Page 11 of Lockout

“It was sort of…a last minute thing,” I told her. Glancing over my shoulder, I caught Lock’s scowl. The man was always scowling at me. What was new? But this time there was actual guilt building inside of me. Being a thorn in his side was sort of fun, but not when it came to real stakes. And this was as real as it got. I didn’t want my family to get hurt because of me. For him to potentially get hurt…because of me.

He didn’t appreciate that I was trying to keep him safe. Probably had no notion that people trying to protect him was a possibility. He was their leader. He was the one who would step in front of danger for any one of the people under his care. But that meant he wasn’t used to people trying to do the same for him. And therefore wouldn’t allow them to. Stubborn man.

Lock swore and stepped out of the way as we were swarmed by the rest of the women and children. A yowl split the air and he swore louder as he stepped on a cat’s foot.

I blinked and frowned. It wasn’t just a cat. “Is that a bobcat?”

“Did I forget to tell you about Miss Murder?” Dani asked with a frown.

“Mur-” I shook my head, breaking off the word. “What?”

“We have so much to catch up on,” Billie said, finally unlocking her legs from my waist and climbing down. She grabbed my right hand. Seek grabbed my left. And they started hauling me over to the tables nearby.

I hugged everyone, then paused when I got to a blonde woman I didn’t know. “You must be Isla,” I said with a smile.

She grinned at me. “Yup. And that’s my kitty, Miss Murder Mittens.”

“Ah,” I said in understanding. “Murder. Got it.” I glanced over and laughed when I saw that Lock had my suitcase in one hand and was carrying the bobcat under his other arm. He was looking down at the feline and saying something to her I couldn’t hear.

“How long are you home for?” Kit asked, looking eager.

“Not long,” I said with a wince.

“Can you tell us about the investigation?” Jordan asked next. She’d barely waited for me to answer Kit’s question.

“Yeah, a bit. I actually have a lot to tell you all,” I admitted.

“Would you like some tea? Or maybe wine?” Sloane touched my arm, smiling gently at me. “You look like you could use a pick me up.”

Leave it to Sloane to find the kindest way of saying I looked like hell. “I’m okay,” I told her, patting her hand. She didn’t like to be touched in a lot of places, though hugs were okay, but the hand was okay for her. Otherwise I always tried to give her plenty of warning so she could move if she didn’t want to be touched. She’d had a rough life, and though she wasn’t constantly hiding her scars anymore, they still bothered her. She was starting to let go of all that around us, but nothing happened overnight.

“Before you get into all that,” Seek said with a grin. “Can I ask something?

“Sure,” I said, focusing on her. My eyes narrowed when her smile turned devious.

“Did Lockout give you that massive hickey?”

Gasping, I smacked my hand to my neck. I thought I’d put enough makeup on to hide it, but then again, we were all crowded close to one another, and there was only so much that concealer could hide. I’d snuck a peek in the mirror on the drive over and she was right. It was big.

Lock had sort of gone overboard there. But it’d felt too good to push him away.

“We’re not talking about that,” I said, pinning Seek with narrowed eyes for ratting me out.

Billie licked her thumb, leaned over and swiped it over the spot, removing some of the concealer I’d put on it. She laughed when I batted at her hand.

“Can we talk about the fact that you’re in love with the man?” Kit asked.

My jaw dropped as I looked around at their eager faces. “What?” I gasped.

“Oh please,” Dani said with a roll of her eyes. “I’m your sister. You think I didn’t notice you were drooling over him?”

“You think the rest of us didn’t either?” Gwen asked.

“You did a good job of trying to pretend, though,” Eva assured me.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Billie said, scowling at me. “You fell in love with a man and didn’t tell me?” She lifted her hands up as though to say, ‘what the hell?’

We are two seconds away from the dog sniffing my panties and making another accusation.

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