Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 103665 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 415(@250wpm)___ 346(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103665 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 415(@250wpm)___ 346(@300wpm)
“She is,” Dutch grunted. “I told the social media jackass to leave her alone, but she said she didn’t mind giving an interview. I think she’s pretty lonely. She doesn’t seem to have any other family back home, from what I got when I interviewed her, and considering her husband was just brutally murdered and had his eyes cut out, I didn’t argue with her.”
Brock sighed. “We’ll keep an eye on her and make sure she gets to Anchorage when the body goes.”
Christian couldn’t imagine losing more people he cared about. His gaze drifted to Amka, where she joked with a couple of fishermen by the pool table and then took their empty dishes back into the kitchen.
She looked over her shoulder, saw him, and winked.
He sat back, stunned.
She had to be sore. He hadn’t gone easy on her last night, and frankly, it had been the best night of his entire life. She still had enough sass in her to challenge him. Publicly. Damn, he liked that.
“Did she just wink at you?” Ace put down his coffee mug.
Heat shockingly filtered into Christian’s face. “No.”
“Yes, she did,” Brock said, cutting him a look. “What’s up?”
He’d never lied to his brothers, and he was done lying to himself. “She’s under my protection,” Christian said. “I’m not good for her long term, or for being close to her, but nobody harms her. Ever.”
Silence fell like somebody had dropped a thirty-pound boulder in the middle of their table. All three men were usually phenomenal at hiding their expressions. Not right now. Shock covered their faces. Christian felt an odd, grim sense of pleasure at that.
“Well, all right,” Brock said. “Just so you know, I think that you are good for her, but you’ll have to figure that out yourself.”
Ace nudged him hard with an elbow. At least it looked hard. “Seriously, now that you’re all in love and planning your future, you think we all should, Brock?”
“Yeah,” Brock said, snagging a french fry off Dutch’s plate. “I definitely think that. I don’t want to be the only one who’s happy.”
“I didn’t say I was going to be happy,” Christian said. “I said that I can’t let her be hurt. That’s as far as I can go with her. She’s a settle down type and I’m just not.”
Ace chuckled. “This is going to be fun. By the way, have you told her that she’s safe for life now?”
Christian leaned back further in his chair. “Well. No.”
Dutch threw his head back and laughed. “Oh, you’re not wrong, Ace. I’m sticking around town for a bit. This is going to be a lot of fun.” He glanced at his watch. “However, right now, I’ve got to go. There are a couple more people up in Blue Creek who weren’t home earlier. I don’t think we’re going to find anything on these two vics, but we’ve got to do the job.”
“You want me to do it?” Christian asked.
“Nah,” Dutch said, already pushing up from his seat. “One of the ladies said she’d bake me a pie if I waited till later. I like pie.”
Who didn’t?
Dutch stood and then paused. “Wait a minute. Did you get hold of Damian?”
“I did,” Christian said. “I texted him the pictures again to look at, and he said he has no idea who those two victims are.” He was starting to worry that they’d never identify them. How sad would that be? To die and have nobody that cared? At least he had his brothers. And Amka. She’d care.
“What do you think?” Brock asked.
Christian scratched a mosquito bite on his arm. “I think Damian’s holding something back. I don’t know what or why, but he’s not telling me everything.”
Ace stood and tossed a twenty on the table. “I hate him working at that place. He’s not just there to provide security. We all agree on that, right?”
Brock nodded grimly. “Yeah, we agree on that. But we also agree that Damian’s the smartest person we’ve ever met, and he’s well-trained. He knows what he’s doing.”
“Not without backup, he doesn’t,” Christian snapped. “He talked about me trying to infiltrate the facility and test how good his measures are. I think I should do it. I mean actually do it and find out what’s going on.” He looked at his brothers. “You two in?”
“Absolutely,” Ace said.
Brock blew out air. “Yeah, I definitely am. It could cause some problems with the sheriff position, but if I get canned or arrested, Ophelia can take over. She’d be a better sheriff than I am anyway.”
“Okay,” Christian said. “As soon as we figure out who’s trying to hurt Amka and kill them—”
Dutch cleared his throat.
“I mean arrest them,” Christian said half-heartedly. “We’ll figure out what’s up with Damian.” He looked at Ace. “I feel like we’re pretty solid with you right now. Have you been seeing Smitty?”