Charlotte shot to the kitchen door, barring the entrance. “Clean up in your bathroom, please.”
Lucky spun and traipsed down the hall. How strange. Maybe she wanted dinner to be a surprise.
The surprise waited in his room. Bo stood in the bathroom door, a towel around his waist and hair wet from the shower. He stopped mid-motion of drying his hair on another towel. “She made you clean up too?”
“What’s up with that?”
Bo shrugged. “Hey, she’s your sister.”
Yeah, she was. Every redneck ounce of her.
Hmmm… She sent him and Bo in here. Why not take advantage? Lucky grasped the edge of the towel, ready to unwrap a present.
Bo stopped Lucky with a hand to the wrist. “Get distracted and piss your sister off? Oh, hell no. She’s already pulled a gun on me once, remember?”
“She was defending me when you came snooping around after I died.” Courtesy of Walter Smith, no less.
“Still, a man never forgets a woman aiming a gun at him.”
True that. Only in Bo’s case, the woman in question didn’t actually shoot. Lucky one-upped him in the woman with a gun situation, who’d winged Lucky while high on a synthetic drug called Corruption.
The case from hell.
“C’mon. Clean up and get ready for dinner.” Bo nudged Lucky toward their spacious bathroom, still steamy from Bo’s shower.
“Wait for me?” Lucky asked.
“Okay.”
Lucky grinned. “Wanna watch?”
Bo crossed his arms over his chest. “I am not risking Charlotte’s temper. The woman’s got a gun, remember?”
“Scared?”
“Sensible.”
Smart man. “I’ll only be a few minutes.” Lucky took a quick shower, pulled on a pair of clean jeans and a T-shirt, and tennis shoes, flashing Bo a few peeks of ass in the process.
Bo swatted one cheek. “I know what you’re doing. Stop tempting me.”
“Spoilsport.”
“Lead on.” Bo indicated the door with a flourish of his hand.
Lucky opened the door. Was that whispering he heard? Then, all quiet. Too quiet. The house wasn’t this quiet in the dead of night with everyone asleep but Lucky.
Keeping himself in front of Bo, he eased down the hall into an empty living room. Lovely food smells from the kitchen teased his nose. Warm tomato sauce probably meant pizza or spaghetti. But wait? Was that a hint of… steak?
“Stop salivating and move,” Bo ordered, pushing his hands against Lucky’s back. “I’m hungry too.”
Senses on high alert, Lucky trod a few more paces and stopped in the living room.
“Surprise!”
Lucky clutched at his heart. A flurry of bodies came from everywhere: Lisa and Rett from behind the couch, Charlotte and Ty from opposite sides of the sliding glass doors, hidden by drapes. He’d totally missed Mrs. Smith sitting on the couch, her head barely peeking up over the backrest. The kitchen door opened and Walter stepped out.
More people flooded into the room behind Walter, some Lucky knew well, like his former landlady, Mrs. Griggs—cat free at the moment—and others he’d seen around the department. Salters the trainee made his presence more palatable by the huge cake he carried in and deposited on the coffee table.
