Bounty(183)

Deke’s voice was a warning when he repeated, “So you’re here to share you’re dropping the suit.”

Maverick was silent and this time it lasted longer.

Then he said, his voice a lot more calm, “Just tell her Mom doesn’t know I’m here.”

Deke looked down at Joss. “That good enough for you?”

She was looking up at him so he caught her mouth going slack at his question.

“Joss, Jussy’s probably pissed as shit in there. Answer. Good enough for you?” he prompted.

She nodded.

He turned on his boot and prowled into the house.

He was barely through the door before Krys was on him, holding her daughter, at his arrival clearly caught in the middle of pacing.

She immediately demanded to know, “I gotta get my shotgun?”

“We’re good,” he muttered, walking right by her, direct to Jussy’s music room where she was pinned in by Rod, Chace, Wood, Bubba and Shambles, all of them standing sentry at the open double doorway. But she was being kept company inside by the whole girl posse.

The room was a big room but it was fucking crowded in there.

Jussy was already facing the door and the second he saw her through the men, he knew he was right.

She was pissed as shit.

“Okay, my lover, we’ll be talking about that macho bullshit a lot after whatever the fuck is happening is no longer happening,” she declared, her face flinched weirdly comically and she looked down at Lella who was standing close to her legs. “Sorry, baby. Don’t say the F-word. It’s very bad.” She started to look at Deke but then jerked her attention back to Lella. “Or the B-S-word. That’s bad too.”

Fuck, only Jussy could make him want to bust a gut laughing when he was this pissed.

“Says his mom doesn’t know he’s here and he’s got money problems, babe,” Deke told her after she returned her gaze to him. “Think he’s calmed down and good to talk. You’re doin’ that on the back deck. I’ll have the boys escort him around.”

“He can come through the house, Deke,” she retorted.

“No. He can’t,” Deke stated.

It was then she really looked at him and it was then he knew she got him because she lost the attitude and nodded.

And what she got was the fact that Deke was not allowing that pissant into her house until he’d earned the right to be in her space, even in order to walk through it.

Deke looked to Rembrandt.

“Rod, you wanna keep Jussy company outside?”

“Yeah, man,” he muttered and looked to his stepdaughter. “Let’s get out there and get this shit over with, darlin’.” Not missing a beat, even though he had a hand extended to Jussy, he looked to Lella. “And don’t say the S-word either, gorgeous. It’s also bad.”

He heard some swallowed laughter that sounded amused, but nervous. He didn’t take it in. He waited until Rod took Jussy’s hand and then he moved back to the front door.

He went out it and stood again next to Joss, who hadn’t shifted an inch.

“Bring him around the side of the house to the back deck,” he called. He dipped his chin and said to Joss. “You’re with me through the inside.”

“Aye, aye, big man,” she murmured.

“I can walk my fuckin’ self,” Maverick snapped.

“Guess that’s right, still not gonna happen,” Ham told him.

Deke let Twyla and the men deal with it, and once they’d both turned to the house, he took hold of Joss’s elbow. He guided her through the door and gave looks to key people as he moved through the house. They’d do what Jussy needed and Deke didn’t even know what all that was. He just knew they’d be doing it.

He got to the back of the house where Chace was at the door. The men nodded to each other as Deke led Joss out.

“Do you all inject extra testosterone or is this just a Colorado Mountain anomaly?” Joss joked.

He shifted his gaze again to her.

She took in his face.

“Right,” she whispered. “Time for fun and laughter later.”

She gave wide eyes to her daughter.

Jussy wasn’t in the mood either and Deke knew it when she smiled a half smile to her mom that she didn’t mean and then looked into the dark where Maverick was being escorted on his approach to the deck.

Jussy remained standing by a chair while Rod draped himself casually over another one opposite where Jussy was at the pit. One of his long legs over an arm, the other leg splayed in front of him, back to the corner of the chair.

But the rock-god-on-a-throne bullshit was all a show. His attention was fastened to the kid coming up the steps and his mouth was tight.

Maverick made his ascent glaring at Jussy the whole time, which moved Deke to her back, and close.