Her Dominant SEAL(58)
“Karen, Honey, this is Mason Gault, my lieutenant.”
Mason was, of course, already standing. Karen held out her hand. “My name is actually Karen Eastman, not Karen Honey.” She grinned.
“It’s nice to meet you, Karen.” Mason smiled.
“And Darius, this is Miss Eastman, she’s Piper’s teacher.”
“It’s okay, I wasn’t going to call her Karen Honey. I was going to call her K.H.”
Drake bristled. That wasn’t like Darius.
“Back off, Stanton.”
“I believe I owe you a few for Rylie.”
Drake cut his eyes over to Karen. Her lips were twitching. “I take it you flirted with Dare’s girlfriend.”
“Soon to be wife,” Darius corrected. “He was relentless.”
“Then call me anything you like.”
“Uncle Dwake?” He looked down at Bella. Shit, how much did he owe the kid?
“Yes, Honey. What do you want?”
“More.” She held out her biscuit.
“Okay, you want to be paid in biscuits?”
“She wants more jelly on her biscuit,” Piper explained.
“Are you paying the kid to like you?” Darius asked.
“We have a deal, every time I swear, I owe her a dollar.”
“She’s going to get a Corvette for high school graduation.” Mason whistled.
“Vette!” Bella clapped.
“Speaking of which, we have to get hopping on some of your stuff today,” Karen said to Piper.
“I know. The latest assignment I got was for a book that Granny Laughton had given me, isn’t that cool?”
“We’ll start after breakfast.” Karen smiled.
Bella looked around and asked, “What’s a vette?”
Drake closed his eyes and kept putting butter and jam on a new biscuit. The other one was just too mushy to work with. “Here honey, try this.”
“Thank you,” she said primly.
“I’ll explain what a Corvette is after breakfast,” Trenda said.
“I think we should visit that motel you were telling me about,” Darius said casually.
“Don’t try it,” Trenda said as she passed the plate of hash browns to him. “Bella hears all. If you want to have a planning session, go to the study after you eat.”
“But-” Drake started.
“If you need to do it now, take your food with you.” Trenda’s voice brooked no argument.
Mason laughed.
“Before you go, just let me know, is Aiden okay?”
“He’s fine. He’s just doing guard duty. He’ll be back in a couple of hours.”
Trenda nodded. She started passing food around the table so the men could pile up their plates to take into the study.
As Mason, Darius, and Drake stood with their plates in hand, Drake stared at Evie. “Well?”
“Well, what?”
“Aren’t you coming? We have shit to talk about. We need you.”
“Uncle Dwake.”
Dammit.
He set down his plate and reached for his wallet.
“Here, Baby.” He knelt in front of Bella. How can a three-year-old have a shit-eating grin?
“This is different than a dollar. See how it has a picture of Andrew Jackson. It’s worth twenty dollars. That means I get twenty swear words.” He kissed the top of her head, picked up his plate, gave Karen’s hand a squeeze, and ignored the laughter as he walked to the study.
***
They had Clint and Lydia on the computer screen and stood around the desk so they could see them. Evie was standing in front since she was a little thing.
“The DEA is all over the trailer and the lab like white on rice,” Clint said.
“Or snow on Tennessee,” Darius quipped.
“Anyway, Aiden gave a brief statement and then bailed. The agent in charge is pissed, and my contact is calling and whining. I told him that when this shit dies down, we’ll give him more of our time.”
“Sure, we will,” Drake said.
Clint took a deep breath. “Yeah, I’m kind of hoping we have to be wheels up when the time comes.”
“I’ll see what I can arrange,” Mason said.
“So, what’s Aiden’s ETA?” Darius asked.
“He left twenty minutes ago,” Clint explained. “How long does it take from Harmon’s place to where you are?”
“Normal time it would be forty-five minutes, in this weather, an hour and a half,” Evie said.
“He’ll be here in forty-five,” Drake assured her.
She craned her neck to look at him. He patted her shoulder. “He won’t take any unnecessary chances. He’ll be fine.” Drake turned back to the screen. “Clint, I think there is something weird going on with my dad’s interest in Piper.”