“Mickey said and word was you got in there, but Jesus Christ,” Coert stated, his eyes to the front door of Lavender House.
Coert and Jake had just left Josie after Coert and one of his deputies moved the stubbornly lingering group of a*sholes off Josie’s property. He’d reported to the owner that he’d dealt with the situation and he’d done this with two things on his agenda. Reporting to the owner that he’d dealt with it and getting a look at Josie.
“Pure class, even rattled,” Coert noted, looked to Jake and grinned, something Jake could see since he turned on the outside lights when Coert arrived in his cruiser. “How’d you get in there?”
“She thinks I’m the shit,” Jake told him, grinning back.
Coert kept handing him crap. “So you’ve brainwashed her.”
Jake kept grinning but his grin died when he asked, “You know I like taking your shit, Coert, but gotta know. Until shit gets sorted with the will, she got a genuine threat from her uncle?”
Coert’s face also got serious. “Judge’ll have to make that decision, Jake. Until that time, assets will probably be frozen. If you mean can the old guy make her let him in or even make her let him stay, again, judge’ll have to handle that. But until the will is assessed and judgment made, if things are acrimonious, Josie’s already here so she’ll likely be ordered not to sell anything, they’ll let her stay and he might be allowed to get in and look around but other than that, he’ll be ordered to steer clear.”
“So she’s good,” Jake said.
“If she’s got her own assets to live on, yeah,” Coert confirmed.
She did. She’d told him. So that was at least one thing they didn’t have to worry about.
They still had two more.
“You know if Terry Baginski is invested in Stone Incorporated?” Jake asked.
“Lotta local folks are investors in Stone Incorporated,” Coert answered.
“I’m takin’ your non-answer as a no, you don’t know.”
“Yeah. I don’t know for certain but I wouldn’t be surprised,” Coert replied and his voice got lower when he went on, “Be less surprised she’s in on this just to piss you off.”
Jake shook his head. “Banged her between number two and number three which was a long time ago,” he pointed out. “She was the worst lay I’d ever had, bar none. Been years. I’m not her favorite person but actively tryin’ to piss me off…” he trailed off disbelievingly.
“Women do a lot of crazy shit, they get it in their minds to do it,” Coert noted and Jake thought he was not wrong, his earlier conversation with Donna being proof of that. Then Coert changed the subject to ask, “Stone after Lavender House?”
“He was,” Jake answered. “Then he got a look at Josie and decided he preferred her. She wasn’t interested, tried to be cool about lettin’ him know that, but she heard him talkin’ smack about her. She leveled him and clearly he didn’t like that much.”
Coert’s brows shot up. “No shit? This is retaliation for a crash and burn?”
“More like a detonation, but yeah. Guy’s dick is microscopic.”
At this, Coert got closer and warned, “He’s your threat, Jake. If he’s bankrolling that old a*shole for a shot at Lavender House, this could get ugly. Lotta folks in this town will stand up for Lydia Malone and say it straight she was all there until the day she died. But Stone’s got the money to drag it out if that option’s to be had.”
This was not good news.
“She gave Josie to me in her will,” Jake confided and he saw Coert’s brows draw together.
“Say again?”
“Lydie,” Jake explained. “She gave Josie to me in her will.”
“Josie…the person?” Coert asked, his brows now shooting up.
“Yep,” Jake answered.
Coert stared at him a beat before he burst out laughing.
Jake let him but crossed his arms on his chest while he did it.
When Coert got it under control, he stated, “That does it. Clearly Lydia had lost it before she passed, leavin’ her girl to you.”
“Bite me,” Jake muttered good-naturedly but tensed when he saw Coert suddenly get serious.
“Thought the world of you,” he said quietly. “Your kids. Everyone knew it. You were the son she never had. The son she always wanted. Your kids the grandkids she never got outside your girl in there. Straight up, man, after you scraped off Sloane, lots of talk in this town, wondering why Lydia didn’t fix you up with her girl when she was around, seein’ as she was around often enough. Anyone who knows her would not be surprised Lydia wanted that as her final wish. You could get a hundred folks in a courtroom to say that same thing and do it under oath. I am not kidding.”
Jake could say nothing. Coert’s words about him being the son Lydie never had were stuck in his throat, making it prickle.
When Jake was silent, Coert kept speaking.
“And I only moved here fifteen years ago but think it says a f*ckuva lot that I only got a decade and a half under my belt in Magdalene and the specter of Davis and Chester Malone still haunts this burg and those two little motherf*ckers didn’t even live here. Just caused mayhem whenever they visited their grandparents, the kind it was hard for a lot of people to forget. Including how they took treatin’ their mom to new and unprecedented piss-poor levels.” He took in a breath and concluded, “What I’m sayin’ is, you guys hunker down, it’s all gonna work out. You need me in the meantime, call. I figure you got some pains in the ass to deal with for a while but in the end, this will go away.”
Jake nodded and murmured, “Thanks, man.”
“You still owe me,” Coert noted.
“You didn’t tape the game?” Jake asked.
“You know it sucks not seein’ live,” Coert returned.
“Hardly. You get to go home and fast forward through the commercials. Figure we livened up your night and you owe me.”
“You’d figure wrong,” Coert replied. “I want one of Tom’s omelets and I wanna eat it with you buyin’ it and bringin’ your woman along with you.”
At that, Jake grinned. “No way you got a shot. Ask Mick. She’s into me.”
“Man can still look.”
Jake shook his head.
Coert extended his hand.
Jake uncrossed his arms to shake it. “Appreciate it, Coert.”
“My job, not a problem,” Coert murmured, let Jake go and gave a low wave as he moved to his cruiser.
His deputy was already gone.
Jake didn’t wait to watch him pull out. He went into the house, locked the door behind him and went to the family room where he’d left Josie with his kids, Ethan trying to pretend he wasn’t freaked for Josie but doing this sitting close to his woman, Amber shocking the shit out of him and hustling around the house to get beds made without anyone asking.
But when he got to the family room, only his kids were there.
“Josie got a call, Dad,” Conner informed him immediately. “She went to the light room to take it.”
Jake nodded once, turned on his boot to retrace his steps and hit the light room.
A call could be anything. The last two weeks, after Gagnon fired her, her phone rang all the time.
And it could be something bad if Stone, Terry or Josie’s uncle had her number.
But when he made it up to the light room, he saw from the single light she’d turned on that she was in the window seat, her gaze to the sea and she was not on the phone.
Her eyes came to him and he saw her face still blank.
He didn’t like that. Not only because it was not Josie but because he couldn’t read it and he needed to know where her head was at.
He moved to her, sat behind her and arranged them so he had her between his legs up on the window seat, arm around her chest, the other around her ribs, her back to his torso.
He felt better when she rested her head on his shoulder and her arms over his.
“Amond called. He’s going to be here Tuesday,” she shared once she’d relaxed into him.
F*cking fantastic. Just what they needed. A protective, internationally known hip-hop artist showing up to pass judgment on Jake.
He did not share these thoughts.
He said, “Good you got that visit to look forward to.”
She said nothing, just looked out at the sea.
He let her do this for a while and then he was done letting her do it so he gave her a squeeze and said gently, “Baby, you’re freakin’ me out. Lots to think about, I know your head’s gotta be full of it but you’re givin’ me nothing.”
That was when she gave him something.
“How did Dad die?” she asked but she did it like she’d ask what was for dinner.
That was bizarre, but not for Josie. She’d needed to build that wall since the moment she was born. But in the end, her father did it for her.
Still, he drew in breath and pulled her closer before he suggested, “Maybe we can talk about that tomorrow.”
She twisted in his arms and he dipped his chin to see she was looking up at him.
“How did Dad die, Jake?”
F*ck.
“A lot hit you tonight. You ready for real?” he asked softly.
“Yes,” she answered immediately.
It was the immediately that convinced him. He nodded and gathered her closer, pulling her up his chest so they were near to eye to eye.
Only then did he give her real.
“After Lydie got custody of you, he got himself another woman. He also knocked that other woman around. Unfortunately for him but fortunately for the universe, she had a family that didn’t like that much. They got her out of that shit and got her to press charges. It stuck. He went down. Short-term sentence but he clearly was not the kind of man who made friends easily. He got shivved but not bad, guards didn’t see it or didn’t like him much and didn’t report it. For whatever reason, he hid the injury. It got infected and by the time he got treatment, that shit was in his bloodstream and they couldn’t fight it. Six month sentence for assault turned into life.”
“He died in prison?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Jake answered.
“From an infection from a knife wound?” she went on.
“That’s what’s in his file.”
“Because he was too much of a badass to get it stitched up and get a course of antibiotics,” she kept on.
Jake said nothing, though he did it fighting back a smile seeing as she used the word “badass.”
“That’s whacked, Jake,” she declared.
At that, he grinned.
“Not sure your father’s insanity was ever in question, Slick.”
She shook her head like she couldn’t believe all she’d heard but did it turning and nestling into him, putting her head on his chest and training her eyes to the sea.
Jake’s arms went tighter.
“He’s not getting Lavender House,” she whispered.
“No, he isn’t, baby,” he whispered back.
“I don’t care if it takes every penny I have, he’s not getting anything that was Gran’s.” She was still whispering but her tone was fierce. And hearing it, he finally felt relief.
“It won’t take every penny, Josie. But this will go away,” he promised.
She nodded, her cheek moving against his chest, before she declared, “Boston Stone is not a toad. He’s an a*shole.”
Jake grinned again and pulled her closer.
“Got that right, Slick,” he agreed.
“And that Baginski woman is odious,” she kept at it.
He said nothing.
“What’s her problem anyway?” she asked with mild curiosity and in a way she didn’t expect an answer. Then again, she couldn’t know Jake actually had one.
Shit.
So she had it all, something at this point she needed to have, he had to give it to her.
So he did.
“I regrettably f*cked her about ten years ago and didn’t go back for seconds,” Jake shared cautiously and she jerked in his arms so she could look up at him again.
But he was relieved when she asked, “That’s it?”
“Don’t know if that’s it. Just know you gotta know that history.”
Her brows drew together. “What did you see in her?”
“Ten years ago she wasn’t in a perpetually bad mood, nor did she wear that shit on her face.”
She studied him a moment before she announced the God’s honest truth, “Women are very strange.”
He decided not to agree verbally.
Her eyes held his and she declared, “So, at least with her, I have the best revenge I can have. I have you.”
He stared at her as his body locked.
F*ck him, but he f*cking loved her.
“Yeah,” he whispered, his voice rough.
“Good,” she stated haughtily and settled in again, curving her arms around him this time. “Alas, she’ll never learn that I have you for precisely the reasons she doesn’t, that she’s odious and ridiculous and I’m not. It’s my experience that the men worth having dislike odious and ridiculous.”
Her words forced his body to release since he was fighting back laughter when he confirmed, “Nope, men don’t like either of those.”
“So she’s sad really,” she concluded.
“Yep,” he agreed.
She fell silent.
He stared at the top of her head, her cheek against his chest, felt her weight bearing into him, her arms around him and having all that, it was whacked, but he knew he wanted to sit there with her forever.
But that shit couldn’t happen and he told her why.
“Kids are worried about you, honey. If you’re good, you gotta get down there and show them that.”
Not surprisingly, instantly she moved.
Pulling out of his arms then grabbing his hand and pulling them both to their feet, she said, “Of course. I should have thought of that.”
She started to pull him to the stairs but he stopped her, calling, “Babe?”
She looked up at him.
“You good?” he asked.
Her answer was, “I have you.”
He liked that answer but he had to be sure and he communicated this by saying, “Babe.”
She got him and he knew this when she reiterated with emphasis, “Yes, Jake, of course I’m good. I have you.”
Oh yes.
F*ck yes.
He liked that answer.
Enough to use her hand in his to pull her to him, wrap his free arm around her and bend his head to give her a kiss.
She took it. She liked it. He knew it when she slid her hands around his shoulders and pressed deep.
When he lifted his head, she looked into his eyes and said quietly, “Thank you for taking care of me, darling.”
“My job, baby,” he replied.
“I’m glad you’re good at it,” she returned.
Oh yes.
F*ck yes.
He was in love with her.
Gone.
Deep.
He’d lost his heart. He knew she had it in a way he hoped like f*ck she never wanted to give it back.
He didn’t tell her that. That would be for a time she’d want to remember it, he’d want to remember it, not a night that turned a fantastic weekend to shit.
So instead, he bent in and brushed his mouth to hers then took her to his kids.
* * * * *
F*ck.
Jake held Josie’s eyes, ones she’d just cut to him, and they were narrowed.
It was the next morning.
Conner was shoving books in his backpack at the butcher block table.
Amber was running around like a teenaged girl in the throes of a drama. Seeing as she had Josie’s entire wardrobe and makeup collection to pick from that morning, she took too long doing it and she was running late.
Ethan was sitting at the table, swinging his legs, shoving Josie’s scrambled eggs, bacon and toast into his mouth.
Jake was resting his hips against the counter, his hand wrapped around a fresh mug of coffee.
And Josie was at the sink, doing Conner and Amber’s breakfast dishes.
Until a moment ago, all had been well at Lavender House.
Last night, Josie had rallied. The kids saw it and relaxed. And not a one of them said anything or gave a bad vibe after a night where they slept under the same roof that their dad slept under, doing it in a bed with Josie.
He’d gone to open the gym while Josie stayed to make breakfast and control the mayhem that was the Spear kids getting ready for school.
Jake had returned ten minutes ago.
However, Conner had just dropped the bomb that Ellie had visited last night, something Jake had not shared with his woman.
It wasn’t the only thing he hadn’t shared, the rest of it she still didn’t know.
And it was clear from her look she didn’t like that he’d delayed in doing this. So he was not looking forward to giving it all to her.
Still aiming her glare at Jake, she asked his son, “Are you okay, sweetheart?”
“Sure. Her loss,” Conner muttered.
“Con,” Josie called, finally moving her eyes to his son and Jake watched Conner look to her. “Are you okay?” she asked quietly, and so f*cking sweet, he tasted that sweetness in his mouth.
“I’m good, Josie,” Conner replied, also quietly.
She studied him closely then, obviously approving of what she saw, she nodded her head.
When she did, Conner tipped his head back and yelled at the ceiling, “Amber! Get a move on!”
This got Jake another cut of Josie’s eyes and he knew why. She didn’t like shouting and obviously held Jake accountable for Conner doing it.
He was already fighting a grin but it became harder when her brows lifted when Amber was heard shouting back, “It’s not like I don’t have my own car! Go without me!”
She tipped her head to the side and crossed her arms on her chest when Conner continued the shouted conversation with, “You’re gonna be late!”
“Conner,” Josie called, again with her eyes to Jake.
“Yeah?” Conner asked and she looked to his boy.
“It’s sweet you’re looking after your sister’s attendance record and don’t wish for her to be tardy. But if you would do that not shouting the house down, I won’t attempt to get you to eat green beans tonight.”
Conner grinned big and said, “Deal.”
At this, Jake swallowed down laughter.
Unfortunately, he made a noise doing it and regained Josie’s glare.
“Later, Eath,” Conner said as he slung his backpack over his shoulder and headed out.
“Later, Con,” Ethan said with mouth full.
“’Bye, guys,” he said to Jake and Josie.
“Have a good day, Conner,” Josie called to his departing back.
“Later, son.” Jake did the same.
Amber rushed in the second he was gone, crying, “I can’t find my geometry book!”
“You’ve been in five rooms in this house since you got here, honey. Have you checked them all?” Jake asked.
But before his daughter could answer—or from the look on her face lose it—Josie moved, stating, “I’ll help you look, Amber.”
She disappeared on the heels of his daughter.
Ethan jumped off his chair to take his empty plate to the sink, declaring, “Josie’s eggs are the freakin’ bomb.”
Jake took a sip of coffee and didn’t reply because he didn’t need to. His son spoke truth.
Ethan put his plate in the sink and turned to his old man. “So, instead of Josie bein’ around our place more, we should come here more. She doesn’t have as big a TV but her couch is all squishy.”
“You’d give up our TV for a squishy couch?” Jake asked.
“It’s like it hugs you,” Ethan answered and Jake grinned at his son.
“Got it!” Amber cried, waving around her geometry book as she ran back into the kitchen, Josie following her when she did.
Amber shoved it into her bag, dashed to her dad and gave him a kiss on the cheek. She then dashed to Josie and did the same.
As she did this, Jake again gave Josie credit for his daughter’s return to sweet.
But it was all Amber when she said to Ethan, “Later, runt.’
“Ugh!” Ethan grunted. “You suck!”
Amber halted in her dash out the door, gave her little brother a cute smile and teased, “But you still love me.”
“Hardly,” Ethan shot back.
“You totally do,” she returned.
“I can’t love someone who sucks,” he told her.
She grinned at him, unperturbed by this, and took off.
“Eath,” Jake called and his son turned annoyed eyes to his dad. “Teeth brushed. Get your shit together, bag by the door. Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he grunted and stalked out.
“Babe?” he called to Josie who was wetting a cloth at the sink.
She turned eyes to him, looked to the door Ethan just used, looked back to Jake and said one word.
“Ellie?”
He grinned and replied, “Babe.”
She tossed the cloth into the sink and put her hands to her hips. Hips she’d put jeans on that morning and it sucked he didn’t have her in a nightie but it was the right way for her to walk downstairs to his kids.
“Is Con all right?” she asked.
“He said he was,” he answered.
“Is Con all right?” she repeated.
He lowered his voice and replied, “Babe, if he says he’s fine, he’s fine.”
This was clearly not enough for her and he knew it when she asked, “What did Ellie say?”
“She wants him back.”
“And he said no and that’s it?”
“Pretty much.”
“He was gutted two weeks ago,” she reminded him.
“Two weeks in high school is two years in real life,” he returned and watched his woman snap her mouth shut because it had been a long time for both of them but they both knew that to be true.
“Gettin’ it all out there, more happened last night while your shit started to go down here,” he shared even though he didn’t want to.
But he had to.
Donna lived in that town and Donna had a mouth. Josie could see her or it could get to her.
So his woman had to know.
“What?” she asked
“Donna came around.”
Her eyes got wide.
Quick, before Ethan got back, he gave it to her, ending with, “She’s whacked but I’m pretty sure this time she got my point.”
“She isn’t whacked, Jake,” she replied. “When you’re young you can have everything you want and not realize you have it.”
He shook his head. “I was thirty when Con was born, Donna twenty-nine. She wasn’t young. She’s just whacked.”
She also shook her head. “At any age, you can still not realize you have your heart’s desire, lose it, and spend years in denial, searching for its replacement at the same time hoping it comes back.”
Jake froze.
Your heart’s desire.
Those words pounded in his brain so hard he didn’t have it in him to reply, to move, to do dick. All he could do was stare at his woman.
Your heart’s desire, she’d said and she was f*cking talking about him.
F*ck, she was gone for him too.
Deep.
He had her heart, he knew it in that instant and he also knew one other thing.
He sure as f*ck was never giving it back.
“Jake?” she called when he said nothing.
“Right here,” he pushed out.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
F*ck yeah, he was.
“Yep,” he answered.
Her head tipped to the side and she opened her mouth but Ethan took that moment to walk in.
“So, who’s takin’ me to school?” he asked but didn’t wait for an answer, he kept jabbering. “I cannot freakin’ wait to tell everyone I met Lavon freaking Burkett! They’re gonna spaz!”
Jake pushed away from his spot at the counter, putting down his mug, saying, “I’m takin’ you, bud. You’re ready, grab your bag and out to the truck.”
“Right,” Ethan muttered and looked to Josie. “Later, Josie.”
“Have a good day at school, honey,” she replied.
He took off.
Jake went to her, got close and put both hands to either side of her neck.
“Come nine o’clock, babe, you call the firm and find out what gives with Terry and who they got to represent you.”
She put her hands to his waist and nodded.
He kept at her.
“You get a call to arrange a meeting, don’t agree to anything until you ask me. I’m coming with.”
She nodded again.
“Now, kiss me,” he ordered.
Without delay, she rolled up on her toes and gave him her mouth.
He took it and drank deep, but not long before he broke their connection, shifted to give her nose a kiss and he did this giving her neck a squeeze.
When he caught her eyes, he said, “Tonight we’re here again. Until I get a lock on what your uncle is up to, we’re staking claim to Lavender House.”
She pressed closer and said, “Agreed.”
“Kids dealt with last night no problems and we didn’t have a meeting but I got the chance to talk to each of them and they’re good with all of us having more of you.”
At that, she melted into him and whispered, “Good.”
“I get the good parts,” he told her.
And at that, she smiled at him.
Getting that from her, knowing he was leaving her good, Jake bent again and brushed his mouth against hers.
“Later, Slick,” he said when he lifted his head.
“Later, darling,” she replied.
He gave her neck another squeeze, let her go and walked out so he could take his son to school.
* * * * *