I held my hands up. “Fine, okay, whatever. I won’t pick on your precious cultural norms, your white privilege, or your fried chicken.”
“Good.” He nodded once. “Then I won’t pick on your telenovelas or tortillas.”
“That’s right, you won’t.” I lifted up the knife I was holding and narrowed my eyes. “Besides, listening to this Jethro guy’s tale of woe is much more engrossing than a telenovela. He steals cars for a motorcycle gang, then his best friend dies in the war, he gets beaten up by a federal game warden—”
“A federal game warden who is now his boss and engaged to his sister.”
“Whoa. Okay, beaten up by the warden, currently his boss, engaged to his sister, and now he’s a law-abiding citizen.”
“And his momma just died last year of cancer.”
I sucked in a breath, my head and heart flooding with shock and sympathy for Ranger Jethro. I couldn’t imagine losing my mother. She was my touchstone, my rock. “Holy crap. This guy . . .”
“And Jethro’s daddy is a good-for-nothing, and he has five brothers.”
“Jethro’s father has five brothers?”
“No. Jethro has five brothers: Billy and Cletus, then the twins, Beau and Duane, then Roscoe. And his sister, Ashley. Jethro is the oldest.”
I shook my head. “This is a telenovela, or it should be. Why is his dad a good-for-nothing?” I couldn’t help myself, I now felt involved—if not invested—in this Ranger Jethro and his happily ever after.
“Let’s see, I don’t even know where to start. Darrell Winston, Jethro’s daddy, knocked up Bethany Oliver when she was fifteen. Jethro was born when she was sixteen. Bethany came from some money and was the only daughter of—”
I waved my hand in the air, motioning him to move it along. “Give me the CliffsNotes version.”
“Fine. Darrell was a bastard to his wife, cheated on her all the time, beat her up, the works. He’s part of the Iron Wraiths—”
“The motorcycle guys?”
“Yep. And Darrell is in deep, tried to get his kids involved. That’s how Jethro started stealing cars. Jethro was basically that bastard’s shadow for the first twenty-five years of his life.”
“How old is Jethro?” I tried to recall his face in detail, the wrinkles around his eyes that were becoming on outdoorsy men, but which actors and actresses avoided like B-movie roles. “He can’t be more than twenty-seven.”
“He is older than that. He’s thirty-one. And there’s another reason you should avoid the man. He’s too old for you.”
I snort-laughed. “That’s funny, Hank. You know Tom is thirty-eight, right?” I was referring to my last sorta relationship and current co-star, Tom Low. If you asked Tom, we’d been on the road to matrimony when I’d called it off. If you asked me, we were together for one long weekend before his inability to function without constant reassurance grew oppressively irritating.
As an example, he didn’t know how to do laundry. Any laundry. At all. Sometimes he threw clothes away instead of washing them, buying new outfits weekly.
“Yeah. Tom was too old for you, too.”
I shrugged, not wanting to argue, but disagreeing. Tom may have been thirteen years older than me, but he was a big baby. A big, adorable, metrosexual, helpless, wee little man of a hot guy baby. He was pretty good in bed, though. Like, a solid six or seven out of ten (six or seven orgasms out of ten attempts).
Whereas Ranger Jethro, at just six years older, and based on Hank’s description, very well may have been beyond my maturity level. I still liked being goofy and winning the you disgust me wars.
I crossed to the fridge, opening it and pulling out drawers, searching for tomatoes. “So, now Jethro looks after widows and children.”
“Just widows. Just really gorgeous, redheaded widows, with pretty blue eyes and a voice like an angel.” Now Hank was batting his eyelashes.
“Aha.” I nodded my understanding. “Ranger Jethro is sweet on his best friend’s widow?”
My stomach dropped a little with disappointment as I said the words. It was like feeling disappointed when you discover a shop doesn’t have an awesome dress in your size, even though you weren’t sure you wanted the awesome dress to begin with. But knowing definitely the awesome dress was off limits was disappointing.
I quickly pushed the feeling away. I didn’t need any dresses.
“Actually, no.” Hank scratched his neck and leaned back against the stove, crossing his arms. “If Jethro were sweet on Claire, then he would’ve made his move by now. I think he just likes taking care of her. In fact, I think he likes taking care of people.”