Page 255 of Back in the Saddle

Raye had nothing more.

“I told you four,” Tex pointed out. “You’ll blab it to everyone else. News shared. Done.”

He wasn’t wrong about that.

And he was definitely done, considering, without another word, he trudged back to the coffee cubby.

We all huddled.

“I don’t know what to say,” Harlow started it. “Seeing as I’m totally okay with all of this so I don’t have anything to say.”

“Me too,” Raye said.

“Totes,” Luna added.

Before I could add my affirmative, I heard, “Hey.”

I turned my head and saw my brother there.

“Sorry to interrupt, but can we talk?” he asked me.

The girls moved away, but not too far, because they were my girls, and we took care of each other that way (and other ways besides).

Jeff got close.

“You want a coffee or something?” I asked him.

“No, I don’t have a lot of time. I just wanna run something by you.”

I nodded.

“Javi and I just got done with a meeting at Nightingale Investigations and Security.”

Oh boy.

Eric hadn’t given me any heads up, so this could mean anything.

“Yeah?” I prompted.

“They offered us jobs.”

Okay then.

Eric had kinda given me a heads up.

I sucked my lips between my teeth.

My brother watched me do this before he asked, “You knew they were gonna do that?”

I let my lips go to use them to state, “Eric had mentioned he thought it was a good idea and he was gonna run it by Mace.”

“And you didn’t stop him?”

I was confused. “Why would I stop him?”

A beat went by and then Jeff was hugging me really, really tight.

As his arms squeezed me, my heart squeezed itself. It didn’t feel bad in the slightest.

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