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At the bus stop, he gently set Lia down so she was standing on the bench.
“Thanks for walking with us, Mr. Olson,” Kaylie said. “The bus will be here in about ten minutes, so we won’t keep you. I’m sure you have things to do.”
“I don’t mind,” he said, disappointed that she still wasn’t calling him Anthony. “I’ll wait with you.”
“Really, we’re fine. You should go,” she insisted. “Lia, say good-bye to Mr. Olson.”
Well, that was a pretty effective dismissal, wasn’t it. He couldn’t exactly undermine Kaylie’s parenting authority by not leaving.
“Bye-bye, Mr. Anthony!”
At least one of the Richards girls would say his name. He leaned down and let Lia give him a sweet hug.
With one lingering glance at Kaylie, he turned around and walked back toward the house. It was a short walk and though he did, in fact, have things to do, instead, he climbed in his SUV and drove back to the bus stop. He parked half a block away, then watched them climb onto the city bus.
Then he followed it into traffic. They got off about twenty minutes later and he frowned. No wonder she didn’t want to walk home after dark. At least the late-afternoon sun was still high in the sky.
He parked again, watching Kaylie and Lia as they strolled down the block hand-in-hand. When they turned the corner, he pulled to the end of the block, staying just out of sight until they turned into the yard of a small house.
Then, he drove past the house and turned the SUV back toward the highway, knowing the girls were home safe.
CHAPTER
SEVEN
After the incident with the washing machine, her interactions with Anthony were uneventful. Mostly notes she left, though he had taken to texting her for updates on what dinner was waiting for him at home. The way he got excited about the simple meals she prepared for him really did wonders for her ego.
Her other clients were just housecleaning jobs, weekly or biweekly, and she wasn’t nearly as friendly with them. Not that she was friendly with Mr. Olson, despite the temptation to add smiley faces to all of her text messages to him. Or the completely disarming way he’d managed her daughter’s temper tantrum close call and walked them to the bus stop with Lia on his shoulders.
Anthony Olson was a puzzle she couldn’t help but want to solve. He was a man of few words and somehow appeared perpetually angry. Lia softened his hard edges, and Kaylie couldn’t help but love how tenderly he treated her daughter. He’d held her tiny fingers in his giant ones, the same fingers that he’d pressed to her lips. A moment that she’d admittedly relived a hundred times since then.
“I’ll handle it,” he had insisted. Kaylie was as independent as the next girl, but there was a little feminine wisp buried inside her that positively cheered at the way he’d taken control, taking that little burden from her.
She would never let a man dominate or intimidate her again, not after Paul’s controlling nature. But Anthony gently insisting she let him do the laundry? Oh yeah, such a hardship.
Kaylie fumbled with the remote, attempting to navigate the channels to find a cartoon for Lia. Mr. and Mrs. Martin didn’t have streaming services, and the house was so full of antiques that she was terrified Lia was going to break something valuable if left without something to watch.
The anchor's voice droned on in the background, reporting the usual mix of local events and global headlines, but Kaylie was preoccupied with the task at hand.
As she toggled through the menu, trying to locate the familiar animated characters that would keep Lia's attention, the anchor's voice became more urgent, breaking into Kaylie's concentration.
"A high-ranking member of the notorious Moreno crime family has been apprehended in Baltimore. Dominic Santoro, also known as 'The Razor,' had arrest warrants in five states, most notably in New Jersey where the Moreno crime family operates."
Kaylie's hand froze on the remote, her attention forcibly redirected to the unfolding report in the corner of the navigation screen. Her breath caught in her throat as she absorbed the information. A mixture of fear and disbelief gripped her, realizing the gravity of the situation.
Baltimore. She’d left that city behind just before moving to the Alexandria area about a year ago.
A shiver ran down her spine as she listened intently to the details, the task of finding a cartoon forgotten in the background. Lia began to whine, tugging at Kaylie's sleeve.
"Mama, where's my cartoon? I wanna watch Bluey," Lia protested, her innocent voice interrupting Kaylie’s rapidly spiraling thoughts about the news report unfolding on the screen.
Kaylie tried to reassure her with a forced smile. "Just a moment, sweetie. Mama's trying to find it."
But her eyes remained fixed on the screen, the images of Baltimore police officers flashing before her. The past threatened to resurface, and Kaylie couldn't shake off the unease that settled over her. A knot tightened in her stomach, and her mind raced to connect the dots.
She had managed to carve out a semblance of a normal life for herself and Lia after fleeing the clutches of the Moreno mob. Yet, the past could always catch up with her, no matter how far she tried to run.
Kaylie reached for her phone, fingers trembling as she typed a quick message to Drew. If anyone knew what had happened, it would be him. But could she wait to be sure? If Moreno was already in Baltimore, who was to say they wouldn’t be here soon?
