She balled up her fingers into fists then shoved her way past both Cam and Hutch.
“Reggie, baby, wait,” Hutch called.
She ignored him and kept walking. She heard Cam call him back. Yeah, he’d see the wisdom in giving her space right now before she went postal. It was another way in which she and Sawyer were so much alike. Calm and centered they weren’t.
She flung open the door to the patio and stepped outside then slammed it shut behind her.
CHAPTER 27
Cam watched as Reggie thrust her hand into her hair, pulled it out then dug back in. Her other hand was balled tightly at her side, and she paced back and forth. He could see her lips moving as she muttered to herself.
Yeah, she was agitated.
He wanted to go out there and just hold her, tell her it would be all right, but hell, who was he kidding? He didn’t know if it would. That scared him shitless.
“What the fuck are we going to do, Cam?” Hutch asked.
Cam glanced sideways at him then turned away from the door that Reggie had stormed out of.
“Christ, I don’t know, Hutch. Give her some space?”
“We tried that. Didn’t work.”
“Pushing her won’t help. We know that.”
“I don’t want her to go back to that goddamn job,” Hutch said tersely.
Cam sighed and went over to the couch. No sign of Sawyer, but then he’d have to calm down before he reappeared. He’d looked to be close to bursting a blood vessel.
“I don’t want her to either, man. But that’s not our call. It can’t be.” He glanced up at Hutch, who’d walked around to flop into the recliner. “Just like we knew we’d never ask her to choose between us, we can’t ask her to now choose between us and her job.”
“What if she walks away again?”
There was a healthy dose of fear in Hutch’s voice. It was the same fear that was close to gutting Cam.
“We can’t make her stay with us,” Cam said quietly. “All we can do is show her how much we love her and try and convince her that it’ll work. We knew it wouldn’t be easy.”
Hutch threw his head back and stared at the ceiling. “I don’t get her wanting to be a cop. Sometimes I think . . . sometimes I think she did it just to get back at her old man, you know? And if that’s the case, it’s not where she needs to be. How happy could it make her?”
Cam leaned forward. “Are you happy with your life, Hutch? Are you happy with our business? Reggie aside, are you satisfied?”
Hutch rocked his head forward to look at Cam. “You know I am.”
“You can’t tell me you didn’t set out to make something of yourself to piss off all the people who thought we wouldn’t amount to shit. Reggie’s old man being one of them. Does that make you any less happy with the results because of the motivation behind your actions?”
Hutch screwed his face in annoyance. “Good grief, Cam, cut the analytical bullshit out. I swear you give me a headache with all your philosophizing.”
Cam chuckled. “You know I’m right. Regardless of why Reggie chose the profession she did, she’s happy. She’s tough. She can handle it. Do I like it? Hell no. In a perfect world, she wouldn’t work at all. She’d stay home. In our home. And we’d take care of her. But can you honestly ever see Reggie going for that? She’d make eunuchs of us all.”
Hutch’s face eased into a grin. “Yeah, I hear you.” His gaze skirted toward the door. “So what do we do?”
Cam followed his stare to see Reggie still pacing out on the patio. “We chill. Let her work this out herself. And we don’t issue ultimatums or even make it look like we’re handing her one.”
“But she’s pissed.”
“Yeah, so? How many times have we pissed her off over the years?”
“Yeah, but a lot more is at stake this time,” Hutch said.
