Chapter 6
TELL THEM TO WORK FASTER
Mo
He’d thought he’d wanted her back in the way he could have her, that was chattering at him and being comfortable in his presence.
Another mistake.
He had her back, but she wasn’t back, as such.
Any man would read it the way Mo was reading it.
She was his.
He knew this partly because the floodgates had reopened on the gabbing, but apparently, it’d been a rainy season because she seemed incapable of shutting up.
He now knew about all the girls at Smithie’s, who was putting themselves through school, who baked the best cookies, who knew the best zit-covering strategy, and who they were fucking, one doing a bouncer.
He further knew that Smithie would find out about the bouncer, because he always found out, and fraternization between employees was prohibited.
He also knew Smithie would go apeshit, but in the end not do anything but be loud and threatening while going apeshit, which was why the strippers routinely slept with the bouncers regardless that it was against employee policy.
And he knew Lottie’s mom and Tex were always on her ass about adopting a coupla cats.
Further from that, he knew she was considering it, she just was building herself up to go to the shelters because when she did, if she hadn’t established impulse control, she wouldn’t adopt a couple of cats, she’d adopt fifty (this, by the way, he did not find a surprise).
And he knew her neighbors were being dickheads not because they had an outdoor TV, but because they played it loud and they did this a lot.
Mo had no idea what this all had to do with grocery shopping, the subject around which he’d like any conversation to remain, except they weren’t grocery shopping, him as bodyguard with his boss’s client.
They were grocery shopping as a man and a woman living together and he knew this because when they did talk about shopping, it was when she made him go all the way back through the aisles they’d already been through, forcing him to tell her what shit he wanted in the house.
Making matters worse, personal space was now just gone.
Vaporized.
She didn’t hold his hand or press up against him and give his neck a kiss or anything like that.
But she stayed close, bumped him with a hip if she was being funny or feeling saucy (something that happened often), grabbed onto his biceps to get his attention or hooked a beltloop and tugged to change his direction.
All this meant Mo was in agony.
And that agony wasn’t just about all of that.
Lottie had thrown right down with Tammy, no hesitation, and this was before she knew who Tammy was and what she’d done.
There was no way to deny it.
That felt good.
But it was even worse.
It was clear Lottie had claimed her man.
The end.
And he was that man.
Mo couldn’t think on this, mostly how it made him feel.
All of it.
Fortunately, she was talking so much, his mind didn’t have the opportunity to go there.
The FBI had come back with a negatory on the language, or any religious radicals in the area they were keeping an eye on that fit this guy’s description.
This meant they had zero leads on whoever this man was who wanted to harm her, and they’d all made the decision that the second letter, received yesterday, Lottie would not know about because she was already alert and not doing anything stupid.
But mostly they agreed on that because the degree of disturbing in the latest letter had ratcheted up about fifteen notches.
Smithie had called the ball on that one, not telling Lottie about it and not taking it to the police, or the FBI. The last two would, after the second letter, want very badly to get involved.
This was because Smithie wanted the threat eradicated, no dicking around, and although Mo agreed with Smithie (to a point), Hawk did not.
The guy was gearing up to make a move, building his confidence, getting his shit tight, getting off on the increasing extreme of his letters and the fact he hadn’t been caught yet to take him to the place where he could act out his twisted fantasies.
They all knew it.
Smithie wanted it handled.
Hawk wanted this guy on FBI radar.
Mo just wanted Lottie safe.
But Lottie didn’t need to know all of this was going on.
And Mo did not need Lottie being even more of all that was good about Lottie when this guy was on the loose, fixed on her, and working himself up, her being more of all she was only serving the purpose of making Mo want her more.
But for the life of him, he could no longer handle the anger and hurt that had poured his way from her the last three days.
So when Tammy opened it up, and Lottie rushed right through, Mo seized on it and he did not have it in him to shut it down, being a dickhead about it, or otherwise.
It would probably bite him in the ass.
Hell, it already was biting him in the ass.
But she seemed happy, so he’d find some way to deal with it.
On her street, a few houses down from hers, he saw it before she saw it.
And when he saw it, he knew things were going to get even worse.
Terrific.
“Ohmigod!” she cried, cutting herself off from talking about some peacock outfit she was thinking about stripping in, somehow getting this idea from Tammy’s new man.
He knew then that she saw it too.
“You get to meet my nephews!” she exclaimed.
Yeah.
All three.
They were running around on her sloped front lawn, looking like they were playing tag, while a blonde woman who had to be her sister lounged on the front steps.
Eddie Chavez’s woman and boys, and as Mo brought them closer, he saw he could call that without even knowing Lottie’s sister was married to Chavez.
His boys were stamped all over with him. Put one in a kid lineup, Mo would have called Eddie, or his brother Hector, no sweat.
Seeing as they wanted whoever was after Lottie to know she had protection, Mo didn’t park in the garage at the back in case the guy was watching. He parked in the front.
Something he did right then.
And Lottie was practically clawing at the door before he even came to a complete halt.
He threw his truck in park just as she hit the locks.
Then she was flying out.
And his day got worse even though many men would describe it as exponentially better.
This was because she dashed up the slope and was immediately hit with one boy, the tallest, so probably oldest, then two, and finally the third, the youngest, toddled over and jumped on.
Lottie started going down with the first hit. It was a feint. The kid was maybe seven or eight and not small, but she could have stayed standing.
But not if she wanted him to think he could best her.
Something she obviously did.
Slowly, forcing himself to take in the surrounding area as he did it, Mo got out, rounded the hood, noted the sister, Jet, was up, had moved a bit forward, had hands on hips, but she wasn’t watching her boys wrestle with their aunt on their aunt’s front lawn.
She was focused on Mo.
He could see Eddie going there. She was pretty, not as pretty as her sister, but pretty. Curvy. Way more curvy than Lottie. Dressed in jeans, flip flops and a tight, long-sleeved T-shirt that showed no cleavage but still didn’t leave much to the imagination.
Mo would lay money on the fact that Chavez both loved and hated that T-shirt.
Loved it when she wore it for him.
Hated it when she wore it in public.
This unlike Lottie, who was in another skintight tank, this one neon pink, and faded jeans (but Lottie also was wearing flip flops).
Well, not now. Both of them had come off in the free-for-all.
He’d ascended the slope just as the oldest one got her to her back, straddled her, shoving her down at her shoulders while the middle one (maybe five or six years old) threw himself on her legs and the littlest one (maybe three or four) was engaged in the concerted effort of trying to tickle her sides, something that was thwarted by his big brother’s legs.
“I got you!” the oldest one shouted in triumph.
“Give! I give!” Lottie yelled through giggles.
Well, shit.
Just shit.
He knew it before.
He knew it right then for certain.
He was fucked.
Because he could totally fall in love with this woman.
Yeah.
Shit.
“Let your aunt up, boys.”
Yup.
Eddie’s kids.
Mom spoke and all the boys immediately moved. He had a feeling “Wait until your father hears this” was immediately followed with the urge to piss their pants.
It was then, when they were forming a loose row, oldest to youngest, the oldest caught sight of Mo.
So that was when he whispered, “Holy smokes.”
Number two turned his head to check out what had his brother frozen in wonder and he caught sight of Mo.
His response was, “ Dios mio .”
“Dante! Mouth!” Jet snapped.
“Holy smokes,” Dante decided to repeat after his brother.
“ Hey! Are you Annie Lottie’s boyfrien’? ” the youngest screeched at him.
Jet’s eyes cut to Mo.
“Whoa,” Dante said.
“Cool!” the oldest called out. “Auntie Lottie’s dating a badass!”
“Alex!” Jet spat. “ Mouth! ”
Alex was too overwhelmed with Mo to mind his mother.
This was why he stated, “Dude, you’re yooooooouge .”
“Do we speak that way to people?” Jet demanded to know.
Alex twisted toward his mother. “But, Mamá , he’s yooooooouge .”
“I don’t care. You don’t tell a man he’s large. He knows he’s large,” Jet educated. “And you definitely don’t tell your aunt’s boyfriend he’s large. It’s rude all around. It’s ruder in the family.”
In the family.
Oh yeah.
Shit .
Mo looked to Lottie who had not only taken her feet but regained her flip flops.
She was smiling, big and white at him.
He felt that smile in his gut, his balls and his chest.
Yeah, he’d been claimed.
How the fuck had he let that happen?
Thankfully, she turned her smile from him and declared to the boys, “We were just at the grocery store. Who wants to help us carry in and put away?”
“Me!” Dante yelled, then raced to the truck.
“Me!” the youngest shouted, then followed his brother a lot less agilely.
“Is it all healthy junk?” Alex asked his aunt.
“Who am I?” Lottie answered.