Rico forced his mind from that intriguing nugget of information. He could see that she was torn between wanting to go to her child and wanting him gone, and then she blurted out, over the ever increasing wails, ‘Look, now is really not a good time. Please leave us alone.’ Please leave us alone. Something about those words, the way she said us, the hunted look about her face, made Rico dig his heels in. There was some bigger reason she wanted him gone. She felt threatened. That much was crystal-clear. And, to his utter surprise, the child’s piercing wails were not making him want to run in the opposite direction, fast. Gypsy’s words, her whole demeanour was intriguing him, and he hadn’t found much intriguing at all lately. He wanted answers to her behaviour, wanted to know why she wanted him gone so badly, and her crying baby wasn’t about to deter him. That realisation shocked him slightly, as his only experience with kids to date was his four-year-old niece and her baby brother.
