Page 88 of Bad Seed

“Just put it on the end of the table. I’ll deal with the rest.”

Keith pushed the cart into the room as Brendan watched from the foyer, then let him out and locked them back in.

Harley was standing when he turned around.

“Wash up first?” he asked.

“Read my mind,” Harley said, and slipped her hand beneath his arm to steady herself as they went.

A few minutes later, she’d taken her meds and was dunking fries in ketchup, with an eye on her piece of chocolate meringue pie.

“Is that a BLT?” she asked as he took his first bite.

He nodded. “Want some? I’ll share.” Before she could answer, he put the other half of his sandwich on her plate and kissed her cheek. “What’s mine is yours.”

She blinked away tears, managed a sheepish smile before biting into it, then gave him a thumbs-up.

They were getting close to pie time when Harley’s cell phone rang. She glanced at caller ID and groaned. “Mom, again.”

Brendan frowned. “Answer it, and don’t think about anything but the sound of her voice. One day she’ll be gone, and you’ll wish for it.”

Harley blinked. “Oh my God, mister. You sure know how to get to the heart of a matter,” she said, but she picked up the phone. “Hello?”

“Finally!” Judith said. “I thought you’d dropped off the face of the earth.”

“No, Mom, I didn’t go quite that far, but I came close. I can’t talk to you right now because you always make me angry cry, and crying will make my freaking head hurt worse than it already does, so will you please talk to my Brendan instead?”

Judith gasped. “What aren’t you saying? Why does your head hurt? And why have I not heard about this Brendan person?”

“I know you’ve already talked to Dad. And if he told you enough of the truth, you’d know Brendan is helping me with this case, and we fell in love. What Dad doesn’t know is that two days ago, a hit man tried to kill me in my hotel room. His shot only grazed my head. I, on the other hand, did not miss. And now you can get details from Brendan because I passed out after that and don’t remember shit.”

Judith was shrieking in Harley’s ear as she handed him the phone. “Darling man of my heart, meet my mother.”

And once again, Brendan got an earful of what talking to her parents was like. “Mrs. Banks… Mrs. Banks, excuse me, but if you’d care for further details about Harley’s welfare, you’re going to have to stop screaming in my ear.”

A deep, sexy voice with a slight hint of sarcasm was not what she expected to hear. Her silence gave Brendan permission to continue.

“Much better. Thank you. My name is Brendan Pope. I was asked to look out for her by the man whohired Harley for this job, and may I say, you have raised a most remarkable woman. Yes, she’s beautiful, but she’s also the smartest, most persistent female I’ve had the pleasure to meet, and skillful at her job. The hit-man issue turned out to be residue from the job just prior to this. It’s being dealt with. We had been warned the possibility was real, so when it did happen, Harley was prepared. They shot at each other at the same time. His shot grazed the side of her head, which resulted in a concussion and a great deal of pain from both injuries. He’s dead. She’s not. Okay?”

He could hear Judith crying softly. “Don’t cry. You’ve already heard her voice. You heard the sass, and she’s eating her fries and half of my lunch as we speak, so she’s doing great. There isn’t a lot more we can talk about, because that case is still open and it would be in Harley’s best interests if the world did not know she’s still alive and the hit man is dead, so just don’t talk about it right now, okay?”

“Yes, yes, of course, but can I ask you something now?” Judith said.

“You can ask me anything.”

“She called you ‘my Brendan.’”

“And I call her ‘Sunshine’ because she lights up my life. Yes, she loves me, and I love her. So much.”

“You have family?”

He grinned, then winked at Harley, who was licking mayo off her thumb.

“Ah…we’re gonna do this now, are we? Okay, yes, Ihave family…upward of two hundred or more aunties and uncles and cousins and three brothers, one little half-sister, and three sisters-in-law, and one mother. I’m the sixth generation of the man who settled this place. You can’t throw a rock here without hitting a relative. Two of my brothers, Aaron and Wiley, are police officers. Sean is a tech wizard, and my brother Wiley is the legal guardian of our seven-year-old half-sister. As for me, I’m the head pastry chef at a hotel. I trained in New York City and studied some in Europe and was so homesick for the mountains that I came back here to work. That was a little more than three years ago. So that’s the ancestry of the man who’s going to be your son-in-law.”

Silence.

“Are we cool now, Mrs. Banks?” he asked.

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