“Has he changed any?” Sydney asked.
“Did you say something?” I asked.
“I said, has he changed any?”
I heard Mom chuckle as we stepped inside the air-conditioned house. “God, he’s more handsome; he must work out every day. His muscles strained against his T-shirt. His eyes are greener than ever before. I swear that man has spoiled me for anyone else.”
“Then ask him out,” Sydney said.
“No, he should have asked me out more than three times. I was waiting for him to ask one more time before I said yes. I would become tongue-tied whenever he came around me.”
Sydney shook her head. “That was fifteen years ago. You’re a grown ass woman, you can ask men out these days.”
I heard my mom and Sydney giggle. “Go ahead and laugh. My heart is still broken,” I chuckled.
“It’s a good thing you didn’t marry Scott. Both of you would have been miserable,” Mom said.
“I still feel guilty about him, but I'm glad he married Sheila Blade. He told me he was happy I broke it off before we gotmarried. I was trying to convince myself I loved him. I don’t want to be an old maid.”
“Who is an old maid?” Sandy asked as she walked into the kitchen, where we were starting dinner.
“Julia doesn’t want to be an old maid. She is, after all, thirty-three,” Sydney said.
“You two aren’t that far behind me. So don’t worry about my love life.”
“I’m waiting for Mr. Right to show up and sweep me off my feet,” Sydney said.
“Speaking of your love life,” Sandy continued. “I just talked to Tina, and she told me Hawk Jensen is in town. This is your chance to get him to fall for you. And this time, if he asks you out, for Pete's sake, say yes!”
“I’m done talking about Hawk. I hope he doesn’t start digging into who beat his dad up,” I said, watching my sisters closely.
“You two need to stay out of this as well.”
“Why would you think we will start hunting for those men? We aren’t the police. We are private investigators,” Sydney said. “Who do you think it was?”
I shook my head. The twins, as most people still call them, are identical. They are what my mom calls mystery sleuths. Most of the time, they investigate who committed the murder in unsolved cases.
People pay them a good amount of money to find out who did it. They are exceptionally skilled at what they do, but it is also a dangerous profession. We all could fight, shoot a gun, shoot an arrow, and hit the bullseye every time. Our dad made sure of that.
“You stay away from those people. I think it’s the cartel trying to use the woods behind Jasper’s property for their drug manufacturing. Someone bought the property next to those woods back there, and my guess is it was the cartel.”
“I have invited Jasper and Hawk to dinner,” Dad said, walking in the back door. “This is a treat, I have all my girls here. Are you staying the night?”
“Yes,” we all said at the same time.
“Are you wearing your gun to dinner?” he asked, looking at me.
“Dad, you know I have to wear my gun.”
“At dinner?”
“Those men who jumped Jasper can show up at any time.”
“Then we should all grab our guns and take them to dinner,” he said.
“Okay, I’ll put it in the closet. But I noticed Hawk wears a gun. Are you going to make him take his off, too?”
“We’ll see when they get here, which will be in about thirty minutes.
