We were just pulling up to the old gas station, and even though I had dozens—possibly hundreds—of questions on my mind, I couldn’t seem to ask a single one. So instead, I slid my hand behind her neck and pulled her close. “But now you get to kiss me whenever you want.” I kissed her gently, and she kissed me back just as gently. After our serious make-out session, it was a welcome break.
“No bottles required,” she said, smiling at me.
“Thank. God.” Opening my door, I slid out and helped her crawl down. “Why don’t you head on home now? I’ll hang out here for fifteen or twenty minutes before I leave. Just so your parents don’t have anything to be suspicious about.”
“No, don’t wait around. Just follow me,” Josie said, fishing her keys out of her purse. “Besides, now that Colt knows about us, it’s only a matter of time before someone tells my parents.”
“He better not or that thread I’ve been hanging on by is going to snap.”
Josie wound her hands around my waist. “What’s the big deal? I want my parents to know. I don’t want to keep us a secret any longer. You’ve proven that you’re ready for this.”
“I’ve proven myself? Joze, it’s been three weeks.” I tipped my hat back a bit because, from that look in her eyes, we were going to be lip-locked pretty soon. My lips had had a solid half-hour break, so we were good to go.
“And you’re saying that three weeks aren’t like three lifetimes to you, Garth Black?”
She always had a point. She always seemed to know me that much better than myself. “You’ve made your point—except three weeks are more like three millennia for me.”
Josie laughed, coming closer until she’d rested her head against my chest. “I want to tell them. I want them to know you’re the person I want to be with. I want them to know you’re the person I’ve—”
The sound of screeching tires and flying gravel made us both whip around. A jacked-up, shiny, and expensive truck slowed as it approached, its headlights shining directly on us.
“Hope we’re not interrupting anything!” someone shouted from the truck.
I spun around and locked eyes with her. “You need to get in your truck and get home. Now.”
“Is that Colt and his brothers?” Her eyes were taking longer to adjust than mine. “What in the hell are they doing here?”
That Josie had to ask demonstrated just what opposite kinds of lives we’d lived. When a full truck of guys barreled toward me in an abandoned parking lot late at night, I knew a serious ass kicking was on the horizon. Josie saw the same thing and thought I wonder what they want? The way we Montana boys figured things out was: You took my girl. I kicked your ass. We were square. It took a hell of a lot of balls and maybe not a lot of brain, but we settled matters the rough-and-tough country way. We didn’t sue or knife tires—we kicked ass. That the Mason boys had left enough of their hippy California roots behind to bring it like true country boys earned them a smidgeon of respect in my book. Mason’s truck had rolled to a stop, and I heard doors opening.
“Josie, baby, please . . . your truck.”
Her face went soft as her eyes shifted from the truck to me. “That was the first time you called me baby.”
Kissing her quickly because I couldn’t help it, I led her to her truck. I heard the Mason boys’ boots crunching gravel our way. “Unless you get in your truck and leave now, that baby will have been less a term of endearment and more a reference to the way you’re behaving.”
“Stop.” Josie pulled her arm out of my grip. “If you think I’m leaving you alone with the Masons after what went down earlier, you’re the one rationalizing like a baby.”
“Joze—” I wasn’t above begging.
“I’m not going anywhere.” She crossed her arms and held her ground.
From the footsteps, we were out of time for her to escape anyway. “You are so damn stubborn.”
“I learned it from you.” Glancing over my shoulder, her eyes narrowed. “Colt, what the hell are you guys doing here?”
“We followed you,” Colt replied, standing in the center of his four brothers.
“No one was following us.” I’d checked my rearview the whole drive, half expecting the encounter.
“We didn’t have to tail your truck to follow you,” one of the older brothers, Finn or Frank or Fart or hell, Filly, said. “All we had to do was follow the stink of trash.”
Josie lunged, and I just barely stopped her. I knew enough about the Masons to know they weren’t there to hurt Josie—that was about the only point I could give them—but that didn’t mean I wanted her within arm’s reach of any of them. She didn’t fight me like I’d expected.
She said, “Those are awfully tough words coming from a guy who studies managerial accounting on the East Coast and orders a Blue Hawaiian in a bar.”
I couldn’t help it—I smiled. Literally seconds away from having five grown men jump me, and all I could do was smile at the firecracker in my arms.
“And those are mighty judgmental words coming from a girl who cheats on a good man with this piece of trash.”
Josie wiggled in my arms. If she didn’t stop fighting me, I would be worn out before I got to the actual fight. “Since your dad basically bribed the county prosecutor to have a DUI dropped from your record, I’m putting it on record that your ideas of what a good man is are a tad skewed.”
The F-named Mason’s face went murderous. When he took a few steps our way, I moved Josie behind me and lifted my hands. “Not another step, Filly. Not another fucking step. I know why you’re all here, and that’s all fine and dandy, but you’d better wait until Josie is out of harm’s way before charging us again. So help me god, I might not be able to hold all five of you off, but I will kick those pretty white teeth straight down your throat if you keep coming at me with Josie right here.”
He slowed, but he didn’t stop. Colt and one of the younger brothers had to block his way. “You call me Filly one more time, and it’s your teeth getting kicked out.”
The testosterone was really starting to zap to life, and I think the moment was catching up with Josie. It felt like she was trying to herd me into her truck with her. “I don’t know your name, big guy, sorry. I’m just keeping with the family tradition of naming one son after a barnyard animal and running with it.” I pointed at one of the brothers still trying to hold Filly off. “Colt,” I stated, moving my finger to the next one. “Horses’s Ass.” And another Mason. “Jackass.” On to the youngest Mason. “Dumbass.” Ending on the oldest Mason—whose face had miraculously managed to get a shade redder. “Filly.”
Yes, I was stirring the hornet’s nest, but that’s what I did. If I was going to get into a fight, I expected my opponent—or in this case, opponents—to hit me like they meant it. No shots just because. There’d better be some intention and hate behind each hit or else that was just an insult to the fight. “By the way, just so we all have our facts straight, Josie didn’t cheat on Colt. It’s hard to cheat on someone when they’re not even your boyfriend.” Another Mason came for me, the one a year or two younger than Colt.
“Harrison, wait,” Colt ordered. “Garth’s right. Not until Josie’s out of here.”
“I’m not going anywhere, so all of you just stop trying to make me!” Josie hollered.
Colt and I both sighed. He said, “You might see things one way, Black, but Josie and I have been together, on and off again, for close to a year now.”
“Emphasis on the ‘off!’” Josie piped in.
I had an urge to kiss her again. Thankfully, I repressed that urge because I don’t think Colt could have taken me kissing the girl he was rather convinced had been his for the past year.
“Fine, you see things your way, and I see things differently, but all of that’s beside the point. You all came here with one thing in mind.” I unsnapped my cuffs and rolled up my sleeves. It looked like another new shirt would be getting ruined. “And we all know it wasn’t to talk this out.”