“Ready,” I said softly.
“What’s that?” He asked as he made his way around some boxes.
“Something my mom and I made for Jack,” I explained.
“Oh,” he said. “How is your mom?”
I headed down the walkway to Tai’s large truck and waited as he followed behind a little slower.
He opened my door and I placed the present on the console, then squeaked when Tai picked me straight up off my feet and set me down on the seat.
Last night he’d only helped me with a steady hand…today he’d full out picked me the hell up.
I wasn’t a light woman.
In fact, I was on the heavier side ever since I’d had Colt.
Not fat, per se, but definitely not thin anymore.
A little more curvy than not.
I had wide hips, fairly nice sized boobs, and thighs that definitely had no ‘thigh gap.’ I had lost weight since my baby had died, but I was still a handful.
Tai, though, didn’t even look like he was affected by picking me up, causing me to smile.
“She’s good,” I said once he took his seat. “The doctor saw nothing that worried him on her tests this morning. He’s having her take a stress test on Monday, and once she does that, she’ll be released to go home.”
Tai nodded. “That’s good. Very good.”
He pulled around, but slammed on his breaks when a car that’d been parked directly in front of us pulled out and cut him off.
“What the fuck?” Tai growled.
The car sped off, and Tai started forward once again.
“People are crazy,” I said by way of explanation.
He grunted.
“You should see what stupid things people do when the lights and sirens of an ambulance or a firetruck go on,” he grumbled.
I could imagine.
People got stupid when they saw the lights.
“Where does your brother live?” I asked.
“He lives off of Old Highway 42. The Free compound that everyone talks about in town,” he explained almost automatically.
“Ahh,” I said. “I’ve heard about that place.”
The Free Compound as everyone called it was formed by a group of men a couple of years ago. They had a custom bike shop in the front of the land, and they’d built their houses behind it.
It was a compound of sorts with fortress-like security to protect their families, and the talk around the community was that the place was impenetrable.
I didn’t doubt it.
The men that I’d met so far were badasses.
“Awesome,” I said a tad bit excitedly.
He grinned.
“You wanted to go in there, didn’t you?”
I nodded.
He sighed.
“Everybody does.”
***
I was in awe.
I kept looking around like I was in The White House rather than the Free Compound.
Although, technically speaking, The White House had nothing on the place I was at.
“What…how…where…why…” I said, my eyes lighting on everything all at once.
Tai chuckled.
I’d never been to a place quite like this.
Children ran free, this way and that. Men worked on bikes. Women flittered in and out of their houses. Some chased after smaller kids, others were doing housework.
There were people everywhere…literally.
“Don’t they have a lot of kids?” I asked.
Tai grunted.
“They don’t know how to control themselves,” Tai explained. “Luckily, Jack stopped at two. The two he has are handfuls. I don’t think I could babysit more than the two of them,” he hesitated. “And even two is a stretch for me at times.”
I giggled.
“Colt was the world’s best baby for everyone but me. When my mom had him, he slept through the night. Ate everything she put in front of him. Played without wanting to be held all day.” I smiled through the memories. “Then he’d come home and demand that I hold him until bed time. Wouldn’t eat a damn thing. Then he’d be up all night from dusk until dawn.”
Tai smiled as he pulled to a stop in front of a house that was second from the last in the line of houses.
At the very back of the lot I could see Sam and the woman who’d been with him.
“I never caught her name,” I explained, pointing to the blonde woman.
“That’s Cheyenne. Sam’s wife,” Tai explained, getting out of the car and coming around to my side.
I’d already slid out on my own, though, which meant he got a good eyeful under my skirt as it rode up past my hips, getting caught on the leather of the seats, in my haste to get out.
He eyed the movement, then grinned as I hastily tried to pull the skirt back into place.
“That’s why I came around to help you,” he said by way of explanation.
I growled out something not so nice and walked around the truck to stand directly facing the house.
“This is the prettiest house I’ve ever seen,” I breathed in awe.
Tai grunted.
“You should’ve seen the fights these two had over it,” Tai smiled. “They fought over the flooring. The counter tops. The fucking tile in the bathroom.”
I blinked.
“Isn’t it supposed to be perfect for both of them?” I asked.
He shrugged.
“I don’t know. But honestly, he should’ve just let her have whatever she wanted. They ended up doing that anyway,” Tai explained.
“Little brother,” Jack said as he opened the door with a smile. “I fought with her so she’d give me something in return. Tat for tit.”
Tai laughed.
“Don’t you mean tit for tat?” I asked.
Jack grinned.
“No, I mean tat for tit. I gave her what she wanted, and she gave me her tit…” Jack was suddenly not able to speak anymore due to the very mad red head on his back, covering his mouth.
“Please, for the love of all that’s holy, don’t say anything more…or I might very well kill you,” Winter seethed. “She’s our guest. She doesn’t know you or your sense of humor, so please act civilized instead of so uncouth.”
“Uncouth?” Tai asked, the same that I was thinking.
Who said ‘uncouth?’
Certainly not me. I wasn’t sure that I’d ever heard it in regular, every day conversation.
“Shut up,” Winter said, pointing a finger at Tai without removing the rest from Jack’s mouth. “You’re just encouraging him.”
Tai shook his head and grabbed my hand, leading me up the front porch steps and straight into the house, completely bypassing the still bickering couple.
“Wow,” I said as I got my first look at the house. “This is beautiful.”
Tai nodded. “It is.”
I let my eyes wander around the room, taking in the huge ceilings and painted white trim.
How did they even dust that high? I wondered.
“You’re wondering how we keep the windows clean, aren’t you?” Winter asked.
I nodded. “Do you have to get up on a ladder and clean them?” I asked, turning to her.
She nodded. “We do.”
“What are you talking about, woman?” Jack asked as he joined us. He didn’t stop though. Instead, he walked to the kitchen and grabbed two beers out of the fridge, handing one to Tai as he took a seat at the bar-height countertop. “I clean the windows. You just sit there and look pretty while telling me where the spots are that I miss.”
I giggled.
Jack turned his gorgeous eyes to me.
“You look skinny,” he said. “How have you been doing?”
I smiled sadly at him.
Winter elbowed him in the ribs, causing him to grunt.
“Do not bring that up. It’s hard enough to get through the day. You don’t add shit on top of it,” Winter hissed.
She sounded like she was speaking from expe
rience. But like she said, you didn’t add shit on top of the shit you were already dealing with. You just moved on, and hoped that you didn’t break down in the middle of your day and cry.
Jack’s eyes, however, never left me.
He was obviously taking in the weight loss. The more angular shape of my cheekbones, and the way I could now wear a size smaller skirt.
The one I was currently wearing was one I hadn’t been able to wear since high school.
“I’m doing about as well as I can be, I guess,” I said. “How are you doing? You don’t even look like you were affected by donating bone marrow.”
And he didn’t.
He looked just about as good now as he did two months ago before he’d gone into surgery.
“It’s been different,” he said. “I felt like I had a two-ton truck sitting on my hip for the first week. But it got better and better, until I barely ever noticed the pain anymore,” he said. “But I’ve just now started going back to lifting my old weight numbers and running like I used to be able to.”
I smiled at Jack.
He was a good man.
Letting go of Tai’s hand, I walked up to Jack and threw my arms around his neck.
“You’ve done something special,” I said. “Even if Colt couldn’t use it, someone will. And you’ll change someone’s life. I just know it.”
His strong arms banded around my shoulders, holding me to him for a few long seconds before he let me go.
I smiled and stepped back, going over to Tai once again.
Tai reached out once I was close enough and gathered me to him, pulling me into his arms.
“Where’s the hellions?” Tai asked.
“Bed,” Jack and Winter answered at once.
“Bed?” Tai asked, pulling his wrist up to check the time. “It’s only seven o’clock.”
Jack sighed.
Winter was the one to explain, though.
“My kids decided that they’d amuse themselves by making it snow. They did this by completely demolishing a Styrofoam box that held the telescope I bought for them,” Winter said. “It fucking clings. Did you know it clings?” She asked, pointing up.
I followed the direction her finger was pointing and saw the tiny pieces of white foam sticking to the rafters.
“How’d they get it all the way up there?” Tai asked.
Jack grunted.
“The leaf blower.”
That hung in the air for a few seconds.
“What was the leaf blower doing inside, within their reach?” Tai finally asked.
“I was wondering the same thing,” Winter said. “But I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t even ask certain things anymore. I swear they’re learning it from Sam’s kids. He lets them do anything.”
In exclamation to her point, she pointed out the window where a little girl with curly blonde hair was walking down the path towards Sam and Cheyenne’s house.
She was probably eight or so and dirty as hell.
She looked like she’d rolled around in the dirt…or maybe bathed in it.
The camo color of the clothes couldn’t hide that fact.
In one hand she had a small rifle, and the other she had four rabbits.
She walked straight up the front walk, up the stairs, and offered them to her mother.
Cheyenne squealed and jumped away, causing Sam to come running out.
He stopped when he saw what’d made Cheyenne scream, and then grinned, holding out his hand for a high five.
The girl took it, smearing blood on his hand as she did, and he laughed.
“That’s just fucking impressive if you ask me,” Tai said.
I thought so too.
My dad used to take me hunting all the time when we were younger, and I’d give absolutely anything to be able to do that with him again.
It looked to me like Sam was teaching his kids right.
Teaching a kid how to hunt and fish instilled certain values in a child. It taught them that not everything was just handed to them. That they had to work for what they wanted. And hunting and fishing certainly was work.
Some times were more fun than others, but it was work, nonetheless.
“That’s what I tell her,” Jack said. “But she’s adamant that they stay her babies for as long as she can keep them that way.”
I smiled sadly.
I missed my baby.
The way he smelled. The way his smile lit up my cloudy day.
“We were going to order Chinese…is that okay with you?” Winter asked, changing the subject.
I blinked, looking up.
They were all staring at me with varying degrees or worry.
“I’m not a big fan of Chinese,” I said. “But I’ll eat it.”
Jack and Tai grunted.
“What?” I asked.
Winter sighed.
“They don’t like Chinese either,” Winter explained. “I can’t even get my partner at the station to eat it with me. You were my only hope.”
I laughed.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m more of a fried chicken and pizza girl, myself.”
Winter sighed.
“Pizza it is.”
An hour and a half later, I was drunk off my ass from the wine that Tai, Jack and Winter kept pouring me. And I was full...really full.
So full that I’d had to unbutton the first button on my skirt.
“So when did you decide that you wanted to be a nurse?” Winter asked.
I didn’t take my eyes off of Jack and Tai as they spoke animatedly outside.
But I answered.
“I was in high school when I saw my first wreck,” I said. “I was parked in a spot at the Sonic, facing the road, when a SUV tried to hit his breaks and couldn’t get them to engage. The SUV went around all the parked cars and plowed straight into an intersection, striking four vehicles.
“I was out of my car and standing on the roadside before I’d even realized I’d done so,” I explained. “I helped a mother get her baby out of the car, still in her car seat, and turned to watch the man that caused the whole wreck laying in the grass up by my car.”
“Then why not a medic?” She asked.
I shook my head.
“I started to go that route after I graduated…but then I realized that the pay was nowhere near as good, even though a paramedic does more,” I told her.
“Ahhh,” she said. “Yes, that’s true. Paramedics do just as much work as nurses do…have to know quite a few more things and know how to deal with spur of the moment complications…and they get paid less. I’m not saying that a nurse’s job isn’t worth the pay…just that we’re worth more than we’re getting paid.”
I agreed.
My mind, however, wandered back to Tai and the covert glances he kept giving Jack throughout the meal.
“What do you think they’re talking about?” I asked in worry.
I knew what they were talking about.
Tai had heard my phone discussion with the witch from Jenner’s Heating and Air.
She’d been a right bitch, so it wasn’t hard to see that Tai would try to do something about it.
“I don’t know. Jack got a text message before you arrived about something, but I was busy with the kids and didn’t notice that he was on the computer until I saw him looking into a few things on an AC company,” Winter shrugged.
I sighed.
“That was what I was afraid of,” I admitted.
Winter blinked and turned to survey me.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
I laid it all out for her, then told her that Tai had walked in on the discussion without me being aware that he was there.
“Well,” Winter sighed. “That’d do it.”
“Do what?” I asked.
“Get him to break out the ‘bad boy’ that his brother is always accusing him of being,” she said.
My brows rose.
“I’ve yet to see him be a ‘bad boy,’” I adm
itted.
Catching myself in a lie, my lips thinned as I thought about him drag racing down the main street in town not even two nights ago.
“Oh, he’s a bad boy,” Winter said. “He just hides it better than most.”
I didn’t doubt it for a second.
Chapter 9
Don’t piss off a firefighter. They’re the ones that’ll make sure your ass stays alive when it counts.
-Fact of life
Tai
“What are we doing?” Charlie Bronx, the fire inspector for the city of Kilgore, asked.
“I want you to go in there and find something to write that bitch a ticket for,” I said, pointing at the building for Jenner’s Heating and Air.
Charlie frowned.
“Why?” He asked.
I relayed what I’d walked in on yesterday before the dinner with my brother.
His mouth dropped open.
“You’re shitting me,” he gasped.
Charlie was a good man.
He was married to his high school sweetheart, who happened to be a cop. He and his wife were happily married with five kids, and one on the way.
He was the epitome of ‘in love’ and he cherished the hell out of his woman.
He was brought up on a farm outside of the city limits and had a protective streak a mile long that had him wanting to protect every woman he met, most of all his wife.
It was the one thing they always fought about.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m not. Listened to that bitch say those words. So callous and rude. I wanted to reach through the phone and ring her fucking neck with my bare hands.”
A woman gasped beside me, and I glared.
“What?” I asked.
She shook her head and hurried away, pushing a baby stroller as fast as her legs could carry her.
“Women don’t like it when you curse in front of their kids,” Charlie teased.
I shrugged.
“I’m in the bourbon district,” I said. “What the fuck is she doing here with a kid anyway?” I asked.
The Bourbon District was a strip of shops that centered around alcohol. Bars, liquor stores, and restaurants.
Right in the middle of it was Jenner Heating and Air.
“Well, let’s do it,” Charlie said.
I gestured to the boys and they piled out of the truck and headed in my direction.
Shock Advised (Kilgore Fire #1) Page 8
