AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Quinn breaks the moment. “Are you twins?” she asks. “You look a lot alike, even for brothers.”
“We are,” Lando says, eyes gleaming with impish humor. “Romero got the brains, I got the sex appeal.”
Jade makes a noise that’s not quite a snort. Her sisters give her the side-eye; my brother grins and wiggles lascivious eyebrows at me. “Unless you’ve joined the Girl Scouts,” he says, “I don’t think you’re here just to bring me cookies.”
I tilt my head toward Jade. “She needs to file a restraining order.”
At once he turns serious. “C’mon over,” he says, and leads the way to his desk. Setting the box of cookies down, he opens it. “Snickerdoodles. I love ‘em.” He picks one up and takes a bite, and his eyes cut to Brianna. “You make these?”
“Yeah.”
“Fuckin’ delicious. Excuse my language.” He polishes the cookie off and grabs another one, and by the time he finishes it, his desk is surrounded by detectives.
“Yeah, yeah, all right.” He hands out the cookies, one to each man, then takes a third for himself before he closes the box and puts it in one of his desk drawers.
“Hey,” Detective Stuart objects. He’s a big blond galoot who fancies himself a ladies’ man.
“Hey yourself,” Lando says. “Get your own Callahan girl.” He winks at Brianna, who tosses her hair like she’s still deciding what she thinks of him. Her eyes tell another story.
“You bake, sweetheart?” Stuart says to Quinn. She blushes, starts to say something, then stares at the floor, smiling but not saying aword.
He turns to Jade. Before he can say a word, my arm hooks around her waist and I’ve pulled her back against me. “Hands off, Stuart.”
The possessiveness of my response startles me. I’ve never felt this way about a woman before, and I haven’t even slept with heryet.
Stuart sneers at me. “Fraternizing with clients, Counselor? Maybe I should make a call to the bar association.”
Before I can correct him, he crooks a finger at Jade. “Come over here and I’ll show you how a real man treats a woman.”
Her face has gone cool, almost cold. “No, thankyou.”
If Stuart had any sense, he’d quit while the quitting was good. He doesn’t. “You don’t want to tangle with him. Those Adamos, they love ‘em and leave ‘em.”
“And what do you do?” she retorts.
“He’d leave ‘em if he could,” one of the other detectives calls out. “But he’d have to love ‘em first and he’s not so good at thatpart.”
Stuart’s face turns a mottled red as laughter fills the room. He stomps back to his desk. Lando says to Jade, “Let’s get started with your statement.”
I release her so she can sit down, then move behind her. If it looks like I’m standing guard, it’s because I am. And I have zero fucks to give about what anyone thinks.
At his desk, Detective Stuart is glaring at me like if I had a puppy, he’d run it over. I stare back at him until he drops hiseyes.
Message delivered.
Jade Callahan ismine.
