Page 70 of Fierce- Royce

There was a lot of laughter over that comment. At least someone was making progress because he and his brother sure the hell weren’t with Chloe and Royce. “Might be payback for you getting on their case over the past few holidays.”

“Well,” Jolene said. “He was dragging his feet forever. I couldn’t figure out what was going on.”

“It’s not up to you to figure it out,” Carolyn said.

“I know, I know. So fill me in with what is going on with you two. How are things with Jonah at the very least?”

“They are there,” Diane said. “It’s hard to get much on it when the guys seem to be doing more of the work.”

Jolene laughed. “You two need to push your way in there more.”

“It’s not as easy as you. We aren’t in the office and don’t have a reason to be there all that much. Those two husbands of ours are having more fun than we do,” Carolyn said.

“And they pick on us,” Jolene said. Garrett was biting his tongue right now, as he knew Grant was too. This was the girls talking, but once Jolene was off, he knew his wife and Diane were going to be on their cases.

“How are things with Faith?” Diane asked.

“Don’t go there. I swear each one is worse than the one before. My own kids weren’t this bad at withholding things from me, but there is some progress. I mean she’s in a relationship once I got her to admit it.”

“That is what you get for all the years of nagging,” Carolyn said. “Good thing I never did that with any of my kids.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jolene said. “Keep me posted if you have anything to report. Now go enjoy the night with your husbands like you know I’m going to.”

Jolene hung up and Garrett’s wife looked at him. “Okay, boys. Fill us in. Anything to report with Chloe and Royce or have you totally botched this one up without our help?”

He sighed and Grant spoke first. “We’re trying. I’m starting to think she is either on to us, playing, or she is immune.”

“Yeah. I’m with Grant. I think she is playing with us. No one is immune.”

Diane laughed. “You two keep telling yourselves that. We’ll let you off the hook now, but pretty soon Carolyn and I are going to step up. Right, Carolyn?”

“I like watching them flounder like this. I’m willing to give you more time.”

Garrett looked at the grin on his wife’s face. “We’ll come out on top in the end. We always do,” he said. He had to believe that because he wasn’t ready to cry defeat yet.

25

A Victory

“What are you doing here this early?” Royce asked Elise on Wednesday morning. He’d avoided the office yesterday because he knew his sister would be in his face about Chloe. It wasn’t as if he didn’t have a shitload of work to do and found himself chipping in at one of the houses to try to get them back on track.

He’d give Elise credit for staying out of it, but the closer they’d gotten to Valentine’s Day the more his sister was dropping hints faster than his men calling in sick and he didn’t need her to slip around their father.

“You didn’t come in yesterday,” Elise said. “I knew you’d do it today early and I wanted to catch you.”

“Why?” he asked. “What is going on?”

“Dad,” Elise said. “He’s really going overboard.”

“About what?” he asked. “I talked to him Monday and yesterday about work.” His father and he were covering things as best as they could, but he didn’t need his father overdoing it either. It was on Royce to step up and figure this out and he was.

“Work is fine,” Elise said, waving her hand. “It’s our personal lives. On top of what he is trying to do with you and the Fierces, he’s making comments to me now.”

He laughed. “Like what?”

“That he hopes that their marriage didn’t damage me or make me nervous about trying with someone.”

“Ouch,” he said, grinning. He started to walk out of his office to get coffee and Elise was following him. “What did you say?”

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