Page 154 of Hot Cops

He knew that, but he suspected she’d prefer thinking he was just concerned for her safety rather than the fact he was so jealous he couldn’t see straight, so he let the lie stand. “Are you finished for the day?”

She shrugged. “I’m finished as far as working with Mr. January is concerned. Now I’m heading back to my studio to download the photos, find the best and tweak it.”

“Have time for lunch?”

She hesitated, but didn’t instantly refuse. Blake took that as a sign of progress. Before she could answer one way or the other, he pointed down Bourbon Street. “What do you say we grab some crawfish beignets at Bayou Burger?”

Chloe crinkled her nose. “Please tell me you don’t still eat those.”

Blake wrapped his arm around her shoulder, gently directing her toward the restaurant. Chloe fell into step easily beside him.

“Gotta say, Chloe, I’m sorry to hear you’re still a finicky eater.”

She scoffed. “The fact that I don’t cover every meal in hot sauce does not mean I’m picky. Quite the opposite, actually. It means I prefer to taste my food. You should try it some time.”

He laughed, the two of them trading barbs about their eating habits all the way to Bayou Burger. It wasn’t until they were seated and their drinks ordered that Blake could lean back and relax without worrying she’d change her mind and run.

“It was good to see your family again on Sunday, but I’m not sure who Zac is.”

Chloe took a sip from her water glass. “He’s my foster brother. You wouldn’t have met him. He came to live with us the summer after you…” She paused.

There was no point pretending. “After I left,” he finished for her.

She nodded. “He and his younger brother, Noah, were removed from their home when their mother was arrested for prostitution and drugs. Zac was fifteen and Noah was only twelve. Before they came to stay with us, they’d been living in a house with no running water and eating whatever they could steal from dumpsters behind restaurants.”

The story sounded familiar. Blake had done a bit of fine garbage dining himself when he was younger, but Chloe didn’t know that. He’d never told her anything about his childhood because at the time, Blake had worried she would either dump him or worse, pity him. There were times he wished he could go back and kick his nineteen-year-old self’s ass for being such a prideful idiot.

Listening to her tell Zac’s story, he didn’t hear sympathy as much as anger toward the boys’ mother.

“How long did they stay with you?”

Chloe sighed. “Two years the first time. Then the court—in its less-than-infinite wisdom—gave them back to their mother. Their lives returned to more of the same, only worse. Their mother kept smoking crack and sleeping with men for drug money. One of the guys—a customer—beat Zac up one night. It was really bad. Noah was scared so he ran to a neighbor’s house and called my mom. She phoned the police, then all three of my brothers. They got to the house just before the cops and found Zac in a bloody heap on the floor.”

“Jesus.” Blake couldn’t imagine how hard it would have been for those young boys to spend two years in the loving, safe Lewis home, only to have to give that up to return to the slum. Then he recalled the few times he’d found security in his young life. Every single time, he’d willingly given it up and gone back to the hell that was life with his dad.

“Mama said she’d never been so scared in her life. She thought Zac was dead. Anyway, Caliph stayed with Zac, while Jett and Justin helped Mama and Noah pack up all their belongings.”

“What about Zac and Noah’s mother?”

“She’d been passed out in her bedroom. Didn’t even realize anything had happened to Zac. She came out in the hall and started screaming at my mother because she thought she was stealing her sons. She told them to get out, to leave her boys alone. Justin said Mama looked that woman straight in the eye and told her she should be ashamed of herself.”

Blake fiddled with his fork, chuckling. “Did it work?”

Chloe grinned. “What do you think? Mama’s good at guilt trips. It’s pretty much the way I was raised. She only had to look at me with thatI’m so disappointedface and I’d crumble like a house of cards.”

Blake laughed. “I remember that. She used that look on me a couple times. It’s powerful.”

“Justin said the lectures we’d gotten as kids were small potatoes compared to the speech she gave Zac and Noah’s mom. He said he was nearly in tears and begging for forgiveness himself and he hadn’t done anything wrong. Their mom fell apart when she saw Zac lying on the floor and she asked my mother to take her boys, to give them a chance to grow up safe and healthy. They’ve been ours ever since.”

“What happened to their mom? Did she straighten her act out?”

Chloe shook her head sadly. “She’s still alive. I know Zac goes to see her every now and then, takes her some food and medicine, but no. There wasn’t a happy ending. She’s still addicted. You know how that goes.”

Blake knew only too well. “Yeah, I do.”

“Did you really arrest your dad?”

He nodded. He’d been expecting the question ever since he stupidly made that comment at Sunday dinner. “I did.”

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