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“You know, you’re about as ballsy as any Mackay,” Sam groused, sliding the door back into place with a heavy push.
Chaya lifted the glass and sipped at the moscato Sam was so partial to. The look wasn’t one Sam found any comfort in either.
“You sleeping with Zoey?” Chaya asked as she lowered the glass and stared into the clear, perfectly balanced sweet wine for a moment.
When her gaze sliced back, piercing and curious, Sam wondered if somehow that Mackay arrogance had rubbed off on the wives. Maybe it was contagious. She’d make a note not to get too close to any of them from here on out.
She arched her brow mockingly now, though. “Is she in my fucking bed, Chaya?”
She tossed the shoulder pack she carried to a chair before stomping to her bedroom and removing her weapons. She locked the Glock as well as the smaller backup strapped at her ankle beneath her jeans in the wall safe, while she tried to figure out why the hell Zoey’s cousin’s wife was there.
“Come up with an explanation for what I haven’t asked yet?” Chaya stood in the doorway, her voice amused, her golden-brown eyes like amber ice.
“You haven’t asked a question yet,” Sam snorted. “Ask. Then I’ll worry about the answer.”
She toed off her sneakers and pushed them beneath the chair next to the wall. The cap she wore came next before she began working the hair bands from the ponytail she kept her hair confined to while on duty.
All the while Chaya watched her with such clinical detachment it was unnerving. The other woman’s years away from DHS hadn’t weakened her stare in the least.
“I think you were fifteen the last time I saw you,” Chaya commented long minutes later. “All long legs, long hair, and a chip the size of Texas on your shoulder.” She sipped at the wine again while Sam waited. She didn’t have to wait long. “John David still hasn’t accepted the fact that you’ll never marry and give him grandbabies, has he, Sam?”
Sam shot her a hard glare before pushing past her and stalking to the kitchen, where she checked the empty bottle on the counter before pulling another from the fridge.
She normally detested wine, but the moscato she’d discovered had become one of her new favorite drinks. She’d tried a lot of drinks in the past year. Remaining silent as she worked the cork from the bottle, Sam cursed Doogan to hell and back. Somehow, he’d fucked up. He’d had to. Otherwise, the former agent wouldn’t be here drinking the last of one of her few remaining bottles of wine.
“The next time I arrive home to find a Mackay camped out in my fucking apartment, someone’s going to regret it,” she stated, pouring half of the bottle into a wineglass.
The bottle held two good glasses and that was it. She had a feeling she would be drinking both rather quickly.
Finishing her wine, Chaya placed the glass on the counter, braced her hands flat against it, and leaned forward slowly, her expression cold.
“Zoey,” she said softly. “It’s explanation time, Sam. Did you put that rather deep mark on her neck, or did Doogan do it?”
Sam stared at the wine filling the glass. Yeah, she just might end up breaking out her reserve bottle. Tipping it to her lips, she drank half the glass, the light sweetened fruit taste washing over her taste buds and sinking into her senses.
Lowering the glass, she turned her gaze back to Chaya. “I’m not sleeping with Zoey. And I don’t know about any damned mark on her neck.”
The bastard. The least Doogan could have done was remained consistent. For the first time in as long as she’d known him, it seemed he’d marked a lover’s neck. He never did it. He claimed it was against his sexual policy or some shit.
Chaya eased back, though her expression didn’t change.
“You know, Sam,” she drawled as though amused, “I’m in a rather odd mood tonight. Why don’t you just tell me a little fairy tale? A story I might be interested in. Natches finds it rather amusing to try to get his ass out of trouble like that. You can give it your best shot if you want to.”
“Suck my dick, Chaya,” she muttered. Lifting the glass, she finished it, then refilled it.
Did she even have enough wine to make tonight palatable?
Chaya chuckled at the sarcastic demand.
“Penis envy doesn’t become you, Sam,” she chided her gently. “Now, you know, it’s always better to give me the explanations I’m asking for. Otherwise, I can become a problem. Do you want me to become your problem, Sam?”
Sam grimaced at the threat. She remembered the first time Chaya had made that statement.
“I’m not a kid anymore, and you’re damned sure not my fucking bodyguard these days,” Sam informed her.
“No, I’m Zoey’s fucking family.” Chaya’s voice sliced like a frozen dagger. “Don’t turn this into a battle. I’m better at it than you are. And we both know damned good and well you’ve had something you’ve wanted to tell me for a year now and can’t get up the nerve to do it.”
Sam rolled her eyes. “You think I’m scared of the Mackays, Chaya?” She had to laugh at that. “Don’t fool yourself. I highly respect all of you, but I’m not scared of a single damned one of you.”
