Page 43 of Toxic

“I’d love to meet your boys sometime, too,” I told Seek.

Isla came downstairs holding her pet in her arms and I gasped when I saw her. “She’ssobeautiful.” I stood and went over. Giving her space, I just admired the feline.

“This is Miss Murder Mittens,” Isla said, obviously very proud of her cat.

“I love her.” Very slowly, I reached out and rubbed the spot between her ears when she didn’t show any sign of objecting to me touching her.

“We mostly just call her Murder,” Jordan said with a laugh.

Isla let Murder down to roam around while we sat back down. Before long the bobcat jumped into my lap, eyed me up and down, then settled down to take a nap. I looked over at Isla with elation even as my mouth dropped open.

“Huh. She likes you,” Isla said, studying me.

“That’s not fair,” Eva said with a laugh. “She barely even lets me pet her.” She held her hands out and flexed her fingers as though she wanted to maul the animal with love.

“And that’s why,” Gwen replied with a laugh.

Everyone laughed again.

“Okay,” Jenny said, looking around. “It’s taken weeks to even get this many of us together.”

“Not acceptable, by the way,” Kit added, giving them all pointed looks.

“Agreed,” Dani said. “We all live here, we need to be getting together more often.”

“Since I have you,” Jenny said after everyone agreed with Kit and Dani, “I have some news.”

Silence dropped over the group so fast I wondered if something was wrong. I pet Murder’s fluffy back and waited, breath held as Jenny paused for dramatic effect.

“We already told the girls last night. Honestly I’m shocked they didn’t blurt it out immediately.”

“Girl,” Seek said in warning, “if you don’t tell us your news, I’m going to lose my mind.”

Grinning, Jenny looked around at all of us. “Besides the girls, I wanted to tell all of you first.” She took a deep breath and gave news that had all the women squealing, laughing, crying, and all around losing it.

CHAPTER 16

Toxic

Lock folded his arms over his chest, studying all of us as we took our seats for church. “Are you actually sober?”

Chuckling, I shrugged. “Can’t work with heavy machinery and be wasted. Not if you want to keep all your body parts intact. I’m partial to mine.”

“Fucker’s a cheerful son of a bitch when he’s not drunk,” Butcher muttered.

“I don’t know,” Riptide replied. “He’s pretty cheerful as a drunk, too. Overly friendly.”

“That’s because he mistakes you for a woman with the long hair,” Hush joked.

Rip flipped him off, but laughed right along with the rest of us.

Lock waited until we settled then pinned me with a look. “How’s it going out there?”

“No problems,” I replied. “Lots of shit needs fixing up, but no one has come sniffing around. Yet.”

“It’s like a never ending honey-do list,” Butcher complained. “I married an assassin so that I wouldn’t have to do normal people shit.”

“You haven’t married her yet,” Ricochet reminded him.

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