Kenzie sat back in the grass. “Damn it. Fine. But you have to stop trying to kill my dad.”
Her dad frowned fiercely her way. “And you have to start wearing damn underwear. What the hell, Kenz? Like that skirt isn’t short enough? Are you going to smother the poor girl with your vagina?”
Gabby clutched her bear.
A big dog lumbered up, stopping and staring around like he was trying to figure out who he needed to kill. He was huge and black, with curly fur and intelligent eyes.
Another dog ran up and started licking Kenzie’s face. Pretty dog. Not a spark of real intelligence behind those eyes.
“What the hell,” Charlotte Taggart had a baby in a sling and a semiautomatic in her hand. “Sosa, I told you…”
Sosa held her hands up. “It was not me. It was Gabby, but she does not know about the helping and the Costco. She only know about the job. Now she knows and will be helping like me.”
Charlotte lowered the gun and sighed as she looked at her husband. “How the hell did she shoot you while you were in the Bronco? It’s fortified. The bullets shouldn’t have gotten through.”
It was the first time he’d ever seen Taggart go pale. “Baby, I…”
Oh, he could throw Taggart’s ass under the bus. Yes, he’d saved the man’s life, but giving him a taste of hell wasn’t something Ben could pass up. “He got out of the car after I started talking about how Kenzie’s my sub. I think he was feeling a little nauseated. Now I wonder why since I’ve heard him talk about sex pretty openly.”
He went over and offered Kenzie a hand up. He hauled her up and pulled her in, wrapping his free hand around her. And yes, he tugged her skirt down. “You okay?”
“Well, I won’t wear these boots to climb a tree again,” she groused but snuggled close.
“You got out of the car when there was clearly a hit out on you?” Charlotte’s voice was dangerously low and her free hand was around her grandbaby, who seemed to be sleeping peacefully through it all.
Even the dogs seemed to back up from the sound of her voice.
“There was a lot of talk about mouths, and it was gross, baby,” Ian tried to explain.
Sosa helped Gabby up. “It is to be being okay, G. I trust them.”
“You do not trust anyone,” Gabby said, eyes wide with obvious shock.
“I see her as my new mother, and while I did try to do that thing where I am having random man’s baby to cause chaos between couple, he is my new and very mean to everyone else papa,” Sosa said with a grave nod.
“Now, wait a minute,” Ian said, going even paler.
“Ian, I am gettingOpen Doornotifications,” Charlotte complained. “They want to know who’s shooting on the crazy guy’s property. I do not want another HOA meeting where I have to explain away multiple gun fights.”
Kenzie sighed as her parents started to argue and Gabby and Sosa talked about all the hot dogs and chicken bakes they could eat at the Costco food court.
He held her and kissed the top of her head, and somehow the chaos wasn’t so bad.
* * * *
“You couldn’t get him to a hospital?” Lou asked, looking inside the conference room where Kenzie’s father was preparing to go through with his debrief despite the fact that Aidan O’Donnell was patching up his leg, where a bullet had apparently taken out a nice chunk of his calf.
Kenzie sighed. “You have no idea how stubborn he is. He and my mom had a massive fight over the HOA thinking we’re some kind of criminal enterprise, and then they were on about the trees. Then I had to hold Colton while they made out.”
Her parents had a beautiful marriage. There had been a lot of talk about spanking her mom for her sassy mouth.
Ben hadn’t even threatened her with a good time and she’d run into gunfire and everything.
“But the trees are beautiful,” Lou complained. “You won’t have any privacy if you get rid of the trees.”
“Drones.” TJ rounded the corner carrying two coffees. He handed one to his fiancée. “I’ll set up Uncle with a fleet of drones that patrolthe tree line and he’ll chill out. He’ll have a lot of fun with it, and it’ll give the HOA something to talk about that isn’t gunfire.”
Actually, that wasn’t a terrible idea. She could distract her dad with drones. “Huh, I never thought of that.”
