More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
“You know what I like about a good girl?” “Please. Enlighten me,” she said with an eye roll.
“Behind every good girl facade is the urge to do something bad.”
“Despite what this looks like, I have some self-respect. I’m not going to let you just show up, look at my boobs, and then camp out in my apartment until Dickie comes home.” “They’re great boobs. And the pizza has bacon on it.”
“If it makes you feel any better, seeing you half-naked was the highlight of my week,” he offered. Hell, probably his month. “I’d be willing to even the score, you know. To make you feel better.”
“Your brain must be an exhausting place to be,” he predicted. “You have no idea,” she said.
“I got married to the wrong guy who I desperately wanted to be the right guy. Fun fact: wanting something desperately doesn’t magically make it happen. He cheated. We got
divorced. His family lawyer was a shark, and I dragged myself out hemorrhaging profusely. Metaphorically speaking. He got the house, the car, and my job, and here I am a year later, living out my days as a proofreader and live-in tech support for senior citizens.”
“That whole bad-boy confidence thing. You’re too sure of yourself. I can tell you’ve never had a woman damage your self-esteem over the long term,”
“I fell for the spray-tanned ‘good’ guy. I’m not going to rebound with the tattooed bad boy. We have disaster written all over us.” “Disasters can be a lot of fun,” he pointed out.
“That is such a Nick Santiago thing to say.”
“I guess you have to weigh the consequences of not listening to your gut,” he said. If he kissed her, he’d be giving her the wrong idea. He wasn’t looking for “something,” and Riley Thorn was a “something” kind of girl.
If a cute pair of shorts and sad brown eyes were all it took to work him into a sexually frustrated lather, the farther he stayed away from her, the better. He didn’t do complications. He didn’t want to feel responsible for someone again.
“Is there anything you’d like to say to the psychic Good Samaritan?”
“I’d
just like to say, ma’am, you and Great-Grandma Ida saved my—”
“I really like your dimples,” she confessed, then frowned. Apparently pain made her loopy.
“Tell the operator you heard gunshots in your building.” “Is he dead?” “How upset are you going to be?”
There was something about Riley Thorn that made him feel a lot of really stupid feelings he didn’t want to feel.
The woman had hurled herself down the stairs after someone she thought was a murderer.
Stupidly brave was apparently quite the turn-on for him.
“You wanna tell me how you just happened on a DB in a house you don’t live in in the middle of the night?” “Nick was just visiting his girlfriend, Riley,”
“Save the charm, Detective Dick. She’s taken,” Nick announced, pulling her in closer and not minding at all the way she melted into him.
“I’m an empathetic vomiter,” she hissed from between clenched teeth. “Trying not to barf.”
“You’re pretty cute, Thorn.”
“My girlf—fiancée hurled herself down a flight of stairs chasing a murderer.” “Fiancée, huh?”
“Yeah. Finally settling down,”
By the way, we’re now engaged.” That got her attention. “You and the nurse? Congrats.” “You and me, Thorn,” he corrected. She frowned. “We are? When did that happen?” “Around the same time you threw yourself at me on the stairs.” “That wasn’t a proposal,”
Minutes later, a big guy in scrubs called Riley’s name.
“Only family,” he said to Nick. “He’s my fiancé,” Riley lied. Roberta shot Nick a double thumbs-up.
“I can’t believe I’m being spooned in the hospital by a private investigator after my neighbor got murdered across the hall.” “I can’t believe I’m spooning a hot psychic in a hospital bed.” “You’re so weird.” She yawned. “And I’m not a psychic.”
“I’m her fiancé, genius. And if you don’t get out of her face right now, I’m going to knock you down and mess up that snazzy suit,” Nick told him.
“Gentry, man, I swear to God. If you don’t remove your finger from her vicinity right now, I’m going to break it. And then I’m going to sue you for assaulting my nose with that god-awful cologne.”
“You don’t like it? It’s pheromone-based.” “It smells like cat piss. Now, get the fuck out of my way, and don’t come near my woman again.”
“I’m so happy to meet you on such an auspicious day, Detective,” Blossom said. “After all, how often does your own daughter get engaged and accused of murder on the same day without telling you anything?”
“Mom, we’ll talk about that later,” Riley said, nodding toward the door. “Don’t mind me. I’ll just stir this boneless bone broth with the knife in my back,”
“Don’t waste these years, Riley! You take those perky breasts,
and you put them in that Hot Nick’s face every chance you get.”
Nick Santiago would never show his sexy face around here again. Not after the whole psychic revelation. Not that she blamed him. In her experience, guys didn’t deal well with that kind of information. Griffin had never known. He’d only thought her family was “eccentric.”
“I’m an excellent judge of people. Gabe here is obviously no threat.” Fred had once changed Ted Bundy’s tire in a grocery store parking lot.
“I am not here to convert you. I was sent to help you develop your connection with your gifts.”
“Sent by who? Whom? Whatever.” “Your grandmother.” Well, shit.
“Mom, Grandmother sent me a man.” “Yeah, well, your father got a spite cow,” her mother retorted. “I’ll call you later.”
“What’s a spite cow?”
“Riley. How are you feeling? Do you want to borrow my healing candles and crystals?”
“There’s a large Black man here by the name of Gabe saying Grandmother sent him to be my spirit guide or teacher or whatever,”
“That does sound like somethin...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
“Don’t worry,” Riley assured her. “After the whole I’m-a-psychic revelation and spending half the night in the emergency department with me, I think my fake engagement is over.”
He’d even gone so far as to write up a list of reasons why he should stay far, far away from her. 1. He liked her. A lot. 2. He felt protective of her. And that never went well.
3. He didn’t want to get snared in the “monogamy and marriage” trap. And Riley looked like the kind of girl who could distract a man into forgetting his own endgame.
“If you find yourself capable of professionalism, I’d like you to find the person who murdered my nephew.”
