Apparently, my head had taken up permanent residence between her thighs. But I wasn’t particularly motivated to evict it.
I kept one hand around her waist until the seat stopped moving beneath her. Her arms lingered around my shoulders for a moment before her fingertips slid down the front of my cut, and the soft drag of them left heat in places no touch should’ve reached through leather.
“You could’ve asked me to sit,” she murmured, though amusement warmed the words.
“I did.”
“You ordered me.”
I shrugged. “Same result.”
Her lips pressed together, but I caught the twitch at one corner. I took the bottle of water Judge had retrieved from the house, twisted off the cap, and put it in her hand. “Drink. Give the deputy your statement and stay here until I come back.”
Jacqueline lifted the bottle toward her mouth, blue eyes peeking at me over the rim with a little spark that told me she knew exactly what she was doing. “What happens if I don’t?”
I dragged my thumb along her jaw, watching humor give way to heat as her lips parted beneath the touch. “I bring you back.”
The color in her cheeks deepened, and her thighs shifted beneath the faded denim, but she only whispered, “Okay.”
Raines cleared his throat from the yard with all the subtlety of a shotgun blast. “You two finished?”
“Yes.”
“No,” Jacqueline answered at the same time, her tone sweetly sassy as she hid another smile behind the water bottle.
I shook my head, but one side of my mouth tugged up.
Fuck, she was cute.I almost laughed at the thought. Cute wasn’t a word I’d ever have expected to describe my old lady.
Raines pointed his deputy toward the porch before looking at Jacqueline with the affection of a man who had known her since childhood. I disliked that he had years of memories involving her when I had less than an hour, but that imbalance was already on borrowed time. “Ten minutes, kid.”
Jacqueline settled back against the swing, and I left her answering the deputy’s questions.
Hawkeye waited near the barn’s rear doors with a flashlight in one hand, his gaze sliding once toward the porch before returning to me with enough amusement to be irritating.
“Not a fucking word,” I told him before he could decide where to start.
He lifted one shoulder. “About carrying her? Or the way you almost smiled at a woman threatening to disobey you?”
“Pick carefully.”
“I’m VP, not suicidal,” he snarked, then tipped his chin toward the barn as the humor fell back under the work. “Ghost has the western fence. Judge and Cipher are already building the timeline. Although, Cipher’s bitching because Deputy Collins called him a hacker.”
Cipher was another Black Crowns enforcer and brilliant hacker—but he detested being called that, preferring the term “white hat.”
“He’ll survive,” I muttered.
“Not if Judge keeps saying whiz kid.”
“Seems more likely it’ll be Judge eating a bullet.”
Hawkeye’s mouth twitched, and I turned toward the others, my voice carrying through the yard. “Nobody crosses tracks or moves evidence until Raines’s deputy photographs it.”
The sheriff came alongside us, pulling on gloves. “I appreciate you remembering who submits evidence.”
“I remember who has to explain chain of custody in court.”
His mustache twitched as he turned toward the loader. Portable lights exposed overlapping tread marks, hydraulic fluid beneath the machine, and silver filings around the workbench, while a feed sack concealed stripped decals and bent identification plates. Packages from replacement GPS units, clipped wiring harnesses, and an old factory tracker hidden inside a dented coffee can confirmed the crew had processed more than one piece of equipment there. Receipts, cigarettebutts, food wrappers, and disposable cups shoved behind the hay bales narrowed the timeline to the weeks after Otis left for San Jose.
