Jonny's Redemption (Gemini Group Book 7)

by Riley Edwards

  The song ended, Penny came out from behind the drum set, and joined Sean and Evie center stage.

  “Tonight y’all got to be a part of something great,” Evie started. “Remember this girl’s name. Penny Cash, y’all.”

  Penny said not a word; she stared out into the crowd and looked like a deer. Not one caught in the headlights but one caught on the business-end of a shotgun.

  “Soak it up, girl!” Evie shouted.

  Penny jolted and a wide smile tipped her lips right before her arms lifted straight up and she gave the crowd devil horns and they went wild.

  Beside me, Chasin busted out laughing. Jonny’s body was rocking with humor and I was on cloud nine. But it was bittersweet.

  Tonight was it.

  Evie was officially done performing.

  I took one last look around. The crowd was hyped, the lights flashed, the sound of the bass still thrumming, the vibe perfect.

  And Vivi Rush took her final walk across the stage. Instead of going to her man, she stopped in front of me.

  “You know, right?” she asked me.

  “I know.”

  Evie’s gaze went over my shoulder and she said, “You did that.” Jonny’s arms tightened and his body stilled. “Thank you.”

  “Evie,” Jonny rumbled.

  “Just say you’re welcome and leave it at that, Jonny,” Evie demanded.

  “You’re welcome.”

  My friend’s eyes dropped back to mine and she nodded.

  “We made it.”

  “Yeah, Evie, we made it.”

  She wasn’t talking about stardom or money or the stage.

  Evie was talking about Jonny and Chasin. She was talking about Macy, Alec, Charleigh, Holden, Silver, Weston, McKenna, Nixon, Kennedy, Jameson, and their families. We always had each other but now we had more. So much more it was almost embarrassing the bounty of blessings was so plentiful.

  Two lost women who’d been roaming through life living on a wing and a prayer, clinging to the past, clinging to each other, now had it all.

  We’d made it.

  25

  “I don’t know how you survived,” Jonny muttered and gulped down the last of his lukewarm coffee.

  Bobby looked at him from the passenger seat of his truck and smiled.

  “What’s wrong, old man, can’t hang with the cool kids?”

  They’d been home from Nashville for two days and Jonny was still dragging ass. The weekend had been a nonstop, exhausting whirlwind and a security nightmare. Fans and paparazzi had swarmed Evie every time they’d left the hotel suite. It was Jonny’s opinion Evie was too gracious, any time a fan asked for a picture or autograph she stopped and obliged. Too much hugging, too much talking, way too much touching. Jonny had been on edge from the moment the plane touched down in Nashville until they’d boarded the jet to come home. But he had to admit that wasn’t the only reason he was still recuperating.

  “I haven’t pulled an all-nighter since college. And even then my ass wasn’t in a diner booth watching the sunrise. I was in a bed passed out before the sun came up.”

  “I’m surprised Evie managed, being pregnant and all. But it’s tradition. After a concert if we didn’t have to get back on the bus to leave right away we’d hit the after-parties, Evie would do her thing, but we always ended the night just her and me in a booth. We’ve had after-action breakfasts in some pretty seedy diners across the country. Y’all got lucky we were in Nashville and not someplace in New York—those can get sketchy.”

  “After-action, huh? Tell me, baby, did you see a lot of action on the road?”

  “Passed out in a bed? You tell me, Jonny, did you see a lot of beds in college?” she returned.

  “Touché.” Jonny laughed. “Though for the record, most of the time the bed was mine and I was alone in it.”

  “Right. Then let it go on the record that I was not having sexy fun time action on the road.”

  As much as Jonny was enjoying the carefree banter, he was pulling up the lane that led to the studio and he didn’t have much time.

  “You won’t leave the studio, right?”

  “I won’t leave the studio,” she confirmed. “I have a ton of work to catch up on and I need to go to my place and I don’t know, maybe clean up a bit.”

  Right. Now that Bobby had brought up her place it was time to have the conversation. Though sitting outside the studio in his truck wasn’t where Jonny had wanted to ask her to move in with him. He thought he’d ask her over a nice dinner, candlelight, make it romantic. But then this was him and Bobby and neither of them were the romantic types.

  Jonny stopped, put his truck in park, and launched right in.

  “I want you to move in with me.”

  “You don’t say?”

  The sexy smirk that accompanied Bobby’s sexy-as-fuck drawl had Jonny’s cock twitching.

  “Oh, I say. What about you, baby, you wanna move in?”

  “Hm.” Bobby pursed her lips and tapped her chin as if she had to think about his offer even though they both knew she did not. “I don’t know, it’s tempting. I mean, my mornings are so much brighter when I’m woken up with your mouth between my legs.”

  Yeah, his mornings were so much brighter, too, when he woke up having a taste for his woman and all he had to do was roll her off of him and he could get down to business.

  And…now his cock wasn’t twitching—it was rock-hard and ready. Jonny couldn’t get enough of her. Morning and night, then after a few hours of sleep, morning again and so the cycle continued. What could he say? His woman was hot, and waking up next to her naked body pressed against his inspired all sorts of dirty deeds.

  Jonny hooked Bobby around the back of the neck and pulled her closer.

  “Move in with me.”

  “You sure? This is a big step.”

  “Positive.”

  He left out the part about her already, mostly, living with him. She hadn’t spent a single night in her own bed in over a month. And he never wanted her to again.

  “So, what, are we just going to shack up? Live in sin?”

  Bobby was smiling, her tone was teasing, but under the nonchalance, there was a real question.

  One Jonny had an answer to.

  “Baby, if I didn’t think it was environmentally imperative for me to drag my ass to the office to comb through mounds of paperwork seeing as McKenna used a ream of paper printing it out and God knows how many trees died for the cause, I’d tell her to email me the files and we’d be on a plane someplace tropical so I could marry you today.”

  “Environmentally imperative?”

  “Indeed.”

  Bobby’s smile faltered, but not in a bad way as such when she whispered, “I don’t want a big wedding and I don’t need someplace tropical.”

  “You wanna get married on the farm in the back field where Nix and Micky got married?” Jonny surmised.

  “Yeah.”

  Evie and Chasin would soon be getting married in the same spot that Nix and Micky had tied the knot. Holden and Charleigh would be, too, and a thought started to form.

  “Carry on the tradition,” Jonny muttered.

  “It’s good luck.”

  “What is?”

  “This farm. Nixon came home and found his soulmate. And when he came he brought Jameson, Weston, Chasin, and Holden with him. Then Alec came and they all found what they needed. Different circumstances but it all started here. And if Nixon hadn’t come home, here, back to this farm, I wouldn’t have found you. This place is magic.”

  The Swagger farm was magic.

  “Does this mean you’re moving in?”

  “Yeah, Jonny, I’m moving in. Though I don’t actually have anything else to move in, all my clothes are already there.”

  “Bobby, your place is full of furniture. We can trade out whatever you want.”

  “No way. Your house is perfect the way it is.”

  Jonny loved she thought that but he couldn’t help worrying about wh
y she didn’t want to move her furniture.

  “Seriously, baby, move your stuff—”

  “You don’t get it. Stuff is just stuff. All I need is you. Well, and my clothes, and shoes, and my makeup.” She stopped and grinned then continued. “Okay, so I need a lot of stuff. But I don’t need the furniture. Besides, we can turn the shed into a bunkhouse for artists when they come to the studio.”

  Bobby’s place couldn’t be described as a bunkhouse, but Jonny wasn’t going to argue with her over furniture when he was getting what he wanted. And that was her and the abundance of clothes, shoes, and girly products that came with her.

  “We’ll pack up the rest when I pick you up?”

  “Sounds like a plan, Stan.”

  Jonny huffed out a laugh.

  “I love you, Jonny Spencer.”

  Good God, that never got old.

  “Love you, too, Bobby Layne. Now give me a kiss so I can let you get to work.”

  She didn’t give him a kiss. Instead, she stared at him and smiled. So he kissed her and he did it long and hard with a good amount of tongue. By the time Jonny broke the kiss he was seriously considering telling McKenna to email him the reports—trees be dammed—and taking Bobby home, getting back into bed, and not leaving for a week.

  However, that wasn’t what he did. And hours later, he would wholeheartedly regret leaving her.

  “You’re positive?” Jameson asked McKenna.

  Jonny glanced at Nixon and was unsurprised he looked pissed. The Dillingers were not his favorite topic and that was who they’d been discussing. McKenna had looked deeper into Richard Dillinger and there was nothing in the dead man’s past that tied him to Anderson Bull or his family—no feuds, no beefs, no issues at all. McKenna had been extra careful and double-checked Dick’s connection, there was none other than Anderson’s arrest.

  There was plenty of dirt on Jarrod Clifford but nothing concrete that linked him to Anderson or his family. He’d been keeping a low profile as well. The biggest recent events in his life were his second divorce and his brother dying of lasting complications due to his long-ago car accident.

  A knot started to form.

  They’d wasted a month looking into Dick Dillinger. He’d been sure that Anderson’s disappearance was related the Dillingers. Anderson was practically a saint, he had no known enemies, no vices that would put him in with an unsavory crowd, he paid his bills on time, worked hard, and spent time with his wife. But that meant nothing to the Dillingers. Back in the day if someone looked at one of them funny they wrote a ticket. If either of them had felt any sort of disrespect they’d make the offending person’s life hell.

  Candy.

  “What about Candy Bull?” Jonny asked.

  “What about her?” Alec inquired.

  That was an excellent question, what about her?

  “What do we know about her and her family?”

  McKenna’s fingers flew across her keyboard, Alec opened the thick file in front of him and started shuffling through the papers. Alec found what he was looking for before McKenna and said, “Teddy and Linda Kerr, Candy’s parents owned an auto repair garage.”

  Nixon’s face turned to stone.

  “Fuck,” Jonny muttered and a ball of unease started to form. “There was a lawsuit against her parents that made the papers.”

  “Yeah, out on 213,” Nixon agreed. “I remember my dad bitching about it. He said the Kerrs were good people and the attorney’s fees nearly wiped them out.”

  Jonny remembered the place well. Calvin had used Teddy’s exclusively for repairs and oil changes. It was ironic, Calvin being the lying, deceitful bastard he was said that Teddy was the only honest mechanic in town.

  “Wasn’t the lawsuit for negligence, something like that?” Jonny asked and sour in his gut churned.

  Nixon’s eyes widened at Jonny’s question, but before Nix could answer Jonny thought of something else. “Anderson worked at the garage. When we were in high school.”

  Jonny recalled Anderson being there one of the times he’d gone with his dad to pick up Anita’s car. She had a flat and the car had to be towed. By the time the tire had been changed Anita had started drinking and Jonny had to go with his dad to drive the car back. It had been Anderson who changed the tire out.

  Nixon snapped his fingers and nodded. “Damn, he did. Dad had to take his old Ford into Teddy’s after he stripped a clutch bolt and needed Teddy’s puller. Anderson was there.”

  “Shit,” McKenna hissed and all eyes went to her. “The lawsuit was buried.”

  “What?”

  McKenna didn’t have a chance to answer before Jonny’s phone rang and a simultaneous clatter of pings and chimes of text message alerts went off.

  Alec, Nix, Jameson, and McKenna looked at their phones as Jonny swiped his screen to answer Vaughn’s call.

  “What’s up?”

  “Baker’s been shot.”

  Jonny's gut clenched and he surged to his feet.

  “Come again?”

  “Side of the road, going after Clifford. Fuck, Jonny, it’s bad. Two to the chest, no vest. He’s being flown to Shock Trauma.” Vaughn paused and a heavy silence fell between them.

  “Clifford?”

  “Don’t know for a fact but he’s our prime suspect. Baker’s been on edge since you were in the other day. Called in a favor and got his hands on some old lawsuit that was sealed. Part of a settlement or something. I didn’t see the report but Baker had that thing on his desk less than ten minutes before he tore out of there.”

  Teddy’s. Fucking hell.

  “Go to his office and get it,” Jonny demanded.

  “Fuck, Jon, he took it with him. I’m at the scene, the report’s not here, and Baker didn’t have it on him when he was loaded into the medivac.”

  “Jonny!” Nixon clipped and Jonny's stomach dropped at his friend’s tone. “Alarm went off, Dillinger’s at the farm.”

  “On my way,” Vaughn said and disconnected.

  Adrenaline surged through Jonny; murderous intent followed until his entire body was engulfed with it. Without thought, he turned and ran. His brain still hadn’t come back on station when he slid behind the wheel of his truck and turned over the ignition.

  “Move over,” Jameson demanded. “Now, Jonny, climb over, I’m driving.”

  Jonny didn’t move over, he put his truck in drive. Jameson being the smart man he was gave up the ghost of Jonny listening to reason and opened the rear passenger door behind Jonny. He jumped in as Jonny’s foot found the accelerator and the truck lurched forward. He could hear Jameson on the phone, something about getting Holden and Weston back to Kent County. The two of them were working on other jobs. Holden was in Delaware thirty minutes away and Weston was even farther in Baltimore.

  Dillinger was at the farm.

  Fuck.

  Bobby was there alone, unprotected. Chasin and Evie were at a prenatal appointment.

  Jonny fucked up. He thought she’d be safe. No one in their right mind would try to harm her while she was at work. It was known far and wide that the farm had cameras everywhere and the moment a car turned down the private lane, an alert was sent to Gemini Group.

  The problem was, Dick Dillinger was not in his right mind. He was a stupid motherfucker and Jonny was ten minutes out.

  So much could happen in ten minutes.

  Anything could happen in ten minutes.

  Fuck.

  “Turn left,” Jameson directed.

  “Faster to go straight.”

  “Turn left.”

  At the last minute, Jonny took the turn at a high rate of speed and Jameson exploded in a torrent of expletives that Jonny ignored.

  “If you kill me, my wife is gonna have your ass, Jonny. Slow the fuck down.”

  Jonny ignored that, too.

  “Why’d I turn?”

  “It fucks me, for a variety of reasons. One being you should not be driving.”

  “Why the fuck did I turn?”


  There had to be a reason Jameson had demanded Jonny turn off the main highway. There were multiple ways to get to the farm: one way would’ve taken them down a road with a fifty-five mile an hour speed limit that Jonny could’ve easily blown. The way that Jameson had directed Jonny to take was thirty-five and took them through a small village. Houses lined the streets, a church, a park.

  “Cameras show Dillinger turned this way when he left the farm.”

  “Bobby?”

  “He has her.”

  Fuck.

  Jonny pressed the pedal down and fear slithered down his spine.

  The last time a Dillinger took a woman, he almost killed her. And the almost wasn’t due to Dillinger having a change of heart—Sheriff Dillinger would’ve succeeded if Nixon hadn’t found McKenna and killed the sheriff.

  Like father, like son.

  And Jonny meant that every way he could mean it. Today Dick Dillinger would meet his end, in the same manner in which his father did. Only it would be Jonny who beat the life out of the son.

  26

  “What were you thinking?” Dick said into his phone. There was a short pause then a clipped response. “I fucking told you not to touch the women. They had nothing. Now I’ve gotta clean this up and Jonny’s gonna lose his fucking mind, Jarrod. You never should’ve been down that road. They have cameras all over the place.”

  Dick took his eyes off the road to look down at the phone and disconnected the call.

  My mind whirled at warp speed. What did “clean up” mean?

  “Where are we going?”

  “Shut up!” he shouted.

  The asshole wanted me to shut up? He’d kidnapped me. Or adult-napped me, or taken me hostage, or captive, or prisoner, whatever it was called, Dick had done it. And the hell of it was, I’d basically helped him do it. Well, not really helped but he’d taken me by surprise and I hadn’t been able to fight. I hadn’t even heard the truck pull up.

  It was dumb luck I’d been walking down the stairs to get a cup of coffee when Dick rushed me and knocked me on my ass. Before I could get my bearings, I was turned over and handcuffed. After that, I was easy pickings seeing as Dick had six inches and a hundred pounds on me. All he’d had to do was pick me up and toss me over his shoulder.