Текст книги "The Will"

Автор книги: Kristen Ashley

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Текущая страница: 19 (всего у книги 35 страниц)

“Let me guess, Jake’s standing right in front of you.”

I felt the strong desire to laugh bubble up inside of me at the same time I still felt very badly about what I needed to do, more so if he’d heard what happened between Jake and I last night, either firsthand or through another party.

“Indeed,” I agreed, deciding to stare at Jake’s throat, but finding it altogether too attractive so moving my eyes to his now t-shirted (he’d clearly changed from his training gear while Ethan gave me my tour) shoulder.

“That’s where I’d be,” Mickey muttered.

“I’m assuming you know why I’m calling,” I said quietly.

“Babe, way you looked at Jake, way he looked at you, I knew I had nothin’ but a sliver of a chance to slide in there. I told Jake last night we had a date, a cocky move and cocky’s always stupid. He wasted no time and moved to stake his claim. I’da done the same.”

I wasn’t fond of the terminology “stake his claim” nor was I certain that’s what actually happened (though it must be said, Jake rushed me in the locker room, pushing me into the wall; I just didn’t stop him). But as Mickey was being very kind about an uncomfortable situation, I decided not to debate that with him.

“You’re being very nice about this,” I told Mickey as well as Jake’s shoulder and I felt his hand squeeze my neck so I looked to his eyes.

He looked relieved and it occurred to me right then that they were friends and this could have been more than uncomfortable in a very bad way.

“Jake and I are tight. Way he looked at you and you him, it was actually me bein’ the dick. He staked his claim, I’ll stand down. Anyway, a man’s smart, he doesn’t ever burn bridges with a pretty woman. Shit can go down with you and Jake and I’ll still be in position to slide in.”

I was uncertain if he was being amusing or serious, although I figured it was a bit of both. Thus, I decided not to make any comment to that. Jake might read it and that relief in his face might disappear.

So I just mumbled, “Mm.”

“So I’ll see you at league dinners, Jake’s barbeques and the gym.”

Jake barbequed?

“Yeah?” Mickey prompted when I said nothing, my mind filled with Jake standing on the back deck I’d seen from the big windows in the family room, grilling steaks, and wondering if they tasted good.

“Yes,” I replied and looked to Jake’s chest. “I’ll see you at league dinners and, well, the gym.”

I felt Jake lean in and kiss the top of my head before he let me go and moved away.

I felt this as I heard Mickey say, “Right, Josephine. Later, babe.”

“Later, Mickey.” I lowered my voice. “And I’m sorry.”

His voice was lower too, sweet, and there was a smile in it when he replied, “Don’t be. I didn’t get a catch but you got one. Don’t read shit into his history. Jake’s a good guy. The best. He’s just had shit taste in women. Until now.”

Very sweet.

And obviously a good friend.

“Thank you, Mickey.”

“You bet, honey. Later.”

“Later.”

I disconnected to see Jake had his head in his very large, high quality fridge (Sub-Zero! Lavender House needed one of those) and he was now on his phone.

“Amber, babe, haven’t heard a word from you in a while. Check in with your old man so he doesn’t have to start calling hospitals. And just in case this is incentive, I’m makin’ tacos, nuking some Ro-Tel dip and Josie’s over here for the day. You haul your ass back here, bring the Taylors.”

He disconnected, shoved the phone in his back pocket, came out of the refrigerator with a box and a package of ground beef and before the fridge closed on him, he tipped his head back and shouted at the ceiling, “Con! Kitchen! Don’t give a shit who you’re talkin’ to, come say hi to Josie!”

“I could go to his room, knock and say hello to him,” I noted. “Ethan showed me his closed door.”

“We got company, my kids come and say hello,” Jake replied and I couldn’t argue that because not greeting visitors was rude. I didn’t say anything, however, because I saw the rectangular yellow box he got out of the fridge had the large words “Velveeta” written across it.

I pressed my lips together.

Ethan came flying into the room, shouting, “Ro-Tel dip!”

“You’re on dip duty, bud,” Jake told him and without hesitation, Ethan dashed to the pantry, throwing open the door and disappearing inside.

“Can I do something?” I asked.

“Relax, tuck in when it’s done and be amazed,” Jake answered and I smiled at him, amused at his quip.

He smiled back.

When he did, I decided that that smile, his humor, being in his attractive kitchen that he’d renovated himself and being in it with an exuberant Ethan who came out of the pantry with a tin of something was worth tolerating ludicrously protective and preposterously overbearing.

Most definitely.

On this thought, Conner walked in.

“Hey, Josie,” he greeted with a distracted smile at me and in much the same way (with obvious differences) as his father, with casual affection he came right up to me, touched my arm and dipped down to kiss my cheek.

He then turned to his dad.

“Yo, Dad.”

Jake was dumping ground beef into a skillet at the stove (it was a Wolf, not an Aga—still, most assuredly not something to sneeze at) but he turned to Conner and replied, “Con.”

Then his eyes narrowed on his son.

Conner moved to the pantry asking, “Do we need refried beans?”

“Yeah, and you can get ‘em lettin’ me in on why you got that look on your face,” Jake replied.

Apparently undisturbed that I was in attendance, Conner readily shared, “Called Ellie twice today. Left two messages. She hasn’t called back.”

“Uh-oh,” Ethan muttered, cutting what appeared to be a rather gooey brick of cheese that was much the color of the alarming tub filled with the substance in which he’d dipped his pretzel bites into at the mall.

Jake now had a wooden spoon in hand, but both hands on his hips and he was perhaps the only male in the universe who could look commanding and charismatic standing at a stove holding a wooden spoon.

He also had his eyes to his son.

“You end things with Kaylee last night?” he asked quietly.

“Yeah,” Conner answered, his voice telling the tale that this was not an enjoyable event.

It was undoubted that Jake heard his son’s tone and this was likely why he let it go and instead queried, “Ellie know she’s the one?”

“Told her a week ago, Dad,” Conner stated, using a can opener on a can of refried beans.

At this, Ethan muttered, “Righteous.”

Jake ignored his youngest son and inquired of his eldest, “You think Mia’s still givin’ her shit?”

Conner gave his dad a look, a look that said Mia was indeed still giving poor Ellie shit.

Not good news.

“She goes to church Sunday mornings, Con,” Jake reminded his boy.

“At nine. It’s nearly noon. She’s been home for almost two hours,” Conner replied.

Jake had no response to that.

“Is Zoey gone?” Ethan entered the conversation.

“Just got off the phone with her,” Conner murmured.

I bit my lip.

Jake looked at me.

I stopped biting my lip and stretched my lower one out to communicate my nonsensical “eek!” which, albeit nonsensical, I still felt said a great many things.

At seeing my gesture, Jake dropped his head and grinned at his stocking feet.

He understood the great many things I’d said.

“Josie?” Conner called and I quickly rearranged my face and looked to him. “You’re a chick,” he declared when I did.

I knew intuitively this wasn’t starting very well.

“I am, indeed, Conner,” I confirmed unnecessarily.

“What’s her gig?” he asked.

Yes, this was not going in a comfortable direction.

All three Spear men turned their eyes to me.

“I’m afraid I don’t know her well enough to answer that, sweetheart,” I said gently.

“She always picks up when I call or calls back when she can after she gets my message,” he told me.

And it kept trundling down that prickly path.

It was then a question that Jake had asked me over a week ago came back and I asked it of Conner.

“How real can you take it?”

“I dig her, a lot,” Conner answered, unlike me, obviously understanding the question straight away. “She’s sweet. She’s really freaking pretty. She’s cool. Eath likes her. Dad likes her. Even Amber likes her when Amber’s not being a pain in the ass. And I like the way she looks at me and how I feel when I’m with her.”

That was quite forthcoming.

And very sweet.

“In other words, you don’t want to lose her,” I deduced.

“In other words, yeah. I don’t,” Conner affirmed.

I moved to the island where both Jake’s sons were and laid a hand on it, my eyes to Conner the whole time. When I got there, still going gently, I gave him real.

“At the game, you were lovely with her. Very attentive. Protective,” I told him.

I liked the way his expression changed, showing satisfaction not only that I noted he was this way but that he gave those things to Ellie.

Unfortunately, I had more to say.

“However, it does not feel good to be one in many. Although she’s made the cut, which I will share now with your best interests at heart, that is not the terminology to use when referring to whether or not you wish to carry on a relationship, she could still be smarting about that. But I believe it’s likely Mia. She’s afraid of her and girls can be quite unpleasant. She’ll find her times to be this way to Ellie when you’re not around. Ellie knows this. So I advise you give it a bit of time and if she doesn’t call you back, you call her again. If she still doesn’t answer, seek her out.”

“I’ll do that,” Conner muttered. Then louder, he asked, “Should I lay shit out with Mia?”

“Have you not already done that?” I asked back.

“I told her to lay off and I’d be pissed if she didn’t.”

“And if you get pissed that she doesn’t, what do you intend to do?”

Conner said nothing and I knew why.

He was too much of his father’s son to hurt her in any real way so his getting pissed was no threat and Mia knew this.

“As that’s the case, if she still intends to harm Ellie, since she’s not frightened of your anger, she’ll do something to harm Ellie.”

Conner immediately looked concerned. “Shit, should I go over to her house now?”

“Give her the chance to call you back,” Jake put in at this juncture. “A coupla hours. Then call her and, like Josie said, go over there if she doesn’t answer.”

Conner didn’t look like he liked doing it but he nodded to his father.

My phone still in my hand rang.

I looked down at it and saw it said “Unknown Caller,” but the area code on the number was local.

This concerned me, as it was a possibility Henry was staying somewhere close and could be using the hotel phone to call me, though I didn’t know why he wouldn’t use his mobile if he rang.

Even concerned it might be Henry, I took the call and put the phone to my ear.

“This is Josephine.”

“Josie, girl, you…are…legend!” a female voice shrieked in my ear.

I narrowed my eyes at the black granite of Jake’s island. “Pardon?”

“Babelicious, I heard about last night,” the woman stated.

It came to me it was Alyssa right before she kept speaking.

“You rock. You roll. You got it good and from what I hear, gave it better. Girl, I wanna be you when I grow up, walkin’ into the arena, pure class, your shit so doesn’t stink, and then you give Jake the business in the locker room and walk out with head held high on your fancy-assed heels. You’re so the fucking bomb, you’d level Hiroshima again if you visited.”

“Um…” I mumbled but got nothing else out. Not that I knew what to say to her highly unusual compliments delivered with extreme enthusiasm.

“Ohmigod!” she shrieked. “I so hope Donna hears about this. That bitch is a stupid bitch. I mean, hello! Wake up and look at the near-to teen wolf you got in your bed. He may look a little like Jake Spear of twenty years ago but he is not Jake Spear of twenty years ago. You let Jake go, bitch, you’re never gettin’ him back no matter how many boy-men you bang.”

This was extremely insightful.

Before I could share that or, perhaps, walk out of the room, as it was likely, with the direction the mostly one-sided conversation was moving, I should take this call privately, she kept going.

“And who wants a twenty-something? Is she high? Every woman knows they gotta get a man who’s sowed his wild oats and, she’s lucky, he’ll have sowed his wild oats with her. She let that shit go and now she’s grasping at it to get it back ‘cause she knows no way Jake’s gonna go there with her because Jake suffers no fool and that bitch, lettin’ him go, is all kinds a fool.”

She took in a breath so deep, I heard her inhaling it over the phone and I thought I’d get a word in edgewise but I wasn’t fast enough.

“And don’t get me started on the way she is with her kids. My head might explode.”

This, too, I agreed with her on.

“Indeed,” I got in.

“You bet your ass, indeed,” she replied, sounding like she was doing it through laughter. “Now, babe, my shop isn’t open on Mondays but I’m opening the joint and givin’ you a mani-pedi tomorrow just because you’re the shit and already so legend that if I tell all my girls that the class-act who’s banging The Truck is a client, everyone will want to go there.”

Oh dear.

“But trust me, these lips aren’t loose,” she continued, again before I could utter a noise. “Don’t even think they are. Junior likes his BJs tight so I don’t ever go there. Come in at three. It’s called Maude’s House of Beauty. It was my mom’s before me. She’s Maude. Obviously, I’m not. We’ll go for a drink after I sort you out and that way I can be home in time to feed Junior and the hooligans I pushed out for him and you can get to Jake and rock his world.”

“I’m afraid I can’t,” I told her and I was actually quite disappointed I couldn’t. “I’ll have Ethan.”

“That’s cool. We’ll drop Eath with my Bryant. They’re buds. My girl Sofie will look after them.”

“I think I need to clear this with Jake and, well… Ethan,” I said.

“You with the big man now?” she asked.

I kept my eyes resolutely to the island and answered, “Yes.”

“Course you are,” she hooted. “So ask. I’ll wait.”

I drew in a breath then said, “Please hold on.”

“I’ll be here,” she replied.

I looked up to see Jake had eyes to me but a spoon to the browning hamburger meat.

“This is Alyssa. She says that her girl Sofie can watch after Ethan while I—”

“Yes!” Ethan broke in. “Can I go to Bryant’s after school tomorrow, Dad? Can I? Hunh?”

“Yep,” Jake answered, grinning at his son.

He then turned his grin to me and winked.

When he did, I felt my belly dip and it was an even better sensation knowing some of the other ways Jake could make my belly dip.

Then I went back to Alyssa. “Jake and Ethan are fine with that.”

“Right on!” she shouted. “Okay, see you at three. Maude’s. I’m on Cross Street, about two and a half blocks north of Wayfarer’s. Later!”

After her farewell, not waiting for mine, she was gone.

I put my phone to the counter.

“Take it you’re hookin’ up with Alyssa tomorrow,” Jake noted unnecessarily and I looked to him.

“Yes,” I confirmed.

He grinned and his voice was soft when he said, “Good.”

I already liked Alyssa but I had a feeling I was going to like her more because clearly Jake liked her and he liked her for me.

I grinned back just as I heard a commotion at the door to the garage. Mere moments later, the door was thrown open and Amber and boy Taylor surged in. Following them, girl Taylor strolled in like she was arriving at the end of a runway and about to stop to strike a pose.

Amber went to Jake, threw her arms around him (regardless of the cooking meat that was close and the wooden spoon in his hand), got up on tiptoe and kissed his cheek.

She did this quickly and just as quickly greeted, “Hey, Dad. I’m alive.”

“I see,” he replied, smiling down at his daughter.

That caused another belly dip.

I didn’t get to fully appreciate this one as, without delay, Amber rushed to me, grabbed my hand and started tugging, announcing loudly and with great liveliness, “Josie! I’m so glad you’re here! I sooooooo have to talk to you.”

She must have very much soooooo had to talk to me for she dragged me out of the kitchen, to the stairs and up them. It was clear boy Taylor agreed with her urgent need for communication for he put his hands on my back just above my bottom and gratuitously shoved me up the stairs Amber was yanking me up.

We hit the door to her room. One that I’d noted earlier had a white board on it with little pink and blue flowers drawn in at the edges. But contradictory to the cheerful flowers, the words “Enter and Die!” were printed on it in hot pink in the middle and under that, smaller but in all capital letters, “THAT MEANS YOU RUNT!”

It should be noted that under that, in much smaller letters and in black marker was written in a different hand, “Don’t call me runt!!!!!!!!!”

This amused me when I saw it earlier and it amused me seeing it again. However, at that moment my amusement was intermingled with confusion as to what was currently happening as Amber threw open her door and yanked me in.

I had not seen any of the children’s rooms but Ethan’s (entirely decked out in some sporting team’s paraphernalia, even the sheets) as Conner and Amber’s doors were closed.

Now I saw how Amber could exist in this intensely masculine abode.

There was not one inch of her pink and blue room that didn’t scream “Teenaged Girl!” from stylish but bright bedclothes to pages cut out of style magazine tacked to the walls to band posters to jumbles of clothes and shoes on the floor and accessories and cosmetics on every surface.

I had little time to take all this in for Amber was standing before me. The Taylors having moved to form a loose huddle around us, the door having been closed, Amber was visibly deep breathing while pressing the air down in front of her with her hands in a way I found alarming, repeatedly, chanting, “Okay, okay, okay.”

She sucked in a huge breath.

Then I winced when she smiled an enormous smile and screeched, “You’ll never guess what happened!”

Although I feared my eardrums were bleeding, her excitement was infectious so I smiled back and asked, “What happened, my lovely?”

“Alexi Prokorov said hey to me!” she cried.

I blinked. “Who?”

“Only the…coolest guy…in the entire school!” boy Taylor informed me.

“He is,” girl Taylor confirmed. “He’s the absolute bomb.”

I looked from girl Taylor back to Amber as she again began chanting, “Okay, okay, okay. Soooo…we were at the diner last night and he walked right up to me and said hey!”

“I’d done her face up in romantic palette number two,” boy Taylor leaned into me to share.

This was a good choice.

I didn’t get a chance to say that, girl Taylor was talking, imparting the unusual news that, “Alexi doesn’t date girls from Magdalene High.”

“He never has,” boy Taylor put in. “He usually goes out with the hottest of the hot from other schools.”

“He has a motorcycle,” Amber added and when she did, my heart skipped a beat.

Uh-oh.

“And he plays guitar,” she went on.

Oh dear.

“And he’s in a band,” she continued.

Oh no.

Her face changed, it went soft and wistful as she whispered, “He’s dreamy.”

“This is huge,” boy Taylor announced. “Huger than huge. The one guy who beats out Noah is Alexi. I mean, girls from Magdalene don’t even set their sights on him because they know they have no shot.” He smiled big. “This is awesome.”

“He writes his own songs,” girl Taylor added. “I saw his band play in the underage club that’s used to be an old garage down by the cove. It was amazing.”

“Look,” boy Taylor demanded and I looked his way to see he had his phone screen facing me. “I got this pic as he was leaving the diner. It isn’t very good but it tells the tale.”

I stared at his phone thinking the photo on it did, indeed, tell the tale.

The picture was of an exceptionally good-looking young man. He was rather fit and although he was sitting astride a motorcycle, captured on the phone arrested in lifting up a shiny black motorcycle helmet in front of him, it also appeared he was quite tall. He had very messy but attractive dark blond hair. He had excellent bone structure. He was wearing faded jeans, the knee torn and ragged, black motorcycle boots, a black t-shirt and a black leather jacket.

I stared at the photo thinking the young man in it was every high school girl’s dream.

I also stared at it thinking that if this young man came over to take Amber out on a date, Jake was going to lose his mind.

“Um…” I mumbled, fear constricting my lungs as I tore my eyes away from the photo and looked at a beaming Amber.

I got no further as she declared, “And Noah’s called me. Twice.”

“She didn’t pick up,” girl Taylor shared.

“He left a message. She’s leaving him hanging,” boy Taylor finished.

Although I was proud of Amber for doing this, her doing it shed even more light on Ellie doing the same to Conner which raised my current anxiety levels significantly, something which was notable seeing as they were already significantly high.

“I think that’s very wise, Amber,” I told her and she smiled a bright smile. “Now as for this boy—” I began but said no more when she jumped straight to me, grabbed my hands and held them tight.

“Josie, he came right up to our table and said hey right to me. It was the best moment of my life.”

Oh my.

In the face of her happiness, entirely unable to do anything but, I pulled one of my hands from hers, lifted it to cup her cheek, leaned into her and whispered, “Then I hope he likes you, my lovely. But I expect he does because you’re beautiful, you’re smart and you’re a good friend and he likely knows all of that.”

Hope washed through her features making her even more beautiful as she asked, “You think?”

“I think and hope, my lovely girl,” I replied.

Her smile got bigger.

Before anyone could say more, we heard bellowed from below, “Dip’s up!”

Jake.

Amber let me go, jumped back and cried, “Ro-Tel dip! Yee-ha! I’m starved.”

Then she dashed by me and out of the room.

Boy Taylor followed her.

Girl Taylor and I were left behind, staring out the now open door.

I turned to her.

“Is this Alexi a decent young man?” I asked quietly.

“He’s more decent than Noah,” she answered.

This would not be difficult to achieve and thus didn’t make me feel better.

“But if Alexi goes for it, Mr. Spear is gonna freak way the heck out,” she stated the obvious.

“Indeed,” I agreed to the obvious, looking back to the door.

Girl Taylor got closer to me so I turned my eyes to her.

“He gets straight A’s, his music really is super cool and word is he’s a one woman man. I also know he’s between girlfriends right now. But I’ve seen him a couple of times with his chicks and he’s with them like Con is with his chicks. So she could do worse, that being Noah. But Alexi is definitely better.”

I found the news Alexi was a “one woman man” somewhat soothing. The information he treated his girlfriends like Conner did (except having only one at a time) was even more so.

So I smiled at her as I reached out and gave her hand a brief squeeze.

Then I motioned to the door with my head.

She preceded me and I followed her down the stairs.

She said, “Hey, Mr. Spear,” as she walked past Jake at the bottom of the stairs, moving toward the living room.

“Hey, honey,” he muttered to her as she did, but his eyes were on me.

Then his large body was blocking mine as I reached the bottom of the stairs and thus I had to stop and look up at him.

“Everything cool?” he asked quietly, studying me closely and I knew I was not hiding my unease.

“For Amber, yes. For you, if things play out as she wishes…” I hesitated then finished, “No.”

“Come again?” he asked, his brows knitting.

“A young man said hi to her last night at the diner. Boy Taylor showed me his picture and he’s very attractive. He was also sitting on a motorcycle.”

Jake’s brows unknit and his jaw got hard.

I went on.

“I’m informed he plays guitar.”

His eyes flashed and a muscle jumped in his cheek.

I continued speaking.

“He also writes his own music and plays in a band.”

Jake looked beyond me, grumbling, “Fuckin’ fuck me.”

“I’m further informed he gets straight A’s and he’s a one woman man.”

Jake’s eyes came back to me and I could see immediately he did not share my minor relief at these revelations.

“Who woulda thought I’d miss Noah,” Jake remarked.

I pressed my lips together wanting to laugh but knowing I absolutely should not.

“A motorcycle?” he asked.

I tipped my head to the side and gave him a little wince.

He tipped his head back and said to the ceiling, “Why couldn’t you have given me all boys?”

I found this obvious conversation with God intriguing and thus asked, “Do you believe in God?”

He looked back to me and his brows were again knit. “Uh…yeah.”

“If this is so, I’ll inform you that Reverend Fletcher has invited me to attend services and he expressly asked that I bring you and the children along.”

“I bet he did,” Jake murmured, moving to my side and slinging an arm around my shoulders.

“I’ll tell you now, I’m not fond of waking up early but they do have an evening service.”

He looked down at me as he moved us toward the family room and I slid my arm around his waist.

“You’re not fond of gettin’ up early?”

“No.”

“You get up early to work out with me.”

I just looked at him.

He grinned and did it slowly. He also pulled me closer. Last, he looked in the direction he was taking us.

“Evening services it is, Slick. But not tonight. Next week. Happy to get closer to God to ask Him in His house to look after my girl when basketball stars and guitar players with motorcycles are in the mix.”

“Indeed,” I agreed but the word was weighty which earned me a squeeze of his arm and him tipping his head down to give me another grin.

He moved us into the living room where there was a football game playing on Jake’s extortionately large television and children all around consuming orange dip with red and green bits in it, doing this utilizing corn chips.

Jake, in Jake fashion, seated me himself. He did this in an overlarge club chair with matching ottoman that was really meant only to seat one but he made it seat two, albeit snugly.

He then commanded, “Eath, get Josie and me another bowl a’ that and bring in a fresh bag of chips.”

Ethan jumped off the couch and raced to do as his father bid. Therefore, in no time at all, I was confronted with a bowl of dip held in Jake’s big hand, the bag of chips resting in his lap.

It was time to make my judgment.

And I was much surprised to find the dip tangy, spicy and of a very smooth consistency that was quite nice and the chip was fresh, crispy and salty.

An excellent combination.

“It pass inspection?” Jake asked as I went for another chip.

I looked to him to see him studying me, lips again quirking.

“It’s not camembert,” I shared. “But it’s tasty.”

His lips stopped quirking and he yet again grinned as he went for his own chip.

Football game watching commenced and I found I liked sitting very snugly in Jake’s chair with Jake watching it with our lively company around. Ethan very into the game, thus shouting a lot. Conner and Jake often commenting about players, plays or calls. Myself engaging in conversation that had very little to do with football and much to do with fashion, makeup, skincare, and accessorizing as well as commentary on the good-looking players on the field with Amber and the Taylors.

After the first game ended, Jake ordered us all to the kitchen where we prepared our tacos (the meat, Jake explained to me, had to simmer awhile “for it to be real good, honey”).

Although I saw the envelope from which he’d poured the spices, and thus suspected the fare would be mediocre, he was not wrong. The tacos were delicious. Ethan and Conner microwaved the rather spare remains of the dip and spooned it into their tacos and I decided to try that should I have another taco afternoon at Jake’s for I thought it might be rather appetizing.

We ate in front of the TV and Amber and the Taylors had taken our used plates and cutlery back to the kitchen and refreshed our drinks when it happened.

The doorbell rang.

“Amber,” was all Jake said and she surprisingly dutifully got up and went to the door.

The front door was not close (there was an informal living room that looked more like a romper room for teenagers with a large sectional in it that had two laptops and a tablet scattered on it, as well as exploding backpacks on the floor, and also a dining room at the front of the house).

Not being close, we only heard murmurings and no one seemed overly bothered they had company.

Until Amber came back and my head snapped her way when I heard the trembling tone of her voice.

“Um…Dad, Con…uh, Mr. Earhart and Mia are here to talk to you guys.”

Mia?

The young woman who confronted Conner and Ellie at the football game?

I felt Jake’s body get tight next to mine, heard Con mutter, “What the hell?” but my eyes were riveted to Amber’s face.

She looked afraid.

Suddenly, I was out of the chair because Jake put his hands to my waist and shoved me to my feet.

Then I was moving toward the front of the house because Jake was also out of the chair, had grabbed my hand and was dragging me there.

He did this rumbling, “Con, with me and Josie. Amber, keep everyone in here.”

But Jake did not need to issue this order to his eldest. Conner was at our heels. I felt him there.

I just didn’t know why I, too, was attending this impromptu and clearly not welcome meeting.

I thought little of this the minute I hit the foyer and saw the man standing there.

He was not as big or fit as Jake but then again, not many men were. They were much the same age, I guessed. But even not as large or conditioned as Jake, this man was no pushover.

The other thing he was was enraged.

Utterly.

And his incensed eyes were glued to Conner in a way that I genuinely feared he might cause him bodily harm.

Without thinking, I pulled my hand from Jake’s and took a step back. My shoulder hit Conner and I stopped, forcing him to stop with me.

Then my eyes moved to Mia and my skin started prickling.

She was up to something. I could tell by the light in her eyes and the smirk on her lips. In the face of her father’s extreme fury, she should not be smirking.

Something was wrong and whatever it was, she was behind it.

“Neal, what’s up?” Jake asked casually but cautiously and I looked to him to see he, too, was positioned between the man and his son.