thought of falling, falling, falling, and gripped tighter.
Let out a scream, one of her best bloodcurdlings.
Then a hand, hard, strong, closed over hers, wrenched the gun away.
She went down in a heap, Jessica on top of her, wailing, flailing, then screaming as the dogs growled and snapped. Snarling herself, Cate tried a punch of her own, felt her knuckles sing as it connected.
She sucked in air, let it out in a stream of curses in every language she knew. Reared back to punch again, but hit air as Dillon dragged Jessica to her feet.
He shoved her into a chair. “Sit where I put you. Guard,” he ordered the dogs, who sat growling while Jessica wept.
“Are you hurt, Cate?”
“No. No.”
“You need to call Michaela now,” he told her without taking his eyes off Jessica. “Can you do that?”
“Yes.”
“It’s not fair.” Jessica wept into her hands. “She has to pay.”
“She doesn’t mean me,” Cate said as she picked up her phone off the counter. “She means my mother.”
“I don’t care who she means. Lady, you put a mark on my woman’s face, and I broke about a dozen eggs dropping that bag. I’ve never hit a woman in my life, but if you don’t shut up, you’re going to be the first.”
Ignoring him, she raged at Cate. “I should’ve shot you! I should never have listened to you! You’re a liar.”
“No.” The smile Cate sent her was fierce. “I’m an actor.”
Instead of looking at wedding dress designs that afternoon, Cate sat with Dillon’s hand over hers in the gathering room of the house her great-grandparents had built.
Her father paced. She wasn’t sure she could have kept still if Dillon hadn’t held her hand. Like an anchor right now, keeping her grounded.
Julia and Maggie sat together on one of the small sofas. Hugh sat in Rosemary’s favorite chair, with Lily in the chair beside his.
Consuela, eyes red from weeping, came in with a fresh ice bag. “You put this on your face now.”
Cate obeyed. Just a bruise, she thought. Not even much of one. But she could still hear that single gunshot. She could still imagine how much worse it could’ve been.
As if she’d had the same thought, Lily popped up. “I don’t care how early it is, I’m having a martini. Anybody else?”
Maggie raised a hand.
“I’ll mix them.” Hugh rose, went to the bar on the far side of the room. “You think you’ve made a safe space,” he said quietly. “You do everything you can to make a safe space.”
Rising, Cate went to him. “She has to be crazy, Grandpa. And she got lucky to get as far as she did today. But I’m fine. Dillon’s fine. And Michaela’s got her in custody. Michaela and Red.”
“You were smart and brave. You always have been.”
Cate looked over at Julia. “I was scared. She was scared and stupid. That helped.”
Julia shook her head. “Smart and brave. Both you and Dillon. Then and now.”
“They were, but Cate’s right about the stupid.” Maggie hissed through her teeth. “I can’t believe the woman’s an actual lawyer and that bone stupid. And to start blabbing—that’s what you said, Dillon—even before Michaela cuffed her.”
“She was crying about how Cate bullshitted her.”
“Please.” Trying to make him, or anybody smile, Cate put on the haughty. “Acting’s the highest form of bullshitting.”
“You’ve always been damn good at it.”
Hearing the strain in her father’s voice, Cate went to him, wrapped around him. “I come by it naturally.”
When she jolted, just a little, at the knock on the front door, Aidan tightened his embrace.
They both relaxed when Red and Michaela came in. “You pouring drinks, Hugh? As a retired officer, a consultant, I can have one. I damn well want one. Mic’ll stick with coffee.”
He stopped by Cate, took her by the shoulders, kissed her bruised cheek. “It’s too bad, because she’s earned a drink. She’s about got this mess sewn up. I always knew Mic had potential.”
“I’ll bring fresh coffee. Does my baby want a Coke?”
Cate sat beside Dillon again. “That would be great.”
“Pour Consuela a glass of red, Hugh.”
“Miss Lily. I’m working.”
“You can bring in more coffee and a Coke for Cate, then you’re taking a break in here, with your family.”
Michaela sat. “I should tell you we let your groundskeepers go, and I have a deputy driving Lynn Arlow home. We need to take her car into evidence. Rowe picked the lock on the trunk, hid in there to get through security. There’s no evidence whatsoever Ms. Arlow was complicit.”
“She