“Bennie. Remy’s. I know what Sunny’s boys like, but ...” He puts his hands on his hips and his handsome face fills with a rare casting of self-consciousness. “I want everyone happy.”
I’m incredibly frustrated that nobody is focused on what I want them to be focused on, but Nash wanting to impress Bennie is so damn sweet and unexpectedly sexy. I set the paper down and circle the counter to where he’s standing, filling my fists with his ridiculous shirt and pulling him to me.
“She’s going to love you,” I tell him. “Whether you make shrimp, or spaghetti, or a peanut butter sandwich.”
“She likes peanut butter?”
“Yes, Nash.” I peck a kiss on his lips. “Her and every kid who has ever tasted it.”
He rubs his tongue along his teeth before a slow breath leaks out of him, doing a double take at my smile. “You think I’m being crazy?”
“I think you’re being crazyandsexy.”
“Just the combination you were begging for last night.”
He’s not wrong.
After the emotions from Jonathan’s bomb then the effects of all the liquor, by the time we got home, we were insatiable. The way he bent, bit, and broke my body was perverse perfection, even as he reminded me how mad he was at me. Just him mentioning it makes me want a redo.
He smirks, reading my mind. “Glad I’m consistent.”
He kisses me again, this time deep enough Cap grunts. “Still sittin’ here.”
We pull apart with a slight laugh.
From the other side of the counter, I say, “All I’m saying is you two need to relax. Bennie will love you—” I look at Cap. “Both of you. And Mom is Mom. For some reason she wantedme here with both of you. I’m blaming the tumor.” I look at them sideways. “But you have nothing to worry about.”
They disregard my confidence and resume their chatter about party plans. I refocus on the documents. Getting nowhere with Anson’s letter, I exchange it for correspondence notes between bankers and officials, then another newspaper article.
“Hey,” I say, reading and rereading, nobody listening as they drone on about finding someone with cornhole. “Hey!”
They look at me like they forgot I was there.
“You see this article? The one from right after the robbery?”
Cap grunts. “What about it?”
“There was a reward. This one says they were offering five thousand dollars and ten percent.”
“And?” Cap asks.
“And—” I scoff. “Could be a big deal. One of the reasons you said the gold was a lost cause was because the federal government would seize it all. Depending on who issued the reward and if there was an expiration date—” I tap the article. “It might be honored. I’ve seen it at the store. Someone brought in a painting that was stolen over fifty years ago and got thousands for it.” I shrug. “Depending how much Anson got away with, that could still be millions of dollars even if the government takes the rest.”
“Never knew that,” says Nash in a tone that makes me wonder if he heard a single word I said.
I know Cap is listening because a small smile tugs at his whisker-hidden lips. “Me neither, kiddo.”
Forty-One
Cap
Well I’ll be damned.
Forty-Two
It’s hard not to laugh as Nash, for the dozenth time, checks the firmness of the inner tubes. While I’m terrified Bennie will never forgive me when she finds out I’ve lied to her, he’s so nervous to meet her it’s comical. Like she’s Godzilla and not a seven-year-old girl. I threw on a simple dress over my bathing suit, but Nash changed shirts a dozen times, settling on the one he started with covered in slices of pizza.
Next to me, Cap—shaved and wearing the nicest shirt I’ve seen him in—grunts a laugh. “He’s more wound up than you.”
