Free In Too Deep by Tracey Alvarez Page A

gooey
“aww” from slipping out. “Do you have a gun?”
    “ Zoe!”
    “ Mamma—I’m just asking .”
She rolled her eyes in a theatrical fashion and turned back to
Piper.
    Piper patted her hip pockets and
frowned. “Darn, I must’ve left my gun in my other
shorts.”
    Zoe giggled, covering her cherubic
lips with a small hand. Then her eyes widened and shifted to a
serious confidentiality. “Did you know in America last year over
thirty-one thousand people died from guns? Thirty-one
thousand! ”
    Oh my God. She loved this
kid already. “Really? That many?”
    Piper tuned out the huff of
laughter from Shaye and Kezia’s muttered, “Sweet mother of God,”
followed the soft slap of palm meeting forehead.
    Zoe nodded. “I read it on the
internet.”
    The weight of the morning’s
tension oozed out of Piper’s muscles. This was shaping up to be a
fun lunch.
     
    ***
     
    Conversation flowed under the
blue-tinted shade of the sun umbrella while they enjoyed their
lunch. West arrived at their table with a charming smile for Kezia,
Zoe and Shaye, but his gaze switched to hooded and cool when it
landed on Piper.
    Kezia excused herself to go to the
restroom while West and Shaye continued to talk shop. Zoe played on
her mother’s phone, and West turned away from Piper, excluding her
from their conversation. Not that she gave a hoot about orders, or
stock, or whatever else they continued to yatter on about. She had
nothing to offer their discussion other than a barely masked yawn,
because yeah, she was only the lowly kitchen-hand—and no offence to
young Fraser whose job she’d taken over; he was a sweetie. Unlike
his boss.
    Piper bent over Zoe’s shoulder and
whispered, “I’m going to the bathroom too—you okay here with Mr.
and Mrs. Boring?”
    The girl giggled, but didn’t look
up from the screen. “Uh-huh.”
    Piper wound her way through the
restaurant and went through the doorway leading to the public
restrooms in the main hallway.
    A concrete slab of a man had Kezia
backed up against the hallway wall. He towered over her, meaty
hands wedged on either side of her arms, preventing her escape.
“How long are you going to use your dead husband and cancer kid as
an excuse?”
    Kezia’s fingers curled claws in
the crook of the guy’s elbows, trying to force him away. Neither
noticed her frozen in the doorway.
    “ Leave my husband and daughter out
of it. They’re not why I won’t party with you, Gavin.” Kezia’s
voice could’ve crushed ice. “Now, back off.”
    Gavin. Gav. Piper’s mind made a
quick foray back to age sixteen when Gav cornered her in Ford and
Harley’s bathroom at the twins’ eighteenth birthday party. He’d
followed her in, locked the door and tried to kiss her, ramming his
slimy tongue into her mouth, grabbing one of her breasts. He missed
having the tip of his tongue bitten off by millimeters. Then she
kneed him in the nuts and went at him with the closest weapon at
hand, which happened to be a toilet brush—but hey, those bristles
could hurt if shoved somewhere with enough force. She only had time
to smack him across his stricken face a few times before West and
Ben, hearing the commotion, busted inside. Her heroes pissed
themselves laughing at her makeshift club, but dragged Gavin
outside and taught him a lesson about respect.
    A combination of temper and
training hustled Piper down the hall. She wanted to wrench Gav’s
arm up behind his back and bend his wrist at an angle cops
affectionately dubbed the “chicken hold” until he screamed like a
girl. Then maybe she could beat him senseless with the rolling pin
Bill kept in his kitchen. Unfortunately, as an off-duty officer,
the paperwork for manhandling Gav meant it wasn’t worth the hassle.
Pity. She’d really, really enjoy watching him
scream.
    “ Cornering women in bathrooms
still, Gavin? You’re pathetic, you know that, right?”
    Gavin started at the sound of her
voice, but didn’t move his arms. Joints in his