Just Good Friends (Cheap Thrills Series Book 5)

by Mary B. Moore

  “It went well, they love her. She was nervous, to begin with, but once she realized how down to earth they were, she got over it.”

  There was a moment’s silence as DB handed me my cup, and then Hurst blew my mind. “How are you gonna help Tamsin with her shit?”

  The mug had almost been at my mouth, so I almost tipped it over when he basically said point-blank that he knew her story. Glaring at DB, I saw him hold his hands up in the air and shake his head rapidly.

  Scowling at Hurst, I bit out, “How do you know?”

  “Alex told me when it all happened. I was going to meet her instead of DB and Tabby ‘cos we didn’t think either of them would be able to keep the story quiet, but then Lindee had a scare when she went for her titty exam at the hospital, and we couldn’t do it.”

  DB and I glanced at each other again. “Linda had a scare? She’s good, though, right?”

  Blowing out a breath, he pushed his hand through his hair and stared into his coffee. “Yeah, there was a lump under her arm, and when they did the titty exam and an ultrasound on it, they decided to take a biopsy of it. Came back okay, but scared the shit out of me.”

  I was fairly sure that Hurst wouldn’t survive without Linda and vice versa. They were the kind of couple who were so perfect for each other that their hearts beat for the other person. If one stopped, the other would stop.

  For all of her joking and pranks when he had heart surgery two years ago, something changed in Linda the day Hurst collapsed and almost died. The color drained from her face, and what was left behind was a pale woman putting on a smile for her loved ones and the rest of the world.

  She didn’t get her color back for months after it, and even now she seemed to be slightly more fragile than before—like she’d lost the ability to be truly carefree.

  “Fuck, Hurst,” DB rasped, moving to stand in front of him with his own cup of coffee. “I had no idea.”

  “She didn’t want anyone to know. Jose had her stuff going on, and our family always has shit going on… There’s never a good time to share news like that, you know? So she said we wouldn’t unless we had to.”

  I could appreciate that hugely. Why worry people if you didn’t know you had something to worry about or not?

  Shaking it off, Hurst smiled up at us. “But her boobies are clear, so that’s what matters. Now, what are you going to do to help Tamsin?”

  “We’ve been told just to watch and be aware. Her name change wasn’t based on a family name in any way, so she won’t be found that way. She literally went online, typed in random girls' names, and chose Zuri, and she got her last name from a magazine that was on the table in the station it was all decided in,” DB informed us.

  I’d been meaning to ask her about it, hoping it wasn’t one associated with a grandmother or something, so this was a relief.

  Still, that didn’t mean she didn’t have to use her real social security number. “What about her qualifications and identity?”

  “Tamsin majored in psychology. All of the shit with Gjorka went down a couple of days after she graduated from NYU and was deciding what to do with it all. She’d taken an accredited phlebotomy program while she was at college and had been working as a phlebotomist, so she had money to live on. So, when she moved here, we discussed her doing it at the hospital, and I spoke to them about it all, and she got a job because they were short-staffed. So long as she maintains her certification annually, she’s fine.”

  I knew all of this, but it still didn’t answer the last bit of my question.

  “And her identity—how does she have the relevant paperwork for it?”

  “Her dad’s been in the NYPD for thirty-one years, man. He’s owed favors everywhere and knows everyone. What do you think?”

  I thought that was great for him, but it didn’t mean her identity would stay hidden. “And how trustworthy are these people he knows? Is there a chance anything will come out by accident or be bought from them?”

  Rubbing his chin with his hand, he didn’t say it, but I knew he was thinking it—they could be bought.

  Cracking his knuckles, Hurst twisted his neck from side to side. “Just as well she came to the right town then, hey, boys?”

  Rapping his knuckles on his desk, DB started laying out a plan. “I’ll distribute photos of Gjorka and anyone associated with him to us all. Dad has a way to contact her father, Wilton Waite, so we’ll get an up to date list from him. Anyone who’s unknown in town will be flagged and followed.”

  “My boys can do that,” Hurst offered. “In fact, I think most of the town would be happy to do that. We just won’t tell them why, just to be on the lookout.”

  My brain was running quickly through ways of keeping her safe, so I added, “If someone comes in that we don’t know and we can’t establish what their intentions are, we put her in the safe room or lock her down until we have answers. She’ll hate it, but it’ll keep her breathing.”

  “Dad’s knows some of the people working on getting evidence against Gjorka for some of the shit going down,” DB told us both. “Over the weekend, the police vehicle her dad was meant to be in had a brake failure as it left the precinct it’d been parked at. He moves between the precincts every day so that they can’t pin him down, but one of Gjorka’s men had been spotted in the area that day, so they set up a decoy. Fortunately, it was being followed by an unmarked one that managed to get in front of it and slow it down before there was an accident.”

  “Holy shit.”

  Looking between the two of us, he ground out, “It’s not the first time. Her parents are staying in one of the FBI’s safe houses because of a fire in their apartment.”

  Blinking at him, I asked, “Why an FBI safe house?”

  “Because they’re in on the case. Gjorka’s suspected crimes aren’t limited to just the people involved in his daughter’s death. He has shady business dealings all over the country, and pretty much every organization is involved in the case against him. The problem is, with money comes power, and if they don’t have their investigation tied up nice and tight, he’ll get away with it all.”

  Hurst frowned at this information, looking pissed off. “They can’t just arrest him and throw what they’ve got at a judge?”

  DB gave him a humorless smile. “Not when some of his associates are in high power positions.”

  Glowering at the floor, Hurst muttered, “I hate it when that happens. What the hell happened to an honest democracy? Corruption was meant to have been cleaned out of politics and our systems years ago, but there it is, festering like a pussy boil on the—”

  Holding up a hand, I choked out, “Stop it. Please, don’t continue that sentence.” Then, with my hand still in the air, I said to DB, “Okay, distribute photos and get us as much information as possible. If someone new comes into town, we investigate and vet them while locking Tamsin down. In a weird twist of fate, her broken arm makes it easier for us to keep her safe, so we use that to our advantage. We need updates as often as we can get them, and we need a list of people who may be helping him out.”

  I felt slightly more in control with a plan in place, but not knowing more than I did and the fact he was still out there making fuck knows what plans made me twitchy.

  As we were leaving DB’s office, Hurst stopped and clapped his hands together. “I knew this sort of thing sounded familiar. Lindee loves those late-night murder investigation shows, right? So, it’s been bugging me this whole time where I’ve heard this before, but now I remember a case on one of them not long ago where the secretary of a businessman found information on her boss who was part of the Mob or something. Anyway, she went into hiding, and while he made sure he was visible to the Police watching him, the house she was in was hit by RPG’s and shit. The ammunition they found was registered to a small village in Russia, so none of it fit together.”

  DB and I looked at each other when he stopped and waited for him to finish the story.

  When he didn’t continue, I snapped,
“And? How did they find him?”

  “Oh, they didn’t. Come to find out it was a hit on the wrong place by another Mob gang.”

  “And how does this help us?” DB ground out.

  “I don’t know. You know, I might have gotten the stories mixed up, I’ll ask Lindee when I get home.” And with that, he left with a wave over his shoulder, leaving the two of us staring after him.

  “Tabby’s at home today,” DB muttered, picking up his phone. “I’ll get her to contact Linda to find out what true crime shows she watches. She might even remember the exact details of the episode.”

  Not for the first time since I moved to Piersville, I found myself asking, “I doubt it’ll help us, but now I’m curious about it. Does Hurst Townsend keep getting weirder, or is it just me?”

  “It’s not just you, man,” he sighed as we started walking toward the meeting room. “Wanna hear something even weirder?”

  “I doubt it’ll be weirder, but hit me with it.”

  I shouldn’t have said it. I knew as soon as I did that I was daring the world to prove me wrong.

  And it did.

  “Mark Montgomery just passed the academy. He’s decided that he’s staying here and joining us next week.”

  Ah, fuck!

  Chapter Eleven

  Garrett

  I’d decided while I was on a call out to the retirement home to break up a fight between two female residents that I needed to keep Tamsin distracted for her own mental health, but that I could also use the distraction to keep building what we had. It was a win-win. So, I’d texted her when I got back to work that I was taking her out tonight for dinner. It would be our first date somewhere nice, and I was kind of excited.

  Bond and Canon, Jarrod’s brothers, had just opened a new place called Klein’s, and it was a mixture of an upscale bar and restaurant. We had Ethan’s place, which was a bar and club, but there wasn’t anywhere like Klein’s in Piersville until they opened. The food was a mixture of international cuisines, so it would be interesting to see what they had.

  When I’d told Tamsin about it, she’d been excited about dressing up, so I was putting on smart slacks and a button-down for the first time in ages. It felt weird and like the collar was suffocating me, but I’d get there.

  Apparently she wanted to surprise me, so I’d gotten ready in the spare bedroom while she stayed in the main one surrounded by lotions and potions that she swore she needed. There was a lot of swearing coming from there, and for a moment, I considered going in to see if she needed help, but she’d heard me walking up to the door and threatened my balls if I ruined it.

  I don’t know what had warranted the yelling and swearing, but when she came out, I about swallowed my tongue. I was in the middle of doing one of the training things we had to do with Clyde every night, so I was holding a treat in my hand. When I looked up and saw her standing there, I dropped it and forgot all about him—not that he had an issue with this.

  “Holy shit.”

  Smiling brightly, she spun around in a circle, showing me that the back was just as perfect as the front, except I didn’t have the added benefit of seeing her beautiful face, too.

  “Do I look okay?”

  It felt like all of the saliva had been sucked out of my mouth as I stood staring at her, but when her smile started to drop slightly, I snapped out of it.

  “You look gorgeous.”

  Blushing, she looked down at her feet, drawing my eyes to the black heels she was wearing that had little holes at the front for her toes. She was already quite tall, but they added a good three inches to her height.

  “I couldn’t really do much with my hair because of my damn hand, and my makeup probably looks weird, but it feels good wearing something that isn’t casual or shorts.”

  Swallowing and hoping it cured the dryness in my mouth, I asked, “Can you wear that every day?”

  Her laughing response to the question made her chest move, and I was so off balance by how beautiful she looked that I did a dick thing and watched her tits jiggle.

  Fortunately it didn’t offend her because she just laughed harder. “I couldn’t put my normal strapless bra on because it’s got a weird fastening thing on it, so I had to use the front closing lace one that doesn’t give them as much oomph and support. Is that an issue for you?”

  Biting my fist, I shook my head.

  “And to answer your question, no, I can’t dress like this every day. I was in the yard with Clyde and Phil today, and it was so hot I thought I was going to pass out. My stupid cast got so itchy, and…” she trailed off and went bright red.

  “And?”

  “It’s nothing,” she muttered, moving over to the table where her purse was, and lifting shit out of it to shove into a tiny one.

  Walking up behind her, I kissed her shoulder and almost groaned at how good she smelled. “Finish what you were saying.”

  Spinning around, she avoided eye contact with me and blurted, “Well, I had killer boob sweat. I mean, men don’t get it, when it’s hot, that sweat just builds under there, and it feels god awful. Wait, do men get ball sweat? Like is that a thing?”

  Of all the things in the world for her to want to discuss tonight, this was it. It was also why I liked her so much. Nothing was boring ever. I’d had enough routine during my time in the Air Force to last me a lifetime, so having someone who went against the grain and brought her own style and uniqueness with her? I fucking loved it.

  Bursting out laughing, I hooked an arm around her back and brought her closer to me, tipping my chin down to watch her expression when her stomach pressed against mine. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t fucking elated when her eyes flared at the contact.

  “Yeah, pretty girl, we get ball sweat. Can you imagine wearing everything I wear for work in the sun? That’s why I try and shower as soon as I get in. Plus, I can never tell what I’ve got on me, so I like to get it off with as much soap as possible.”

  “You do go through a lot of soap,” she murmured, looking to the side. “I’ve never known anyone to go through as much as you do.”

  “Just shows how clean I am,” I shrugged. “Plus, I’ll bet you washed your boob sweat off as soon as you could.”

  Her upper lip curled up at this. “Of course I did. Hell, I’m thinking of buying those deodorizing wipes you can get just to deal with it during the summer. I’ll bet the companies that make them could be kept rich just by people in Texas alone.”

  “Nothing beats a shower, though.”

  “Amen,” she nodded. “What time’s our reservation?”

  Looking at my watch, I held my arm out for her. “In twenty minutes, so we should probably leave. I’ve locked up and fed Clyde, so he’ll be good while we’re out. All we have to do is set the alarm, and then we’re good to go.”

  We were both quiet on the way to the restaurant, giving me time to think through some more stuff.

  I wanted to keep the shit with Gjorka off her plate unless she needed to know or until I had something substantial to tell her. DB and Alex had agreed with this plan, so I wasn’t just me being an overprotective asshole, which made me feel easier about it. If someone came at you with a thousand what-ifs—which was what we had right now—it would make you panic and be anxious. However, if someone came to you with solid proof and information, you can make informed decisions. She knew to be vigilant, and she knew to be careful, she knew all of the things we’d told her to do for her own good, and that’s all there was to know right now.

  I also was thinking about what she’d said before we’d left. She’d said she was thinking about buying deodorizing wipes to deal with boob sweat during the summer. We were almost at the end of summer now, which meant she intended to still be here for another summer, right? That meant she might want to settle down here. If that was the case, I wonder how she’d feel about a plan I’d been looking into since I left the military.

  We were five minutes away from Klein’s when I brought it up.

  �
�You know, I was thinking about what to do house wise here. I’ve been living in Raoul’s place since I moved here, but I kind of want to own my own.”

  “Sounds like a solid plan, honey. You want a place to call your own, so have a look and see if you can find one.”

  It wasn’t quite as simple as she was making out.

  “Okay, you can call me an asshole, but I don’t like any of the properties here. I’m not huge on the ranch-style or anything like that, and while I was in the Air Force, one of the guys I was with was looking at those prefabricated kit houses you can get. There’s a company that supplies them, and then they build it all up, and you can add stuff onto it. I kind of fell in love with the idea of doing it so that I had a house that was exactly what I wanted.” Reaching across the center console, I picked her hand up and brought it onto my thigh. “Have you ever seen them?”

  Her thumb was rubbing small circles on the fabric of my slacks, but I swear it felt like there wasn’t any material blocking her from my skin.

  “I think I saw something about them on one of those home build programs. I remember thinking how cool the end result looked.”

  As I turned to park in front of the restaurant, I took a moment to grow some nuts and just say what I wanted to.

  So, when I cut the engine, I picked her hand up and held it against my chest as I turned to face her. “There’s a plot of land about ten minutes away from where your house is now. It’s beautiful and has a small stream at the end of it. How would you feel about looking at it and some designs of houses with me?”

  Her mouth opened and closed a couple of times, and in the light from the dash, I saw her struggling not to smile. “Is that where you see us at this moment?”

  Leaning in closer, I whispered, “Pretty girl, that’s exactly where I see us right now. It’s where I see us in the future, too. In fact, in sixty years, I see us sitting on the porch that we’ll make sure it has, watching butterflies in the wind and listening to the water in the distance. I think we need to take it slowly, but, Tamsin, I see everything with you.”