His Best Mistake (Shillings Agency 6)

Mark rolled his eyes. She was trying to force him to be social, since that upped his chances of meeting a girl. Problem was, he’d already met her. He just couldn’t be with her. “Mom.”

“All work and no play makes Mark a dull boy,” she said.

“Quoting Stephen King won’t change anything.” He swirled his finger over the track pad, watching the arrow circle the book he’d been looking at. “I’m not going out tonight. I want to come to the movie with you guys.”

“Girls only, so unless you’re bringing one along…?”

“You know I’m not,” he said between clenched teeth.

“Then sorry, but we have to go. We might go get manicures after the movie, and dinner, too. Come get her once you’re done with your friends at dinner. No rush. Maybe you can go to a movie, too. I know there’s a new superhero one out. You always liked those.”

“But—” he started, but he cut off, because the line went dead.

His mother had hung up on him.

He set the phone down, glaring at it. He could find them. It wouldn’t be too hard to figure out. But his mother did so much for him that he felt the need to respect her wishes and let them have their fun alone.

But that left him with an unexpectedly free evening. Earlier today, he’d texted Daisy and told her he was going to be unavailable, and now here he was.

Available.

Rolling his shoulders, he minimized the window he’d had open and focused on his report. By the time he hit send on the document, his shoulders ached and his fingers were numb. Leaning back in his chair, he glanced out the window. The sun was starting to go down, and above the buildings across the street the sky was painted in pretty hues of oranges and pinks.

A police car went by, sirens blazing, and he stiffened.

Crime wasn’t bad around here, but it still happened. There was al

ways violence in the world, and where there was violence, there was danger. He still didn’t like Daisy’s profession, or what it meant to him, but he was fooling himself if he thought his refusal to date her would affect his feelings toward her. “Only friends” was a pathetic cover up for what they were really doing. They were dating and not telling anyone.

End of story.

And right now?

That didn’t feel like enough.

Yet it was all it would ever be…because of her job.

A job she loved very much.

Say he and Daisy decided to call this thing between them what it was. Say he introduced her to his daughter, and his daughter, in turn, fell for Daisy as hard as he had. Perhaps she latched on to Daisy as the mother figure she’d secretly craved all this time. Maybe they made a happy little family, and they moved in together, and maybe they even got married. Hell, maybe they even had another kid.

Then a year, or two, or ten down the road…

The cops knock on the door.

And history repeats itself.

A real, not imaginary, knock on his office door broke him out of his morose thoughts. “Come in,” he called out.

“You all finished up in here?” Holt asked, popping his head in. He wore his usual square framed glasses and a Doctor Who tie. Mark had no clue who this Doctor guy was, but Holt was obsessed with him.

“Yeah, just.”

“You heading home?” Holt asked, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Yeah, I guess so. Mom has Ginny, so I might just go home and catch a basketball game, maybe order some pizza and drink a cold one.” Actually, that sounded pretty damn good. With everything going on in his head, it might be best to avoid company until he got his shit figured out. “What are you up to? Going home to Lydia and your daughter?”

“We’re going to dinner, actually, with a group of people at the sports bar downtown.” He hesitated. “Want to come along? The game will probably be on there, too, and they have beer.”