Ops. Operations. Crista knew that word, she had heard Alex use it often enough.
“Save it, Zeke.” Natches followed Rowdy and Kelly as they rose from their seats as well. “We’re not running ops on you. And if we were, we would know how to cover our asses.”
Zeke breathed out in exasperation. “Unfortunately, that’s too true.” He stood as well, his gaze coming back to Crista. “Have you talked to Alex yet?”
She shook her head. “He’s out of the country.”
Zeke nodded. “I put out a call to his CO, and he told me the same thing. Any idea when he’ll be back?”
“When he gets back.”
Zeke’s questions were beginning to grate on her nerves, especially when it was more than obvious that he knew the answers before he did the asking.
Zeke nodded again, his gaze going over the five of them before it landed on Kelly once more.
“You’re letting them get you in trouble again, Kel. Not a good idea?”
At that, Kelly’s laughter whispered around the table. “Zeke, they are trouble, remember? But in this case, I promise you, I’m innocent as a babe.”
His lips twitched at that, and an edge of amusement filled his gaze. “Course you are, Kel.” He chuckled. “And it’s more than obvious that fiancé of yours is a damned bad influence. Not that I expected anything less. You, my girl, are a little too easily taken in by that rogue’s smile of his.”
“Ease up, Zeke.” Though his voice was amused, there was an edge of steel in Rowdy’s voice.
“We need to get Crista back to the marina and let Dawg get her settled. Her nerves are raw, and so are ours. Like you said, you know where to find her if you have any more questions.”
Crista let Dawg lead her from the diner then, aware that the sheriff watched them leave, suspicion shadowing his gaze. Not that he didn’t have a damned good reason to be suspicious. She knew Zeke, and knew, from the conversations she had with her brother in the past, how seriously he took his job and the protection of the county. And suspicion meant a challenge to Zeke. He wasn’t going to just let this go.
“Just hang on.” Dawg’s voice was a whisper of sound as he led her from the diner. “We’re almost clear.” He turned to Rowdy. “Did you bring the pickup?”
“Dad drove yours in,” Rowdy answered softly as they moved toward the parking lot. “He’s waiting to take your Harley back to the marina. We sure as hell didn’t want to leave it here.”
Crista wrapped her arms across herself as Dawg led her to the big black pickup truck that she had ridden in the day before.
Her life had definitely gone beyond Mercury in retrograde. Car bombs were major catastrophes, not fate f**king with you.
“We’ll meet you back at your place,” Rowdy told him as they neared the pickup, and Ray Mackay opened the door and stepped from it.
Rowdy’s tan pickup sat beside it, and Dawg’s and Natches’s cycles on the other side. Ray lifted the rifle he carried from the seat, unloaded it, and calmly reached in to hang it on the gun rack that stretched across the back window.
“Few curiosity seekers and that rabid little twit Johnny,” he grunted as they neared him. “Little bastard. His daddy would roll over in his grave if he knew how that boy turned out.”
Crista stared at Ray in surprise. “Johnny Grace?”
“Grace my ass,” he muttered. “That bitch that spawned him had to have gotten the sperm donor from someone other than Ralph. Ralph was a fine man. Ain’t none of him in that boy.”
“Easy, Dad.” Rowdy’s voice was clearly warning. “Johnny probably just wanted to check on Crista. They’re neighbors. Kind of.”
Ray’s eyes speared into her then. “Don’t tell me you befriended that little shit?”
“Johnny’s always been kind to me, Mr. Mackay,” she said, wishing she didn’t sound so weak, so tired. “He wouldn’t have meant any harm.”
She was aware of the gazes now trained on her in disbelief. Her chin lifted. She didn’t base her opinions or her friendships on others’ opinions, and she wasn’t going to start now. “Fine. For some reason you don’t like Johnny, and from what he said earlier, there’s not a lot of love lost. That’s none of my business, and it has nothing to do with me.” And she was too tired right now to make sense of any of it.
She respected Ray Mackay, trusted him. The fact that he so intensely disliked his own nephew was telling. But until Crista understood why, she wasn’t going to automatically dislike him herself. She would definitely be wary, but she would reserve judgment.
Ray turned his gaze from her to Dawg as he rubbed his hand over is face in agitation before he and Dawg seemed to share some private communication. Crista hated private communications between men. She wasn’t a male mind reader, so she didn’t consider it fair in her presence.
“I’ll take care of her, Ray,” Dawg finally murmured.
“You know, you could get on my nerves fairly quickly,” she told them with no small amount of her own irritation. “If you want to take care of me so damned bad, take me to get my clothes, and then leave me alone to shower and sleep.”
“We’ll stop on the way to the marina and buy you a few more things,” Dawg told her firmly, causing her to freeze and stare back at him in disbelief.
“You said we could pick up my stuff from the house. Damn it, Dawg, I can’t just go out and buy more clothes.”
“And that was before someone decided to turn you into a piece of charcoal,” he snapped back. “I
’m not even attempting that house with you along. I’ll go check it out myself in the morning and get your stuff. Until then, we can stop on the way home and buy you a few extra things.”
She was aware of the interested gazes on them. The men were watching with expressions varying between amusement and wariness, and Kelly shook her head back at Crista warningly from Dawg’s side.
The men she could have ignored, but there was something in Kelly’s eyes that warned Crista that now wasn’t the time to push Dawg. And that sucked. Because she wanted her own clothes; she didn’t want to have to spend the small amount of savings she had on clothes she didn’t need.
“I’ll just use your damned washer tonight,” she finally retorted. She wasn’t about to end up more in debt to him than it already appeared she was going to be.