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4
Mine
I’m keenlyaware of Jade next to me. That interrupted kiss got my engine revving and I can barely wait to pick up where we left off. I can see her legs from the corner of my eye, demurely covered by plain pants that somehow draw my attention instead of deflecting it. If I turn my head just a little, I can see the swell of her breasts, draped in a blouse made of some soft fabric that clings in all the right places.
Her sisters are talking in the back seat, their voices a background murmur whose meaning doesn’t penetrate. They’re a triple threat, these Callahan girls, though only Jade is giving me indecent thoughts.
Brianna is a redhead, and Quinn is blonde, but all three have the same curve to their lips, the same arch to their eyebrows. I wonder if they resemble their mother, their father, orboth.
Which reminds me of another question I have. I glance at Jade to see she’s looking pensive. Troubled by the sadness in her eyes, I almost don’t ask, but I need to know. “When did your motherpass?”
The chatter in the back seat cuts off abruptly; the silence in the car turns frosty. Jade’s jaw tightens. “I have no idea if she’s dead or alive. She took off when we were little.”
For fuck’s sake; these poor girls. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have assumed.”
“Not your fault.” Jade’s staring out the window at the orchards we’re passing, as if willing herself away from here. “How could you know? I guess she decided being a military wife wasn’t exciting enough.”
I’ve seen plenty of dysfunctional families through my work, but it’s still hard to fathom a mother doing that, just taking off. There can be good reasons for ending things with a man — plenty of them — but under most of those circumstances, leaving small children behind would be unthinkable.
“Your father never remarried?”
She shakes her head. “He was all about us. Once we hit high school, we actually encouraged him to start dating again, but he was always busy working.”
In the back seat, Quinn clears her throat. “I think he’d met someone.”
Jade twists around to look at her. “What?”
“I think it was online. Just a guess. I accidentally interrupted a couple of phone conversations that were obviously … personal.”
“They were having phone sex?” Brianna says, sounding torn between horror and approval.
“No! Jeez. He was just speaking in very soft tones, you know? Intimate. The way you talk when you’ve got a thing for someone.”
“Why wouldn’t he tell us?” Jade says. She sounds hurt. The girls must have been very close to their father, growing up with him their only parent, and working side by side with him on thefarm.
“He probably wanted to wait until he’d actually met her,” Brianna muses. “Make sure she wasn’t some psycho. You know he’d be all about protecting us if it didn’t workout.”
They fall silent as I make the turnoff into town. A few more blocks and the police station comes into view. Out of habit, I park in theback.
Walking in with the Callahan sisters at my heels, I’m suddenly aware of the picture we make when heads turn from all directions. “Nice harem, Adamo,” one copsays.
I shoot him a look. “Grow up, Nielsen.”
“Not a chance.”
All eyes are on us as I lead the way upstairs to the detectives’ bullpen, where a man dressed in black jeans and t-shirt rises from his desk and crosses to meet us. “Counselor. We weren’t expecting you.” He takes in my companions and raises his eyebrows in question.
“I didn’t think you’d be here on a weekend,” Isay.
“Just tying up some loose ends from a case that wrapped yesterday.”
“Ah.” I turn to the Callahans. “Ladies, I’d like you to meet my brother, Detective Lando Adamo.”
I introduce the sisters in turn, and Brianna hands him the cookies. “I thought I’d bring something for the boys in blue,” she says, eyeing his all-black attire, so similar to her own. Her smile somehow manages to be sassy and sweet at the same time. “But you can have one anyway.”
My brother has been charming women since he was approximately six minutes old, to hear my mother tell it. He gives Brianna a slow smile that says he might just take her up on her offer, and not the one about the cookies.
I’m watching Jade watch her sister. She has an arm across her torso, her other elbow resting on the arm, her hand laid across her mouth, green eyes full of some emotion I can’t name. As if she’s studying the interaction … or trying very hard not to say something.
