Page 114 of Protecting What's Mine
“Understood. And speaking hypothetical and all, I’d imagine she won’t have any more trouble from anyone,” Abner said cagily.
“Good,” Linc said.
Abner scratched at the back of his neck. “The doc seems like a nice lady.”
“She’s also terrifying. So if anyone is stupid enough to come after her, they’ll have to deal with me, and if they get through me, Mackenzie will put them down,” Linc said stonily.
“Message received.” Abner nodded.
Kelly sighed. “Okay. Pissing contest complete. Is that shit going to come off the paint?”
Abner turned his attention back to the SUV. “Looks like water-based. We’ll have it scrubbed down in no time.”
“You can wash it and wax it too,” Linc said.
“Yep.”
Ty finished up with the pictures and bagged up the discarded can of spray paint.
And while the garage employees tackled the spray paint, Linc stayed where he was, staring at his girlfriend’s defaced vehicle.
“Don’t even think about not telling her,” Kelly sang.
Linc growled and pulled out his phone.
36
Aweek passed and then another after the vandalism at the garage with no other trouble from the Kersh family. The fingerprints on the can had pointed at Jethro, who loudly and drunkenly denied any involvement and then took a swing at Deputy Tahir, who had happily put the man on his ass. Charges were pending.
Mack wasn’t worried.
Linc had gone overboard by changing all of her locks. He’d made noise about contacting the landlord to replace the rickety sliding glass door on her deck and installing a video surveillance system. Mack had put her foot down on both.
October was showing off this year with brilliant oranges, russet reds, and sunny yellows. The weather was cool and crisp. Mack had allowed Sophie, Gloria, and Harper to talk her into a half-day shopping excursion to stock up on warmer clothes.
She didn’tneedfour new sweaters, even if they were as soft as Sunshine’s fur. Or the dress that would look really good once she was out of that damn boot.
Her plan to keep Linc at a distance failed just about every night that he wasn’t working the B shift. When he was working nights, she kept Sunshine. She’d even brought the dog into the clinic a few times, where Sunshine worked her loving magic on sick or nervous patients.
Her ankle was healing nicely—who said doctors were terrible patients?—and the orthopedist was confident she’d be boot-free in November.
Fall was a season of change. Of new beginnings and ends of eras.
She wasn’t sure which one of those Lincoln Reed was. But both possibilities made her nervous. He’d taken her and Sunshine canoeing on the lake and for slow, meandering drives through the countryside to see the leaves. They bought apple cider at roadside stands and posed for pictures with a three-hundred-pound pumpkin.
She helped man the registration table at the fire department’s chili cookoff and went to the Moretta’s backyard renovation unveiling. Under autumn sunshine and falling leaves, they’d all enjoyed Gloria’s mother’s enchiladas. Mrs. Moretta was still seeing the football player who had yet to get a word in edgewise but didn’t seem to mind.
At work, Mack had had to send her first patient to an oncologist, another to a cardiologist, and physically shared their worry.
She’d stitched up a high school football player. And after a long conversation about self-respect, the right to say no at any time, and how a baby could derail college plans, she prescribed birth control pills to a very excited seventeen-year-old whose mother gave Mack a brave, watery smile in the waiting room.
She stayed busy, but the ratio of work-busy to personal-busy had shifted dramatically. She still wasn’t on rotation for air shifts and had three days a week to do whatever she felt like. She was cooking on occasion now. And working out in Linc’s gym several days a week. She missed running, but the weight training had its own benefits. Namely, watching shirtless, sweaty Linc manhandle huge weight plates.
Meditation was still…not easy. But she stuck it out. Especially after Ellen reported in on her twentieth swim with a beaming, soggy selfie.
Everything was going well. And that, too, made her itchy. Because things never stayed that way.
MACK’S INVITATIONto Benevolence Elementary’s First Responder Day was a pleasant surprise. To wow the kids, first responders competed for the most dramatic entry. The police went in with sirens and lights, sliding to stops in the parking lot below the field where the whole school gathered.
