Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 66193 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 331(@200wpm)___ 265(@250wpm)___ 221(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66193 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 331(@200wpm)___ 265(@250wpm)___ 221(@300wpm)
“I feel better about leaving now,” I admitted.
“You sure you don’t need me to come along, Master Chief?” Taft asked.
I knew the guy still felt sidelined, but his knee recovery had been slow. Hell, the doctors said it was a miracle they saved his lower leg at all. He’d had seventeen surgeries on it and a missed infection raging for months that was finally beginning to heal.
“I need you for protection here. Even if the Mellman kid did the breaking and entering, I’d feel better knowing one of us is around. If I could get her to stay here with Gram, I would.”
“But your woman’s got you by the balls,” Kennedy added.
I glared. “You lock that house down tight?”
His grin slipped away. “You questioning my skills?”
“You questioning my balls?”
“I’m on it, Master Chief.” Taft straightened his already stiff spine as he replied. I’d been stripped of my rank, but Taft had yet to call me Ford. Not once in all the time he’d been here. “Want me to stay at her place?”
Kennedy and Hayes both snickered at the same moment I exploded, “No!”
I glared at all three of them. Taft was almost a decade younger. Cute in that corn-fed farm boy sort of way. No way was he staying anywhere near Indi where she could come out of her bathroom in only a towel.
Fuck no.
“Of course you’re not going to fucking spend the night with her,” I raged, the idea of any guy sleeping in that small house besides me turning me irrationally jealous and possessive.
Taft held his hands up in surrender. He honestly hadn’t been fucking with me—the kid was too earnest. Kennedy and Hayes apparently thought my reaction was hilarious, though, because they couldn’t stop sending each other looks and grinning.
“You can sleep outside her place in a vehicle.”
“I don’t know if that’s really necessary,” Gram said from the doorway, her voice making Roscoe perk up and thump his tail on his bed. She had a crossword puzzle book and pen in her hands. She had no problem eavesdropping on our war talk. I probably shouldn’t let her hear anything for her own safety, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave her out. She was sharp as a tack and sometimes had good insight to offer.
This wasn’t one of those moments.
“Taft can monitor everything from here. I have security at her place as tight as a nun’s—” Kennedy cut himself off and cleared his throat.
Gram gave him a pointed look, but the corner of her mouth twitched.
I growled but agreed. I was probably going overboard, and maybe Indi did have my balls around her neck like a Wilma Flintstone necklace, but I didn’t give a shit. “Fine. But you don’t sleep. I want you monitoring that shit all night long.”
Kennedy and Hayes made soft rumblings under their breath but shut up when I glared their way. Again.
“Did you dig anything else up around Gentry’s death?” I was in one of the dining room chairs we’d pulled in. Hayes was in the rocking chair, Kennedy at the desk slash sewing machine table. Taft had been in Gram’s tufted armchair but stood for her to take the spot.
“Yep.” Kennedy reached for the candy bowl on the desk and rooted through it to pull out a caramel square, which he unwrapped. He was pausing for dramatic effect, and I wanted to punch his nose in. “Talked to Lincoln. Told me his record lists him dishonorably discharged for a failed drug test, just like you, which means no death bennies—just like Buck.”
Gram huffed.
Buck’s death benefits had been withheld because of the drug and murder charges against him.
“Sounds to me like you boys just need to bark further up that chain of command. That Ranger team is clearly the link,” Gram said, setting her crossword book in her lap.
I nodded in agreement with Gram then looked to Kennedy. “See if Lincoln can find out any hint of current drug trafficking in the area where he was killed.”
“Will do. That it?” Kennedy asked, tossing the caramel in his mouth.
I nodded.
“What do you want me to do, Master Chief?” Taft asked.
“Gram, you need Taft to work on any projects?” I asked.
“No, I think you boys have put everything in tip-top shape around here already,” she said. “The construction crew knows what to do on your house build.”
“Find a way to make yourself useful,” I grumbled at Taft.
“Yeah, there might be some wood that needs chopping,” Hayes said with mock innocence.
“Oh yeah, we definitely don’t have enough logs split around here,” Kennedy said.
Yeah, I might have chopped at least three years’ worth already. “Fuck off, both of you.”
“Fucking off.” Kennedy saluted with an unwrapped lollipop he’d picked up out of the bowl. I had to wonder how many cavities he had.
“Fucking off,” Taft muttered with a grin.