They needed a mom just as much as I did. And even though they all got more time with her than I did, that didn't mean they didn't still need her. I don't think you ever stopped needing your mother.
"She seems pretty badass," I admitted.
"You got no fucking idea," he said, giving me a wicked look that promised a lot of future stories.
"So, we're stealing her," Fee announced suddenly, moving to stand in front of her brother-in-law. As if they had choreographed it, Lea moved in as well.
"I would pretend to fight for you," Mark said, releasing me, "but I don't stand a chance against them."
"See how good we have him trained already?" Fee asked, patting his cheek, and giving me a smile. "Want to get some air?" she asked, turning before I even finished nodding.
I was vaguely aware of Dusty breaking away from Ryan and moving our way as well.
"Becca," Fee called when we stepped out to find her three daughters running around the yard. "Uncle Mark said you could totally jump on his bed," she announced in a dramatic voice, making the girls squeal and charge inside to put that to the test. She gave me a smile. "That is payback for him dropping my girls off to me last month with a karaoke machine. I love my girls, but good God in heaven, not a single one of them can carry a tune. They make all the dogs in the neighborhood shriek in misery. So, you're Scotti."
"I'm Scotti," I agreed, nodding.
"I'm gonna level with you, I didn't think Mark was ever going to find a girl. Let alone some badass armed robber. You really up our cool quotient. Navesink Bank has a lot of badass women from bomb-makers to self-defense gurus and on and on. We needed everyone else to know..."
"No one can know about my past," I cut her off, voice maybe a little too shrill considering she was someone I wanted to get along with, but my need for self-preservation so strong that there was no way not to be a tad bit snippy.
"Well, duh," she said, rolling her eyes a little. "But just for our own confidence-level, y'know? It's cool to have a certifiable badass around. I mean, Helen is the shit and Lea used to be a biker and whatnot. But, all said and done, Dusty and I are almost painfully normal. Sorry, Dust. I know you have your drug and agoraphobia thing, but before that you were a school teacher. And while I have that fucked up backstory and run a phone sex business, I'm kinda just a boring mom and wife now."
"You might not be a bomb-maker, but you seem pretty badass in your own right. Who else could boss the Mallick men around?" I asked.
She smiled at that as Lea turned to me. "So now that you're retiring, what are you planning to do? Because, ah, we just lost another girl to maternity leave. I mean, you're cool with telling men their itty-bitty baby-cocks are the most pathetic thing you've ever seen and not worthy of your pretty pink va-gay-gay, right?"
"Lea!" Dusty snapped, blushing for me.
But I couldn't help it, I was laughing. "Oh yeah, totally. I say that all the time."
"Actually," Fee said, eyes dancing. "Those brothers of yours... all of them will be needing jobs, right?"
"They're all straight," I said, shrugging.
"Yeah, no. Get this. We have had a growing amount of female callers calling in and asking if we had any men working. I never realized there was even a market for it, but apparently it is big and growing. I was thinking of trying to branch out into that, but I have no idea where to find men who would be willing to dirty talk lonely women all night." She gave me a shrug. "I don't know your brothers, but if any of them would be interested, send them my way."
I couldn't see Kingston, Nixon, or Atlas being into it, but for a strange reason, I thought maybe Rush would find it interesting. Maybe I would mention it. He was the one I was most worried about. I knew King would land on his feet. Nixon and Atlas would likely flounder for a little while, but find their way as well. But because Rush was such a good wheel man, there was definite concern that he might look to using that skill, rent himself out to any of the other seemingly endless amounts of criminals in Navesink Bank. He was young enough that it might have still appealed to him. And the money, well, let's just say that since the wheel man is the one who kept you out of jail, they were paid well.
It would be tempting for him to go down that road once he realized the restrictions on income that came from going straight and having very little traditional work history.