Mind Games

“Look! It’s a monster truck!”

“I see that.” Impressed, he lifted his eyebrows at Thea. “Another superpower?”

“Revealed only to good friends.”

When they sat at the table, crisp bacon, summer berries, syrup in a crock warmed in the oven, he cut Bray’s pancake truck into sections.

“I’m eating a tire! It’s yum. Buttermilk makes delicious pancakes.”

“You’re not kidding. Thanks for this.”

“It’s nice to have breakfast company.”

“If I tossed something else on the grill on Saturday, would you be interested?”

“I would.”

“Can Bunk sleep in my room again?”

She smiled at the boy, looked at the father. “He’d like that. Should be a nice evening, too. We’ll get a storm late tonight.”

“How do you know that?”

She shrugged. “Farm girl.”

After breakfast, she stood on the porch in that breezy summer dress, waving them off.

In the back seat, Bray clutched a dump truck. “I wish Thea made breakfast every day.”

Ty flicked a glance at his son in the rearview, then looked back to where Thea turned to go inside.

“She makes good ones.”

Chapter Twenty-three

She dreamed of a storm, and Riggs lurked in the rush of wind. She saw his eyes in the flash of lightning, heard his voice in the crackling roll of thunder.

And made a choice.

She pushed aside the curtain of the storm, opened the window, and stepped into his cell.

He sat on the bunk, grinning at her.

“Been waiting for you. Foxy Loxy.”

Had he dug that out of her brain? That long-ago nickname her father sometimes called her or Rem?

He’d gone deeper than she’d realized.

But it cost him. She noted the dark circles that haunted his eyes and the lines cut deep around them. Lines bracketing his mouth like a marionette’s.

Gray threaded through his hair, and that hair was thinning.

At thirty-three, he had the face of a man heading toward fifty who’d lived hard.

“You don’t look so good, Ray. Not sleeping well?”

“I sleep like a fucking baby.”