him with a hip if she was being funny or feeling saucy (something that happened often), grabbed onto his biceps to get his attention or hooked a beltloop and tugged to change his direction.
All this meant Mo was in agony.
And that agony wasn’t just about all of that.
Lottie had thrown right down with Tammy, no hesitation, and this was before she knew who Tammy was and what she’d done.
There was no way to deny it.
That felt good.
But it was even worse.
It was clear Lottie had claimed her man.
The end.
And he was that man.
Mo couldn’t think on this, mostly how it made him feel.
All of it.
Fortunately, she was talking so much, his mind didn’t have the opportunity to go there.
The FBI had come back with a negatory on the language, or any religious radicals in the area they were keeping an eye on that fit this guy’s description.
This meant they had zero leads on whoever this man was who wanted to harm her, and they’d all made the decision that the second letter, received yesterday, Lottie would not know about because she was already alert and not doing anything stupid.
But mostly they agreed on that because the degree of disturbing in the latest letter had ratcheted up about fifteen notches.
Smithie had called the ball on that one, not telling Lottie about it and not taking it to the police, or the FBI. The last two would, after the second letter, want very badly to get involved.
This was because Smithie wanted the threat eradicated, no dicking around, and although Mo agreed with Smithie (to a point), Hawk did not.
The guy was gearing up to make a move, building his confidence, getting his shit tight, getting off on the increasing extreme of his letters and the fact he hadn’t been caught yet to take him to the place where he could act out his twisted fantasies.
They all knew it.
Smithie wanted it handled.
Hawk wanted this guy on FBI radar.
Mo just wanted Lottie safe.
But Lottie didn’t need to know all of this was going on.
And Mo did not need Lottie being even more of all that was good about Lottie when this guy was on the loose, fixed on her, and working himself up, her being more of all she was only serving the purpose of making Mo want her more.
But for the life of him, he could no longer handle the anger and hurt that had poured his way from her the last three days.
So when Tammy opened it up, and Lottie rushed right through, Mo seized on it and he did not have it in him to shut it down, being a dickhead about it, or otherwise.
It would probably bite him in the ass.
Hell, it already was biting him in the ass.
But she seemed happy, so he’d find some way to deal with it.
On her street, a few houses down from hers, he saw it before she saw it.
And when he saw it, he knew things were going to get even worse.
Terrific.
“Ohmigod!” she cried, cutting herself off from talking about some peacock outfit she was thinking about stripping in, somehow getting this idea from Tammy’s new man.
He knew then that she saw it too.
“You get to meet my nephews!” she exclaimed.
Yeah.
All three.
They were running around on her sloped front lawn, looking like they were playing tag, while a blonde woman who had to be her sister lounged on the front steps.
Eddie Chavez’s woman and boys, and as Mo brought them closer, he saw he could call that without even knowing Lottie’s sister was married to Chavez.
His boys were stamped all over with him. Put one in a kid lineup, Mo would have called Eddie, or his brother Hector, no sweat.
Seeing as they wanted whoever was after Lottie to know she had protection, Mo didn’t park in the garage at the back in case the guy was watching. He parked in the front.
Something he did right then.
And Lottie was practically clawing at the door before he even came to a complete halt.
He threw his truck in park just as she hit the locks.
Then she was flying out.
And his day got worse even though many men would describe it as exponentially better.
This was because she dashed up the slope and was immediately hit with one boy, the tallest, so probably oldest, then two, and finally the third, the youngest, toddled over and jumped on.
Lottie started going down with the first hit. It was a feint. The kid was maybe seven or eight and not small,