Bounty

by Kristen Ashley

  “Okay,” I replied.

  “Lieutenant Keaton has shared that Mr. Hightower already has some locals providing such security services. I was at first opposed to this idea but Keaton said this crew is being led by a Tatum Jackson. From what I could discover in the short amount of time I’ve had to look, Jackson has a skillset that would make troubling the men at Nightingale Investigations with sending out bodyguards unnecessary. They can still search for Bianca. However, if you wish Mr. Jackson to lead this local crew, I’ll need to contact him for billing purposes.”

  At that, Deke spoke.

  “Tate won’t want paid.”

  “Lonesomes do not offer markers,” Mr. T informed him instantly. “No Lonesome owes anybody anything.”

  This was true.

  This was Mr. T’s way which was, according to him, the only way.

  “Tate, nor any of the boys’ll want markers either,” Deke retorted. “They’ll be doin’ this for Jussy. She lives here. She’s one of our own. We take care of our own. So don’t contact Tate and ask him to bill you. It’ll piss him off.”

  Although I liked the idea of being one of their own, I cut in at this juncture because I was obviously a Lonesome and Mr. T had taught me well.

  Don’t owe anybody anything.

  “I can actually pay them all for helping me out.”

  Deke’s annoyed gaze went from my phone to me.

  “That’s not the point,” he returned. “You wanna do somethin’, this gets done, buy ’em each a bottle of their favorite hooch. You offer anything else, straight-up insult, Jussy.”

  I grinned at him and watched with great interest as his attention dropped to my mouth, and for some reason, for the first time in a while, his expression didn’t grow annoyed (or, at that point, stay annoyed) when he saw me smile.

  His face softened and his eyes warmed when they returned to mine after I started talking.

  “Apparently, I have things to learn about mountain man badasses.”

  “We’ll get you there,” he muttered.

  My heart skipped a beat.

  We’d get me there?

  As in me…and him? That we?

  We would get me to understanding mountain man badasses?

  Why would I need to do that if I didn’t have one of my own?

  In other words, what the hell did that mean?

  Deke turned back to his mustard and did this speaking.

  Not to me.

  To Mr. T.

  “And got a friend on finding Bianca. Know the Nightingale crew. They’re exceptional. Wouldn’t know the outcome of a faceoff between Deck and Lee Nightingale or any of his men. Just know my boy Jacob Decker will not fuck around and he’s already on the job.”

  Okay.

  Uh.

  How did Deke know Lee Nightingale?

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

  Then again, trouble made a permanent home in Carnal, taking residence most recently at my forest oasis. And from what I knew, Lee Nightingale was a fan of besting trouble.

  So that might have been it.

  “Then I’ll need to speak to this Jacob Decker,” Mr. T said to Deke.

  “I’ll get Jussy to text you his phone number,” Deke replied, slapping cheese slices on the toast, still talking. “Want Jussy at her house tomorrow. Work to do there. Joe Callahan needs to get started on his gig. And she needs to get back in that saddle. We’ll be there from seven on. She’s not leavin’ my sight so she’ll be there until I knock off at six. You want lunch or dinner with her, we sort somethin’ but she does that not leavin’ me and not in town. I want her in a contained area where she’s low on visibility, not just because of this jackoff but because she doesn’t need any type of attention while this shit is happening, which she’ll get bein’ Jussy. But mostly it’s because of this jackoff. She has eyes on her I can’t control, it’ll be after this asshole is behind bars.”

  Through that, my heart skipped many beats.

  Dozens.

  “Agreed,” Mr. T replied and I turned surprised eyes to the phone.

  Not anyone ordered Mr. T around. Not Dad during an artist’s tantrum, not Granddad during the same.

  And no one took care of the Lonesomes but him.

  No one.

  “I’ll be at Justice’s house at eight o’clock tomorrow morning,” Mr. T continued. “Justice has reported to me the state of her house and I can imagine she does not yet have a kitchen. Do you need me to bring breakfast?”

  “Go to La-La Land,” Deke ordered. Having put the bologna on the sandwich, he was adding the next layer of cheese. “Get us coffees and anything out of the case. That’ll do us.”

  “La-La Land?”

  “On Main Street. Only coffee house we got. You can’t miss it.”

  “Excellent, Mr. Hightower. I’ll see you and Justice tomorrow at eight.”

  “Deke,” Deke grunted, having upended a chip bag, he was covering my sandwich and the entire plate with Bugles.

  “Fine, Deke,” Mr. T semi-grunted back. Then came, “Justice, you rest. And text me Mr. Decker’s number.”

  “Right, Mr. T. I’ll do that ASAP.”

  “Enjoy your evening,” he bid.

  “You too,” I replied, seeing Mr. T disconnect the call before turning my head and taking the mounded plate from Deke.

  I sat with plate in hand, eyes tipped up, staring at Deke as he walked back to the kitchen area.

  “You just bossed Mr. T,” I declared, my voice flimsy, not just due to my throat still hurting but my utter shock. “And he let you.”

  “Babe,” Deke began, slapping more bologna in the skillet, “you don’t got far to look, you wanna learn how the folk in Carnal look after each other.”

  With their rather dramatic history, this was true.

  Once he was done with the bologna, he turned eyes to me.

  “You look, you’ll find Chace is all over that,” he said quietly. “So is Tate. They’re involved with lookin’ after you, they’re good with you bein’ with me, clear your guy is not stupid. He gets that and what that means. Didn’t boss him as much as told him the way it is. Smart men don’t waste time tryin’ to prove who’s got a bigger dick by arguing over what time in the morning we meet. A decision’s made that makes sense, smart men move on and ask if they can bring breakfast.”

  I was learning a lot about Deke that day.

  Top of that list (for a variety of reasons) was that he was a great cuddler.

  Near to the top of that list, when asked to put on a song of my dad’s, he was the perfect DJ.

  And high on the scale of honorable mentions, he did not waste time on stupid shit, like proving he had a bigger dick (or one at all) by getting into it when the girls wanted to clean his trailer or staking claim in a way that would raise the hackles of Mr. T. But instead he settled a man who cared about me into the knowledge that I was being looked after.

  “Jussy?” Deke called.

  I shook off these thoughts and the happy feeling I got learning all this about Deke, thus getting it all for me, and focused on him.

  “Thank you for—” I started softly.

  That was as far as I got.

  “Don’t say it,” Deke ordered.

  His terse response made my head give a small jerk.

  “But today, Deke, you’ve been really—”

  Off went the skillet from the burner and suddenly Deke was bent over me, his face in my face, both his hands curled around the sides of my neck.

  “I said, don’t say it,” he repeated, this time gently.

  “I have to,” I told him.

  “My honor,” he told me.

  I felt my brows draw together, but even so, my heart didn’t skip a beat at that.

  It squeezed.

  Deke kept looking me right in the eyes.

  “My honor, Jussy, to be that man who’s there for you.”

  Okay…

  Now what did that mean?

  I didn’t ask and I didn’t know why.
r />   Maybe it was because I was scared of the answer.

  “Now eat your dinner, gypsy.” He was back to ordering but still speaking gently.

  Before he could take his hands from me, because I really did not want him to take his hands from me, I asked, “Can I thank you for my fried bologna sandwich?”

  I saw humor flare in his eyes as he replied, “Yep.”

  “And my massive mound of Bugles?”

  “You can thank me for that too.”

  “Then thank you.”

  His fingers slid back and up into my hair before he used them to press in so I tilted my head forward. Once he had me in that position, he kissed the top of my hair.

  After that, he let me go and went back to his skillet.

  It was better than my hair being tousled, probably not as good as a touch on the lips, though I’d never know.

  But it was from Deke. Being gentle with me. Taking care of me. Looking out for me.

  So I’d take it.

  * * * * *

  I lay in Deke’s bed, alone, staring at the ceiling.

  In the shadows I could see there were blank spots there but he was covering them up. The last white to his life’s canvas was that ceiling, ready to be filled.

  It’d be cool to help him fill it. So fucking cool to have a part in that canvas, look up and not just see the roadmap of Deke’s life, but also see memories.

  Deke was on the couch.

  It was dark, late.

  It was also after we ate bologna sandwiches and I won the argument that I had to move or my entire body would lock in place, never to loosen again, so I made him let me help with the minimal cleanup. And last, it was after he’d won the argument after that cleanup that we were watching The Fighter.

  He might have won it but I got the last laugh because I liked that movie too so I didn’t mind losing (and I knew before I even suggested it (something I didn’t hesitate to do anyway) that I wouldn’t get Deke to watch Ben Stiller’s version of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, or at least not without more energy for the fight and some buildup of bargaining power).

  Eventually, I started getting drowsy. Deke noticed it so I was now in his bed and he was on his couch. And I didn’t know what he was doing because he didn’t seem drowsy when he sent me to bed but he did turn off the TV and I suspected this was because, in that small space, it was impossible for it not to disturb my efforts of getting rest.

  I was now seeing the drawbacks of accepting the friendship Deke could offer.

  I was totally down with falling asleep lying on his chest, listening to my dad serenade me.

  I was down with movie-watching and bologna-sandwich-eating and banter.

  I was down with examining his space and discovering in a lot of ways that there were a myriad of things to discover about Deke Hightower (including his last name).

  I was not down with being separated from him.

  I could push it. I knew with the way he was with me that day, all I had to do was call his name and he’d be with me in a shot. He’d climb into bed with me. He’d hold me. Or he’d not hesitate if I wandered down the hall and cuddled with him on his couch (bed was definitely the better of those two options, his bed was a decent size, the couch, no).

  “Deke,” I called.

  “Yeah, baby,” he called back.

  Baby.

  God.

  I drew in breath.

  But as that oxygen came in, I knew I couldn’t push it. He’d been so cool. Honored to look out for me.

  God.

  Deke.

  I needed to look out for him too.

  “We should switch,” I told him.

  “Switch what?” he asked.

  “I can sleep on the couch, you take the bed.”

  “Entry’s here, Jussy,” he told me. “Twyla’s out there but no way in fuck you’re gonna be on this couch with you closer to the door than me.”

  I hadn’t thought of that.

  I told him what I had thought of. “You’re a big guy.”

  “You think I haven’t passed out on this couch and not been good?” he asked.

  I had a feeling he’d done that more than once.

  “Right,” I said.

  I grew quiet.

  Deke didn’t break the silence.

  I stared at the ceiling some more.

  Then I called, “Deke?”

  “Right here, Jussy,” he called back.

  “How do you have electricity out here?” I asked.

  “Generator,” he answered.

  Oh.

  Interesting.

  “Water?” I asked.

  “Fill up the tanks, babe.”

  “Wouldn’t it be easier to connect to a water source?”

  “It would, but don’t have one out here.”

  “In other words, no long showers,” I quipped.

  “Not hard to fill up the tanks, gypsy princess. You want a long shower, you take it.”

  God, it was like he’d give me anything, all of it beauty, which meant all of it exacerbated the yearning for the thing I most wanted that he wouldn’t allow me to have.

  But with what he gave me, that being beauty, I’d take it.

  “Can the water company not lay anything?” I asked. “Or the electric company doing the same thing so you don’t have to use a generator?”

  “Own this land but it’s protected. Not allowed to build on it. No water. No electricity. Nothin’.”

  That was surprising. I didn’t even know you could own land you couldn’t do whatever you wanted to do with it.

  “Really?”

  “Yep.”

  “Uh, maybe a stupid question,” I started. “But why would you buy land that you can’t build on?”

  “You see my view?”

  I smiled at the ceiling.

  “So what you’re saying is, it was a stupid question,” I remarked, my smile in my voice.

  “Nothin’s stupid, Jussy. ’Specially with that. Just to say, me and my Airstream here, it’s about my ma.”

  I felt my tight muscles tighten further at a mention of his mom before I forced them to relax, turned to the side and stared down the short, dark hallway toward the shadow of Deke on his couch at the end.

  I tucked my hands under my cheek and called, “What’s about your ma?”

  No pushing, he gave it to me.

  “Losin’ Dad, she didn’t have it good, raisin’ me on her own. Things got tough a lot. A kid is a kid but they still feel things like that. Especially things like that. Much as she tried to protect me from it, she was my ma, it was just the two of us, so I felt it.”

  I hated that he felt that.

  Hated it.

  I didn’t interject that sentiment and Deke kept going.

  “When I was a kid, she used to tell me stories. About how we’d make it one day, build a big house on a lake. Have a boat. Go waterskiing. Go fishin’. Lots of shit like that.”

  He stopped talking and to prompt him to do it more, I said, “Yeah?”

  “Yeah,” he replied, his tone softer, reminiscent. Through it he gave me a hint of melancholy and a lot of beautiful. “I got older and knew we’d never have that, but she didn’t quit dreamin’. She said she was gonna retire by a lake. Not a big house. Little cottage, she said. Not much to clean. Not much to take care of. That was gonna be the end of her days, her in a cottage by some lake. She wanted that for her and I wanted it for her. She worked hard her whole life. She deserved that.”

  My voice carried, but it still was soft when I noted, “She didn’t get her cottage, did she, honey?”

  “No, Jussy.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I told him.

  “What she did was give her boy that,” he told me. “She had a life insurance policy. Not much in it but it was enough that, when she died, I took it and found the most beautiful lake I could find. Bought this land. Bought my Airstream. Set myself up here. Just like she would have wanted.”

  “So the shit with Mav dies down, I get
Dad’s collection, I have him and Granddad with me. But you, you have your mom with you every second you’re here.”

  He didn’t answer immediately but his deep voice was sweet when he did.

  “Yeah, baby.”

  I drew in another breath, this one deep and it burned a little at my throat, down into my lungs.

  Once I had it in, the air of his trailer, the air Deke breathed, I let it out saying, “You know how you told me I was one of the best women you’ve ever met?”

  He again didn’t answer immediately, then his deep voice sounded.

  “Don’t, Jussy.”

  I did.

  “You’re one of the best men I’ve ever met.”

  “Jussy.”

  “That’s it, Deke. I’m a lucky girl. Blessed. Given so much bounty, it’s almost embarrassing how much God likes me. But He really must like me because I have all I have and He also gave me you.”

  “You’re gonna be shutting up now,” Deke declared, I could hear the gruff in his voice, the buried emotion.

  That was beautiful too.

  I grinned down the hall.

  “You’re also gonna be shuttin’ your eyes and goin’ to sleep,” he commanded.

  “You and Mr. T might have had a taking-care-of-Justice-meeting-of-the-minds but this is plain bossing me, Deke.”

  “Yeah, it is. And you keep talkin’, you’ll be talkin’ to nothin’ ’cause I’ll be putting my earphones in.”

  It was my turn to boss.

  “You listen to Dad, I want to hear it.”

  “You’re talking,” Deke noted.

  “No, seriously. I want to hear it.”

  “Don’t got one of those speaker things. And sound is shit through the phone.”

  “First chance, mall for Deke Hightower. Coffeemaker and speaker dock.”

  “You buy me that shit, I’ll tan your hide.”

  Shit.

  Deke spanking me.

  A quiver slithered down my spine, the small of my back, through the crease of my ass to settle in between my legs.

  I rolled to my back and stared at the ceiling, knowing I should shut up.

  Even knowing that, I still wasn’t going to let it go.

  “You’ll have to catch me first. Though, that might happen as you’ll be caffeinated by decent coffee.”

  I rolled back to my side as I heard and felt the movement of Deke making his way down the hall. I watched his big body hit the small space I was in, filling it up. I also watched as his phone illuminated that space and in a couple of seconds, I heard Dad singing.