Page 71 of Her Noble Protector

“Raiden, you have to keep me clear of this shit. I’m telling you, man, nothing but desk duty for you if I get caught up in your mother’s matchmaking schemes.” Raiden watched as Max deftly rolled some rice dough around red bean paste.

“You shouldn’t have asked for a recipe. It keeps you in her sights.”

“The shit’s good. How was I supposed to know that asking your mom for a recipe would mean she would try to marry me off?” Max complained.

Raiden reached over Max and Lisa’s prepping area to the drying rack that had the crab wontons. Lisa smacked his hand.

“Ow.”

“Those are for the guests,” she reprimanded him.

“I’m a guest.”

“Go ask your mother if she needs anything more from the freezer,” she commanded him.

Raiden stopped for just an instant, blown away by the sparkle in Lisa’s brown eyes.

“What? What are you looking at?”

He reached up with his thumb, and brushed an imaginary spot off her cheek, just because he needed to touch her.

“What was that?” Lisa asked.

“You had mochiko flour on your cheek.”

“Oh,” she said softly.

“Gotta go help Mom. Save me some mochi balls.”

She nodded.

He bypassed his mother and Cami and walked out to the front of the house. Tonight he was going to talk Lisa into going out on a date with him. A real live date, not this meet-up-at-his-family’s-house bullshit. A real live date. But even as important as that was, there was something that was even more important.

He pulled out his phone and accessed his e-mails. He’d received one from Lydia Archer this morning that he’d immediately forwarded to Kane McNamara. He wanted to see if he’d gotten a response yet.

Nothing.

He hit Kane’s number.

“Raiden, I’m still looking into it,” Kane said by way of answering the phone.

“Look harder. Look faster.”

“Your woman is safe here in Virginia, be happy. We’re going to track down the cartel connection, and with the new information that Lydia just provided we’ll track it down faster.”

“Kane, I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Raiden said as he turned down the house path and started walking down the sidewalk.

“There are no bills, no nothing, tagging her whereabouts to Virginia,” Kane reassured Raiden.

“Man, they broke into the storage unit with her truck in it.”

“Again, all of that paperwork just points right back to her house in Arizona. We’re good.”

“Like I don’t fucking know that, Kane. But you and I both know, that means they are still anxious to find her. That means we have to put a stop to them. I don’t think we should be focused on the cartel, we need to go at the source. Maria.”

Kane didn’t say anything.

“Kane, you there?”