Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 133849 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 669(@200wpm)___ 535(@250wpm)___ 446(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 133849 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 669(@200wpm)___ 535(@250wpm)___ 446(@300wpm)
How closely had Josh been watching her? “Have you been eating every meal in town while I was gone?”
“Not every meal,” Josh admitted. “She’s gorgeous and I feel some… I don’t know. I feel a pull.”
And Josh always followed his instincts. “All right. Do you know where she lives?”
“She’s staying in the rattrap on the outskirts of town.”
It was a motel with a certain reputation. One it had earned, and the thought of any woman staying there on her own scared him. “You let her stay there?”
“Well, I haven’t exactly introduced myself yet, so telling her she’s moving felt like a stretch,” Josh replied. “Nah, but I might have someone watching out for her. I asked the sheriff to up his nightly patrols and call me if anything bad goes down. I paid the owner to put an extra lock on her door. She thinks it was just maintenance.”
“Tell me you didn’t keep a key.” And they called him the intense one. Josh Barnes had a bit of a god complex, but he’d come by it honestly. Jack was pretty much the be-all, end-all of authority in their lives, and Josh was following in his father’s footsteps.
Of course it was a loving authority. An authority that truly wanted what was best for everyone he watched over. But until you knew a person, it could come off sketchy.
“Of course I didn’t. I haven’t even run a trace on her.” Josh’s hands were up like he was completely innocent. “I’m giving her privacy. I know what happens at that motel, and I don’t want her getting caught in the crossfire. Let’s get to know her and then if it seems to be working, we can gently start showing her apartments that don’t have a ton of drug dealers in them.”
He still thought Josh was running too hot, but he also wasn’t opposed to starting something as long as it was real. Nothing seemed real. It was like he could live in the Barnes-Fleetwood house, but he’d always be Ezekiel’s stepson. He could go to college and get a degree in veterinary medicine, but he was still just Josh’s friend, the one he shared women with but mostly for sex.
“Hey, I know that look. You want to go to Dallas this weekend? I know you like that Daisy girl we met at the restaurant. This doesn’t have to be all about me.”
She’d been the hostess at a place called Top and she was a stunner, but he was pretty sure her father was some kind of Irish mobster. Oh, he’d been told the man was a security executive, but that felt like a good front. Her father was kind of crazy and had explained in no uncertain terms that his precious saint of a daughter wasn’t getting involved in some godforsaken threesome. There had been other names mentioned and a lot of cussing he didn’t fully understand, and all he’d done was ask the young woman out.
Though he had fully planned to get her in between him and Josh.
“I can handle Li O’Donnell if that’s what the problem is. She seemed to like you. I could be the one who slips in and out this time,” Josh offered.
He believed in Josh, but he thought he was overestimating what a mad Irish dad could do. And the truth was he didn’t want Josh slipping in and out. He wanted what Jack and Abby and Sam had. “I think I’m kind of sick of that.”
Josh got quiet. “Yeah, me, too. So we’re looking to get serious?”
Josh could be single minded at times. Grim knew he was considered the broody one, but Josh covered his weird quirks with a sunny smile. One of those quirks was an utterly ruthless will when he decided to turn it on. When Josh decided it was time for them to get married, Grim knew he would find himself with a ring on his finger and a wife between them in short order. The problem was, they needed to find the right one.
“I would like to find a woman who doesn’t mind dating us both. At the same time. In public. Everyone knows.” That was the problem he truly had. “There’s no one in this town who didn’t know I was sleeping with Alyssa Gates while you were technically dating her.”
“You told me you didn’t mind.”
“I didn’t with her because I kind of hated her.”
Josh shrugged. “That’s fair. So did my momma. I got a whole lecture on how I should be smarter than this.”
He’d avoided that lecture, though he had been put through Abby and Olivia sitting him down and gently trying to figure out if he was emotionally traumatized by the relationship. In some ways, it was the best he could have gotten because he hadn’t been the one who had to sit around while Andrea’s friends bitched about everything from the food at the café to how their boyfriends spent too much time fishing.