“No. I want a trained man on her. Buildings are burning. The Balduccis are feelin’ pressure. I want her covered by a professional.”

I stared at Hector, cuddling YoYo closer to the warm, happy glow in my chest because at that point it hit me not a lot of macho, badasses would hang out with Ralphie (maybe Buddy but never Ralphie). They wouldn’t watch TV with him. They wouldn’t have dinner with him. They certainly wouldn’t be nice to him when they knew what they said could hurt his feelings.

And that’s when I knew.

Right then and there, watching Hector be careful with Ralphie’s feelings, I knew.

It had happened.

I was living the dream.

The dream of a good man who would save me. The dream of a man who would sweep away my bad life and take me to a jumbled bungalow (though Hector’s house wasn’t a bungalow but still) and make me safe. Make me happy. Make me so warm, I’d never feel cold again.

The force of this realization caused me to take a step back as if it was a colossal weight that landed on me and I had to hold it up but couldn’t quite manage it.

Hector, Buddy and Ralphie’s eyes all snapped to me.

“Sadie?” Buddy asked but Hector got close.

“Mamita?” His hands came to my neck.

I looked up at him. “I’m okay.”

He scanned my face and his brows drew together.

“You’re shuttin’ down,” he said but, immediately, so he wouldn’t think that, I shook my head and got closer, a lot closer, crushing YoYo (who didn’t seem to mind) between us.

I tilted my head back further.

“You don’t get it,” I whispered to him. “I’m okay.”

He stared at me and I went on.

“My gallery is burned beyond recognition. I’m estranged from my father. Crazy men are after me. I had the freak out to end all freak outs in front of friends and most of my clients last night but… I’m okay.”

I felt his fingers squeeze my neck as I watched his eyes grow warm and I knew mine were the same.

“Finally!” Ralphie cried, Hector and I lost the moment and turned to look at him. “Told her to enjoy the ride, Double H, ages ago. She didn’t listen. Finally, she’s learning to enjoy the f**king ride!”

I shifted and pressed my side against Hector’s front.

His arm curled around my neck.

Then I felt his lips kiss the top of my head.

I mentally pried my hands off the safety bar that was tucked, tight and secure, across my lap and lifted them straight in the air.

* * * * *

“Do you ever file a thing?” Kitty Sue asked Shirleen from her hands and knees on the floor.

Daisy and I were with her, alphabetizing a mountain of paperwork in twenty-six piles across the Nightingale Investigation’s reception area.

“It’s not in my job description,” Shirleen replied from her seat behind the reception desk, currently engaged in the difficult task of painting her nails a frosty grape.

Kitty Sue sat up so she was on her knees, she planted her hands on her hips, twisted to Shirleen and glared.

“You’re the receptionist!”

“Yeah? So?” Shirleen asked, not taking her eyes from her nails.

“Receptionists file,” Kitty Sue retorted.

“Filing people file. Receptionists answer phones and guard the door,” Shirleen returned.

Daisy looked at me and giggled. I pulled my lips between my teeth and tried not to laugh. Kitty Sue didn’t look like she thought anything was funny.

“This is my son’s livelihood,” Kitty Sue said as she got to her feet. “What if he needed something urgently and couldn’t find it?”

Shirleen threw her head back and laughed for a long time.

“That’s funny,” she said (unnecessarily) when she finished laughing.

“What’s funny? I’m being serious,” Kitty Sue shot back.

Shirleen leveled her amused gaze on Kitty Sue. “I practically gotta chain Lee to his chair to get him to fill out reports, type out notes and whatever other shit he’s gotta do. He hates paperwork. All the boys do. Badass mothers get f**kin’ grumpy when Shirleen rides their asses to get them to put pen to paper or, worse, fingers to keyboards. If it wasn’t for me, our invoices would be six months late goin’ out and no one would get paid. Including Shirleen. And Shirleen likes to get paid. I got two growin’ boys who eat me out of house and home and are always takin’ bitches to the movies and shit like that. I don’t get paid, I’m f**ked and Roam and Sniff’ll look like beggars in front of their babes. Not… gonna… happen.”

“Well,” the wind, I could tell, had gone out of Kitty Sue’s sails, “the least you could do is help us now.”

“I will help you,” Shirleen replied. “I’ll tell you, you missed a pile.” And she nodded to a pile of papers at the end of her desk that was at least a foot high.

“Shit,” Daisy muttered.

That’s when I giggled at the same time the door opened and Ally and Indy walked in, laughing.

I sat back on my calves and smiled at them as they called, “Hey,” to everyone.

Not two months ago, I walked into this office feeling the frosty air, knowing they hated me and wishing I was one of them.

Now, I was sitting on the floor, sorting through Lee and The Boy’s confidential paperwork, having spent the day getting to know Brody (the computer geek and I mean geek), Monty (the guy who managed the surveillance room where, I was a bit weirded out to see they monitored Fortnum’s, which meant my meltdown there was witnessed by even more people than I knew at the time) and Shirleen.

Kitty Sue had come by with lunch. We ate. We chatted. She told me great stories about my Mom that only a best friend would know and she apologized about seven million five hundred thousand times about not “protecting” me throughout my life and not coming to see me after my father was put behind bars.

“I kept trying to figure out how to do it. What I should say,” she whispered to me, holding my hand. “I didn’t know what to say.”

I squeezed her fingers. “It’s done now, over. Don’t think about it.” I blew it off as if it was nothing so she would stop beating herself up and changed the subject. “You told me about my Mom, now will you tell me about Katherine?”

She smiled, let go of my hand, sat back and told me great stories about Katherine.

Later, Daisy came around, Kitty Sue spied the paperwork and we all got busy.