The Promise (Neighbor from Hell Book 10)

by R. L. Mathewson

  “And that’s the real reason you didn’t sell the house,” Reed guessed, correctly by the look on brother-in-law’s face.

  “You wanted to make sure that she had a reason to come back here,” his father said, chuckling as he continued adding food on Joey’s plate while Reed stood there, glaring at the bastard.

  “Why did you try to talk me into letting her go then?” Reed demanded, thankful that he hadn’t listened to the stubborn bastard because he never would have survived without Joey.

  “You were taking too long.”

  “This is priceless!” his father said, laughing as he headed to the back door, pausing on the way to hand Joey’s plate to Jackson, and add, “Your mother’s going to love this one!”

  “You still haven’t told me how you figured it out,” Reed said, watching as his father left with a heartfelt sigh and an “Absolutely priceless.”

  “The Eeyore keychain.”

  “What about it?” Reed asked absently as he watched his father walk over to his Uncle Ethan and-

  Watched the traitorous bastards struggle to stop laughing a minute later as his father recounted the tale that had guaranteed a painful death for the little bastard with the big mouth.

  “She hasn’t found it yet, has she?”

  “No,” Jackson said only to narrow his eyes as he watched his father wave over the rest of his brothers to join them.

  “I slipped it under her pillow where she would have found it if she’d been sleeping in her bed,” Jackson said and if Reed hadn’t been focused on the large bastards laughing their asses off at his expense, he probably would have been impressed.

  “When?” he asked, forcing his attention away from the window when his Uncle Jared decided to call his mother over.

  “Well, there were a few things that had me wondering, but it was when Matt told me that she was sleeping on the couch that told me everything that I needed to know. But, just in case I was wrong, I placed the keychain under her pillow when my sister, who is terrified of anything that wiggles, announced that she was going camping.”

  “I’m going to kill the little bastard,” Reed said, leaving the kitchen and headed to the front door and away from the sight of half his family laughing their asses off at his expense.

  “He’s a wealth of information,” Jackson said, chuckling as he joined him as he walked outside and-

  “What the hell are they doing?” Reed couldn’t help but wonder as he watched his cousins drag one of the large picnic tables that his family had been using for family gatherings since he was little, over to the road.

  That question, of course, led Jackson to wonder, “Why’s the asshole touching my sister?”

  Shoving the plate in Jackson’s free hand, Reed decided to go find out. A minute later, he was standing over his wife, who was curled up on a lounge chair in the arms of a man who clearly had a death wish.

  “Joey?” he asked, folding his arms over his chest as he glared down at the woman who he noticed was ignoring the book on her lap, a first for her.

  “Hmm?” she murmured, barely acknowledging his existence as she continued staring at something.

  Frowning, he followed his wife’s gaze and-

  “You had no fucking right!” Garrett yelled only to duck with a “Damn it!” when their mysterious neighbor threw what appeared to be a book at his head.

  “What the hell is going on?” Reed asked as he watched his cousin move to go after their mysterious neighbor only to curse and duck again when she reached inside a large box and grabbed another book.

  “With today’s entertainment or the asshole holding your wife?” Kenzie, or Mac if you wanted her to bitch slap you, asked as she joined him as they watched her brother duck out of the way of another book.

  “Both,” Reed said, unable to look away as he watched Garrett try to regroup and-

  “Ohhhhhh!” came the resounding wince when Garrett took a book to the leg.

  “That’s definitely going to leave a mark,” his wife whispered, sounding intrigued.

  “Well, as much as I would love to watch someone slap him around and make him cry, I’m going to have to ask you to wait until the show’s over since he’s the only one that seems to be able to get your wife to stop begging for a quick death, which was making it difficult to follow what’s going on,” Kenzie explained as Jackson joined them and Reed narrowed his eyes on Roger, his cousin Reese’s one-time best friend and the bastard currently touching his wife.

  “It really was,” Joey mumbled in agreement.

  “I see,” Reed said, glancing back down to find his wife watching the show with rapt attention as she absently popped a piece of brownie in her mouth from the plate he’d made her, making him sigh in relief when she didn’t follow that up with a hand slapped over her mouth and a run for the nearest bathroom.

  “Her anti-nausea medication wasn’t strong enough,” Roger said, rubbing her back said as he typed something on his phone. “I’m putting in an order for a stronger prescription.”

  “So, she’s feeling better now?” Reed asked, shooting his wife a thoughtful glance.

  “She should be-Shit!”

  “Thank you,” Reed said, dropping the man that had made his wife feel better on the ground before he took his spot on the lounge chair and pulled her closer.

  “You’re welcome,” came the pained groan.

  “Why’s he hiding behind a mailbox?” Shawn, his wife’s official date to this party, asked from where he sat on the road next to her.

  “Not if he wants to live,” Joey said with a sad shake of her head only to glance at Shawn with a frown. “Shouldn’t you be working on my palace?”

  “We didn’t discuss a palace,” Shawn said, narrowing his eyes on her as he helped himself to a cookie off her plate.

  “We’re discussing it now, Shawn,” she said, shaking her head with a sigh, “We’re discussing it now.”

  “So, someone going to tell me why Garrett is getting his ass kicked?” Reed asked as he wrapped his arms around Joey.

  “We’re not really sure,” Hayley began from where she was sitting on her husband’s lap, “but we’re pretty sure that it has something to do with the books currently being thrown at Garrett’s head.”

  “He did seem to get upset when it was delivered,” Zoe murmured in agreement.

  “He really did,” Kasey murmured in agreement.

  “Who is she?” Reed finally asked the question that he’d been wondering for several months now.

  “Kristen Haven,” Kenzie said with a sigh. “She grew up across the street from us.”

  “That’s not Kristen,” Danny said, shaking his head only to frown when he took in the small woman currently hurling another book at his brother’s head.

  “It can’t be Kristen,” Lucifer said, but the look on his face told him that he wasn’t exactly sure.

  “Who’s Kristen?” Rebecca asked from where she sat with the rest of the Bradford wives on the large picnic table that they normally liked to use to yell catcalls and ogle their husbands when they were working on Garrett’s house.

  “Just some girl that used to live across the street from us. She was a quiet little thing, a bookworm that kept to herself. Garrett used to feel bad for her and would go out of his way to make sure the other kids left her alone,” Arik said with a shrug.

  “And who grew up to become K.L. Haven,” Kenzie announced with a devious grin as all the women in their group suddenly went still.

  “Who’s K.L. Haven?” Aaron asked as he shot Garrett a sympathetic wince when the woman in question aimed for his balls.

  “That’s K.L. Haven?”

  “The one and only,” Kenzie said before adding, “And she wrote about Garrett,” just as one of the books landed in front of them.

  There was a slight pause and then…

  Reed was picking up his wife as Jackson reached past them and grabbed Shawn before all hell broke loose as every Bradford male within twenty feet did whatever it took to get his ha
nds on that book.

  “But the pretty,” Joey mumbled with a sniffle that had him sighing as he carried her back to the safety of their house.

  “Not happening,” he said as something occurred to him.

  Where the hell did Jen go?

  *-*-*-*

  “Where the hell is it?” Matt bit out, shoving the stack of papers that he’d been meaning to go through aside and-

  “What are you looking for?” one of his family’s guest that had wondered into his shop asked.

  “Shop’s closed,” he said, shifting his attention to his desk and began shoving empty take-out boxes and wrappers out of the way as he searched for-

  “Is this what you’re looking for?” that same someone that should have left asked as the order slip that he’d wasted the last hour for was held in front of his face.

  “Thanks,” Matt said, dropping the bag of old McDonald’s wrappers on the floor and grabbed the slip.

  “You’re welcome,” his brother’s wayward guest said as Matt glanced down at the slip in his hands and swore when he realized that he’d ordered the wrong wood.

  Shit!

  “Who are you?” Matt asked, tossing the slip aside and started searching for the purchase order that he was going to need in order to return the wood for full credit.

  “Most likely the reason that Principal Bradford drinks,” she said, sounding proud and drawing his attention to find the prettiest green eyes that he’d ever seen watching him.

  “That doesn’t answer my question,” he said, taking in jet black hair, soft curves, and noted that she was probably shorter than Joey, and definitely wasn’t legal.

  Interest immediately lost, he focused back on finding that purchase order.

  “Not here,” she said, glancing around the shop that nine generations of Bradfords had worked in.

  “Yet, you’re still here,” he said, picking up a receipt only to toss it aside when he saw that it was from two years ago.

  “Trying to figure out my next move,” she said, dragging the trash barrel that he should probably start using closer and started tossing the trash that had taken over his shop, away.

  “And you need to do that here?” he asked, tossing another old receipt aside.

  “Well, I was waiting for my uncle out front, but when I spotted the guy next door getting books thrown at him, I decided to check out the backyard,” she said, making his lips twitch.

  Seemed like their mystery neighbor was still making his cousin’s life a living hell. He should probably look into that, he mused only to frown when his unwanted guest found the broom that he’d thought he’d lost and began sweeping up the piles of sawdust that covered the floor.

  “What are you doing?” he couldn’t help but wonder.

  “Cleaning.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it needs it.”

  “I see,” he said, noting the large angry man standing in his doorway.

  “Does she belong to you?” Matt asked, gesturing to the small pain in the ass shifting her attention to the mess lining his work area.

  “Unfortunately,” he said before shifting his attention to the mystery girl. “Are you ready, Jen?”

  “Not really,” she said, somehow managing to find the quarter-inch drill bit that he’d been looking for.

  “Let’s go, Jen.”

  “Fine,” she said, sighing as she handed the broom back to him and headed for the door and-

  “I’ll be back tomorrow after two.”

  “For what?”

  “For work,” she said, heading out the door and leaving him standing there wondering what the hell just happened.

  Coming Soon…

  Devastated

  An Anger Management Novel

  Prologue

  “Please tell me that you didn’t really tell Judge Peters to go fuck himself,” Ryan said with a forlorn sigh as he leaned back against the other side of the cell’s locked door, acting like this surprised him.

  “Fine. I won’t,” Hunter said, trying to get comfortable on the paper-thin mattress before finally giving up on the lost cause and sat up.

  “Why do you insist on keeping me on retainer if you’re not going to call me when you get arrested?” Ryan asked as he flicked an invisible piece of lint off the cuff of his tailored suit.

  Hunter shrugged it off with a yawn. “Because it wasn’t a big deal.”

  “It wasn’t a big deal?” Ryan repeated back slowly with a dry chuckle before going into one of his tirades, “You’re facing destruction of property, assault with a deadly weapon-”

  Hunter couldn’t help but frown at that. “I didn’t have a weapon.”

  “-public endangerment,” Ryan continued as if Hunter hadn’t spoken, “assaulting a police officer, and my personal favorite, resisting arrest.”

  “I didn’t have a fucking weapon!” Hunter shouted, pissed that they were trying to fuck him over for something that should have been written off as a simple misdemeanor.

  Ryan simply nodded. “They’re classifying your hands as weapons. Of course, if you’d called me, I probably could have fought that,” he drawled before explaining, “They’ve decided that with your extensive military record, and let’s not forget the surveillance video of you beating the shit out of everyone in that bar, that your hands should be considered a dangerous weapon.”

  Hunter snorted.

  “Thankfully Nancy, you remember Nancy, don’t you? The pretty young thing with great legs that works as a clerk at the courthouse? She gave me a call two hours ago. It seems that she remembered you from last year when you were up on charges for, surprise, surprise, assault. I, being the good friend that I am, left in the middle of my very important meeting to come rescue your sorry ass.”

  “Is that what you call fucking your secretary over your desk now? A meeting?” Hunter asked dryly.

  Ryan waved it off. “It’s a meeting of the minds. Anyway, I used my charm to get a private meeting with Judge Peters and the Prosecutor that you told to suck your dick this morning and I saved your sorry ass once again,” Ryan announced, sounding a little too smug for Hunter’s liking, but what the hell. If the man managed to get him out of these bullshit charges, then he could dance around in a pink tutu for all Hunter cared.

  “What’s my fine and how many hours of community bullshit do I have to complete?” he asked, getting to his feet and biting back a wince when his arms and legs shouted in protest. He was getting too fucking old for this shit, he reminded himself as he walked over to the cell door.

  “None,” Ryan said with a sheepish smile that Hunter didn’t like, not one fucking bit.

  He narrowed his eyes suspiciously on his oldest friend. “What do you mean by ‘none’?”

  “What I mean is that you can’t exactly perform community service seeing how you’re going to be on house arrest for a year,” Ryan explained as he took a healthy step back and out of reach of the bars while Hunter digested his words.

  “You better be fucking joking,” Hunter finally said, grabbing the bars tightly in his hands, wishing that it was Ryan’s neck instead.

  “It was either house arrest or staying locked up in a cell.”

  Hunter nodded, taking that in as well. “Let’s get back to something for a minute here. You call a year stuck in my house saving my ass?”

  “Yes,” Ryan said with absolutely no hesitation whatsoever.

  “Uh huh,” Hunter mumbled thoughtfully. “I think there’s just one little problem that you may have overlooked,” he said, only to pause as he pursed his lips up in thought before adding, “Actually, make that two problems.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Maybe the fact that I live out of hotels and don’t have a fucking house? Or I don’t know, maybe the fact that I run a fucking company has something to do with it? How the hell do you expect me to run a company that employs twenty thousand people around the world on house arrest?” he demanded, not liking the smug smile on his friend’s face.

/>   “We already came to a solution for both problems. The first is that you’re required to buy a house in this county,” Ryan explained. “And two, you’ll work from home.”

  “First off,” Hunter bit out, “I don’t want to buy a house in Hicksville, Florida-”

  “Ah, it’s actually Maryhale,” Ryan pointed out, but Hunter ignored him simply because he didn’t care.

  “-and secondly, how am I supposed to run a company from a house?”

  “You’ll have to hire an assistant,” Ryan explained in a tone that let Hunter know that the little shit clearly expected him to be in awe of his greatness.

  “Fine,” Hunter said, waving dismissively for Ryan to leave, “go to Hooters. Make sure she’s blonde, has double D’s, and doesn’t talk much.”

  When Ryan didn’t move to leave, Hunter narrowed his eyes on the little bastard that he should have beaten the shit out of when they were kids.

  “What else?” Hunter demanded through clenched teeth, already knowing that he wasn’t going to like what his oldest friend had to tell him.

  “The thing of it is, in order to get this deal for you, I had to negotiate a few things and-”

  “Get to the fucking point!”

  “Well, the court decided since having a live-in-”

  “Live-in? Are you out of your fucking mind?” Hunter demanded, wondering just how badly the man had fucked up this case for him. He couldn’t live with a woman. It was one of the many reasons why he would never get married. He simply couldn’t stand them. As far as he knew they were only good for sex and keeping him company at all the boring dinners that Ryan forced him to attend.

  “-could be seen as a benefit that the prosecution should be allowed to choose the most qualified candidate, whom they would trust to make sure that you didn’t abuse the situation.”

  Hunter stared at him for a moment.

  Finally, he said, “Please tell me that you’re kidding.”

  “I’m afraid not, and before you tell me that you’re just going to fire her, I should probably tell you that if you fire her, then you’ll have to finish your sentence in jail.”

  “What if she quits?” he asked slowly, already running ideas through his head on how to get rid of some unwanted pain in the ass.