I sighed. “Mom, trust me when I say I have recently learned Pelican Bay is not that country.” After my jaunt to Northern Maine, I had a whole new understanding of rural.
“I don’t know what you want me to say, Cassandra. If you really are here to stay, I’d like to catch up. Learn more about what you’ve been doing the last few years, but you have to mean it. You should come to the house and have dinner one night.”
It felt like an olive branch and I grabbed onto it as hard as possible. “I would like that.”
“Are you still not eating meat?”
I laughed. “No, it was a short-lived stint at vegetarianism.” I made it about a month and a half before my friends invited me out for beer and burgers on the patio at one of our favorite breweries. That had been the end of my no-meat phase.
“Good, I’ll make up a roast beef and we can catch up more when you’re ready to talk.”
“Okay, just text and let me know when.”
My vacation ended soon, and I wasn’t sure what would happen when I called and asked for an extension of time off at my job, but I wasn’t willing to give up dinner with my mom. I didn’t know how we’d end up, but I wanted to try.
We chatted for a few more minutes and then my mother’s phone rang with an alarm she needed to leave for work. She’d held a job in Clearwater for over a year. There was so much about my family I didn’t know, but I resolved to fix it as soon as I figured out this thing with Riley if I planned to stay.
21
RILEY
My body hadn’t got enough sleep after a long night of work, so when my alarm rang, I shut it off and cuddled back in with Cassandra. She’d spent most the day before at the bakery and then hung around my house watching crime shows on TV. The days of her vacation were dwindling, and I needed to do a better job showing her how wonderful life in Pelican Bay could be if I didn’t want her to leave again. Which I didn’t.
I tucked my arm underneath hers and squeezed, letting my palm land on one of her breasts. Whiskers wrapped herself on the top of my head and when my movements became too much, she used her footpads to bat me in the nose.
Cassandra rolled over, so we were face to face. “It’s getting pretty hard to take you seriously when a cat is always sleeping on top of your head.”
I laughed, and that extra pissed off Whiskers. She stretched and then repositioned herself back into a better spot.
“What can I say? She’s attached.” And I couldn’t help but make the joke. “I have a way with pussy.”
I smiled but Cassandra groaned, and even though her lips tipped up, everything about her expression said it was the worst joke she’d ever heard. “What time did you get in last night?”
“Late,” I answered. Or early, depending on how you looked at the situation.
I’d spent the last day coordinating efforts for Ridge and the Kensington twins. They were on their way back to Pelican Bay, and from the stories Ridge told, the kidnappers put Cyrus through hell at the hands of Jerico. We were still unsure if Jerico had a connection to the Grand Master or acted as a rogue agent, but either way Ridge planned to guarantee someone paid.
In most families, the middle child is the peacekeeper, the one who avoids confrontation and wants everyone to be happy. It didn’t work out that way with my brothers. Ridge had a heavy moral compass and made sure he doled out punishments appropriately.
“You should have woken me,” Cassandra said, sounding groggy.
“Babe, I won’t wake you at four o’clock in the morning to tell you I’m home, so we can go back to sleep.” What kind of man did she consider me?
She crinkled her nose in the most adorable way. “But then I know you’re safe.”
I pushed a piece of her hair from her forehead and readjusted Whiskers’ tail to stop it from dropping in front of my left eye. “You were asleep. You didn’t know anyway, and you figured it out when you woke up right now.”
I’d win her over with logic.
“I worry,” she said, her lips turning into a flat line.
“You worry in your sleep?”
She lifted her head slightly higher on the pillow. I imagined if we were standing, she would’ve put a hand on her hip and popped it out. “Yes. I worry in my sleep.”
“Babe,” was my only response as I shook my head at her.
As much as I wanted to lie in bed with Cassandra and argue with her—because I’d win—I didn’t have time. I had to spend the next day or so getting a full recap from Ridge and testimony from Cyrus Kensington. We needed to meet with the team, figure out our next moves, and then come up with a plan to bring in Jerico.
