked Molly. “Are you single?”
“We’ve talked about this, Mom,” Lucas said. “You were going to stop accosting strangers and trying to recruit them to marry me.”
“Well, Molly’s not a stranger now, is she? She’s your coworker.” She smiled at Molly. “Lovely to meet you. You’re also Joe’s sister.”
“Yes,” Molly said. “You’ve met Joe?”
“Only briefly when I made Lucas stop by a few months ago and Joe was with him. I fed him. He appreciated my food.” She shot a mock glare at Lucas. “Unlike some people.”
“Mom, I appreciate your food so much I have to run four miles every morning.”
Lucas’s mom slipped an arm around Molly and turned her toward the front door. “You’re chilled. Come in with me, I have—”
“Mom,” Lucas said. “Back away from her. We’re working.”
“Well you have to eat.”
“We’re not hungry.” He handed his mom the game and then wrapped his arms around her in a very warm, loving hug, brushing a kiss to her temple. “Love you, you crazy person.”
Her arms squeezed him tight. “Someday I’m going to be dead and you’re going to be sorry you were so mean to me.”
Lucas just laughed and kissed her again. He hugged Laura and Sami, gently patted Sami’s baby belly and then took Molly by the hand. “Good night,” he said firmly.