“Just a second, baby.”
She pressed her lips together.
Coert answered the phone. “Yo, Jake. You good?”
“I’m at Lavender House with Josie Malone and there are trespassers on the property who won’t leave even after we’ve asked repeatedly for them to do so.”
“Fuck,” Coert groaned, probably settled in for the night in front of a game.
Jake kept a hand on Josie as he leaned back to look through the window at the side of the door. He saw the cars still there, as were the shadowed bodies.
“I’d owe you one, you roust these ass**les,” Jake said into the phone.
“You will and big. The Broncs are playing.”
Coert gave a shit about the Broncos because he was a transplant from Denver. Jake also knew why Coert got the f**k out of the Mile High City. There were only two reasons a man with a good job he liked in a town he loved would move across an entire country. He f**ked up or a woman f**ked him up.
In Coert’s situation, it was the last.
“Gotta warn you, Boston Stone is one of the ass**les I’m talkin’ about,” Jake told him.
“That got me motivated,” Coert surprisingly replied then explained, “Guy’s a dick.”
“Agreed.”
“On my way,” Coert stated.
“Thanks, man,” Jake murmured.
“Later.”
“Later.”
He disconnected, looked to Josie who was staring up at him and noticed instantly she was freaked way the f**k out.
That was why his eyes moved to his son as Con got back from going through the house and turning on lights.
“On the phone with your sister. Get her to pack a bag for you, Ethan and her, get your books and haul her and Eath over here. We’re stayin’ the night with Josie.”
“Jake,” Josie whispered.
“Gotcha,” Conner said and moved toward the kitchen.
Jake looked down to his woman. “Fuck them. You’re stayin’ in your house tonight and you’re not doin’ it alone,” he declared.
She pressed her lips together before she fell forward and face planted in his chest.
He wrapped his arms around her, put his lips to the top of her hair and told her, “It’s gonna be okay, Slick.”
“He wants Lavender House,” she said into his chest.
“He’s not gonna get it,” Jake returned.
“He’s standing out there right now.”
“Coert’s gonna be here and he’ll be gone in fifteen minutes, baby.”
Her arms slid around him but the hold was loose, like she didn’t have it in her to hold tight.
Fucking Stone.
He orchestrated this, the ass**le.
Jake gave her a squeeze and repeated, “It’s gonna be okay.”
Her head tipped back and she was still freaked but now fear had moved into her eyes.
He’d know why when she asked, “Do you think maybe Dad will come too?”
Fuck.
Luckily, Conner walked in just then and Jake looked to him. “Get Josie a glass of that shit in Lydie’s liquor cabinet. Fancy bottle, looks like cough syrup, smells like it. Yeah?”
“No problem,” Conner replied and walked right back to the kitchen.
“Jake?” Josie called and he looked back down to her.
“Let’s sit down,” he suggested then made this so by moving her into the family room and sitting her on the couch.
He wanted her in his lap. Better, he wanted to lie down with her, hold her close and give her what he had to give her when he had her safe in his arms.
He didn’t do that because his son might not be comfortable with it, nor Josie.
So he got her as close as he could, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and nabbing her hand.
“Right, a while back, Lydie asked me to look into things,” he stated.
She held his gaze and nodded.
“I did,” he went on.
She didn’t nod, just continued to look into his eyes.
“Your dad’s dead, baby.”
She stared at him a second, not one thing washing through her features, before she fell forward and did a face plant in his chest again.
Jake wrapped both arms around her.
Conner walked in with a snifter of purple liquid and Jake watched, his boy’s eyes locked on Josie, as his son walked directly to the coffee table, sat his ass on it, set the glass aside and reached out to curl his fingers around Josie’s knee.
Christ, he was a good kid.
“Kids on their way?” he asked his son.
“Yep,” Conner answered. “Amber’s all over it.
“Thanks, bud,” he whispered.
Conner said nothing, just jerked up his chin.
Josie leaned away, gave Conner a small smile she totally didn’t commit to and looked to Jake.
“I need to make up beds for the kids.”
“We’ll see to that when Amber and Eath get here,” he replied.
“But—”
“Take a drink, Slick, relax. We got this covered.”
Something shifted in her eyes before her lips formed the words, “You got this covered.”
“Yeah,” he confirmed.
She stared at him.
Conner let her go to grab her glass and he offered it to her.
Jake unwrapped one arm so she could turn and take it.
“Stuff smells crap,” Conner muttered as she lifted it to her mouth and took a sip.
It was at that, finally, when Josie smiled and it was genuine this time.
There it was.
He was right.
They had this covered.
* * * * *
“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 ass**les 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?”