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T he loud knocking woke her and she sat up in fright, moaning as her back protested the sharp movement. She glanced around to see she was on her own.

How long had Renard stayed in the armchair? Had he gotten any sleep?

Another knock. She moaned as she pulled herself out of bed. She looked out the bedroom door to see Renard standing by the front door.

“What . . . what’s happening?” she asked.

“Some fuckers at the door at nine on a fucking Sunday morning. Must have a fucking death wish.”

Wait. It was nine in the morning?

And she’d just woken up?

Holy. Shit.

She couldn’t believe it.

“Stay there.” He pointed at her.

Shit. Someone was knocking on her door at nine on a Sunday morning.

Three guesses who that would be. Fuck!

Moving back into the bedroom, she grabbed a nightgown. It was red and lacy in all the right places. Not exactly appropriate to wear, but the Grackle had seen her in worse.

She shuffled out of the bedroom door and down the hall. But it wasn’t the Grackle standing on the other side of the door.

It was the sheriff.

Oh, shit.

As she reached them, Renard turned his head, frowning at her. “Opal, told you to wait in the bedroom.”

“This is my house,” she informed him.

“Don’t matter. Might be your house, but I’m the person taking care of you, so if I tell you to stay put, you stay put.”

“I stay put?” she drawled, crossing her arms over her chest. “Did you really say that?”

“Look, as interesting as this is,” Jake said. “It’s Sunday morning and I’d rather be lying in bed with my wife than here. But because we received some complaints, I have to be here with the two of you.”

“What sort of complaints? Was it the Grackle? I haven’t made any noise!” she cried.

“It wasn’t a noise complaint.” Jake studied her, then Renard. “Went to your apartment first to talk to you, couldn’t find you so I came here to speak to Opal.”

“You should have called her guardian first,” Renard told him, crossing his arms over his chest.

“You didn’t call Alec, did you?” she asked in alarm right as a big truck pulled up at the curb and out got Alec Malone.

She groaned. This felt a bit like déjà vu. “Jake, what were you thinking?”

“I was thinking that I need to talk to you about something and that the proper process is to let your guardian know.”

“I don’t need a guardian or a spokesperson.”

“Jake,” Alec said darkly as he walked up to where they stood. “Opal. Renard.”

There was no surprise in his voice at Renard being there, but Alec Malone was a hard man to read.

Was he pissed at her?

Of course he was. It was a Sunday morning and he’s been pulled out of his home and away from his family to deal with whatever shit the Grackle has unleashed.

“I’m sorry you’ve been dragged out here, Alec,” she told him. “Whatever this is, it’s gonna be utter bullshit. You really don’t have to stay.”

Alec raised his eyebrows as he removed his hat. “Maybe we could all go inside.”

Um. Sure.

They stepped inside after both Jake and Alec removed their boots.

Alec stared around at her living area that was still filled with bedroom furniture.

“Rearranging stuff?” he asked.

“I removed the carpet from the spare bedroom,” she said with a wince as she sat on the sofa. “You said I could do what I wanted, right?”

“Yeah, sweetheart. I said you could do what you liked, if you got help.”

Uh oh.

“It wasn’t too much work,” she told him. “And I usually do stuff at night when I can’t sleep.”

“You can’t sleep?” Alec asked, sounding concerned.

“It’s nothing,” she said, waving her hand. “Just, some, um, nightmares.”

Alec eyed her knowingly.

Renard was standing across the room from her, leaning against the wall, watching. “She got close to six hours last night before someone woke us.” He glared over at Jake who was standing by the door.

Jake sighed. “Look, the complainant wanted me to come out last night, but I wasn’t waking everyone up. This is the best I could do.”

“Who is the complainant?” Alec asked.

“Old shrew across the road,” Renard said.

Alec eyed Opal. “What’s wrong?”

“Wrong?” she asked.

“You’ve been moving slowly, like you’re in pain.”

“I’m fine.”

Alec narrowed his gaze at her. “Wanna try again?”

Uh-oh. She’d forgotten that he seemed to have some sort of built-in lie detector.

“Hurt my back carrying the carpet. Tweaked it again last night at the club. Renard brought me home and helped me.”

“That’s better,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest. “Tweaked it at the club?

“Yep.” Him being her guardian did not mean that she had to tell him everything.

Right?

Well, she wasn’t telling him what happened. Alec glanced from her to Renard.

Shit.

“Nothing to do with Renard. I mean, the tweaking had nothing to do with him. He helped me home and . . . stayed and why am I telling you all this? I’m not a fucking teenager who snuck a boy over.”

To her shock, Alec’s lips twitched. “Nope. You’re not. Just want to make sure you’re safe. And happy.”

“Jeez, this town. Something in the water, I tell ya.” But she owed him this truth and she owed it to Renard, too. Glancing up, she looked right at him. “But I am happy and safe. Renard kept me that way.”

“Then I owe you thanks,” Alec said to Renard.

“None needed seeing as I’m now gonna be Opal’s guardian.”

“Wait, what?” Jake asked. “You are?”

“Yep. We’re together,” Renard said. “So, Malone, good of you to come, sorry it was a waste of your time. But I’ve got her.”

He had her?

She nearly groaned. Alec Malone wasn’t a man that you just dismissed like that.

She knew because she’d tried.

“You’ve got her? Well, that’s good to know. Opal? That’s what you want?” Alec asked.

She took a deep breath. She could say no.

But she didn’t want to.

“It is. Doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate all that you’ve done for me, though, Alec.”

Alec waved a hand through the air, silencing her. “I’ve done hardly anything. Nothing that I wouldn’t normally do for family. And that’s what you are. No matter who you’re with or who is your guardian. Remember that you’re a Malone. We’re always here for you.”

“I can stay here?” she whispered.

Shit.

She hadn’t meant to sound so worried . . . so stark.

Alec walked over and crouched in front of her. “Bought this place for you, sweetheart. If I thought you’d agree, I’d sign it over to you now.”

She sucked in a breath.

She’d never expected that. Not in a million years.

“Why?” she asked hoarsely.

“Told you. You’re a Malone. You might not have the last name, but you helped keep my sister and my nephew safe. You kept Lilac safe. That means I take care of you. No matter who you’re with or who is your guardian. Got me? I can say it as many times as you need for it to penetrate.”

No need, it was starting to penetrate.

“I got you, Alec Malone. Haven’t had one good thing in my life until I met Lilac and Ryleigh. And now it seems my world is overflowing with good. Kind of hard to adjust to when you’ve had a life of bad.”

“You’ll get used to it,” he advised. “If you just let the good settle in, you’ll live the life you deserve.”

She nodded, unsure that she could speak without bursting into tears.

“Gonna stay and hear what’s going on, though,” Alec said, standing and glancing over at Jake, then Renard.

She wondered if Renard would protest. He could be prickly. But he just nodded back.

“Seems your right as her family,” he said.

Crap.

Those tears were coming. She blinked them back rapidly.

“Don’t cry, Gem,” Renard told her.

“Don’t be foolish, why would I cry?” she countered. “Just darn allergies.”

Jake cleared his throat. “Right. Back to why I’m here. I got a complaint that there was a stalker in the neighborhood.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Renard said. “She really called you about that?”

“Who? What?” Opal asked, feeling confused.

“Grackle,” he said.

“I should have known,” Opal replied. “What’s she complaining about now? Was I breathing too loud?”

Jake cleared his throat. “I know you’ve had problems with Mrs. Gingers. But I’m going to have to ask you both to use her real name.”

“You can ask,” Renard said.

“Doesn’t mean we’ll do it,” Opal added with a smile.

Jake groaned. “Great. Anyway, Mrs. Gingers reported that a dark, menacing truck has been prowling the streets, obviously scoping it out so the driver could commit a crime.”

“Wow, she should write a book with that imagination,” Renard said sarcastically. “I’ve been driving by each night to check on Opal.”

“You really didn’t have to,” Opal told him. “I was fine.”

He shrugged. “Needed to make sure.”

“So you were just driving by?” Jake asked. “You didn’t stop?”

“I parked up, but I didn’t get out of my truck. I wasn’t scoping anything out. Or committing a crime.”

“You could say he was protecting the neighborhood.”

Renard snorted. “Don’t care about the neighborhood, Gem, unless it affects you.”

Aww.

So sweet.

“Right. I’m not going to relay that to Mrs. Gingers. I’ll tell her that you were making certain that the neighborhood was safe. She also said she had a run in with you last night when you stopped and swore at her repeatedly. And threatened her.”

“For fucks sake. Didn’t swear at her repeatedly. All I said to her was that she better leave Opal alone. Then I went to check on Opal. She wasn’t home so I tracked her down.”

“Tracked her down?” Jake asked. “You didn’t have her number?”

“I was at the club,” Opal told him. “I didn’t have my phone on me.”

She answered the question without out-and-out lying. Impressive.

When she did that with other people, of course. She wouldn’t be doing that with him.

“We finished here?” Renard asked. “Opal needs to eat and take some more painkillers.”

“Shouldn’t you take her to the doctor?” Alec asked with a frown.

“Will be doing that today.”

“There’s really no point,” Opal said. “It feels better already. By tomorrow it will be all good.”

“Unfortunately, there’s one more complaint,” Jake said.

“For fuck’s sake, that woman needs a hobby,” Renard complained. “What is it that I’ve done now?”

“This one isn’t about you.”

“Tell me,” Opal said tiredly.

“Mrs. Gingers stated that she saw someone carrying a dead body in the middle of the night out of this house. That they dragged it out of the house, down the driveway and into the shed.”

Opal started to laugh and then she groaned in pain.

“That’s it,” Renard snapped. “You all need to leave so I can help Opal.”

“Opal, do you need a break for a moment?” Jake asked in concern.

“No, no. Keep going. Let’s get this craziness over and done with. It wasn’t a dead body; it was a roll of carpet. It’s in the shed. I can show you.”

Jake waved a hand at her. “Stay there. Alec and I will go. Renard can get you some painkillers.”

“There’s a key for the padlock under a rock to the right of the door,” she told them.

They headed out the door and Renard walked over to crouch in front of her. “Scale of one to ten, how bad is the pain?”

“About a three,” she told him.

“So that means it’s more like a six.”

“What makes you say that?” she demanded.

“Because you and me? We’re alike in a lot of ways and if I was in pain, I’d downgrade it too. But you don’t have to do that with me, Gem. Got it?”

“Um, right.”

Sometimes it was scary how well he seemed to be able to read her.

There was a knock on the door before Jake and Alec returned. To her surprise, Renard stayed crouched in front of her.

“Right. All good,” Jake said. “Thanks for your patience, Opal. Sorry to get you up on a Sunday morning. You’ll get her to see one of the Docs, right, Renard?”

“Course I will,” Renard replied darkly. “You wanna have a word with Mrs. Gingers about not wasting everyone’s time with all her complaints?”

“I will be talking to her now.” Jake nodded at them all and left.

“Sorry he dragged you away from your family this morning, Alec,” Opal said.

“Didn’t drag me anywhere, Opal,” Alec replied. “You haven’t been to Sunday lunch in a while.”

“Ahh, no,” she said guiltily. She was always invited yet she hadn’t really made the effort to get out there. Usually she used the excuse that she didn’t have a car, which was pretty weak when Raid and Hannah always offered to pick her up.

“Maybe the two of you would like to come soon.” With that, he gave a nod and left.

Did he . . . had he . . . just invited Renard to Sunday lunch? Which was for family?

“Did he just invite me to a family lunch?” Renard asked.

“Um. Yep,” she replied. “And that’s a big deal.”

Renard scowled. “Not sure I like it.”

She barely refrained from rolling her eyes. Of course he didn’t like it.

“Know what happens, you go to lunch, next thing you know you’re part of the cult. Going to every family get together and there’s a lot because they fucking breed like rabbits. Then all of a sudden, you’re in charge of bringing the egg salad and you can’t get out . . . because there always has to be egg salad and you’re the one bringing it. It’s a set-up.”

“Totally a set-up. I’ve never agreed to bringing the egg salad.”

“You making fun of me, Gem?”

“Ahh, nope. I was totally agreeing with you,” she told him.

Grunting, he got up and moved into the kitchen.

Well, maybe she was laughing at him.

But just a tiny bit.