Page 223 of Back in the Saddle

Bambi lifted a shoulder but said, “I’m sure you and the girls had other things to do that didn’t include finding me and the others and getting us out of that nightmare.”

“What comes around goes around,” Betsy piped in to sum things up.

Jinx got impatient.

“We’re gonna roll out…together,” she stated. “When we get somewhere, we’ll tell you if you can get out of the car or not. No questions asked, you bitches do as I say.Entendido?”

She was kind of scary when she got bossy.

Though, that wasn’t the only reason we all nodded.

“Bambi, you’re in their ride,” Jinx kept bossing. “We’ll all follow.” She turned to Betsy. “You go home.”

“They helped my girl and me, I want to help them,” Betsy said.

“This is time we don’t have, mama,” Jinx told her.

Betsy looked like she was going to be stubborn.

I fought screaming in impatience.

Betsy backed down. “Okay. You girls be super careful out there, okay?” Betsy asked.

We all nodded again.

Bambi hugged Betsy and we all went to our cars.

“Where they hang, if they still hang there, isn’t far from here,” Bambi told us, then gave Luna, who was driving, directions as we headed out of the diner’s parking lot.

She was in the front with Luna, which meant Raye, Harlow and I were wedged in the back.

“What?” Harlow asked me.

I was a little freaked at how well she knew me.

“Nothing,” I lied.

Bambi gave Luna more directions.

I looked behind us and saw Jinx behind the wheel of an older model Audi with some of the girls seated in her car, another car following them with the rest of the crew.

“What?” Raye asked, now watching me closely.

I faced forward, stretched my neck side to side and reminded them, “I know who knows where these operations are, which means they probably know where Homer is.”

“Your brother,” Harlow whispered.

“Jeff,” I confirmed.

“And you’re not calling him because?” Raye prompted carefully.

I looked to her. “I’m not calling him because, if he and Javi knew we were after these guys, they’d be down from the mountains in a shot. They also wouldn’t tell me where these guys are. But they sure would drag their asses down here and intervene.”

And by “intervene,” I meant possibly get dead like Joaquim and Jamal did.

“Maybe they can work with the men,” Harlow suggested.

“And maybe I don’t want my brother in that line of fire. I don’t want Javi in it either. Hell, I know how much experience the Hottie Squad has, and I’m in active denial thatthey’reinvolved in this mess.”

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