Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 71110 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 356(@200wpm)___ 284(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71110 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 356(@200wpm)___ 284(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
Alex chuckled. “It was MaeBe. Erin came over early, and they had a training session. Ian finally pushed Mae hard enough that she kicked him in the balls.”
A look of paternal pride came over Tag’s face. “I’m very proud of her. She’s coming along nicely, and she’s been putting in some serious legwork.”
“You wanted her to kick you in the balls?” Boomer was pretty sure that was something Tag taught them to avoid. He’d received many a lecture in the beginning about how to not piss off a woman so much she tried to punt your manhood back to the twentieth century.
“I didn’t want her to. I needed her to. I had to make sure she could do it. She’s gotten her ass kicked several times now, and from what I can tell, she’s barely fought back. I need to make sure she can play offense when she needs to, and to do that I need her to understand that her defense needs to be nasty,” Big Tag explained. “Mae doesn’t have the killer instinct most of my agents have. Normally I would let Mae be Mae and protect her as needed.”
“We’re past that.” Boomer had been there the last time Mae had her ass kicked. He’d watched when Julia Ennis had casually broken MaeBe’s arm and threatened to put a bullet in her head. Mae had fought back, but she’d taken a lot of pain before she’d done it. “If Julia Ennis or any of her people show up, Mae needs to go for the kill because they will be there to take her out. She’s doing well with gun training. She can identify and load pretty much anything she’ll come into contact with.”
That was what his weeks with Mae had been about. He was an expert in firearms, and he’d taken her to the shooting range and out to the Taggarts’ lake house, where they had long-range targets set up.
“Well, now she knows what it feels like to kick a dude’s balls back into his body cavity,” Tag snarked. “She’s got a taste for it now. Everyone watch what you say.”
“To get back to our original conversation, Eve agrees with you.” Alex took control of the meeting. Boomer was grateful because Tag could talk about his balls for a long time. “She doesn’t actually think Brandon Johnston is capable of pulling this off even if he could have gotten away from work without anyone noticing. I showed her the pictures you took. She thinks that there’s surgical precision to what was destroyed that tells her this was a thoughtful, planned-out attack meant to look like a chaotic one.”
He was glad he had access to someone like Eve because all he’d seen was malice. “You don’t think whoever did this hates Daphne?”
“Oh, she thinks someone hates Daphne, but maybe not the person who did the deed,” Alex replied. “No one touched Lou’s room. If someone hated Daphne and wanted to hurt her, they would have hurt Lou. Her daughter is her weakness in this case. She would be far more afraid if she’d had visceral proof that this person was capable of bringing Lou into his or her revenge.”
“Why isn’t Eve telling us this?” Ian asked with a frown. “Come to think of it, why isn’t Daphne here? You already got her under control, Boom? I’m surprised. You normally go for the take charge, tell you what to do type.”
“I do not.” He didn’t. Not in that way. “I just like a woman who knows what she wants.” He was worried Daphne might decide he wasn’t worth the risk to herself and Lou. She was smart, and he might not fit into the world she saw for Lou. “And she’s not here because she fully believes I’m going to walk back downstairs and tell her it’s Brandon. I also think she prefers Charlotte’s company to yours. And Charlotte’s alcohol choices.”
“Eve’s by the pool with a margarita,” Alex replied. “She said this was men’s work and she’s done for the week.”
“Our women have gotten soft on us,” Ian announced before settling back and looking Boomer’s way. “Yours seems to be fitting right in. She’s a keeper. She made muffins this morning out of what Charlie had around the house. They were delicious. She’s promised cinnamon rolls if she’s still here Monday morning. Any reason you brought her here instead of moving her in with you?”
“Because we haven’t even been on a real date.” He wasn’t sure they would. He wasn’t sure she would trust anyone to watch Lou. From what he could tell, Lou had been the center of her world for the twelve years she’d been alive. Daphne had shut out everyone but her daughter. “I don’t know if there’s a place for me in her life beyond helping her out. I adore her kid, but I don’t want to be nothing more than a handy babysitter.”