Butterface (The Hartigans #1)(60)
Once he had himself tucked away and fastened his jeans—necessary, if unfortunate—he took her hand and they walked to the beer garden’s dark entrance. There he paused and looked around, making sure no one was heading their way from the sidewalk in front of Marino’s.
“Okay.” He started walking forward. “The coast is clear.”
The fact that he’d bothered to make sure no one would see them come out of the beer garden probably looking every bit like they’d just screwed each other’s brains out, that he’d protected her like that, made a comforted warmth spill through her.
True, he hadn’t said he loved her in that speech of his, but he’d surely meant it. Why else would he have said all that?
She may not need a man in her life to make her happy, but with Ford holding her hand as they walked to his car, she was finally beginning to believe that she was going to get everything she hadn’t let herself believe she wanted.
Chapter Seventeen
The Hartigan house was, once again, in total chaos. Gina kinda loved it.
“So, no Honeypot?” she asked Felicia, the smallest and quietest Hartigan who, unlike the rest of the brood, lived across the bridge in Harbor City with her billionaire fiancé, Hudson, and her one-eyed cat.
“No way,” Felicia said, pushing up her glasses. “She has been banished from this and all future family functions. That was the edict that came down from on high.”
“You mean Kate?” Gina asked as she spooned potato salad on her plate, since today’s lunch was being served buffet style to accommodate everyone who wanted to watch the hockey game playing in the living room. The fact that it was the playoffs do-or-die time of the year was the only reason Kate had relented to the many pleas of her family.
“You can’t go higher than Mom,” Felicia said with a chuckle as she and Hudson made their way through the line behind Gina.
“How did you come up with the name Honeypot?”
Felicia’s whole face lit up. “It’s the kind of ants I study.”
“I’ve never heard of them, what are they like?” That seemed like a nicer way of saying she’d always thought an ant was an ant was an ant.
“Don’t ask,” Hudson interrupted, his face an exaggerated mask of disgust. “They are gross.”
Felicia turned to her fiancé with a teasing gasp. “How can you hate on the ant that brought us together?”
“Easily.” He gave a mock shudder.
And that’s pretty much how lunch went. She chatted with all of the various Hartigan members and those like herself who’d been brought into the fold, including the guy Fallon had brought, Kyle. He worked out of the same precinct as Ford but was still in uniform. When she’d asked how he’d met Fallon, he responded with a shrug of his shoulders and made a comment about cops and nurses always seeming to end up together.
“I know, he’s an ass,” Fallon told her later while they were watching the Ice Knights get killed in the second period. “But his dick is magnificent.”
Gina almost choked on her bite of fried chicken. “You can’t say that. Someone might hear.” She looked around, but everyone’s attention was glued to the TV.
“They’ll live.” Fallon shrugged and took a bite of her drumstick. “Trust me, with Frankie here, they have definitely heard worse.”
That was probably true. Frankie seemed to have been born without a filter and, as he liked to put it, a humble bone in his body. The man was a certified mess, but a fun one. Looking around at the Hartigan clan, who’d made her feel right at home, Gina realized that Ford wasn’t anywhere around. And that’s when she got a gloriously delicious idea that involved his magnificent dick and a quickie in the farthest-away room with a lock. All she had to do was find him.
“I’ll be right back,” she told Fallon, figuring the kitchen was the likeliest spot. “I’m gonna go get some more water.”
Mind made up, she walked out of the crowded living room, more than ready to keep looking until she found him. She didn’t have to look far. Ford was in the kitchen with Kyle. They both had their backs to her as they loaded up their plates with more food.
Found ya. She was about to say something when Kyle spoke first.
“I thought the shit assignment you got to shadow the Luca girl for intel on her brothers was over?”
“Shut your mouth, Carlin,” Ford said. “We don’t discuss business outside the squad room.”
Gina froze, trying to make sense of the words.
“And man, I thought Gallo had been exaggerating about how she looked, but he was most def not,” Kyle went on, his back to her as he poured gravy over his mashed potatoes. “Bruh, you have taken one for the entire squad. You should be getting hazard pay.”
The water glass almost slipped from her hand as realization set in. Shadowing her because of her brothers? She’d been an idiot. Again. He hadn’t wanted her. He’d wanted to nail her brothers. All of the little questions about her family he’d peppered her with and the way he’d worked the room at her grandmother’s party, it hadn’t been because he wanted to get to know her, because he was falling for her like she had fallen for him. It had been because he was working a case.
“Yeah, he should be getting hazard pay.” She barely recognizing the ragged voice as her own. “There has to be a regulation for it somewhere, I’m sure.”