Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 135696 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135696 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
She grinned at him, then she leaned forward to put her laptop on the coffee table and grab the remote.
The instant she sat back, he commandeered the remote, because there weren’t many rules at his house, but the man having the remote in his hand was one of them.
It was a brand-new rule he’d made just then, but he was sticking by it.
She settled back into him, grumbling, “Macho man.”
“Whatever,” he replied, and he switched on the TV.
He could see how it would have been easier for her to have the remote, since she had to tell him what service the show was on and guide him to finding it.
But he didn’t give a fuck.
And she didn’t either, seeing how she curled up into the couch as well as into his side when he lifted his feet to the coffee table and stretched out his legs.
He didn’t want to like it.
But he saw from the get-go, she was right.
The show was damned funny.
EIGHTEEN
Puppy
Riggs
They tried to be quiet.
They failed.
Still, his sleep had been such shit, he let them have at it the next morning, Nadia making breakfast for his kid, his kid eating it, until, from where he was stretched out on his couch in the living room, his gun on the coffee table, he heard Nadia say quietly, “Go brush your teeth, sweetheart. We’ll let your dad sleep. I’ll run you to school.”
Riggs heard his son’s sneakers clambering up the stairs and sat up.
He looked over the back of the couch at her and caught her staring murder at him.
Seemed she hadn’t had cup two of coffee.
He pushed up, the throw falling off his body, and he let it remain where it fell, still in his jeans and Springsteen tee from last night, socks on his feet.
He went direct to the coffee pot, managing to do that without being mortally wounded by the daggers she was shooting out her eyes, and he made himself a mug.
He turned, leaned his hips against the counter, and before he took a sip, he took his life in his hands and asked, “Is it the caffeine level or did I somehow do something in my sleep to piss you off?”
She stopped rinsing plates in the sink, turned off the faucet, and got dead in his face.
Fuck, it killed him not being able to kiss her, even as pissed as she was right then, and he could see she was seriously fucking pissed.
Her eyes slid up to the ceiling, as if trying to sense where Ledger was in getting his shit sorted, then back to him.
She launched in. “First, a nine-year-old and a gun on the coffee table do not mix, Andrew Doc Riggs.”
“My gun is always locked, except last night. Even if it wasn’t, he knows I’ll lose my mind if he even touched it. And I was right there, and I’ve been awake since you two came downstairs.”
Nadia didn’t miss a beat.
“This brings me to my second, which has two parts, since obviously you didn’t sleep great last night if you had to fake sleep for the last half an hour instead of getting up and joining us for breakfast, and I’m guessing that doesn’t have to do with the fact you slept on the couch.”
It’d be good if sometimes, like this time, she wasn’t as sharp.
“So that leads me to part two,” she went on, “you on the couch at all. Were you keeping something from me last night when you told me all was good with what was going on and the bad guys got what they wanted when they got that wine?”
“I haven’t even had a sip of coffee yet,” he growled back. “So I don’t know how many parts my comeback has, but I love my boy, I give more than a passing shit about you, and someone wrecked your door, not to mention, wrecked Bubbles’s skull. So I didn’t lie. As far as we can tell, it’s about the wine. But that doesn’t mean I’m taking any chances.”
“So you’re not keeping anything from me to protect me like you protected me from ghost stories?”
“I am.”
Her eyes got huge.
“But it’s not a lot, and I’m doing it because this county’s sheriff, and my good friend, told me in confidence, and in no uncertain terms I couldn’t share it, even with you. But if I was worried, or hell, Harry was, we’d be moving more than a few nights’ worth from your closet to the one in my guest room.”
She backed off.
But since they were on this subject.
“I know you’re worth a lot of money, Nadia,” he stated. “And that’s not difficult intel to come by. So I’m gonna say straight out, it worries me, you alone in that cabin.”
“How do you suggest I live my life, Riggs?” she asked. “Have a security guard follow me around. Get dogs? Build a twenty-foot wall around me?”