He watched me with amusement.
“I’m getting my clothes on so I can go,” he said evenly. “Why?”
“You’re not leaving. If you leave, I’ll have to kill you.”
His eyes shone with laughter. “That’s an awful lot of smack you’re talking when you can’t even put your underwear on while on standing up.”
I flipped him off, then sat down on the bed to put my underwear on. He had a point. I was very clumsy, and I likely couldn’t even take my man with a gun…if I had one.
Once I had the panties at my knees, I stood up and slipped them the rest of the way on.
“That’s irrelevant,” I said. “There’s no reason you can’t stay here.”
He looked at the door.
“Our daughter might see, and you just said that you thought I should wait, agreeing with my earlier thoughts,” he countered. “I can’t do both. If I stay here, she might see me, and that’s not the best course of action. We agreed on that.”
I sighed.
“I have a lock on my door.”
He frowned.
“I don’t like that,” he said.
“Then you’ll just have to be vigilant,” I said. “You’ve been gone for a long time. If you leave me tonight, when I just got you back less than twelve hours ago, I will cry. Plus, you can slip out the window and head over to the trailer if you hear her coming. It’s just right there.”
I pointed at the trailer in question.
Speaking of…
“Did you watch me get out of the shower last night?” I questioned him.
His mouth twitched.
“Yeah.”
I just shook my head.
My man had no shame.
“You know, you’re quite smug for a man that has spent the last six years hiding himself from me,” I told him.
He didn’t offer an apology.
Instead, he slipped off his socks and gestured to the bed.
“Let me do one more round for the night, and I’ll be back.”
Then I watched him slip into the darkness of the house, never once turning on a light to illuminate his way, and make a perimeter check of the house.
Like he said, he was back moments later, and I was in the bed waiting for him.
He slipped in behind me, assumed our favorite sleeping position, and I finally felt like I was home.
And I slept better that night than I had any other night since the last time I slept beside Tunnel.
Chapter 20
I’m a train wreck full of pizza, fireworks and glitter.
-Text from Ghost to his wife.
Ghost
“Shit, shit, shit, shit,” I grumbled to myself as I hauled myself out of Mina’s bedroom window.
The moment that I was out, I turned around and gestured to her.
She followed me to where I was standing and placed her hands on the window sill.
“Make sure you lock this after I’m gone,” I ordered her.
Her mouth twitched.
“Yes, sir.”
I pulled her down by the collar of her shirt and tugged her mouth to mine.
“Be good,” I ordered. “And make sure you don’t give any of my tamales away to the boys. They’ll eat them all.”
She grinned mischievously. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Then she backed away, and I moved my hands, settling them on my hips as I watched her close the window and then lock it.
I tested it and nodded in approval.
When I turned my back to go change my clothes, she knocked on the window, drawing my attention once again.
Once she had it, she leaned forward and exhaled on the window, causing it to fog up.
Then she wrote ‘I LOVE YOU’ in the condensation. The images of the characters <3 forming a heart.
I grinned.
“Love you, too, baby.”
Then I winked, causing a flush of pleasure to raise up her neck and settle in her cheeks.
Moments later, I was dressed in a different pair of jeans, a black t-shirt and the same boots. My cut was in my hand, and I was walking out to my bike at the same time that Mina was walking out the door with Sienna in tow.
We’d cut it too close this morning.
I’d wanted to stay longer, enjoying the feeling of peace for the first time in so long, and had nearly allowed Sienna to walk in on us.
The only thing that’d saved us was the fact that Sienna had yelled from the end of the hallway that it was almost time to go.
Winking at my woman in her scrubs, looking adorable with her hot pink stethoscope around her neck, I waved at them.
Sienna waved back enthusiastically, and I grinned.
Getting on my bike, I waited for the two of them to get into the SUV before I started my bike up.
Sienna watched me the entire time, even turning around in her seat to look at me as they drove in front of me down the road to the intersection.
I waved at her when she turned left, and I turned right, and headed to the office where I had a video conference with Lynn, Silas and two other members of our team.
My happy mood evaporated the moment that I got on the line with Lynn and Silas.
“They’re moving?” I questioned what I’d just heard.
Lynn nodded, as well as the two men who had been insinuating themselves into my parents’ investigation.
“Van and Candace both made a ‘mutual’ decision to move out of state,” he said. “They haven’t moved yet, but they’re in the process of moving…and there’s something else.”
I knew I wasn’t going to like this. Not even a little bit.
“Yeah?” I pushed.
“They are saying that your sister is going with them.”
It felt like I’d just taken a sucker punch to the solar plexus.
“She’s what?” I bellowed, standing up. “I had her moved away from them. How did they even find her? Why the fuck would she do that?”
The first agent, Donald, shook his head. “I’ve only heard rumors, so I can’t speculate as to why.”
“I’ve heard rumors, too,” Vance, the other agent, said. “But only that, rumors.”
“Enlighten me on these rumors then,” I ordered.
Lynn’s mouth twitched, and I could tell he found it humorous that I was acting like their boss right now instead of him.
But I didn’t much give a shit at the moment.
Not when it came to my sister’s safety.
“There’s two,” Vance said. “The first is that she’s being forced so she can keep her inheritance.”
I shook my head before he’d even finished that one. “She’s a registered nurse. She has no reason to need her inheritance, nor would she want it. No, it would have to be something big to get my sister to go with them.”
“The other rumor is that she’s pregnant.”
My breath left me.
That would be more likely to be true, but I don’t know how that would’ve happened, and why she would think going with my parents would make that better. They were the worst people on the planet, when it came to family, and they didn’t much care what anybody thought, even their kids.
They’d been horrid to grow up with, and if it hadn’t been for Audrey and me having each other, our childhoods would’ve been a whole lot more different.