Protecting What's Mine(21)

A hatchback drove by slower than the mom with the double stroller on the sidewalk. The driver gawked at them, and Linc gave her a lazy wave.

“You better move out before all of Benevolence is talking about your illicit affair,” Linc said. “I’ll see you around, doc.”

“I should stop blocking traffic,” Mack said, jerking her thumb in the direction of her SUV.

“Cookout. Next week,” Aldo said, pointing at her. “You can meet Gloria and the kids. I’d say tonight, but we just got back from Disney a few days ago, and we’re still drowning in laundry and wondering how the kids packed an entire suitcase full of sand.”

Mack shook her head and grinned. “A lot to catch up on,” she said.

At least on Aldo’s part. He’d been shipped home, retired from the National Guard, gotten married, and started a family. Five years ago, the only sand he’d seen had been desert. Now he went to Disney on family vacations.

But she was still doing the same thing. Her deployments were over. But wasn’t this basically the same? A short-term placement.

“Sounds great,” she said.

“I’ll text you.”

Mack waved Aldo off as he resumed his run. She felt the weight of Linc’s gaze on her.

He stared out his windshield. “You know there’s more to me than my dating history.”

“I’m not not sleeping with you because you enjoy women,” she assured him.

He turned to look at her.

“Maybe I’m not sleeping with you because of my dating history.”

“Just get out of a long-term relationship?” he guessed.

“Opposite. If you’re a ladies’ man, I’m a man’s lady. Men’s lady? Anyway, I’m taking a break from it.”

“Maybe we should both try something different. We’ll just have to get married,” Linc decided with a grin.

He drove off and left Mack blinking after him.





11





“Leah, if you stop trying to kick your brother in the nuts, maybe he won’t be such a little turd to you,” Linc called from his patio where he warmed up the grill for hot dogs and burgers to feed his young hostages. He’d gotten up early on his day off and had put in a full day of paperwork and maintenance work at the station by noon.

“Uncle Linc! Make her stop,” Bryson screeched, his voice cracking in the middle of the whine as puberty asserted its presence.

“Why? If you stop taking her water gun and she stops kicking you, you’re just gonna find something else to fight about.”

Linc’s oldest sister, Rebecca, found out about his day off and dumped his niece and nephew on him for a few hours because, as she put it, “If I have to listen to them scream at each other for one more second, I’m going to enter the witness relocation program.”

When he pointed out that the entrance requirements involved actually witnessing something that required relocation, she’d threatened to commit the crime herself.

So he had Bryson, thirteen, and Leah, ten, to entertain and terrorize him for the afternoon.

His cell phone rang on the picnic table. “Shit. Which one of you big mouths told Aunt Christa you were here?” Both hooligans raised their hands.

News of free babysitting traveled fast in the Reed family.

“What’s up, sis?”

“How’s my favorite brother?”

“Great. Busy. Heading in to the station,” he lied. Leah let out a blood-curdling scream. To silence her, he threw a water balloon that hit her in the shoulder.

“No, you’re not. You’re watching Becca’s kids, and I’m out front with mine.”

He feigned a groan. “Seriously? I’m injured. How am I supposed to break up the fights when they start to go Hunger Games on each other?”

His back door opened, and his sister Christa poked her head out. “Surprise!” Where Becca was tall and athletic, Christa was shorter, curvier, and abhorred anything that made her sweat. Both had the trademark Reed blond hair and dimpled chins.

Her two daughters followed her out onto the patio. Sunshine lifted her head and gave a mighty yawn before deigning to greet the new guests.

Christa made the appropriate fuss over her before the girls got their hugs in.

Bryson jogged over and initiated a complicated cousin handshake with 11-year-old Samantha. Kinley was lugging a backpack of books.

“If they’re too much for you, just turn a fire hose on them,” she suggested, giving him a loud kiss on the cheek. “How’s your shoulder? Where’s your sling?”

“You sound like Dreamy,” Linc complained.

“Who’s Dreamy?” she demanded.

“Uncle Linc, are you making us hot dogs, too?” Samantha asked, sniffing the air.

“That depends, Mantha. Got five bucks?”

Samantha had spent two full years railing against the “boyish” nickname Sam, adding “mantha” to the shortened moniker until she ended up as just Mantha.

She gave him a small smile. “No. But if you distract my mom, I can probably get in her purse like last time.” Linc and Samantha were united in their continuing mission to drive Christa crazy.

His sister rolled her eyes and tugged Samantha’s braid. “Nice try, champ. Now, Mom’s gotta go crack a nice lady’s back. I’ll be back in an hour, two tops, if I decide to swing by the grocery store to feed you monsters later tonight. Don’t burn down Uncle Linc’s house.”