Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 74227 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74227 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
I’d heard about that, yes.
In fact, I’d heard about a lot of problems in the neighborhood, but I’d decided that they needed to fight him just like I did.
Travis hadn’t paid the fine, either. And he hadn’t been worried about it.
Apparently, his wife had been.
“Hannah said that she took a complaint up with Harold, and Harold told her that he caught you and me having sex.”
I blinked.
“What?”
She nodded.
“Why wouldn’t you have told me this when you found out?”
“You got home when I was in the shower, and since you didn’t come in there, I hadn’t had a chance to tell you what I’d learned until now.”
“Have you ever heard of a phone?” I started to raise my voice.
“Have you ever heard of answering the phone?” she countered.
I immediately deflated. “Shit.”
She nodded.
“And what does him seeing us have sex have to do with a fine?” I finally asked.
I hated that he’d seen…but I honestly thought it was kind of hot, too.
Harold would never have Lark. Harold would never have anybody that even came close to Lark.
Harold was a greedy, petulant fucker who would rather spend time writing stupid tickets than spending time finding someone who might put up with him.
“It doesn’t have anything to do with anything,” she admitted. “I’m just upset that he told her that he saw us instead of keeping his trap shut. Why would Hannah, your sister-in-law, want to know anything that had to do with her brother-in-law’s sex life?”
That was something I agreed with her on.
“We don’t, and she doesn’t,” came an amused reply from the darkness beyond where we were standing. “Maybe you should learn how to close a door?”
I flipped my brother off. “Fuck you.”
Travis laughed, and Hannah hit him in the chest.
“I hope we can get this settled today,” she said. “I’ve been wanting to come to one of these meetings, but it never coincided with a day off for me.”
Hannah was a nurse who now worked with my brother—and me—at Hail Auto Recovery during the week. On the weekends, she picked up a few shifts at the local hospital to keep up her skills.
But since she loved working with Travis—which I had no fucking clue why—she stayed even though she was overqualified for what she was doing.
Whatever, though. To each their own.
“I’m glad you could make it,” Lark said bashfully. “I think we could use as much support as we can get.”
I agreed with that.
Harold was well known in our community. Despite being the elected president of the homeowner's association, he was also the town banker and on the volunteer fire department.
He was well known, and that didn’t always sit well with me.
It was also why I’d never gone to court with the man. He knew fucking everyone.
“What time does this thing start?” Travis asked. “Mom has the kids. I’d love to go out to eat after this if y’all are up to it.”
I looked over at Lark, who shrugged. “Seems okay to me.”
I snorted at her obvious lie.
She’d much rather get a shit ton of Chinese food and eat it on the floor of her living room than go out to eat with anyone—let alone me, my brother and his wife.
“Let’s do this.”
With that, we went inside, stopping only long enough to let Harold walk ahead of us through the doors.
***
I walked out of that homeowner’s association meeting knowing that this was about to go bad.
The look in Harold’s eyes when he saw that he’d been kicked off the HOA board was priceless…at least until he’d turned those eyes on Lark.
I saw the promise there. The certainty that he was going to fire back.
I just had to prepare her and myself for what he was about to do because whatever it was, wasn’t going to be good. It was going to be bad. Very, very bad.
And that bad came later that night when the cops came up to Lark’s door, showed her a warrant for her arrest, and took her away in handcuffs.
And, helpless to do anything at all, I turned to see Harold standing beside his golf cart, a huge fucking grin on his fat face.
I narrowed my eyes.
“You’re going to pay for this.”
Harold’s grin didn’t falter. “As long as she does, too, I don’t care.”
Chapter 15
Here’s a tissue. There’s bullshit spewing from your lips.
-Lark’s secret thoughts
Lark
I was getting fingerprinted.
I. Was. Getting. Fingerprinted.
I was also freaking way the fuck out.
I’d been fingerprinted before.
It’d take Sal an hour, max, for this to show up in his system.
He had a program on me and had since the very beginning.
It didn’t matter that the men of Free had wiped the system clean of me and any mention of me. Sal was just as smart with computers. The man could do almost anything, and finding a match on his wife’s fingerprints was a cakewalk to him.