Page 36 of Family Jewels

My mouth dropped open. What in the world was she doing?

Homer looked like he was liable to lunge at her. But she lowered the gun, and a shot rang out, kicking up the dirt between the man’s feet.

He jumped back, shouting, “What the hell?”

“I purposely aimed between your feet, Mr. Dyer. The next bullet is goin’ a lot higher, but it’ll still be between your legs, if you get my drift. I’m not sure you need those family jewels anymore.”

“You’re crazy!” he shouted.

She tilted her head and forced a grin. “If that’s the only way you can explain a woman gettin’ the upper hand on you, so be it, but if you ever dare to lay a hand on me again, I won’t hesitate to aim higher.”

“Get the hell off my land!” he shouted.

“Gladly.”

I glanced over at Jed. The veins on his neck stood out, and he looked like he was about to strangle someone, only I had a feeling it wasn’t Homer Dyer.

I hurried over to the truck and got in; only, Jed climbed in after me and got behind the wheel, shoving me to the middle. He lowered Neely Kate’s window before she got in.

“Don’t take your eyes off of him,” Jed growled as he started the truck. “Keep aiming at him.”

“I’m not anamateur,” she grumbled.

He drove forward about ten feet, then backed up the truck, angling and driving partially in the tall weeds to get around Homer’s Jeep.

“You’re a dead man the next time I see you, Carlisle!” Homer shouted, waving his knife. “And your girlfriends are on my list now too!”

Neely Kate continued to lean out the window, pointing her gun at him, as Jed tore off down the lane—still driving backward—bouncing all three of us around the cab since we hadn’t had time to buckle up. Soon the house and Homer were out of sight. Jed backed up off the side of the road, quickly turned around, and raced for the stop sign.

“Where’s your car?” I asked. He’d reached the county road, and we hadn’t come across it yet.

“Down the road,” he grunted as he looked behind him to see if Homer was following us before he turned east.

“What the hell were you doin’ there?” Neely Kate shouted as she turned around to face the front.

“Protectin’ you!” he yelled loud enough to make me flinch.

“How the hell did you even know we were there?” she demanded.

“Rose texted me. She told me to come check on y’all if she didn’t get back to me in twenty minutes.”

Neely Kate turned her wrath on me. “You did what?”

I shrugged. “When you said we’d be fine so long as Homer didn’t show up, I got worried.”

“Right before we went in?”

“Yeah.”

“That was fifteen minutes ago,” Neely Kate said, her ire returning. “What hell were you doin’ there five minutes early, Jed?”

“I already told you!” he shouted, the veins on his neck now throbbing. “I was there to protect you!”

“We don’t need your protection! I’m pretty dang sure I just proved that!” Neely Kate shouted as Jed pulled over on the side of the road. His car was parked ahead of us, pulled into a short drive that led to a field.

He threw the gearshift into park and turned to look at her, his face red. “He had a knife, Neely Kate. You could be lying on the ground back there bleeding to death, and your damn twenty minutes still wouldn’t be up yet!”

“In case you didn’t notice, I have a gun, Jed Carlisle!”

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