Page 20 of Jake

“Yep.” She decided not to elaborate. If he wanted to know, he would ask. But maybe he didn’t want to know. Maybe he assumed it was like that when she’d bought it. He also hadn’t seen her truck, so he had no reason to be curious about it.

“What have you been up to, other than trying to talk Iceman in to letting you come down here?”

Heather frowned. “How did you know?”

“Know what?”

“That Matt tried to talk me out of going.”

“Lynnie, I talked to him at the run the other day. I know he’s worried about you. I am too.”

“I’m a grown woman. I can take care of myself.”

“I know that, and so does he. It’s not you taking care of yourself we’re worried about. It’s you trying to take care of that asshole you were seeing or some of the fuckers he was mixed up with, and failing. That’s what we’re worried about, and it’s because we care.”

The fight in her deflated like a balloon with a hole in it. How did you fight back against ‘because we care’? What kind of comeback was there for that? She didn’t have one and wasn’t sure she wanted to come up with one.

“I know. It just rankles. It feels like you’re both telling me I can’t do anything without a babysitter, and I haven’t needed a babysitter in longer than I want to think about.”

“I’m sorry. That’s not what it is, and I’m sorry it feels that way. We’re just trying to make sure you’re safe from that fuckwad. Are you carrying?”

Heather blinked. “Carrying?” What on earth did he want her to carry? She had a pocketbook, of course, but what else would he want her to have?

“Are you armed?”

“Oh. No. I hadn’t even thought about it.”

“Do you have one in your truck?”

“No.” She frowned again. Her dad had kept a pistol in his truck, but she never had, she’d never seen the need.

“Do you remember how to shoot?”

“Of course.”

“How long has it been since you’ve been shooting?”

“A few years, why?”

“I need to talk to Iceman.”

Heather frowned. “Why?”

“I want to make sure you’re protected. Is he around?”

“Yeah, let me go get him.”

“Thanks, Lynnie.”

Heather left the guest room she’d been sleeping in for the last couple of weeks and went in search of her cousin. She found him in the living room in front of the TV.

“Aaron wants to talk to you.” She held out her phone. Matt scowled but took it.

“Yeah?”

15

Jakedidn’tliketheidea of Heather on the highway on her own, unarmed. Especially if they didn’t know anything about this Mitch or the men he’d apparently bartered her off to, or where they were.

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