“Well…” Michelle drawled, chuckling.
“They’re not security – I have that. I’ve hired a very capable pack of strong-looking boys who don’t argue with me. Maverick’s crew are like prison guards.”
“Maverick, huh?” Michelle asked, waggling her eyebrows.
“That’s the man’s name. Or, his stupid Lean Dog name, anyway.Honestly, these names…And no, stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like we’re two schoolgirls gossiping about boys.”
“Aren’t we, though?”
“No.” If she was too forceful on that point, Michelle was the only one to know, and she was all the way in Texas and couldn’t do anything about it.
All the way in Texas. A depressing thought. None of them – save Phil, and Tommy, she guessed, who knew with him these days – were where they’d started. Scattered to the four winds. Or, well, to Knoxville, to Amarillo, to London, to New York. Of Devin’s ten, only three of them were here now, in this city, and of those three, Raven was the most ruthless and realistic.
Loneliness washed over her, unbearable for a moment.
“I don’t know, Chelle,” she murmured. “Cass and I left London because it didn’t feel safe. And now, somehow, New York feels even less safe.” She breathed a humorless laugh. “I spent years keeping my distance from the club, and now it’s as if I’ve stepped into it, found it to be quicksand, and I’m sinking deeper and deeper all the time.”
Michelle’s smile faded. “The more you depend on something, the more necessary it becomes.”
“Yes. Also, the more ambitious that something becomes, the more enemies they make.”
Michelle frowned and adjusted the baby. Claire, Michelle had named her. Claire Snow. Candy was calling her Claire-Bear, and Michelle had made the sort of face about it that meant she found the nickname both obnoxious, and unbearably sweet.
“I’m sorry,” Michelle said. “Maybe you could take a trip. You said you always liked Japan this time of year.”
“I can’t. I’m covered up trying to get the new agency settled.”
“And wouldn’t that be easier if you’d had some rest?”
“Me? You’ve just had a baby, and I’m sure you’re still managing that…club of your husband’s.”
Michelle chuckled. “Club, she says. I can feel the condescension from here.”
“Well, darling, it seems lovely, but it’s really more of a – what are they called? – honkey-tonk instead, don’t you think?”
“Candy wouldlovethat. But I’m serious. I’m tired, yeah, but physically. You seem…”
“Haggard and bedraggled?”
“I was going to say ‘tired.’ And…” Another frown. “Worried.”
“I’m terribly worried the two bikers in the other room are going to track mud everywhere. So you aren’t wrong, necessarily.”
Michelle’s look said she knew that Raven was being evasive. Thankfully, she didn’t press. She did, however, don a devious smile and say, “Are either of them decent to look at?”
Black hair falling into dark eyes, glimmer of metal on a full lower lip, an unimpressed, implacable stare, and anorder. She shivered and hid it with another sip of wine. “No.”
“Shame. If you can’t take a vacation, the next best thing is a good shag.”
“Michelle Calloway Snow.” Raven didn’t have to feign her shock. Her heart leaped and the back of her neck prickled, and it was far, far too easy to let her thoughts wander down that road. “I’m appalled!”
Michelle laughed.
“I’m not you, to go scarpering off to America and land me a strapping cowboy I’ve only just met.”
