Page 41 of Protecting What Is Mine

Mollie pulls back and lifts her gaze to mine, delight covering her face. “Me too. I mean. My oatmeal,” she laughs.

I watch her walk away as I stand in line for Chet’s breakfast. Appreciative of each and every feminine curve of her body, of the highlights in her hair, and of the way I feel about her. I don’t know what the hell was responsible for the break down between my brain and my mouth a minute ago, but that was a close one.

I’ve never felt this way about a woman before—nothing even close to the way I feel about Mollie. But she’s given me no reason to think she’s ready to start throwing around words like that.

I make my way through the line and try to shake it off as I walk back with Chet’s breakfast. It was a pretty smooth transition. She probably didn’t even catch it.God willing.

“Knock knock, princess. Your breakfast awaits.” I clink the tray down on the rolling table next to Chet’s bed. “Eat up, cowboy. If you feel good enough to interrupt a private conversation and dictate instructions for a problem that doesn’t concern you, you ought to be healed up enough to be released.”

Chet lifts the cover off the plate of food and hungrily eyes the meal. “Doesn’t concern me? Your girlfriend suspects her cousin might have been involved with me getting shot.”

The man makes a point. “Yeah, yeah. I got the number from Gabe. I’ll give Cody a call shortly.”

Chet sets down his fork. “Hank, hand me your phone.”

Without thinking twice, I pull my phone from my pocket and hand it to him. Chet, ever the master of technology, seems unsure what to do with a phone that doesn’t flip open, and is devoid of any physical buttons. “Here, dummy.” I press my thumb over the fingerprint reader to unlock the device. “Press the pretty green icon on the bottom there, the one that looks like a phone. Then you can dial.”

Chet ignores my mocking tone and punches in a number. A couple of rings, and I hear a man’s voice say ‘hello.’ “Cody? This is Chet Wilde. I hope I’m not disturbing you this early in the morning.”

I can’t make out what the sheriff is saying, but it’s apparent Chet didn’t feel comfortable leaving something as complicated as a damn phone call to the likes of me.

“I’ll get right to it,” Chet says.

As if he’s ever done anything but.

He sums up the situation, without treading into any details. Basically, telling the sheriff that my girlfriend’s cousin was recently released from prison and she’s concerned about some of his activities. Chet looks over to me. “Cody wants to know if you can come in today?”

“Well, yeah. I was…”

Chet raises his index finger toward me as he crams the phone tight against his ear. “What’s that, Cody? His name? Hang on, I’ll ask.” He looks to me. “What the cousin’s name?”

“Clint.”

Chet doesn’t repeat the name into the phone. He just stares at me.

I roll my eyes. “Williams. Clint Williams.”

He turns his attention back to Cody, slowly repeating the name. “Four o’clock you say?” Chet looks for my confirmation.

I nod.

“Yep. Four o’clock it is. They’ll see you then. Alright. I sure do appreciate this. Yep,” he says, and then ends the call.

“Gee, thanks,” I say in my most sincerely annoyed voice. “I don’t know if I would have ever been able to do that myself.”

As per usual, Chet ignores my words as if they’d never been spoken to begin with. Instead, turning his full attention back to his breakfast.

“Alright then. I’m gonna go.” I cross the room to grab my hat from the windowsill and swipe my phone from beside his plate.

As I reach the door, I hear Chet mumble through a mouthful of food, “Thanks for breakfast.”

I don’t look back, but I smile as I square my hat on my head.

My pleasure, big brother.

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