“Tell your mother good-bye,” Tim told her softly as he released her. “You girls hurt her feelings when you just leave.”

She knew that. She’d always known that. But sometimes, her mother was just as controlling as her brother and cousins were. They just did it in different ways.

“I will,” she promised, moving back to smile at him chidingly. “It’s not like I won’t be back at some point, Tim.”

“Better be,” he grunted. “We like seeing your smile around here.”

He told all Mercedes Mackay’s girls that. He told Mercedes he couldn’t live without her smile.

Leaving the office, Lyrica went to her old room, hurriedly grabbed the few clothes she’d had Zoey pack for her two weeks before, and headed downstairs.

Placing her luggage next to the door, Lyrica stepped into the television room, where a guest had just risen from one of the easy chairs and was moving to the doorway.

“Lyrica dear.” Her voice charming, lilting, the South American beauty Carmina Lucient spoke with a cheerful smile and warm dark brown eyes.

Long and straight, her dark brown hair fell to the middle of her back and framed a delicate, almost aristocratic face. With her naturally arched brows and thickly lashed eyes, she could have been a model rather than an interior designer and fiancée to a soldier whose return home she was awaiting in the next few weeks.

Dressed in light gray capris and a sleeveless silk blouse, the woman looked classy and cool. A far cry from Lyrica’s own jeans and white T-shirt that proclaimed Despite the Look on My Face You’re Still Talking, along with a pair of ragged leather sneakers.

She was comfortable, she excused herself. Comfort meant everything at the moment.

“Hey, Carmina,” Lyrica returned in greeting. “Have you seen Mom?”

“I believe she stepped into the kitchen,” the other woman informed her, her gaze going to the luggage sitting in the foyer as a light frown flitted across her face. “You are leaving us, then?”

“It’s time to go home,” Lyrica agreed. “I’m sure the smell of bug killer has evaporated by now.”

The story that she was staying with her mother again because of the smell of the insecticide in her new apartment hadn’t roused anyone’s suspicions, she didn’t think.

“We’ll no longer have our evening chats, then.” Carmina pouted gently. “I have greatly enjoyed them.”

“So have I,” Lyrica promised. “I’m going to find Mom and tell her good-bye. Enjoy your stay.”

Her mother was worried. Her dark eyes filled with tears when she saw Lyrica standing next to her luggage a few minutes later.

“Don’t cry, Mom,” Lyrica groaned, feeling the surge of guilt her mother could always give her. “I promise, I’ll still visit.”

Mercedes acted as though her children were moving to another world when they moved out of her house. Because all her children had moved out now, she always seemed heartbroken.

Tim so needed to take her on a cruise or something.

“All my babies think they have to leave me.” Mercedes sighed sadly as she wrapped her arms around Lyrica and held her close. “This isn’t fair. My nest is far too empty.” Leaning back, she smiled back at Lyrica beatifically now. “You should convince Eve to have grandbabies soon.”

“Yikes!” Lyrica jumped back. “Grandbabies? Really, Mom? Let them enjoy the honeymoon first or something.”

Amused disgust pulled at her mother’s expression. “If I cannot have my babies home then I should have grandbabies.”

This was evidently a new idea her mother had come up with.

“Discuss it with Eve.” Lyrica was not going to get into this conversation.

Her mother shook her head before her expression tightened once more into worry. Pulling Lyrica back into her embrace, she held her tightly for several long moments.

“Be careful, my soulful heart,” she whispered at Lyrica’s ear. The words reminded her of her childhood and the personal farewells she and her sisters had gotten each morning before they went to school.

“I will, Momma,” Lyrica answered, kissing her mother’s cheek as emotion welled in her throat. “I’ll call soon. I promise.”

She had to escape before her mother had her crying.

Grabbing her bags, she rushed from the house, refusing to look back in case her mother was crying. Because if she was, there would be no choice but to return right back to the house and stay another night, or week, or the rest of her life so her momma wouldn’t shed tears over her again.

Her mother had shed far too many tears over the years, Lyrica had always thought.

Stowing her luggage in the Jeep, she was in the vehicle and driving back to town within minutes. Thankfully, the inn wasn’t far from the apartment she’d rented just off Somerset’s main thoroughfare.

It wasn’t as busy and rushed or as loud as Main Street. She had a postage-stamp-size plot of grass in front of her patio doors with a privacy fence on each side and two parking spots right in front of it. The apartments, owned by Mackay Enterprises, the company her brother and cousins had created to combine all their business interests and oversee their children’s futures, were safe, roomy, and quiet.

The best part about living there was the fact that she knew they were secure. A Somerset detective, Samantha Bryce, lived on one side of her, while the girlfriend of an officer lived on the other. That put two law enforcement personnel on the premises for the better part of any given day.

Pulling into her parking spot, Lyrica breathed her first true sigh of relief since she’d stepped from the elevator and nearly died. Pulling her luggage from the Jeep, she lugged it to her patio door and was preparing to unlock it when Samantha stepped outside.

“It’s about time you got home.” Samantha grinned from beneath the bill of her low-profile baseball cap.

Dressed in men’s shorts and a T-shirt, the woman should have seemed oddly dressed, or far too male, yet neither was the case. Lyrica had decided that Samantha was so comfortable in her own skin that the confidence that came from it simply didn’t allow her to appear as anything but self-assured.

Her long, curling waves of multihued brown hair were gathered at the back of her head in a ponytail and pulled through the cap. The trailing waves and curls were then confined with several more elastic bands to keep them under control.

Dark sunglasses were perched over the cap on her head and white leather sneakers covered her sockless feet.

“Yeah, Dawg gets kind of territorial when someone shoots at his sisters.” Lyrica sighed theatrically, well aware that Samantha had been working the investigation for the Somerset Police Department at Lyrica’s cousin-in-law’s request. Alex Jansen had assigned the case to Samantha before he’d even arrived with Brogan and Jed to pick her up at Graham’s.

Samantha grinned at the comment. “I went through your apartment when Dawg called and said you were coming home. Everything’s fine, no unwanted visitors.” Her hazel eyes gleamed at the last comment.

“I’ll be sure to thank Dawg.” Lyrica rolled her eyes. “Like I said, territorial.”

“Door’s still unlocked for you,” Samantha laughed as Lyrica moved to push the keys into the lock.

“Sam, I’m hating you today.” Lyrica sighed.

“Most people have those days,” Sam retorted as she stood next to the building and waited.

Waited for her to enter the apartment?

Lyrica wasn’t certain what she was waiting on.

Opening the door, she picked up her luggage and stepped inside. Only to come to a stop once again.

“Are you totally mad at me, too?” Kye jumped up from her couch, her fingers lacing together as she watched Lyrica with painful intensity.

Placing her luggage to the side of the room, Lyrica shook her head uncertainly. “No. I thought you would be mad at me, though.”

Turning, she pulled the patio door closed before turning back to Graham’s sister.