Page 29 of Stone Cold Bad
“No more tears.I’m going to take care of you, darlin’.”
“Hurry back.”I sniffled again.Amy came out of the store with the bag of hair dye.
She slid into the driver’s seat, and I handed her the phone.“The guys are on their way back to the dock.Colt said not to worry.”
“See, told you.I can tell you one thing, it’s always a damn big bonus to have the Stone brothers on your side.”She lifted a box from the bag.“Coffee brown?Figured since we didn’t get to drink it, you could still wear it.We’ll make you look so good, Colt won’t be able to keep his hands off of you.”She laughed.“Oh wait, that’s already not a problem, is it?”
I reached over and hugged her.“God, Amy, I’ve never had a friend like you.Thank you.”
She squeezed me back.“I’m glad you came here, Jade.”
NINETEEN
COLT
Jade walked out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her head.She smiled and pulled the towel off.Her hair fell around her shoulders in dark brown strands.“What do you think?”she asked tentatively.
I pulled her into my arms just relieved to see her safe and in the house.“I think I have to start from the beginning with my new brunette girlfriend.And I’m looking fucking forward to it.”
“Jeez, I don’t know,” Slade said.“She’s pretty hard to look at anyhow, but as a brunette—” He crinkled his nose.
Jade balled up the towel and threw it at him.
Amy walked out of the bathroom with the empty boxes of hair color.She stopped to admire her handiwork.“Looks pretty darn good if I do say so.”
Jade smiled at her.“Amy was the brains behind the disguise.It was smart thinking.”
“Where’s Hunter?”Amy asked.
“TheDurangowas making a funny sound.”Slade sat on the couch and lit a joint.Amy made a beeline for it.Slade held it up out of her reach.“Damn, Street, let me take a toke first, you little weed beggar.”
I sat in the big, slightly ripped arm chair and pulled Jade down onto my lap.“I’ve been giving it some thought.I think we need to stay out at the cottage.A lot of people, people who have need for a lump of money, have seen you with me.Not many people know I own that old cottage, and it’s out of the way.It’s not visible from the highway or the town.”
After Ace had shown me the picture, I’d started thinking about how I was going to keep her safe.She was an exceptionally pretty new face in a small town.I was sure the only thing that had kept anyone from calling the number on the flyer to claim the money was me.Most people in this town wouldn’t dare cross me or my brothers.Not even for a nice chunk of cash.But that didn’t mean that other people, strangers passing through or sketch-ass dicks like Ace, wouldn’t be keeping a sharp eye out for her.
After Noddy died, her little house had sat there for several years, stuck in a long family probate battle.When it finally came on the market, everyone else had forgotten about it.Everyone except me.I’d saved enough from ourbusinessto buy the thing outright.Now it would make the perfect hiding place.
“Are you sure about all this, Colt?”she asked.“I could just get on a bus and head across the country or something.”
“Is that what you want?”Just asking the question made my heart sink in my chest.This had started as a no heartstrings proposal, but she’d already taken a firm hold of mine.I hadn’t even known that I had any.She found them.Jade had managed to reach past the icy layers and find them.
“No, of course not, but I’m causing such an upheaval in your lives.If anything were to happen to any of you, I could never forgive myself.”
Slade coughed once and squinted at us through a screen of smoke.“Some pansy-assed, loafer-wearing asshole who can throw cash around like it’s fucking fairy dust is no threat to the Stone brothers.Danger is our middle name.”
Amy laughed.“See?Told you they’d eat dynamite for breakfast if offered.”
Slade raised his brow at her.“Now why the fuck would we eat dynamite?”
“It was just a colorful hyperbole— you know, an over-exaggeration to make a point,” she said.
“A hyper bowly?What the fuck is that?”Slade grabbed the joint from her fingers.“Here, you’ve had too much of that.You’re talking fucking nonsense.”
Jade smiled and rested her head against my shoulder.“You’re right.I couldn’t possibly leave you guys.You’re just too darn entertaining.”
“Damn right.I’m going to load some things into the truck.You pack up what you’ll need.”I turned to my brother.“Slade, you guys need to go around town and yank down those flyers.”
Slade nodded.“Hey, bro, I was thinking— maybe we should draw the snake out of his hole.”
