Page 106 of Summer Heat
Nicola needed new clothes and a pair of shoes. Cash’s shirt and sweats made her finger-tapping, mind-spinning anxious. They smelled like him. It was as if the ghost of boyfriends past wrapped its emotional arms around her and hugged her all night long. The morning was a long time coming, but now she faced dawn. Time to go.
Glancing in the mirror and deciding her makeup was a lost cause, she scrubbed it off in the bathroom. Still not better. A shower was the better option. Using all the shampoo and body wash in the travel-sized containers she found, she did her best to clean up. With a quick towel dry of her hair, she put her clothes back on, and was off, limping toward the kitchen.
Raucous male voices bled down the hall until she rounded the corner. Their conversation faltered as she entered.
She smiled. “Morning, boys. I’m praying Roman still knows how to make a killer cup of coffee.”
There. She’d addressed the elephant in the room. Her very presence. She was still the evil, abandoning sister, but she was also still Nicola. And just that easy, they went back to bitching about something from the sports page. She watched the dynamic: Cash spoke to Rocco. Roman spoke to Rocco. Rocco spoke to everyone.
Maybe it was one hundred and eighty degrees from easy, but at least they fronted well.
Roman eyed her arm. “Where’s your sling?”
Nicola tried to straighten her bandaged elbow but flinched at the tenderness. “Don’t need it.”
“You’re Super Woman?”
She shrugged. “Can I borrow that phone again?”
Cash didn’t look at her. “Yup. But same drill as before.”
“That’s fine.”
“Someone will get it for you after breakfast, unless you need it now.”
Someone wasn’t lost on her. He certainly wasn’t volunteering. “No, that’s fine.”
Half a dozen types of protein bars, individually wrapped cookies, and crackers served as breakfast, spread across the granite countertop. Tasty and typical as a gas station buffet. She grabbed a bar and a cup of coffee, taking a scalding sip.
Nope. Not made by Roman or Cash. It was military mud, and she assumed Rocco had joined up and been discharged just like the other two. “Delicious.” She smiled.
Rocco smiled.
No one else smiled.
After she’d added about a pound of sugar and powdered creamer, the coffee was bearable. Caffeine was a requirement to function. She did what she had to do and downed the sludge. “Yeah, I’ll be downstairs. Let me know when I can use that phone.”
Rocco smiled again. At least he was of the friendly variety. A half hour later, she’d had her Rocco-supervised phone call, and an hour after that, she still needed to kill thirty minutes until a CIA extraction team arrived to bring her in for debriefing.
Finding nothing better to do, she hobbled up the stairs. The guys were kicked back watching the television.
“I’m leaving soon. Just wanted to say bye. Maybe see if I can call you later? We can hook up and do lunch. Catch up. Something.”
Roman stood and turned to face her. “Shit, yeah. Whenever you want to, I’m there.”
“What the hell happened to you, Roman?” Her eyes widened at the sight of her brother.
Roman’s swollen lip was split in the middle. He had a black eye forming, and his knuckles hung at his side, raw. Cash turned from the TV, looking just as messed up. Both of his eyes were swollen.
They’d thrown down because of her. The two most important people in her life—whether they knew it or not—had beaten the crap out of each other. All because her op went bad, and they knew about her. How did she not hear them fight?
“Goddamn you both.”
“What?” All three men played stupid. An urge to smack each one across the head tickled her palm.
“You all are morons.” She hopped to the kitchen, wrote down her contact info, and continued. “Should you care, here’s how you can get a hold of me. Grow the fuck up.”
Rocco interjected. “Nicola, they did what they had to do. They’re fine.”
