“He turned you down because you weren’t asking from your heart. My mama always told me the one and only reason to get married is because the other person makes your life better than it’d ever be without them. Does Bo do that for you?”
Cooking, looking out for his health, offering to strip on weekends to ease Lucky’s mind about finances. Holding Lucky when he needed, making his redneck ass see reason. Believing in him when no one else did. Saving him from himself. “Yeah, he does.”
“And do you do the same for him?”
An image came to mind of Lucky at the table, waiting for Bo to put dinner out, or Bo making sure Lucky ate after a hard day. Yeah, he’d done his best to be there for Bo during bad times, but what about when times weren’t so bad? He’d cooked Bo pancakes, but only to sweeten him to pop the question. “I’m not sure.”
“Be sure. Then ask again.” She hopped out of the Jeep and headed toward the elevator, never even looking back. Not smart. Lucky could easily take the twenty-dollar bill over her visor, and in his past felon life, one quick snatch and a shove into his pocket and her twenty became his twenty.
But no, he’d never steal from her. She trusted him. And for once in his life, he deserved the trust. He wouldn’t do anything to hurt her. And yes, he’d take a bullet for her. Might have to, one day. He’d give her hell if he lived, making sure she heard every groan and whine of pain, felt properly guilty, and catered to his every whim for a while, but he’d take a bullet for her.
As he would for Charlotte, Walter, Bo.
He’d go through nine kinds of hell for Bo. So why couldn’t he make the man’s life better? What would it take?
Johnson stopped and leaned against the open elevator door. Nothing left to do but go back to work, bury himself in the job and try to tune out the frantic humming of his mind.
Johnson didn’t say a word when he stepped on the elevator, nor on the ride up and trip down the hall to the evidence room to turn over the samples. The moment Lucky’s ass hit his desk chair back in his cube, she started in. “Figure anything out?”
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore right now.” Contemplating the fifteen-plus-year-old picture of his sister he kept on his desk didn’t give him any answers.
“Okay, but if you need a listening ear, a kind shoulder, or someone to haul your drunk ass home should you decide to drown your sorrows, you know where I am.”
Yes. Yes, he did. Only, his liver might not be too happy about getting drowned in booze. Neither would Bo. And he wanted to keep both of them happy.
“What say we get this report written and get out of here?” Her leaning against Bo’s desk across the cube only reminded Lucky how badly he wanted to show Bo the paper he’d shoved into his desk drawer.
Nice of her to change the subject. Now for a few cold, hard truths he’d have to tell the warehouse owners, let Walter decide whether to call in FDA and shut the place down, and if/when to toss them to DEA.
Had Lucky’s heart been in his assignment he’d have found tons more to report on, but what he and Johnson found was bad enough. “Do you reckon ‘your warehouse ain’t secure for shit’ is a good enough report?” Typing up four pages wouldn’t change the meaning. The security sucked. And not in the good way he’d been missing from Bo lately. Johnson’s hip check almost put him off balance.
“Tell you what,” she said. “I’ll take care of the paperwork and upload the video. You go talk to the boss.”
He put up a token resistance before Johnson wrestled him out of his chair. “But I don’t need to talk to Walter.”
“Yes, you do, to arrange a leave of absence. And I suggest you talk to Human Resources about what expenses our insurance covers for a liver donor, if your father’s insurance doesn’t foot the bill.”
“No.” Planning made things too real.
Johnson pointed down the hall. “Go.”
“No.”
“Yes. If you don’t get your ass in Walter’s office and take care of business, I’ll throw you over my shoulder, haul your scrawny ass in there, get the hell out, and lock the door.”
Pick his battles. Yeah. He’d do what she said. Or at least pretend to. Hey, he got out of typing the report.
He’d gone a whole three steps from the cube when his self-appointed conscience called out, “And if you even think about walking past that door, I’ll tackle you to floor, hog tie you like a Texas steer, and drag you kicking and screaming in there anyway.”
And so he stood at the boss’s door, fist raised to knock.
Johnson shrieked from down the hall. “I called Lisa. She’s guarding the elevator in case you try to run.”
Damned teamwork. Lucky knocked.
“Come in, Lucky.”
Lucky entered the room he’d come to a million times, either to talk shop, ask advice, give a report, or get a well-deserved ass-chewing, and settled into the chair he’d permanently marked with a butt print. “How’d you know it was me?”
