Page 45 of Not Mine to Rescue

Something evil washed over his face. It was jarring enough to stand out from his usual contempt. “Let’s talk about the noise complaint here.”

He changed the subject. Interesting. That meant he’d rather deal with something as trivial as a complaint than pursue an attempted murder if it meant he’d have to talk to Honoria. Chalk one up for my sexy little badass.

Wait a minute... she wasn’t mine. I logged that somewhere between bird rehabilitation practices and the right balance needed to pop a wheelie on a Street Glide. Of course, it slid over to the mental filing cabinets labeled “sex” as all things feminine usually did. But I multitasked well and asked the cop, “Who’s making noise?”

He jabbed his pointer-finger at Winter. “Your girlfriend.”

I needed to expedite this, not argue semantics. “What the fuck are you doing here, Winter?”

“I came to see you.”

No she didn’t. She came to cause trouble. Moreover, her antics were getting old. “Any charges?”

Joe shook his head.

“Good,” I switched attention to Winter. “Did you drive here?”

She shook her head. “I got dropped off by a friend.”

Damn, she was too stupid to live. “Get in the truck.”

While I ignored the shimmy she put into her ass as she got in my ride, I studied Zee and Digger. “We good? She didn’t cause any destruction did she?”

Digger waited until Joe’s attention was on something else. Then he lowered his volume. “We can’t have her chasing you all over the fucking place and bringing the cops around.”

No shit.

“I’ll take care of it.”

Looking back, it was the wrong thing to say in front of witnesses.

Chapter Twelve

Honoria

My caseload was insane. How could one man’s absence cause so much chaos? Jim didn’t carry half my usual volume, yet his cases were complex messes. I was ears-deep in reading through his notes when the office volume increased dramatically. I listened hard to determine if it was a good increase or a bad one as I reached for the locked bottom cabinet of my desk.

I was licensed to carry, but opted to leave my gun in the relative safety of its biometric-locked storage box. It was doubly protected from theft via the locked drawer, along with the building’s security. I couldn’t take it with me to court, so it remained here. The only time I ever used it was for target practice. But Jim had talked me into buying it and learning how to handle it because, and I quote, “It’s not just your safety, but your coworkers’ with the clients we handle.”

Maybe if we defended each and every client well enough, there wouldn’t be reason to worry, Jim.

I hadn’t even gotten the drawer unlocked before determining the noise was a party in progress.

Didn’t we have enough of those over the holidays?

I tucked my keys back into my pocket and brushed the wrinkles out of my suit. If my absence was noticed, they’d hunt me down. And I preferred not to be cornered in my office with cake and confetti that clung to vertical surfaces for decades.

The smile I plastered on froze as I opened the door and took in the scene.

Jim was there. So was his wife, Denise.

And the little Crowne.

“Honey! Come meet Jacob Bridger Crowne. We’re calling him Jake for short.”

Oh fuck. My skin was going cold, and little prickles of fear scrambled up and down my arms. I shifted so the goosebumps forming on my back and shoulders didn’t tickle so badly. “Hey. It’s only been what? Two weeks?”

How in the hell had the doctors cleared the baby for public consumption? He was still in that zero to six-week range where his immune system wasn’t developed. Was Jim nuts?