Page 91 of Family Bonds- Kelsey & Van

“The mustache gave it away,” he said.

Hardly anyone had only a mustache alone. The guy was just standing on the deck of the ferry and looking at the island and the water. Probably wished it’d take off early so he could go lick his wounds.

“Horrible, wasn’t it?”

“Not funny,” he said.

“I wasn’t trying to be funny. What happened?”

“I walked up to him and told him you were off limits.”

“You didn’t even introduce yourself?” she asked.

“Do you want a play-by-play?” he asked. “Of course I told him who I was. I wanted him to know. I wanted him to know what I used to do for a living and if he wasn’t afraid of me, he should be afraid of your family. He admitted that he knew you were part of the Bond family.”

“Shit,” she said.

“Yeah, Kelsey. Shit. Fuck. What the hell?”

Crazy thoughts went through his head that maybe someone would try to kidnap her for a ransom. Except this guy was all but pissing his pants when Van said he was Kelsey’s boyfriend and what he did for a living.

He might have left the word ex out of the detective part. He didn’t think Bill was going to look into him.

When the guy was all but running for cover, Bill shouted over his shoulder that Kelsey was a weirdo anyway and there was a reason someone as hot as her was still single.

He wouldn’t add that part. It’d hurt her feelings.

She’d said more than once that people told her she was unique. He’d done the same.

He didn’t think it was that bad of a trait even if it could be annoying to others.

“I don’t tell people that,” she said.

“But it’s easy enough to find out. That idiot did.”

The guy didn’t seem that smart to him and he hoped it was an innocent enough infatuation.

“I have a username. If I got to the point of thinking we’d meet, I’d say my first name and that is it.”

“But you’ve got a picture. And you said you lived on an island. Easy to figure it out.”

“Yeah,” she said, pacing. “I was an idiot there.”

“What did you see in him?”

“Nothing,” she said. “I never saw him. Trust me, I’d remember so that tells me his profile picture was a fake. He said it was old. It was altered. Most people do that. I even made sure my picture was in the sunlight and I had sunglasses on.”

“He still found out. You gave just enough about yourself that he narrowed it down.”

“Are you going to tell my father?” she asked.

“Nope,” he said. “You are. Because it’s the right thing to do and you know it.”

“I’m going to tell him you took care of it too,” she said. “He’ll be happy with that.”

“Will he?” he asked. This was all new to him. He wasn’t used to jumping in and saving a woman he was dating.

Or the fact that he was scared shitless thinking of what could happen to her over her carelessness.

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