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“Youdecided. The rest of us were all just hungry,” Malcolm said, starting to smile at me then the smile froze on his face.
Indeed, everyone stopped dead when they saw me.
“What happened to you?” Dad shouted.
Hmm. I hadn’t seen my face, but clearly it looked as bad as it felt.
Malcolm Nightingale’s sons looked like him. Even now that he was getting older he looked fit and lean, and his face was still handsome and interesting. He kept in shape by running, a lot, sometimes traveling around the country to do marathons.
Tom Savage was tall, with a still-handsome face, sky-blue eyes, and most of the time he could be very charming. He had salt and pepper hair and had been built like a defensive lineman when he was young. Over the years, that had given way to just a bit of a potbelly fueled by beer and his obsession for Mexican food.
He turned to Lee. “You hit her?”
I took in a sharp breath at this insulting question and so did everyone else.
Lee stared at Dad for a beat and then I watched as his face closed down. He leaned his hips against the kitchen counter and crossed his arms on his chest and didn’t deign to answer.
Dad loved Lee. Dad thought about Hank, Lee and Ally like Malcolm and Kitty Sue thought about me. I knew Dad even admired Lee.
But Dad was a cop and he knew things about Lee and his past that I didn’t know, things of which he didn’t approve. Things that made Lee being involved with his daughter not a happy circumstance to celebrate.
Regardless, I had the weird and irrational desire to kick Dad in the shin.
“No, he didn’t hit me. Jeez, Dad,” I said.
“Of course he didn’t hit her, Tommy. How could you think such a thing? What happened?” Kitty Sue, ever the diplomat, brushed off Dad’s idiotic remark and came toward me.
I looked at Ally, who had dropped another bag on the floor. This one was not an overnighter. This one was bigger and stuffed full. Undoubtedly packed with enough of my clothes to get me through a week of staying at Lee’s, by the end of which I would likely be pregnant or Lee’s love slave, or both.
If I wasn’t so worried about her and didn’t love her with every fiber of my being, I would have strangled her.
“You okay?” I asked.
Ally nodded.
Kitty Sue stopped and looked between the pair of us. “Oh no, what are you two up to?”
I answered quickly, “Nothing. As for my cheek,Dad, I got hit in the face with some books falling off a shelf. Lee came over and got me so he could take a look at it and put ice on it.” I walked to the sink and showed Dad the ice bag, then, for some reason, I leaned my shoulder into Lee.
Don’t ask me why I did this. I just didn’t like the way my dad spoke to him, and I didn’t like to see Lee’s face close down like that.
“You have ice at Fortnum’s,” Dad said.
Oopsie.
This was true.
“Lee’s ice is better,” I replied.
Lame. I was losing my touch.
“I bet Lee’s ice is better,” Ally muttered, and both Kitty Sue and I gave her a killing look.
Hank and Lee were exchanging glances. Hank sighed and rocked back on his heels. Lee uncrossed his arms and draped one around my shoulders. I didn’t even try to decipher what the Lee/Hank glance was all about. It had been a scary enough day.
And anyway, all I could think was that their coming over meant I was off the hook with the Lee Nap. It had been getting pretty flirty there and I needed to restore control.
“Where are we going to dinner?” I asked happily, and Lee’s eyes slid sideways and his look made a definite promise of “later,” shattering any illusions of my being off the hook.
