Page 69 of The Woman By the Lake

He didn’t wait to watch Harry, Rus and Bohannan finish bolting from their chairs.

He was hoofing it to his truck.

“On my way,” he told her.

“Thanks, Riggs,” she whispered, still sounding freaked.

“Be there soon, honey.”

“Okay.”

He disengaged, angled into his truck, and hauled ass to his house.

FIFTEEN

Desi and Lucy

Riggs

This time, it was Riggs skidding to a halt in the gravel of his drive next to Nadia’s green Range Rover.

And he felt two things as he knifed out of his truck, his eyes glued to her as she jumped from her SUV still in an obvious panic.

The first was a weight crush his chest.

The second was his head fixing to explode.

He rounded the hood of his truck with long strides but only got halfway across before she crashed into him.

She threw her arms around him and held tight.

He wrapped his around her but used one hand to stroke her hair while he murmured, “It’s okay, honey. You’re all right.”

She tipped her head back, her face pale under her honey tan. “Aromacobana’ s coffee is really good, and I treated myself to a salted caramel cookie, and it was delicious.”

“Good to hear, though I know that already. Just not real sure why you’re sharing it with me right now,” he noted cautiously.

She pulled from his arms, fisted a hand and smacked it into her other palm before she shouted, “Because I like it here at the same time someone is fucking with me!”

He wasn’t sure he’d ever heard her say any form of the word fuck.

Yeah, his head felt ready to explode.

“I was with Harry when you phoned,” he told her. “He hit me up on the way here and told me they were en route to the cabin. He’s gonna call when they know it’s clear, and we’ll head over there together.”

“You were with the sheriff when I called?”

“I was giving him a heads up about someone fucking with you.” Since he’d learned from the last time about keeping shit from her, he continued when he didn’t want to. “And I was asking about the Whitaker brothers.”

He was instantly glad he shared since her expression lost some of its fright and her eyes lit with interest.

“You talked to him about that?”

“Yup.”

“What’d he say?”

“First, you wanna come inside and have a shot of tequila then tell me what you saw when you got to your place?” he offered.

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