Bounty(93)

He still said no more.

I kept glaring.

After a while, I stopped glaring and started drifting again.

But it was only when I took more of Deke’s weight after his drifting took him where he needed to be, the same place I was going, did I finally get there with him and fall asleep.





Chapter Twelve


Quick on the Uptake

Deke



Deke handed Jussy her mug of joe and felt his lips twitch when she lifted her hands, wrapped them around the mug and pushed out, “Guh.”

He moved back to the coffeemaker, poured his own, turned his ass to the counter, leaned against it and looked to her in her preposterous PJs tucked in the corner of his couch, heels to the seat, knees to her chest.

It was Sunday morning and she was still in his trailer.

Deke felt no shame taking advantage of a bad situation as well as Jussy’s feelings for him, doing both to keep her right there.

He studied her, pleased to see that the bruising around her neck had faded quickly. There were shadows there but nowhere near as angry and they would likely be gone in a day, two tops. There was no swelling and only minor purpling left around the outside and under her eye, the rest of the discoloration at temple and cheekbone had turned yellow and Deke figured it’d disappear altogether in just a few days. Her voice was back to normal and she’d long since lost the stiffness in her body, moving normally, not carefully.

That wasn’t the only progress made that week.

Deke had made calls to anyone he thought might lend a hand, sharing that he wanted to give Jussy as much progress at her place as he could. He reckoned if he could transform it, make it more the home she was hankering to have, it would erase memories of it being violated and create a space that was hers where she felt safe.

His buds had jobs and businesses to run but they came and gave time as often as they could. Sometimes it was only a couple of hours. Sometimes entire mornings or afternoons. Wood came back. Ham, his friend who managed a bar in Gnaw Bone, was there most often, giving a few hours every afternoon, able to do this since he worked nights. Max carved out time himself and did the same with some of his crew, sending a man here and there, usually Bubba but also one of his foremen, a man Deke didn’t know too well but he did know the guy was solid, his name, Deacon Gates.

This meant Jussy had a full ceiling, all the drywalling was done with the insulation blown in the panels and it was all taped. Wood, Tate and Ty, along with Bubba, had all shown and they’d primed all the walls the day before.

Deke would be on to painting and maybe even beginning to lay her floors the next week and Max would be sending a full crew of seven more guys the week after that.

Then shit would get done and fast and Jussy would have her home.

That all happened and Callahan was now gone.

He’d left behind a seriously comprehensive system.

Code panels at each door. Inconspicuous panic buttons in a variety of places where, if Jussy was breached, she wouldn’t have to run far to flip open the latch, hit the switch and Carnal cops would buzz out. And Cal had put in unobtrusive motion-sensor lights at all the outside eaves, the sensors hugging the exterior walls close so the bright light would only activate and scare the shit out of someone if they were right up at the house doing things they shouldn’t be doing, not critters that may get close and constantly set them off.

Cal had also nixed the door to the laundry room, torn out and adjusted the framing and ordered a steel-reinforced door Deke would put in when it was delivered. He put a landline phone in there, effectively making that space a safe room that it would take a bigger blast than a grenade to get through or they’d have to hack through walls. If Jussy’s house was violated, she got there, there was a panic button and a landline so she could communicate, call for help and stay safe until that help arrived.

And last, he’d buried all wiring to the house. All of it had been laid from road to home underground but it came aboveground to provide utilities on the outside. Callahan had shifted this inside so if someone wanted to cut her electricity or knock out her phones, they’d have to either climb electrical or phone poles or do it from the inside through a wicked screaming racket that would be made if any door or window sensors were breached, racing against time because a call would go directly to the cops within seconds.

Outside of having a guard at a gate at the head of her lane or cameras everywhere monitored 24/7, it was the most comprehensive, thoughtful security system Deke had seen. It was there but discreet so Jussy didn’t have to face its existence with every animal that came close or every time her eyes landed on a panic button.

Callahan had taken off after Jussy had insisted on giving him a dinner of Rosalinda’s (this, Deke went to go get and they ate in her living room) as well as a tight hug before he got in his SUV and drove to Denver so he could get back to his family in Indiana.