Defending Morgan (Mountain Mercenaries #3)(76)

He didn’t know Morgan’s mom all that well, but considering how much she’d been pushing her daughter to go back to New Mexico, he was having a hard time liking her. Deciding that he needed to give her a fair shot, Arrow cracked his neck and waited for her to arrive.

A knock alerted him that Ellie was there, and he opened the door. Morgan’s mom was still in great shape. He knew she was around fifty years old, but she could probably pass for someone in her late thirties. She was slender and obviously worked out to take care of herself. She had the same blonde hair and green eyes as her daughter, but had a few more wrinkles on her face.

She was wearing a pair of worn and comfortable-looking jeans with a long-sleeve black blouse. A large black purse hung off one elbow, and her hair was pulled into a low ponytail at the back of her neck. She smiled at him and held up a plate covered with aluminum foil when he opened the door.

“I come bearing cookies!” she said happily.

Arrow opened the door wide and gestured for her to come inside. The low heels she was wearing clicked on the floor as she entered his apartment. He closed and locked the door behind her, and followed her to the kitchen. She placed the plate on the counter and peeled back the foil.

“Looks good,” Arrow told her.

The plate was overflowing with cookies. He could see the marshmallows oozing from the middle of every cookie, and each was drizzled with chocolate. There were chunks of what he assumed were graham crackers making the cookies lopsided and even more delicious looking.

“Have one,” Ellie said, holding the plate out to him.

Arrow shook his head and held out a hand. “No, that’s all right.”

Morgan’s mom pouted. “You don’t want one?”

He didn’t, but to be polite, Arrow said, “Okay, maybe just one.”

His words made the frown disappear from Ellie’s face as if by magic. “Yay! Here, take this one,” she ordered, pointing at one of the biggest cookies on the plate. Arrow wasn’t a huge fan of sugar, especially in its raw form, but he picked it up and smiled anyway.

“You want to go and sit while we wait for Morgan?”

“Sure. We can do that,” Ellie said, not taking her eyes from the cookie in his hand.

Frowning, he asked, “Aren’t you going to have one?”

Her eyes whipped up to his. “Oh no! I’m watching my weight, after all.” She patted her flat belly. “But you look like you could handle more than one without any issue whatsoever.” And with that, she reached out and put another cookie on a napkin sitting nearby and carried it over to the couch. She put it on the coffee table in front of her and smiled at Arrow.

Inwardly sighing, and hoping it wouldn’t take Morgan long to get back from her appointment, Arrow took a bite of the overly sweet concoction in his hand and made his way to the couch next to Ellie.

He hadn’t had a chance to introduce Morgan to his mom yet, but he was pretty sure she’d get along with his mother better than he got along with hers. Wanting to finish the cookie as soon as possible, he took another large bite and swallowed it almost without chewing.

Ellie looked so happy with his seeming enjoyment of the sweet treat, he couldn’t regret eating it, even if he hadn’t wanted it in the first place.

“So . . . tell me about yourself,” Ellie said as she settled back against the couch, her purse on the floor at her feet. “I want to know everything about the man my daughter ditched her mom for.”

It wasn’t the best start to their conversation, but Arrow was determined to do everything he could to make the visit work. After all, if he was going to spend the rest of his life with Morgan, he’d have to put up with Ellie for a hell of a long time.



“I can’t thank you enough for coming to get me,” Morgan told Chloe as they walked down the hall toward the elevator.

“Anytime. How’d it go?”

“Good. Basically, I need to cut myself some slack and stop trying to pretend that nothing happened to me. I’m probably going to have triggers, things that remind me of what happened, for quite a while. And as long as I’m talking about them to someone, and not letting the stress build up inside, it’s okay to have freak-outs now and then.”

“Your therapist sounds smart,” Chloe observed.

Morgan chuckled. “I would hope so.”

Once they were inside the elevator, Chloe said, “I was going to invite you and Arrow to dinner tonight.”

“You were? But not anymore?”

She smiled. “Nope. You have other plans.”

“I do?”

“Yup.”

“You’re being awfully mysterious,” Morgan mock complained. “Arrow said he had a surprise for me. I hate surprises.”

“You want to know?”

Morgan turned to her friend. “Yes!”

“Too bad,” Chloe said with a grin. “I’m not telling you.”

“You suck,” Morgan said with a pout.

Chloe laughed again and hooked her arm in Morgan’s. “I know. Come on. Let’s get you home.”

“You know, I’ll never get tired of hearing that.”

“What?”

“Home. In regard to Arrow’s apartment,” Morgan explained.

“I know what you mean. I used to live in a mansion, but it never felt like a home to me. But the second I walked into Ro’s house, I was comfortable. Though I could live in a cave with him, and it would still be home.”