Page 140 of Family Bonds- Kelsey & Van

He wouldn’t change a damn thing about her and was sorry for anyone who tried to make her think she wasn’t good enough to be who she was.

“I’m charging him with vandalism,” Jarrett said. “It’s just a misdemeanor. You’re going to have to deal with Carl. He didn’t do anything and all Landon said was he was pushed. He didn’t use the word blackmailed. We can look into it more, but you know...”

“This is small shit and everyone is overworked and underpaid,” he said. “Got it. Been there and done that.”

There was no real damage done other than people’s peace of mind. It was one of those things he hated about working in law enforcement.

He hung up with Jarrett and was going to send a text to Christian and then decided not to.

He’d deal with this himself.

Christian had been fine for a bit now. Not sucking up, but not butting heads either.

Van wasn’t sure what the turnaround was, but in this case, it was an attack on him personally. Or his girlfriend. He was pretty sure Kyle was going to want in on this, so he’d let his business partner know too.

Kyle was in Boston today doing business. Van knew that and wouldn’t bug him just yet.

He went up to one of the spare rooms where he’d put his mother’s furniture. He wasn’t sure why he did. It just felt good to have it in the house.

He ran his hand over the dark wood, the curves.

“Van!” he heard. “You in the house?”

“Upstairs,” he yelled. He heard Kelsey coming up the stairs and turned. “What are you doing here?”

“I thought I’d stop over on lunch to surprise you. I didn’t expect you up here. What’s going on?”

“Just thinking.”

“Looking at something of your mother’s while you do it?” she asked, moving over to hug him. Yeah, he needed this.

“Something like that. Jarrett just called me.”

He filled her in on what happened with Landon and Carl. “What an asshole,” she said. “I was light on him too.”

He laughed. “Guess it doesn’t always pay to throw your weight around.”

She grunted. “I wasn’t throwing my weight around. I will admit I should have let you deal with it. But they didn’t believe you were who you were.”

“I get it,” he said. “Again, I’ve told you before that diffusing things is better than escalating.”

“Yep, and this time it came back to bite me in the rump.”

“I bet you’re used to that,” he said.

“I’ve had it happen a time or two,” she said. “We won’t go over that again.”

“No reason to,” he said. “We all learn from our mistakes.”

“We do,” she said. “Or try to. You know, they don’t make furniture like this anymore. It’s really pretty. You should put it somewhere you can see it more.”

She moved over and opened the drawers and got to the third one.

“What’s in there?” he asked when she pulled out a pile.

“Pictures,” she said. “Really old pictures. I wonder why Barry didn’t tell you about this.”

“No clue,” he said. “He told me everything else. Unless he just figured at this point I’d find things out in time to add to what was important.”

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