“Thanks, Mom. And tell Jonah to get his tail moving. Maybe remind him you don't reheat.”
Reid dug into the eggs and passed the bowl to Mags. “What's your concern about Brynne?”
“I don't know. Something.”
Alrighty then. Could she give him a tad more to go on? Knife and fork in hand, he held them out. “Seriously? That's what you're giving me?”
“I know it's not a lot. But Nelson gets shot coming out of the bar, after he'd been in her store, and then the store gets robbed. Seems a little off to me, no?”
Yes. He'd said as much to Brynne last night. “You think the shooting has something to do with her?”
“I keep coming back to her. She moves here and opens a boutique with fairly expensive items that—well, most twenty-four-year-olds don't have that kind of capital and all of a sudden I have two crimes around her. “
Jonah wandered into the kitchen, his long, lean form moving at Jonah speed. That being slightly less than turtle. He wore torn jeans and a shirt that said Come to the Nerd Side. We have Pi.
“Hey, you,” Mags said.
“Morning, Mags.” He nodded at Reid. “Meathead.”
Reid waved his fork. “Morning, dipshit.”
Jonah, bless his sense of humor, laughed and headed straight for the coffee.
Mags finished off her eggs, then tapped the fork against her plate, her mind clearly on overload.
“I'll poke around,” Reid said. “See if I can dig anything up.”
She set her fork down, wiped her mouth and took her plate to the sink. “No. Thanks. I'll take care of it. I was just curious what you knew.”
“He doesn't know shit,” Jonah cracked, flipping him the bird before Reid could beat him to it.
Mags scraped the remaining food from her plate and set it in the dishwasher. “Ah, brotherly love. Time for me to go.”
“And miss all the fun of Jonah and I killing each other?”
Mags dropped a kiss on Jonah's cheek. “Do me a favor. No homicides today. I kinda got my hands full.”
Thirty minutes later, Reid hopped off one of the four-wheelers Jonah had bought to keep on the property and yanked off his helmet. No mystery why Jonah bought five ATVs. One for each of them. At least he'd remembered to include Evie in the fun, since the poor girl had hang-ups about being excluded from their male-dominated smackdowns.
But really, Reid couldn't bring himself to blast his baby sister with a slingshot. His brothers? Zero problem with that.
Jonah whipped up beside him, swinging the four-wheeler into a sharp turn.
“Keep that up, and you'll flip it.”
Jonah removed his helmet, hooking it over the handlebars. He swung his leg over and stood beside Reid on a flipping gold mine of land to put a super-slick, kickass training center on. Behind them, just down the road, was the main building, empty except for a weight room, the walls painted and ready to go. They'd need furniture for the classrooms.
And instructors.
And students.
If nobody came, Jonah would lose his ass on a project like this.
Reid's stomach pitched and he shook his head. Can't get hung up on that. Jonah knew the risks. All Reid needed to do was help build it.
“I think,” Reid said, “we could build something special here. It's gonna cost though. Big.”
Jonah waved that off.
Of course he did.
“I don't care about the money.”
“All right then. I researched other training centers in the area. If we build this one right and make it better than what's currently available, we'll get back our investment in the first year. Don't forget the economic boost it'll give the town. All those guys coming here to train will have to eat.”
“And drink.”
“And sleep,” Reid said. “You thought about that at all?”
“What do you mean?”
Freaking civilians. Reid shook his head. “All we have in town are a couple of bed-and-breakfasts. Then there're the chain hotels on the interstate, I guess.”
Jonah groaned. “I guess we build a barracks or something.”
Great. Now they were adding housing to this project? Reid could handle the training center, but all he knew about barracks was the time he'd spent sleeping in them.
“Way out of my wheelhouse, dude.”
“We'll worry about it later,” Jonah said. “Figure out what we want for the center first and we'll talk to an architect about squeezing in a barracks somewhere.”
Reid pointed to the northwest corner of the property. “Shooting range in the back. Way out of the way. We'll need to expand the weight room in the main building. Add some sleds and benches. More free weights. Out here, we put a driving track for emergency vehicle operation training. At least two miles. Multiple lanes. Hills, mock streets with structures, too.”
“Hang on.” Jonah whipped out his phone, punched the screen. “Let's record so we can put something on paper and see where it all lays out.”
Reid looked out over the property again, formed a mental picture of what they'd need. “Explosives. Space for a demonstration range and post-blast investigation. A couple of houses for breaching techniques and for booby trap scenarios.”
“Shit. We need to build houses?”
“Not actual houses, idiot, but structures we can use to simulate.”
Jonah took that in, the full scope of this project hitting him.
“And,” Reid said, “we haven't even discussed the shooting range specs yet. If you want to do this right, we're talking multiple ranges. Indoor and outdoor. I'd prefer forty firing points. More if the budget can stand it. Rifle range? At least, least, five hundred meters. Couple of shoot houses. And they should be two stories. Eh, one could be single story just for variety.”
“More houses?”
Reid sighed. “Hey, you want it to be a world-class training center. Observation platform would help. And we'll need an armory for the weapons. Hold on to your ass on that one, pal, because that shit is expensive.”
“Yeah, I figured that. Can you get us set up with all that stuff? I don't know where to buy that.”
“No problem. I'll take care of it.” He grinned. “I got a guy.”
“No doubt.”
Wow. They'd gotten through that exchange without an argument.
Maybe there'd be hope for this project yet.
Jonah waggled his phone. “Is that it?”
“Yeah. For now. Let's have an architect lay it out and see what it looks like. We'll tweak it as we go.”
They headed back to the four-wheelers, taking their time because an out-of-work billionaire and a washed-up Green Beret didn't necessarily have anyplace pressing to go.
Jonah swung his leg over his ATV. “What was Maggie doing here so early?”
“The shooting in front of La Belle Style last night.”
“That is so fucked up.”
That was one way to put it. “You know that dude? Nelson? He's younger than you, but he grew up here. You had to have gone to school with him.”
Jonah shrugged. “I know who he is. Nothing special about him.”
“What was he into?”
“No idea. He was just…there, you know. Not a jock, not a nerd. Nothing memorable. Why?”
Reid leaned on the seat of the four-wheeler, folded his arms, and took a long pull of crisp spring air. “Mags is right. Something's off. He walks out of Brynne's shop, goes to the Triple B, walks out again, and—bang—he gets popped. Then last night, I'm bringing Brynne home and there are two guys in the shop.”
“You were there?”
“Yeah.”
Reid took two minutes to bring Jonah up to speed.
“So,” he said when he finished. “You tell me. Is it just a little fucked-up that someone tries to whack this guy and then a few hours later two thugs are in Brynne's place searching for something they think some 'fucker' put there? Am I right or am I right?”
Jonah smirked. God forbid he should
agree that Reid was right about something. “Yeah. It's weird.”
Huzzah! Another thing they'd agreed on. Two for two and nobody had gotten bloody. “Brynne tells me he sells insurance.”
“You don't believe it?”
“Sure,” Reid said. “Why not? Plenty of people sell insurance. I'm wondering what else he's into. Maybe he's banging some guy's wife and the husband decided to handle it his own way. Who the hell knows?”
Jonah stretched his fingers wide. “One way to find out.”
“Lucky me that I have a brother who can hack into shit.”
“Bet your ass. Whaddya want to know?”
Everything. “Anything that looks twisted, I guess.”
Jonah shoved his helmet on his head. “Give me a couple days. I'll see what I can find.”
“Thanks.”
Reid grabbed his helmet as the earlier conversation with Maggie flashed in his mind, niggling at him. “Jonah?”
“Yeah?”
“Do me one more favor?”
“Sure, bro.”
Good old Jonah. A pain in the ass, but he always stepped up. “See what you can find out about Brynne Whitfield.”
6
At ten o'clock sharp, after cleaning up the remaining fingerprint dust and removing any damaged merchandise, Brynne flipped the Open sign on the shop's door, shoved her key into the double-sided key lock, and…wait.
Her pulse did a little thump-thump. She was alone. Inside the store where last night two men had broken in. Looking for something they hadn't found. At least they hadn't found it before she and Reid discovered them.
And if they hadn't found it, someone might be back.
For the next few hours, she'd be here alone until her part-timer came in to help with the trickle of tourists who, thanks to Grif's efforts at revitalization, had begun stopping in on Friday evenings as they made their way into Asheville.
Being alone in the store after two men had broken in might not be her wisest choice. But businesses didn't make money with locked doors.
God, how had she never realized the danger in being in the shop alone?
Keeping a full-timer, in addition to herself, wouldn't work either. Her divorce settlement would only take her so far.
But this was Steele Ridge, where crime typically consisted of kids spray-painting buildings.
Being afraid in her own shop wouldn't work. She refused to accept that. No way. During her marriage, she'd spent too much time unsure of herself, questioning every darned thing and feeling weak. Now that she'd started building a decent life, on her own, she wouldn't lose the small ground she'd gained.
When it came down to it, she'd rather die than live the rest of her life in fear.
She flipped the lock.
Good girl.
She locked it again—dammit—and dropped her hand. Come on, Brynne.
“Hey,” she said, “Nelson got shot in broad daylight. I'm entitled to be nervous.”
Now she was talking to herself?
She shook her head, closed her eyes to regroup. “Broad daylight. Busy street. I can do this.”
She opened her eyes—eeep!—and slapped her hand over her chest.
Reid stood on the other side of the door, his hulking muscles carving through a black T-shirt and between the shirt and his sudden appearance, her heart slammed.
He cocked his head. “You okay?” he asked through the door.
Hardly. The man shouldn't sneak up on people. She flipped the lock again and pulled the door open. “Morning. Sorry. I was…thinking.”
He strode through and she let the door swing closed, eyeing the lock.
Reid jerked his thumb. “Don't leave your keys in the door.”
“I know. Thanks, though. My mind is chaos today.”
“And that surprises you?”
Brynne took that as a rhetorical question and didn't bother answering. “What are you doing here?”
“Jonah and I came into town to take care of some zoning crap.”
When she'd visited the Triple B for coffee an hour earlier, she'd heard the rumors about Jonah asking Reid to build some kind of law enforcement center. She didn't necessarily believe half of what the town gossips said, but she'd heard enough to believe some of it might be true. “Training center?”
“Yeah. The Baby Billionaire wants to put a law enforcement training center on the Hill. I'm doing the build-out. I got seven thousand acres to play with.”
“Wow. That's kinda cool.”
Reid shrugged. “I guess. There's a shit-ton of paperwork involved, though, and pushing paper isn't exactly my strong suit.”
Being a small business owner, she knew all about that. Marketing, payroll, taxes, insurance. All of it a full-time job on its own. One she'd learned on the fly with help from Randi. “I could help you.”
What? She held up her hands. “Wait. No. Sorry. I shouldn't have said that.”
“Why?”
“It's not my business.”
At that, Reid laughed. “Honey, if I stayed out of everything that wasn't my business, I'd be in a mental ward dying from boredom. All you did was offer to help. I appreciate it. I might take you up on it, but I'm hoping Jonah or even Grif is gonna handle the red tape. We'll see. Right now, we gotta figure out where we're housing all the people Jonah thinks will flock here. Because, guess what? A few hundred law enforcement guys aren't gonna fit at the town's bed-and-breakfast.”
“You'd need a hotel.”
“Yeah. Or a barracks.”
Brynne made an ew face. A barracks sounded so cold. “Would these people be bringing their families with them?”
“Ah, crap. Now families, too?”
“As a business owner, I'm thinking about tourism. While the spouse is in training, the other spouse and kids could come into town. And if that's the case, a barracks wouldn't be all that inviting.”
Reid placed his hands on top of his head and winced. “This thing is huge. Seriously. Jonah has no idea. All I'm supposed to do is design the damned thing, but it's a monster.”
“I don't think this is so awful. Some of the bigger hotel chains do franchises. Could y'all build a hotel on the property? That way families could come.”
The big man dropped his hands, cocked his head and squinted. “Huh,” he said. “I don't know.”
“About?”
“The franchising.” He whipped out his phone, shot off a text. “I'm dumping that one on Grif. But, honey, that's fricking brilliant. We'd get a hotel and wouldn't have to run it. This thing might not be as big a pain in the ass as I thought.”
A low hum rippled in her chest. When had anyone ever told her she was brilliant?
He slid his phone into the back pocket of his jeans, reached up, and tickled her under the chin. “Thank you, Brynnie. You may have saved me from killing my kid brother.”
Brynnie?
“Anyway,” he said, “while I was in town, I figured I'd see how you were doing. Any word on your buddy?”
Nelson. He wanted to know about Nelson. She waved him to the loveseat behind the display table near the front of the room. “Sit.”
Reid lowered himself to the chair, his big body taking up more of it than should be humanly possible. If she sat next to him…well…that would be mighty cozy and after the amazing kiss they'd shared the night before, her five-year plan would be leveled.
Instead, she sat on the arm of the loveseat and crossed her legs, hoping it would make her rear spread less. “I called the hospital this morning. He's still critical. His parents arrived this morning, so they're with him now.”
“What did the docs say?”
“He's still on the vent, but they're hoping to take him off today. I guess if patients are on them too long they can develop pneumonia.”
“Or blood clots.”
Brynne nodded. “That's what the doctor told his parents.”
“If a clot travels to his lung it could be dangerous.”
“Nelson's mom said she'd update me later.”
She glanced around the shop. “So, I thought I'd open. Try and get back to my routine.”
“Un-huh. That's a thought. If you're ready.”
“I have to be ready. If the shop isn't open, I don't make a living.”
“Well, yeah, but one day? I mean, yesterday was wild. Maybe you need a day to chill.”
She sure did. But self-employed single women didn't have the luxury of days off. She needed to support herself.
“I'm fine. I called Maggie earlier. When I got back from Randi's, I went through my inventory again. There are some additional things missing.”
“A lot?”
“Not really. A few small items. Some jewelry. Between the cash and jewelry, it was only about $500.”
“They probably shoved everything in their pockets. If the guy we caught—”
“You caught. I didn't do anything.”
“Whatever,” he said. “If the guy we caught had it on him, Mags would have it all in evidence. Otherwise, the other guy probably has them.”
“I'll check with her. My insurance should cover it. It just irritates me.”
“Of course it does.”
“And I still wonder what they were looking for.”
He cocked his head. “You know my feelings on that.”
“Nelson.”
“Seems too convenient. But hey, it's your shop. Just be ready. I can guarantee Mags will ask questions about him.”
Oh, they'd already gotten that bit of nastiness out of the way. “She asked last night. When you were moving your truck.”
“Ah. As soon as your boy Nelson is off that vent, Mags'll have questions for him, too.”
Brynne shifted sideways a little, itched to slide into that tiny open spot next to Reid and maybe, just maybe, rest her head against his shoulder. What would be so bad about that? Taking comfort from a man willing to give it? At least as of yesterday when he'd flirted with her.
And what was wrong with her? Letting herself become dependent on a man had already burned her once—in a big way. Not happening. Especially not with this one. This one would slice her heart to pieces when he moved on.
But, wow, to see him naked would be a thrill. There, she'd admitted it. So what?
“It's crazy,” Brynne said, not really sure if she was referring to her thoughts about Reid being naked or Nelson lying in a hospital bed. “I can't imagine Nelson doing something that made this happen. He's sweet and gentle. He has guilt when he breaks a dinner date.”
Living Fast: Steele Ridge Series Page 7