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)
“Josh, do they think I’m a friend or do they think I’m the chick you both slept with last night?” Nic asked, her lips in a frown. “From what I can tell, everyone in town likely knows by now. You carried me away.”
“Did you?” Grim wished he’d been there. “See, that seems gallant of you.”
He would have picked her up and cradled her to his chest and been her knight in shining armor. Everyone would have known Nicole was protected by him.
“He threw me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes,” she corrected, and seemed to include Grim in her general displeasure. “Sort of like you carried me around like luggage.”
Grim frowned Josh’s way. “You’re supposed to treat her like a lady. When you need to abduct her because she’s being stubborn, you pick her up gently and cradle her against your chest. So everyone sees her pretty face.”
Josh shrugged him off. “Well, at the time her face was more angry, and I was worried about her use of language. They got to see her pretty ass. You’re the one who carted her around this afternoon, so maybe don’t judge.”
“There is a time and place, brother. When she’s in my ropes, I get to do whatever I like. When she’s on the street and we’re in the vanilla world, we should kidnap her like gentlemen.”
Nicole’s head dropped, her hands covering her face as she laughed. “You’re both crazy.” She swung her head up, the frown replaced with a joyous smile. “And you can’t kidnap me. Also, Grim is right. There is a time and a place, and I liked the rope thing way more than I thought I would. It was a nice way to spend the day.”
Josh had come in the back door, so he would have walked by Nic’s purse. He would have put back whatever he’d taken. Grim kissed Nic’s forehead. He’d pushed her enough for the day. “Go get your lip gloss. We need to head up to the big house.”
Josh looked down at his watch. “Damn. It’s later than I thought.”
“Yeah, I should probably get home.” Nic kept looking for a way out.
He didn’t intend to give her one. “They’re lovely people, and I’m pretty sure tonight is enchilada night. You do not want to miss Benita’s enchiladas. They’re delicious.”
She turned to Josh, a pleading look on her face. “You really want me to meet your parents?”
He moved in and cupped her chin, staring down at her in that overly serious way of his. “Now more than ever.”
She sighed. “Fine. I’ll be ready in a minute.”
Grim waited until he heard her walking down the hall toward the bathroom. “What did you find?”
Josh kept his voice low. “She’s been living in her car, and I think she slipped up earlier.”
He knew exactly what Josh was talking about. “Childswood. It’s not a high school. I would bet it’s the name of the town she’s from.”
“I called Harlow.”
Grim nodded, approving of the decision. If he’d called in her dads, they would loop in Jack and Sam. This was his and Josh’s problem. “Good. I got Nicole to agree to come to Austin with us later this week, but it was a close thing. I think she plans on leaving us when her car is fixed. But she doesn’t want to. She feels like she has to. It’s almost like she thinks she’s protecting us.”
“Well, she’ll find out it’s a two-way street.” Josh glanced down the hallway. “I have no intention of allowing her to leave. Something’s going on, and when we figure it out, we solve the problem for her and then she won’t have a need to leave. Her car is going to be harder to fix than she thinks. Al hasn’t even ordered the part yet. It’s an old car, so he might have trouble finding one.”
“You have to be careful tonight. She’s skittish,” Grim warned him. “We need more time with her.”
“Yeah, I’ve got a plan for that, too,” Josh said.
He shouldn’t be surprised. He’d been thinking about the problem. “We bring her back here after dinner and fuck her until she falls asleep, and then one of us drives her to work in the morning and picks her up and brings her right back here.”
Josh nodded. “Great minds do think alike, brother.
“She’s nervous about meeting the parents.”
Josh waved the worry off. “I happen to know they’re going to find a lot to talk about. Now before she gets back you should know your brothers spent the afternoon preaching something about wickedness causing the apocalypse, and the apocalypse is the bred heifers dying.”
“They’re not going to die. I got to them fast enough.” The last thing he needed was his bio brothers causing trouble right now.
“Do they think it’s the eighteen hundreds and Grim’s a witch?” Nic was smiling again, a grin lighting up her whole face. “Oh, or is it me? Am I the wickedness killing the cattle off?”