“Oh my God,” I cried, pulling away from Logan as much as I could with his arms still around me. “That’s just amazing news. You’re a total lifesaver, Jarrod. In fact, I’m going to get you a whole box of them so that every time you eat one, you remember how awesome you are. A lifesaver.” Then, looking at my parents, I asked, “Isn’t he fabulous? He’s a—”
“Lifesaver,” Logan said dryly. “Yeah, we got that, baby.”
Rubbing my lips together, I looked at Mom for help, whose shoulders were shaking enough to move Dad. Then again, a quick look at him showed that was probably because he was laughing, too.
And out of the corner of my eye, I could see that pretty much everyone was doing the same thing.
Fuck’s sake, Bexley.
Changing my expression to plead with her to save me, I stared Mom down. Did she help me? Did she hell. The woman just mouthed, smoothly done.
So, clearing my throat, I focused back on Jarrod, managing to only have a brain fart for ten seconds this time. That didn’t mean I was home clear, though. No, my brain kicked in and told me to make arrangements for the vehicle to be fixed. It told me to ask questions about it and do adult shit like that. But then I started second-guessing all of it.
When you’re in an accident, and a hot guy says he’ll fix it, do you shake his hand as you make arrangements?
Was it bad form to shake his hand?
If the answer to the previous question was yes—was I supposed to hug him?
Would I survive making contact with him?
Did he have deliciously rough hands from his job?
How would they compare to his brothers’ hands?
What—
A small cough interrupted my panicked brain interrogation. “Is it safe to drive to Ren’s?” Logan asked, sounding a mixture of amused and pissed.
How could anyone be two polar opposite emotions?
“Yeah, it’s just the bumper, grille, and light that are damaged. I can call Cole and get him to bring out the tow truck, though, if it’s easier?”
I didn’t trust myself not to say something that didn’t come from either my stupid or my hussy sides, so I stayed mute and looked up at Logan.
“I think I’d be happier with that,” he nodded.
“And Mrs. Heath, yours is the back bumper, light, and your trunk’s dented. That’ll be easy to fix, too.”
For all of the laughter and shit she’d given me only a minute ago, Mom’s cheeks turned red, and she giggled. My mom freaking giggled. Not a normal one, but with her head down and her hand over her mouth, like a teenager.
“That’s great news, Jarrod. If you could do my bumper—” her head snapped up at the same time she shut her mouth, quick enough for her teeth to make a noise when they hit each other as she realized what she’d just said. “I mean, my bumper is yours to—” she looked up at Dad, begging him to stop her from saying anything else.
Crossing his arms over his chest, he raised an eyebrow at her. “You were saying, Lorena?”
Glancing from Jarrod to Dad and back again, Mom open and closed her mouth as she thought through what she could say that didn’t sound even slightly perverse after that.
Finally, she just shook her head. “I can’t. No matter what I say, it sounds like I’m hitting on poor Jarrod.”
“Who’s hitting on Jarrod?” someone asked, and I swear my legs went a little bit weak at the realization it was one of his brothers.
Fortunately for me, I had Logan still holding me up. Unfortunately for Mom, she didn’t, so she swooned into Bill, knocking him into Hurst.
“That good, huh?” Dad asked, smirking at her.
Then she just made it all worse by reaching into her bag and pulling out an electric fan, turning it on, and aiming it at her face.
“We should get him to join us,” Carter mused to Logan. “Can you imagine getting a call out to a woman who didn’t want to comply? We’d just send him in, and it’d be done and dusted in seconds.”
I wanted to say he was joking, but his expression and tone said otherwise.
Logan agreed with him. “No shit. Maybe we should suggest it to DB and get him to talk to him?”
A Klein in a police uniform? Lord have mercy, I’d never survive it.
His brother Bond was standing close enough to hear the conversation. “If you ever need a hand, I’ve got a uniform I wore for a party once. It’s not like yours, more like it’s got Velcro down the legs and on the crotch, plus the badge is plastic and says ‘Sergeant Poon’ on it, but that might still work?”
“You’ve got a police stripper’s outfit?” I breathed.
“I guess you could call it that. I thought it was handy and easy to get out of in case I got drunk at the party.”
I couldn’t help it. I had to ask. “And was it?”
Bond flashed me a huge grin. “You bet your beautiful ass it was. One tug at the front, and off it came.”
I wasn’t going to survive this. Fortunately, I wasn’t the only woman in that predicament because Mom swayed again, and at the edge of our group, I saw Colette Townsend do the same.
“Hold the fu— funky chicken up,” a new voice snapped, and we all turned to see Tony, who I’d met recently, with one of his daughters holding his hand. “You mean to tell me that the sh— shama lama ding dong you wore at Halloween was a motherf—” he stopped and growled, frowning down at his daughter, who was one of the cutest little kids I’d ever seen in my life. She was away in her head, though, holding the bottom of her dress and swinging it around. “Freaking seriously, the one time I find out something life-changing like this, and I can’t even say a fuh-rozen cuss word like it deserves.”
When he finished, he looked at me with a what the fuck expression, and I nodded sympathetically back at him.
“It’s not that big a deal,” Bond mumbled, blushing.
“Not that big a deal?” Tony clipped back. “It’s a huge funking deal.”
“Anyway,” Dad shouted, clapping his hands together to get everyone's attention. “I’ll drive Lorena and Bexley home, while Jarrod and Cole sort out getting the vehicles to Ren’s place.”
Tony turned back to me and skimmed his eyes up and down me, stopping briefly where Logan’s arms were at my waist before smiling at me. “Heard what happened, doll. You good?”
I loved this guy. Ava had told me about him while we were in Boston, and I’d fallen in love before I’d even met him. Then, when he’d hugged me after we’d been introduced and laid out how much he loved Pops… He was all heart and soul, and the world was a better place with him in it.
“Yeah, I’m good,” I reassured him, winking down at his daughter when she waved at me.
“I see that,” he murmured, looking back down at Logan’s arms and then up at him. “You look after our girl, my guy. She deserves the best.”
“I’m thinking she’s got that,” Dad noted, getting murmurs of agreement from the peanut gallery.
Could someone die over and over again? It felt like embarrassment had killed me more than once in the last hour, and this was the latest death.
“I’ll call you later,” Logan whispered, kissing my cheek and rubbing his stubble across it. “You go home and rest up. Make sure your neck isn’t hurting, and if it is, let me know so we can take you to get it seen.”
I sighed quietly, but Tony did it loudly. “Seriously, Bex, hunkalicious is right. And look on the bright side, you get him as your nurse if you have any pain.” He stopped and frowned for a second but then looked at me excitedly. “I’ll bet your neck and shoulders hurt, am I right? I was in an accident ten years ago, and my neck felt like I’d broken it into pieces. You should tell him that right now,” he gestured to Logan and looked at me expectantly.
I had to give him credit, having Logan as a nurse would be far from shitty.
But damn my life, he had a job to do still, so I couldn’t do that.
“It doesn’t feel too bad, plus he has to get back to work.”
“Ah, that�
�s right, let him clear his mind and get it all done and dusted, then he can come home and won’t be distracted.” He gave me an exaggerated wink. “Girl, you’re smart.”
“Jesus Christ,” Carter groaned. “I’ve got all of the details of what happened,” he told Logan, and I realized he’d been doing that while I’d been distracted by different conversations and situations going on. “Can we go now?”
“No need to be upset, sweet Blow Pop,” Tony gave him a one-armed hug. “You’re still the man of my dreams.”
Carter didn’t freeze or look disgusted by any of this, he just smirked. “Blow Pop?”
Tony opened his mouth to explain it but then looked down at his daughter and sighed disappointedly. “I can’t. My babies are my world, and I want to keep them innocent to the world of hotness for as long as I can. Lars keeps telling me they’re going to repeat what I say to a boy or teacher one day, and I just can’t take the risk. None of them will ever be good enough for my girls.”
Nodding understandingly, Carter shoved his hands in his pockets. “I get it and concur. Save it for another day when you’re child-free.”
Keeping his back to his daughter, Tony blew him a kiss. “I knew you’d get me, my knight in shiny armor. Now, get these poor damsels in distress home,” he ordered Dad. “And you guys go and clean up the streets.”
I don’t know if I’d ever admitted it to myself properly before, but I was so glad I’d moved home.
Chapter Thirteen
Logan
Four hours later…
I was so fucking glad Bexley had moved back.
When Naomi told me about the accident, I swear it felt like someone had ripped my guts out. I was so numb that it took Carter shaking me and shouting that she wasn’t hurt to get me moving out the door to where it’d happened.
In reality, it was a little prang. Emotionally, it was life or death until I saw her for myself, and then I settled down.
Added onto that was anger and frustration over what we’d found out earlier today and the reason for me being called in through the night.
Diego had been bailed after his arrest and disappeared—that wasn’t news. What was news was that he’d been in Palmerstown selling drugs and had been arrested again, then released without charge, again.
The sheriff at Palmerstown Police Department had told us it’d been Dirk Kirkwood’s son, King, the lawyer, who’d collected him.
Yeah, he called his son King. The other one was called Lord. That was the magnitude of asshole we were dealing with.
King had been two grades above me at school, but Lord had been in same one and had the same homeroom as me. Both of them had acted like they were above everyone else, and daddy or his wife at the time had collected them in their Jaguar every day until they were old enough to get their own rides.
Dirk was twenty-five years older than his first wife—their mom—and he’d divorced her after Lord was born for a younger model. The rumors about their home life were like Hugh Heffner and the bunny mansion.
They were both bullies, liars, thieves, assholes, crooks, and everything else you could call someone.
And they were a pain in my ass, especially now.
DB had been coordinating with Palmerstown’s sheriff all day, and what we were finding out was fucking nuts.
Dirk had his fingers in some bad pies, drug pies, and was counting on King and Lord to be his soldiers for it. King was the legal brains for the operation, and Lord was more of the muscle for it.
Come to find out, King had collected Diego, and it looked like his brother had then hidden him somewhere, even though he denied it.
The drugs he’d been trying to sell had been tested and had come back as a mixture of PCP, marijuana, cocaine, meth and had high levels of powdered bleach in them. Looking at it all, it looked like death with a sniff.
The officers in Palmerstown didn’t know how many people he’d sold it to, but they’d managed to find three teenagers before they’d tried it. Now we had warnings out to hospitals and doctors in the area, just in case someone managed to get medical help after taking it.
It was one big cocking mess.
The problem was, we needed as much evidence as we could get to get warrants for them. We knew they were involved, Palmerstown knew they were involved, but the evidence was crucial if we were going to do this properly. And it had to be done properly.
It was fair to say I hated the old man and his sons.
Opening the door, I stepped over Prince, who was licking his crotch or balls right in front of it.
“Don’t you have a private place to go to do that? And what are you even licking?”
He didn’t stop what he was doing, but he lifted his eyes to glare at me all the same.
“I think she’s overfeeding you. I swear you’ve put on ten pounds since you came roaring out of the fires of hell.”
I wasn’t being mean, it was true.
His stomach looked like someone had inflated him.
“At least whoever had you before got you neutered,” I continued, putting my vest on the seat thing. “I can see zero evidence of your nuts, so whatever you’re licking is long gone. Move on.”
Yeah, I was being mean now, but if you looked at my ankles and shins and all the scratches I had on them from him, you’d understand why. We had a love-hate relationship—we loved to hate each other, and he let me know it with monotonous regularity. Basically, he deserved what I was dishing out.
That didn’t mean I hadn’t picked him and Doyle treats up while I was out today, though. I didn’t exactly hate him hate him, I just disliked him.
Then again, given how big he was getting, maybe I should cut back on them or buy him diet ones. Could you get treadmills for cats?
“You’re back,” Bex called as she walked toward me with a smile on her face. She was wearing cut-off sweats and a hacked-up t-shirt covered in paint, so I guess she’d decided to get more done instead of resting.
“Can you get treadmills for cats? He’s getting unhealthily fat.”
Squatting down, she picked Prince up and cuddled him to her chest. “I know, and his stomach’s solid. I called the vet earlier and made an appointment for tomorrow, just to make sure it’s not anything bad.”
“I’m fairly certain you’ll discover horns and the soul of Satan inside him. Maybe it’s evil growing daily?”
Rolling her eyes, she kissed the top of his purring head. “Don’t be mean, he’s a big love bug.”
The immense love bug meowed like he was agreeing with her and rubbed his face against her chest.
Fucker!
Doyle and I had reached some sort of stalemate with our relationship. After chewing through my sneakers, attacking my pants, attacking me while I was wearing my pants, and chewing my socks, I’d learned that treats and bones distracted him, so I made sure he didn’t run out.
At this moment, he was watching me as he crunched through his newest bone like he was proving how easy it’d be for his giant mouth to do the same thing to my leg.
Fucker number two!
Putting him back down again, she pointed at the second living room. “I’ve just finished doing the walls in there. I decided to do the blue border again, so I just need to leave it to dry. I thought it looked good in the living room, but it looks even better in that one because it’s bigger and has the massive fireplace.”
She looked so excited as she told me about it, and it lifted the mood that I’d brought home with me.
“Let me go and get changed out of this, and I’ll come check it out.”
I was leaving work in my uniform more often now because I was in a hurry to get home for once in my life, but that didn’t mean I wanted to stay in it any longer than I had to.
A quick wash-up and change into basketball shorts and a ratty t-shirt that I couldn’t bring myself to throw out, and I was back downstairs standing behind Bex as she bent down to paint a lower section of blue on the wall.
“The floor guy says we’ll have to s
tay somewhere else while he’s doing it. Apparently, sanding it down and the fumes from the varnish isn’t great to be around, plus it needs time to dry. It’ll only be for a couple of days once they’re done, but we’ll have to think of what to do with Prince and Doyle,” she muttered as she repeatedly rolled over one area, making it look worse than it had previously. “My parents have their cockatiel, Fingus, and yours have—"
“I think that spot’s done. You’re making it look tatty.”
Straightening up, she took a step back to look at it, accidentally bumping into me and knocking both of us off balance momentarily, until my arms around her waist managed to stabilize us.
Giving me a wry smile over her shoulder, she apologized. “I’m sorry. I think it’s fair to say that being an interior decorator isn’t in my future. To start with, I can never envision anything for the rooms. I prefer plain white walls with small accents to give the place character, and I’m shit at painting—”
“You’re not shit at it, you just had one patch that wasn’t taking the paint. If there’s any issues with it once it dries, we can go over it again and fix it.”
Biting down on her lip, she looked back at the spot in question and nodded. “Good plan.”
Then, taking a step away from me, she bent over again to inspect it more closely. This time my eyes went straight to her ass.
The cut-offs she was wearing were obviously from old sweats that’d been baggy on her. What made them really spectacular and added sexiness that had no business being added to them, was that just to the side of the seam that ran down her ass crack were holes.
Seeing as how I was now studying them, I counted five in total, ranging in size from a dime to a penny.
What was even more interesting was the fact that there was bare skin under them, not panties.
Was she wearing any?
Oh, shit, maybe she was wearing a thong?
I couldn’t tell you how long I stared at them, hoping she’d shift and I’d get an answer to my question, but I couldn’t look away from them.
Almost like I had no control, my hand reached out and skimmed over them, going from material to skin, over and over again.
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