She’s proud.”
“She is.”
“Mikey, how well do you know Santi?” Paul asked.
Mikey’s eyebrows rose. “As well as I know you,” he said. “Honor’s his big thing. He’d never sell me out because it would seem dishonorable to him. He takes his job seriously. Why do you ask?” he added.
“Just some gossip. They say Cotillo’s got somebody close to you.”
“It’s got to be Mrs. Brown, then,” Mikey said with twinkling dark eyes. “Right? I mean, she’s the obvious choice. Friendly, sweet, just the sort to set you up for a hit.”
Paul chuckled. “Okay. I see what you mean. Just the same, we’re checking out everybody who lives here. Just in case.”
“That’s not a bad idea. You still got Billings somewhere with a sniper kit?”
Paul nodded. “I don’t think he ever sleeps. He seems to get by on catnaps, but we have an alternate in place anyway.”
Mikey drew in a breath and laughed huskily. “These damned headaches. I didn’t know there was a way to prevent them. Doc prescribed something, along with a prescription to take when the pain gets bad.” He grimaced. “I hate drugs, you know? But this is a sort of pain that makes you want to hit your head with a hammer just to make it stop throbbing.”
“Grandmama used to get them,” Paul recalled. “They were bad.”
“So are mine. Imagine a woman who doesn’t run for the hills when a man’s losing the contents of his stomach,” he said. “Bernie didn’t leave me for a minute, not until after the doctor came.”
“I hear you did pretty much the same for her the day you met, when she fell in front of the car.”
“Yeah,” Mikey’s mouth pulled down. “I thought it was a trick. You know how women used to come on to me. One even pretended to fall down a flight of stairs. I didn’t know Bernie from an apple. I assumed she liked the looks of the limo and wanted a ride. Bad call.” He drew in a breath. “She asked us to look for her cane, and we didn’t believe her. Santi found it. I felt like a dog.”
“Your past isn’t full of guileless women,” Paul said with a grin. “Understandable mistake.”
“I guess.” He put a hand to his head. “At least the throbbing has stopped. That doctor’s pretty good. Nice looking woman. She married to the redheaded doctor?”
“Copper Coltrain,” Paul agreed. “There was a mismatch. She worked with him for almost a year, and he hated her guts for something her father did years ago. It wasn’t until she started to leave the practice that he got his ducks in a row. It was a rocky romance.”
Mikey just sighed. “Mine’s not rocky at all,” he said. “You know, I never thought about having a family before. Little girls are sweet.”
“Yeah.” Paul didn’t say any more. He and his former wife had a little girl. His wife and the child were gunned down by one of Paul’s enemies, in revenge for his arrest and conviction. It was a sad memory.
“Sorry,” Mikey said, wincing. “I forgot.”
“I try to,” Paul said. “I mean, I’m happier than I ever dreamed I could be, with Sari. But there are times when I think of my little girl...” He broke off.
“We all have bad memories, Paulie,” Mikey said. “Mine aren’t as bad as yours. I’m sorry for what happened to you. But the guy paid for it,” he added coldly.
Paul glanced at him. “Yeah, one of the marshals in Jersey said he thought you might have had something to do with that.”
Mikey just pursed his lips. “Who, me? I go out of my way to be nice to people.”
“Yeah, but you know people who don’t.”
Mikey chuckled. “Lots of them.”
“Have you told her?” he asked, his head jerking toward the door.
Mikey knew who he meant. He leaned back against the pillows. “I don’t know how. At first, I didn’t think there was a reason I needed to tell her. Now, I’m scared of what she’ll think of me.”
“She’s a sweet woman.”
“Sweet, and innocent. She doesn’t see wickedness. She always looks for the best in people. Even in me. I’m not what she thinks I am. But how do I tell her what my life has been like? How do I do that, and keep her?”
“You underestimate how she feels about you, Mikey,” Paul said. “You don’t love or hate people for their actions mostly. You care about them because of what they are, deep inside. Bernie knows you aren’t as bad as you