Page 23 of Bad Boy in Her Bed

“When I was little, yeah.But by fifth grade, I was one ofthose Baker boyscoming up behind Winter.I don’t know how much you’ve heard about my older brother, but I guarantee every rumor is true.”He licked his lips and smirked.“Not saying I didn’t contribute to the family legacy, but it was always for altruistic purposes.”

Crossing her arms, she leaned back.“Altruistic?So a modern day Jean Valjean?”

“Well maybe not that altruistic all the time.”He laughed.“Sometimes I was just a punk.How about you?Were you always going to be an accountant?”

Straightening smugly in her seat, she folded her hands on her lap.“I’ll have you know I wanted to be a princess or a fashion designer, until I discovered jobs in royalty were scarce and I can’t draw.”Her steel eyes narrowed.“I can’t picture you being a teenage thug.You aren’t vicious.And you’re smart.Maybe once Grey’s done with school, you could give it a go.”

“Thug is extreme.I fought when I had to.Like Winter.But neither of us were the type to jump people.Most of the guys doing that had parents with the money to bail them out.”Polishing off the last of his burger, he turned to his dwindling pile of fries.“As long as Serpent’s Tongue is viable, I have no desire to go back to school.I was expelled at sixteen, so even if I did want to go, I’d have to get my GED first.”

Her eyes widened.“Expelled?What for?”

“Stealing shoes from the locker room,” he admitted.“River was growing fast and there was no way our dad would replace the sneakers his feet had blown holes in, so I took care of it.”Clearing his throat, he nodded at the stack of familiar receipts on the table.“Speaking of theft, what were you wanting to know about the gun repairs?”

*

Jocelyn took amoment to switch gears, her thoughts still fixated on the idea of a teenage Birch sacrificing his future to ensure his brother had shoes.It was another reminder that he wasn’t like the man who’d swindled her, pursuing her with expensive gifts and trips to private resorts with the hope he could break her ethics before the courts broke him.He wasn’t like the others, who saw the tarnished reputation her ex left her with and attempted an encore of their own.

But it does prove he would do anything to protect what’s his.

The words hissed through her mind, slithering deep into the back where she kept her betrayals and heartaches locked up tight.

“Um, here,” she stammered, rolling the food cart aside and inching her chair closer to him to set the two receipts down.“Now, I’m not even halfway into the expense receipts, but these two are similar enough to stand out.”

He frowned as he studied them, his jaw flexing as he clenched and unclenched his teeth.“That’s Ryder’s writing.And the vendor is the company we buy the tattoo guns from.But we haven’t had one break down, so I don’t know why he’d write these up.”

Flipping through the pile she’d already entered into her spreadsheets, she removed six more receipts, placing sticky notes to mark their positions.“These are from the same stock pad you can pick up at any office supply store.”

They examined the scant, handwritten details.Each paper listed companies Birch recognized, but he couldn’t identify the reason the receipt existed.Dates were hastily scrawled in, the amounts rounded up to the nearest hundred.

“That fucker,” he whispered beside her, his eyes dark as he got to his feet and paced the floor.“What the hell has he been up to?”

Tracking the discrepancies in her notebook, she returned the receipts to their places in the pile and stepped in front of him, placing her hand on his chest to halt his movements.“Without knowing what else I might find, this looks like a business partner skimming a bit extra for himself.But it isn’t anything either of you would face jail time for, okay?This isn’t the worst scenario, Birch.”

His entire demeanor had shifted back to the tense vigilance he’d had when he walked into the room an hour ago.Gone was the smile she’d managed to coax from him while they ate, the easy banter they’d fallen right into again.

The difference in his stance alone was stark, something she hadn’t noticed before now.Through his grey tee she could see the strain in his muscles, as though each one was spring-loaded and ready to fight.It was the way he’d looked the day she met him, the way he’d walked into the room earlier.She could see the stress he held in his every movement, the casual strength he exuded when he was relaxed around her now replaced by a caged animal.

He looked down at her fingers splayed across his chest and swallowed, the tension in his jaw holding.“I promised Grey I’d help him with his car before it gets dark.Will you text me if you come across anything else?”When she nodded, he took a step back and turned, walking straight out her door.

Chapter Eleven

Birch leaned overthe engine of Grey’s old car and put a little extra muscle into unscrewing the final spark plug.“That’s the last of them,” he grunted, as he tugged a rag from his back pocket and wiped the grease from his hands.“I should be able to get those new ones in there before sunset.How’s the oil looking?”

Grey shimmied out from under the car, filthy from the waist up.“Drained, sealed, and ready to add the fresh.”He got to his feet and blew at a long strand of chestnut hair that had escaped his haphazard ponytail.“Where’s the jug?”

“Back of my truck.Could you grab my phone, too?I left it on the front seat.”

Birch tore open the first package of plugs and slipped one into his pocket, then ducked back under the hood and screwed in the first one.

Keeping Grey’s car in working condition was his top priority this evening.

Not checking his phone obsessively to see if Jocelyn found more evidence of Ryder screwing him over.

And definitely not checking to see if she reached out to him for any other reason.

He was a mess by the time he left her hotel room hours earlier.His contingency plans were shifting with every new piece of information.Potential complications were saved in his mind for consideration tonight when he was alone in the dark with time to think.Thoughts of returning to prison were in the forefront, regardless of Jocelyn’s assurances that she saw nothing illegal.

Yet.

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