“Back a day and already causing a disturbance. I would have paid to watch her drop Mitch though.”
“Have to say it was something.” She would always disturb him, Cubby thought.
“She’s so different now,” Jake said. “Cool, like all the emotion that made up the girl we knew has been sucked out of her.”
“She’s still got it,” Cubby said, thinking of how she fired up at him for kissing her. It had been worth it though. She’d tasted sinfully sweet, and Cubby wanted more of that… more of her.And that is not going to happen.
“Yeah? You managed to break through that ice?” Jake looked interested.
“Some, but that’s between her and me.”
“You want to tell me what happened in LA, Cubby? Because I have this feeling I’m missing something here.”
“Nothing happened, and nothing will happen, as I told you earlier. Me and relationships are not a thing. She just needed someone to point her homeward and I was handy, but in getting her here I riled her up. We’ve called a truce now, so it’ll be all good.” Cubby kept his eyes on Jake as the man studied him.
“Okay, well if that changes any, you be sure to let me know.” Jake got to his feet.
“I’ll be sure to do that, Jake, because let’s be honest, you’re the first person I would run to if I got hot and heavy with your sister.” Cubby snorted.
“Hot and heavy. Jesus, Cub, you need to get out more, man.”
“Whatever; now get the fuck out of my office and go home to your women.”
“I’m all over that,” he said with a wide smile.
Minutes later, Cubby looked out his window and saw Jake and Katie walking up the street together. He didn’t know what it was about that woman, but she’d always got to him, and if anything, the new Katie got to him even more. She was dangerous to him, and he needed to remember that and keep his distance.
He took a call about a disturbance up at the old Pitcher place, so he grabbed Brady and they went out to investigate. He’d spend some time later at his computer to see what else he could dig up on the Alessi brothers.
Katie walkedinto her mom and dad’s house like she had a million times before. Memories bombarded her as she moved through the entranceway to the staircase. They’d redecorated. Cream paint and two large bright abstract prints on the walls, with dark charcoal carpet muting her footsteps as she climbed the stairs to the second floor. Her fingers trailed up the wooden railing she and Jake had slid down as children.
“Hey, sweetheart.”
Patrick McBride sat in his favorite chair doing his favorite thing, reading, as she entered the family room. He lowered his book and took off the glasses he needed for reading.
“Hey, Dad, Mom not home yet?”
“I sure am, just fixing us a juice; you want one?” Nancy McBride looked beautiful and elegant, as she always did, and Katie wondered if her mother had ever had an ugly day in her life. She certainly couldn’t remember one.
“I would, thanks.” Katie looked around the room. It was big and open, with a kitchen and dining room off it. Big windows showed the redwoods and the Munros’ house next door. Molly had been two years older than Katie, but they’d still played together growing up, because their brothers did.
“You want me to measure your height?”
Katie looked at the wall chart. It held her and Jake’s growth right through till the end of high school.
“Think my growing days are done, Dad.”
“Come and sit with me.” He motioned to the seat beside him.
She sat and wondered what to say now. For some reason she felt awkward and the harder she thought the more difficult it became to come up with a subject. It shouldn’t be like that, not with her parents.
“Had a hell of a day today, lost five dollars and couldn’t find it anywhere, but the really bad thing was it was Henrietta’s and that woman knows how much she’s worth down to her last cent.”
“Why does HRH get you to do her books when she knows how to do them?”
“Makes it easier when she’s putting in her tax return, because if there’s any trouble it’s me who goes to jail, not her.”
“Ha,” Katie said turning her chair to brace her feet on her father’s. “I’ll make sure they don’t send you down for too long.”
