Know Me Well (Wishful 3)

His mom gave him a long look. “How are you?”

Liam considered playing it off and opted for the truth instead. “I’d rather go up against insurgents again than face another phone call like that.”

She rubbed a hand down his arm. “There’s not much harder on a man of action than not getting the chance to act.”

“It was all over by the time I got there, and I couldn’t do a goddamned thing.”

“You did plenty. You taught her how to handle herself. The situation might’ve been a helluva lot worse than some stolen inventory if you hadn’t.”

“You’re up next.” He poured himself coffee. “And neither one of you is to be up there alone again. Ever.” He’d have a hard enough time letting them go anywhere alone for a while. “I want to do a full evaluation of the security system. When will we be allowed back in to work on the place?”

“Not sure yet.” She poured batter over thick sliced sourdough bread. “The Bureau of Narcotics is done with us for now. Riley and I got through the full inventory of controlled substances before we left. Hopefully, we’ll be back in later today or tomorrow.”

“I’ll get on the phone later and start rounding up additional crew as soon as we know. This whole mess is throwing the renovation schedule off, and Riley needs things to get back to normal as soon as possible.”

“Issuing orders already, Boy Scout?” Riley’s voice was rough with sleep. She shuffled into the kitchen, eyes at half mast, one of his button-down shirts hanging almost to her knees, a pair of his sweatpants puddling around her feet.

“Hey. What are you doing up already?”

“What? Thirteen hours isn’t enough sleep?” Yawning, she crossed to him, sliding an arm around his waist and reaching up to cup his face. “You had a nightmare.”

All freaking night. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t. I’d been working on convincing myself to move for about an hour, but I kept losing the battle. Ambien is a great will-sucker. You’d already gotten up by the time I got my eyes to open. I wanted to check on you.”

After everything she’d been through, she was checking on him? Who was caretaking who here? “That’s my line. I’m fine.”

“Fine is sleeping with a pistol under your pillow?”

No reason

to mention the rest of the arsenal under the bed. “Until the one who escaped is caught, yes.”

“It wasn’t personal, Liam. He wasn’t after me.”

His eyes tracked over to the bruise on her cheek and he had to fight back the impotent rage that he hadn’t been there to stop it. “He hurt you.”

Her eyes narrowed. “And I gave as good as I got, exactly like you taught me.”

“Sorry. It’s going to take me a year or ten to forget the sight of a gun pressed your head.”

“You’re not going to let me out of your sight without an armed escort, are you?”

“Not for a while, no.” Liam waited for her to argue.

Instead, she heaved a sigh, brushed her lips over his. “Judd should never have showed you that surveillance footage.”

The doorbell rang.

“I’ll get it.” Molly was out of the kitchen in a flash.

“You know,” Riley walked her fingers down the center of his chest, “if you’re going to be on guard duty anyway, can you do it your dress blues? Maybe pull an Officer and a Gentleman and whisk me off to somewhere tropical, where they serve drinks with little paper umbrellas and have people standing by to fan us with giant palm fronds? Because that would really work for me.”

Liam arched a brow and tried to keep his twitching lips serious. “You’ve given this some thought.”

“When you don’t have time to actually take a vacation, you spend a lot of time dreaming about them. Plus, the last time I saw you in your dress blues was when I was still trying to be mad at you, so I didn’t properly appreciate the view. And it’s a really excellent view.”

“Maybe if you’re a really good girl—”