Adverse Possession (The Anna Albertini Files #3) - Rebecca Zanetti Page 0,1

admitted.

He grasped my arms and held me away from him so I could meet his gaze. “It always does, Angel. Enjoy the good times. Trust me.”

I’d dreamed about him my entire teenaged years as well as years into my twenties, and now here he was, and he was holding me. Life was sometimes too much to grasp. But he was right that we should enjoy the good times. It was a lesson we’d both learned while young. “Are you nervous about work tomorrow?” I asked.

“No.” His grin was infectious. “I’m happy to be working out of the Spokane office. If they don’t want my team there, we’ll just find a satellite office here in Idaho.”

His team was the only ATF special response team allowed to work out of a satellite office instead of one of the main SRT offices, and it was just an experiment. If it didn’t go well, he’d have to move. Or he’d just go undercover again, and I wouldn’t hear from him for years.

“Stop worrying,” he murmured. “We control our lives.”

Ha. I learned that wasn’t true a long time ago, as well. It was sweet the alpha male thought so. Or maybe he had to think so in order to shoot people before they could shoot him. Who knew?

My phone buzzed and I tugged it out of my jeans to see a text from my sister, Tessa.

Aiden unashamedly read the text. “Quint 911?”

My heart sank, but I straightened my shoulders. “Yeah.” I read the second text. Meet at Tratto’s at six. T.

“Your cousin, Quint?” Aiden asked.

I nodded. “He’s a smokejumper and also performs search and rescue missions. He’s been in Cali at a fire looking for remains with his dog, and apparently it was a rough one, and he’s home at the family barbecue today.” I’d skipped the barbecue to help Aiden out with his new home.

Aiden turned me and pulled my back to his front, settling his arms around my waist. “When he gets home, you and Tessa check in?”

“Yeah. Donna, too.” I stared at the floor that needed to be sanded and tried to ignore his hard body behind me. Both of my sisters were great at cheering people up or just listening to them. “When Quint has a rough one, we usually bug him until he gets back to his sunny disposition.”

“I was in high school with Quint. Great wide receiver as well as golfer,” Aiden said. “I didn’t know he’d gone into smoke jumping. Doesn’t he have a bunch of brothers? I played baseball with Rory until I got suspended from high school for a week.”

“He has five brothers.” The Italian side of my family procreated well. Heck. So did the Irish side. I had a lot of cousins. “Quint’s girlfriend broke up with him right before he left, and then he had to find dead bodies in rubble, so he’s going to need some meddling from us.” As cousins went, Quint was a good one. He was also a good man, and he deserved some fun as well as peace. Plus, he was better with a project going on, so we’d have to think of something to preoccupy his mind for a bit. I looked around the kitchen that needed work.

“No,” Aidan said, resting his chin on my head. “I want to do this myself.”

I got that. Plus, the idea that Aiden was setting down roots gave me tingles in my abdomen. The more work he did himself, the more he’d want to stay put. “Maybe you guys could go golfing? Do you still golf?”

“Yeah. I went undercover in Mississippi at a Country Club dealing drugs and worked pretty hard on my handicap. I’ll ask Quint to go golfing if that’d help.” Aiden felt solid and sure behind me.

This was all too good to be true. We should probably talk about us or what we wanted or something. “Aiden—”

A pipe groaned beneath the kitchen sink and then water burst out.

Aiden moved instantly, setting me aside and dropping to his knees. “Damn it.” He reached for the wrench and ducked under, swearing in Gaelic. “Hey. Hand me the plug wrench, would you?” His voice was muffled.

“Sure.” I walked in the water pooling on the floor and dug into the toolbox, handing over the plug wrench. This wasn’t my first leaking pipe.

“Thanks.” Aiden fiddled as water continued to pour.

“Sure.” Yeah, I was a little smug I could help fix the sink. I stepped over his legs and my heel caught on his jeans.