Page 34 of State of Grace (First Family 2)

“I’m good.”

“Before I let you go, what’re you hearing from Gigi?”

“An occasional text. She’s feeling better, dying to get back to work and sick of sitting around at home.”

“She’s got a few more weeks to go before she’ll be cleared to return.”

“I’m afraid she’ll go mad before then.”

“I’d feel the same way. I’m going to head home and start fresh in the morning with the company Pam was due to support at their event this past weekend. Shoot me a text if anything pops.”

“Will do.”

Chapter Seven

Detective Gigi Dominguez was, in fact, going crazy being sidelined from work and life as she recovered from injuries sustained in an altercation with her now-former boyfriend, Ezra, who was receiving in-patient treatment for bipolar disorder. After he’d taken her mother, sister and nephews hostage in her mother’s home, Gigi was done making excuses for the man who’d been part of her life since high school.

It’d been bad enough that he’d given her a concussion and ruptured her spleen, which had to be removed in an emergency surgery, but when he’d involved her family… That was the end of the line for her. Yes, she’d promised she would check on him while he was in treatment, but she’d agreed to that only to get him to release her family.

She would keep her promise to check on him.

But she would never see him again.

She shivered, reliving the night when she’d tried to get him to a hospital and how he’d exploded with outrage that she’d suggested anything might be wrong. No, she couldn’t think about that, because when she did, her entire body trembled with the bone-deep fear she’d experienced at realizing he’d become a threat to her personal safety.

And she’d missed that.

How had she missed that? She was trained to spot those things and hadn’t with him until it was too late to stop him from seriously injuring her.

Weeks later, she was still trying to unpack the emotions from that night and the one a few days later when he’d held her family at gunpoint, demanding to be allowed to see her.

Tears burned in her eyes as she relived the horror of her beloved family members being in mortal danger because of her. She refused to give in to the tears, fearing that if she let herself fall apart, she might never recover. Between battling her own difficult memories and the relentless coverage of the shooting in Des Moines, her emotions were all over the place.

A soft knock on her apartment door drew her out of the dark place her thoughts had gone.

“Just a sec.”

She was still moving slowly, uncertain which was worse—abdominal surgery or a severe concussion. At the moment, they were tied for first place. Before she opened the door, she looked through the peephole and saw her colleague Detective Cameron Green.

What’s he doing here—again?

Gigi took half a second to tighten the belt on her robe and to run her fingers through her hair to straighten wild curls.

After disengaging the new locks that Cam had installed for her after she came home from the hospital, she opened the door to her handsome blond colleague.

Smiling, he held up a brown bag with handles. “I got some more of that Mexican you liked last week.”

He was too sweet and too kind and too everything, including sexy. She’d noticed that long before her life had exploded in her face. But she’d been with Ezra since high school, and thus Cameron Green had remained firmly in the friend-and-colleague category.

“Come in.” She stepped back to admit him, reminding herself for the umpteenth time since the incident with Ezra that she had nothing to fear from this man, or the others she worked with who’d been by to check on her. Her squad had made it their personal responsibility to keep her fed and entertained, but no one had been more faithful than Cameron.

“I can drop and go if you’re not up for company,” he said.

“Did you get food for yourself, too?”

“Yep, but I can take it home if you’re tired.”

“That’s okay. We can eat together.”