“Lois, it’s good to see you,” a deep voice said from beside their table, and Tony looked up to see who had spoken.
“Jake, it’s good to see you too.”
“What brings you to town?”
“Monthly grocery shopping.”
“Oh Lord, I hope you were successful?”
“I was. Jake, this is Tony Jacobs, he’s new out at the ranch, and will be working at New Double. We returned his rental truck and he graciously volunteered to help me.”
Jake snorted a laugh. “Let me guess, she followed you to the rental place, and if you didn’t ride with her, you wouldn’t be able to get back out to New Double?”
“That about sums it up,” Tony laughed and held out his hand. “Anthony Jacobs.”
“Sergeant, with the National Guard out of Pennsylvania. Injured from a failed parachute.”
Tony stared at him in shock, and Jake nodded. “Jake Cogburn, I’m in charge of the Brotherhood Protectors. I do background checks on people thatErin wants to hire. Now that Manchester is there, we both do them. You passed with flying colors, or you wouldn’t be here.”
“Thank you. I only gave Erin the information yesterday, but did she contact you about a man by the name of Shay Hall?”
“Not yet, but if it’s someone to do a check on, Manchester does his first, then passes along what he has. Then I do mine.”
“Got it.”
“What can you tell me about this guy?”
“He’s a great guy, he’s still in the Guard. Planning on retiring in about nine months. He’s a commander with my old unit. He’s the one that gave Burrows his Article 92, then all hell broke loose.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry to hear that. How are you doing?”
“Good. Eleven operations, and tons of hardware in my body. I won’t be flying anywhere soon, I don’t want to break their machines when it goes off as I walk through them. I was finally given my walking papers from the National Guard, then I made plans with Marcia and Lloyd to come here.”
“Welcome, I’m sure Erin will put you to work. Just don’t overdo it.”
“I won’t, thanks.” When he left, he turned to Lois, but didn’t say anything because their sandwiches had arrived. “Who is he again?”
“He’s in charge of Brotherhood Protectors. They protect people. There are branches in Montana,Yellowstone, here, Hawaii, and down in Louisiana. Hank Patterson is the brains behind it, and he’s over in Montana.”
“But who are they?”
“Oh, sorry. I forget you guys are all former military. With the men that unloaded your truck this morning, everyone that works for Brotherhood Protectors are former military. Like you guys, someone had an injury, or just retired. Jake is actually missing the lower part of one of his legs.”
“Oh wow, I never would have known.” They ate their lunch in silence, enjoying the meal and the company, and when it was time to leave, Tony asked if he could drive. He said that if he drove, he would easily remember things because he would have to pay attention behind the wheel. Lois let him.
CHAPTER 6
“What is this place?”Tony asked as Lois pulled into a driveway and he immediately thought of office buildings. They had already unloaded the groceries at Erin’s Way, Broken Wheel, the houses where Lois lived, and now they were here at office buildings. However, she didn’t stop there, she continued past the buildings and they ended up in an area with four cabins.
“This is considered Broken Two. Those buildings we passed are office buildings. One of them is where the physical therapist is, and earlier this week, his colleague arrived. She’s some bio engineer that received a government grant to work on veterans that need prosthetics. She’s the one that developed or made, I don’t know the correct terminology for it, but she made Jake’s new leg.”
“Wow,” he said, then nodded. “Ah, I have anappointment with a Dr. Caleb Lassiter tomorrow to be assessed.”
“That’s the physical therapist and chiropractor. He’s also known to help Dr. Hardt work on the prosthetic limbs.”
“I look forward to meeting them, then.”
“You can start now,” Lois said as she parked and pointed to five people coming toward them. She quickly stated who they were before even shutting the vehicle off. They climbed out, and Lois introduced Tony to them. Everyone shook hands, and as the man named Jason grabbed his groceries and headed toward his cabin, Caleb and Katherine did the same. When it came to Staci’s, Tony grabbed several bags and followed her to her cabin. He ended up tripping as he went up the stairs because he was watching her ass as she walked. She was an incredibly beautiful woman, at least in his eyes she was. He followed her into her cabin, and set the bags on the kitchen table. He looked around and nodded when he saw how sparsely decorated it was. There were no personal touches, then he remembered she had just moved there a few days earlier.
