Page 103 of Not So Goode

“Pleased as punch to meet you, darlin’.” He winced. “Sorry, habit. Pleased to meet you, Charlie.”

“It’s Lexie you want to be careful around with that, not me. Doesn’t bother me.” I suppressed a sigh—it didn’t bother me at all, not after Crow.

Mom glanced into my car. “I was under the impression you and Lex were together.”

I rubbed my face. “Long, long, long story, Mom. And I’m too exhausted to tell it now, for one thing and, for another, most of it is Lexie’s story to tell, not mine.”

“Is she okay?”

I shrugged. “I have no idea. Seemed like it. But with her, it’s hard to tell.”

“Areyouokay?” She palmed my cheeks and gazed into my eyes. I knew then I had no chance of lying.

I shook my head. “No, I’m not.”

“What can I do?”

I sucked in a deep breath, held it, letting it out slowly. “I’m starving. I’m exhausted. I need to eat some kind of real food, I need to sleep for about eighteen hours, and I need to…honestly, to not have to talk about what happened until I’m ready.”

Mom guided me to her front door. “I’ve got you, honey. I won’t ask any questions, and I’ll just expect you tell me what’s going on in your own time.”

We went inside her condo, which was a modern design masterpiece in light and dark colors and clean lines. She went to a linen closet and pulled out sheets, a pillow, and a blanket.

“Lucas, can you make her something to eat while I make up the spare room?”

“Sure thing, sweets.” Inside the condo, he was even bigger, improbably massive in height and muscle, yet his eyes were inviting and trustworthy and genuine. “What’cha want, Charlie? I ain’t fancy, but I can rustle up some grub to fill you.”

“Something quick and filling. An omelet?”

He nodded, turned to the fridge and began pulling out fixings. “You like it how your mom and Cass both do? Spinach and cream cheese, mostly egg whites?”

I felt my eyes widen. “You know how Cassie likes her omelets?”

He chuckled. “Sure do. The whole clan meets for breakfast every Sunday morning at Badd Kitty, and all of us who like to cook take turns doing the cooking.”

“Clan?”

Mom laughed from extra bedroom, where she was making up the bed—she popped her head out to comment. “You have no idea what you’re walking into, Char-Char. Lucas is the patriarch of a huge family. Eleven men, each of whom is married or has a significant other, some with kids, plus now Cassie and Ink.”

“You have eleven sons?” I marveled.

He guffawed. “Hell naw, I got a pair of hell-raisin’ triplets—Roman, Remington, and Ramsey. The other eight are my nephews, my deceased brother and sister-in-law’s huge brood of boys.”

“And you raised them?”

He sighed. “That there is a long story, too, Charlie.”

Mom came back into the kitchen. “Short version is, no, he didn’t. But the whole story of how it all came together here in Ketchikan is, indeed, a very long and complicated story.”

I watched Lucas move easily and fluidly in Mom’s kitchen. “Well, I’ll listen while I eat. Anything to get my mind off of my own drama, and Lexie’s.”

“Bacon?” Lucas asked. “Only got real, none of that turkey crap.”

I laughed. “You got Mom off of turkey bacon?”

He chuckled. “Took me some doin’, but yeah. Managed to convince her that if she was gonna eat bacon, it might as well be real bacon and not that totally unconvincing turkey garbage. Compromise was, we only have it on the weekends, cause I’m watchin’ my figure.” He did a hyper-masculine impression of a woman popping a hip, which made me laugh.

I glanced at Mom, smiling. “Wow.”