Chaos Remains (Greenstone Security 4)

Karen kissed Eliza, reached over and squeezed my hand and walked toward the house.

“I’m sure Karen’s already done the whole angry lesbian thing,” Eliza said, watching her wife’s back. “But I just want you to know, you tell me where he lives, they’ll never find his body.”

See? Totally scary.

“The number of people that have offered to kill my estranged husband for me lately is quite worrying,” I replied, smiling.

Eliza smiled back, sadness in her irises. “That’s the number of people that love you and would do anything for you and Nathan.”

I nodded, heart heavy, with both joy and sadness. I could use this whole event to lapse into a depression full of fear, self-pity, pain. Surely it was tempting and I had enough material to work off. Violent husband deciding to make our lives hell, money problems only made worse by the huge bill I was going to get lumped with, a car with a broken AC and likely ready to break down at any moment. No career prospects beyond being a waitress at a diner.

Sure, I could let that all turn me into a sad and bitter person who aged prematurely thanks to all the frowning and such.

But this had shown me other things. Other people willing to do everything and anything to help me. Like give me food that I didn’t need but made my son feel better, like offer to commit homicide. And other people, for some reason, bought donuts in the morning and held my son’s hand after school.

It was then that Eliza’s attention moved from our conversation of murder and to the curb. Or more likely, who was pulling up to the curb.

“Who is that?” Eliza breathed.

I already knew who my neighbor was talking about with a slack jaw. I didn’t need to turn. But I did anyway, because I never missed a chance to stare at Lance and torture myself with his complete and utter lack of interest in me.

And yes, as my eyes locked with his shades—totally kick-ass black Ray-Bans—I was tortured with his utter hotness and utter lack of interest in me.

“That’s Lance,” I said by explanation, watching him walk from the SUV he’d emerged from. His muscles moved, glinted in the afternoon sun underneath the fabric of his tee. If I squinted really hard, I might have been able to see the outline of his abs.

What is wrong with me?

“I would like to climb him like a tree,” Eliza breathed, eyes following Lance like mine were.

I moved my head and pushed my glasses to the top of my head so she could see my raised brow. “You’re gay,” I reminded her.

“Honey, something like that transcends all sexual affiliation,” she said without looking at me. Her eyes widened as the sound of another door echoed through our yards. “Dear God there’s two of them,” she muttered.

I moved my eyes again.

Luke was moving around the truck, aviators on his face, wearing worn jeans and a plain white tee.

I felt weird even staring at him for too long because I wouldn’t be surprised if Rosie had some perceptive powers to know if I’d checked out her husband and I was kind of scared of that woman.

I was actually sure that the women who surrounded me could probably do a lot more damage than the men, and that was saying something. But I was also proud to be around such strong, badass women. That wasn’t exactly me, I wasn’t born to be a badass, for a start, I was a punching bag, a doormat. I just wanted to be half as strong as them.

“This is Captain America?” she asked as Luke bent into the passenger’s seat. “Because that is America’s ass.”

She and Karen were huge Marvel fans. It’s where Nathan got it from.

Though you didn’t have to be a Marvel fan to agree that was America’s ass.

“No, though I’m not disagreeing with you on the ass,” I said, whispering, just in case Rosie was hiding in the bushes. “It’s him.”

Lance was walking toward us with a box in his hands, so I could only kind of nod my head toward the man-god who may or may not be Hades reincarnated.

“Yeah, I can see that too,” Eliza said out the side of her mouth as he approached hearing distance. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had some kind of badass powers that enabled him to hear us from the frickin’ curb.

As long as his powers didn’t extend to him being able to read my mind, I would still be able to walk away from this with a small amount of dignity.

Lance stopped in front of us, not taking his sunglasses off, not saying a word, just staring at me.

“Eliza, this is Lance,” I said after a prolonged awkward silence. I’d been too busy looking at how his biceps were defined holding the box full of electrical stuff.