Page 116 of Always: A Legacy Novel

“Are you going to have a babysitter follow along?”

An enforcer, he meant.

Catherine shrugged. “Probably, but they never follow me inside places, or bother us, right?”

True.

He found her father only sent enforcers when she was in the city, or out with someone who was not a man of her family. When she went out with her male cousins, enforcers didn’t trail behind.

Cross had an idea. “How about the beach?”

“It’s April, Cross.”

“Yeah, no. I meant, a house on the beach. It’s empty—small little place, but right on the beach down in Odessa. Zeke started renting it a while back, but he’s in Chicago for the next week with his dad, and I have keys. He’s got a big ass television the size of one wall and another wall of just windows that look out to a private section of beach in the back. Is that nothing enough for you?”

“He won’t be mad you crashed his place with me?”

Cross scoffed. “Zeke? I have years’ worth of receipts for how much he owes me, so don’t even worry about it.”

“If you say so.”

“This is awesome,” Catherine said, peering out the wall of windows overlooking the small patch of private beach. “See, this is why I would want to live in Florida or something.”

“Right, Florida. Where the gators can eat you, if the yearly storms don’t kill you.”

She gave him a dirty look over her shoulder. “Don’t ruin my dreams, Cross.”

“You’re not going anywhere but New York state, babe.”

“And why’s that?”

“Because you would never go that far from your family,” he replied with a shrug.

“My brother is going to Detroit.”

“Your brother probably isn’t like you.”

Catherine stilled before saying, “Yeah, maybe you’re right.”

“Here, find a movie for us.” Cross tossed Catherine the television remote from the coffee table. “I need to call my step-father, and let him know where I went. I didn’t bother to find them before we left. I don’t need another lecture.”

“I think that’s called them parenting you, if it’s a foreign concept or whatever.”

He held up a hand as he walked into the kitchen. “Don’t need your judgement, either.”

Her sweet laughter echoed behind him.

It took Cross forever to explain enough to suffice Calisto’s questions. Where he was, who he was with, that Dante Marcello was not coming to find him with a gun in hand, and that he would be back home before morning. By the time he was done, Catherine had set herself up in the living room on a big mound of blankets. She wasn’t even watching the action movie on the television, but instead she faced the windows.

“You know,” Cross said as he slid in behind her, and pulled her close to wrap his arms around her middle, “your birthday was a hell of a lot louder than mine this year.”

“Oh?”

“The loudest mine got was when my sister dumped ice water on me in bed.”

Catherine’s shoulders shook with muted giggles. “Really?”

“Yeah, it was not a good way to wake up.”