I Can’t Even (Carter Brothers #2) Read Online Lani Lynn Vale

Categories Genre: Alpha Male, Contemporary, Erotic, Mafia, Suspense Tags Authors: Series: Carter Brothers Series by Lani Lynn Vale
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Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 67000 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
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The bakery, Pie Hard, was booming.

The young woman who’d opened it had seen more business than she could’ve ever asked for.

“Why does the chief have a hard on for it?” I asked. “Did the owner do something to him?”

He looked at me for a long moment, then said, “If you ever mutter a fuckin’ word of this, I’ll kill you.”

I held up my hands. “What?”

“The chief has a daughter,” he mumbled, looking around as he said it, as if he was worried someone might overhear.

“He does?” I frowned. “I thought he and his wife were childless?”

“The wife is. The chief remarried when y’all were around fifteen or so. He had a thirteen-year-old daughter when he did. Something happened, though, and the daughter went and stayed with the grandparents on her mom’s side. And they haven’t talked much about it since.”

“Okay,” I said. “And this matters because…”

“Because that bakery was opened by the chief’s daughter,” he murmured. “And that stays between you and me. Understand?”

I nodded, surprised to hear this.

“That sucks,” I said. “I wonder what all happened.”

Dad’s face ticked up at the corner, his eye twitching. “I will bet my life it has everything to do with the new wife. She’s a fuckin’ dumpster fire.”

For Dad to say that meant a whole lot.

Dad’s version of ‘dumpster fire’ was DEFCON 1.

“Shit, that sucks,” I repeated.

Dad nodded, slapped me on the back, and then went into his office. But not before saying, “Keep your trap shut, Quaid.”

I rolled my eyes and headed toward my own office, testing out my ankle as I moved.

It felt good today.

Really good.

I hadn’t had such a good day in what felt like forever.

I’d even gone on a run this morning.

Sure, it’d been a mile and a half, but it’d been long enough to test out the strength in my leg. And know that I could do longer next time.

I arrived in my office and took a seat at my desk.

Ignoring the paperwork that was already piling up on the corner, I opened up the file that we had on the serial killer.

Picking up my phone, I called Tobin.

“Hello?” he answered, sounding short.

“Hey,” I said. “What’s crawled up your ass?”

He sighed. “My wife.”

I should’ve known that without asking.

Apparently, the chief’s wife and Tobin’s had something in common.

“What’s the problem now?” I wondered.

“She’s throwing a fit because I’m in Dallas.” He sighed.

I chuckled.

‘In Dallas’ was code for near Ande.

It didn’t matter that Dallas and the surrounding metroplex was nearly ten thousand square miles.

It didn’t even matter that Ande was now happily married with children.

The crazy woman was still insanely jealous.

“She knows, right, that y’all dated in high school? That it was nothing more than the bullshit dating every high schooler does for a month and breaks it off?” I asked.

Even though I knew she knew that.

I’d told her myself.

That didn’t mean Crissa McGraw would ever be okay with it.

She’d rather die than ever be okay with it.

I wasn’t sure how Tobin did it.

At least they didn’t have any kids.

Maybe one day he’d get his head out of his ass enough to see that she was toxic.

But that day wasn’t today.

“She does.” He sighed. “Hey, I got your notes from the nurse. Any thoughts you didn’t put into that email?”

“No,” I answered. “I think that she genuinely got the bad vibe off of him and chose to stay away. Which makes me wonder why some of these other women didn’t pick up on it.”

“Maybe they did,” Tobin mused. “I have a profiler who’s going to meet with me this afternoon. I’ll get his perspective on it all. But I have a gut feeling that we’re only seeing what’s on the surface of this. I think, truthfully, that he hasn’t forgotten about these women who said no to him.”

That made the pit of my stomach clench, and bile rise up to my throat.

“You think I need to put a protection detail on her?” I asked.

And that protection detail would be me.

The Dallas Police Department didn’t have the kind of cash flow to just put a detail on someone. But I had the time, and the inclination. Oh, and also the desire to get to know her better.

What I saw, I liked.

“I think I might have more answers for you once I talk to the profiler around one,” he answered. “But if my gut feeling is right…”

And his gut feeling was always right.

A long time ago, when I’d first gotten to know Tobin, he always knew things. It was the weirdest thing, yet it’d gotten us out of a few dangerous situations, such as a burglary and a near beating from a couple of bullies.

If he thought she might need protection, then I needed to get to working on worming my way into her life.

“Yo, Sarge.” The secretary hollered. “Assman called in.”

I groaned.


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