Page 78 of Strike Fast

“Good. Then I’ll see you soon.” With one last kiss so full of promise it made her ache, he shot her a loaded smile and jogged away to rejoin his family.

Chapter Twenty-One

“Breaking news out of Virginia this evening.”

Abby McKinley looked up from her plate as the breaking news banner appeared on her TV screen. “The amber alert issued for nine-year-old Autumn Prentiss is now over.”

She stopped chewing her mouthful of lasagna.Oh, God…She’d been following the story since it broke days ago. The entire state was out looking for the little girl, but there’d been no sightings since she’d been abducted from the strip mall parking lot.

“The nine-year-old girl is now home safe with her family after a brazen daytime raid conducted by the FBI this afternoon at a private residence on Chesapeake Bay.”

Fantastic. Abby raised her glass of wine to the screen in salute. “Here’s to you, little one.” And fuck whoever had taken her in the first place. Abby considered herself to be fairly liberal when it came to politics, except in cases of terrorism, and crimes involving kids or animals. Then she was as right wing as they came.

She finished off her dinner and sipped at her wine while the newscast wound down. It had been a long week of business meetings for the pharmaceutical company she worked for as a rep. Normally she met up with some girlfriends on Friday night, but since most of them were now in relationships, it wasn’t the same hanging out with them. She was an uncomfortable fifth wheel clunking along.

She eyed the pan of homemade lasagna sitting on the kitchen counter, tempted to eat another piece. Or three. Then she berated herself.

Turning to food for comfort had been her M.O. since she was a teenager. It never loved her back, and the weight she’d put on had plunged her self-esteem to an all-time low. Since breaking up with Garret last year she’d worked her ass off—literally—to dump most of the weight.

Thank God, she had the equivalent of a human garbage disposal living across the hall who seemed to adore her cooking. She could always count on Kai to eat up whatever she needed to get rid of, and he was a nice guy, so it was no hardship to visit with him.

Yeah, and his amazing body and smile have absolutely nothing to do with it, right?

“Shut up, conscience,” she muttered under her breath, and carried her dishes to the kitchen.

After packing him up a few containers of leftovers to pop into his freezer, she headed across the hall to his place. He’d been gone longer than expected this time and had texted her that he might not get home tonight, so she’d drop the food off and feed Goliath for him.

His freezer was in sad shape, almost empty, so she put all but one helping of the lasagna in it and set the last one in the fridge along with some salad and garlic bread, and jotted down a quick note for him. She fed Goliath, bending down to meet his fishy stare, his little gills flapping in and out.

“Your dad’s coming home tonight, buddy,” she told him. They had an understanding, her and Goliath. She fed him and cleaned his tank while Kai was away, and Goliath wasn’t allowed to go belly up on her watch.

A key scraped in the lock.

She turned toward the door with a welcoming smile, expecting to see Kai, but it died on her lips when Shelley walked in.

The dark-haired woman froze and stared at Abby for a moment, the hostility clear in her eyes. “What are you doing here?”

“Just feeding Goliath.”

“Why, where’s Kai?”

Abby didn’t see why it was any of Shelley’s business if Kai hadn’t told her. “He’s away on business.”

Shelley snorted. “Of course he is.” Her gaze landed on the note Abby had stuck to the fridge. Those hard blue eyes flashed back to her. “You brought him food again?”

Abby shrugged. “Yeah.”

Shelley crossed her arms, her mouth pursing. “What else do you do for him?”

Okay, she really didn’t like that tone. “Sorry?”

“Are you fucking him?”

Abby’s eyes widened. “What?”

“Because he’s mine,” the other woman snarled, stabbing a perfectly manicured pink fingernail into her chest for emphasis. “Mine, you understand?”

Abby generally had a long fuse, but she was sick and tired of this woman’s bullshit, and they’d only met a handful of times. And if Shelley was any kind of freaking girlfriend, she should be the one coming to grab Kai’s mail and feed Goliath for him instead of her.

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