Page 50 of Jaxon

Cormac looked over at me. "Don't know whether or not to feel insulted by that. Shit, Dad looks like he's going to start tearing off some limbs."

Slade had his fists tight as he marched toward us. My dad's massive shadow fell across the sand as he swept along the beach. I was bigger than him, but I still wasn't Hunter fucking Stone … as much as I wanted to be.

"We still outnumber them," one of Ivan's men said with far less confidence than the phrase deserved.

"That's what you fucking think," Slade said. He was the first to reach us, and he wasted no time. Cormac had inherited his dad's lightning-fast reflexes, but he was a sloth compared to his dad. Slade picked his mark and went straight at him. The guy didn't even know what fucking hit him as Slade's fist pounded his face not once but three times at jackhammer speed.

The six of us fell into an almost organized fight pattern. I knew my dad fought plenty when they were younger, but once we were born, the Stone boys had toned it way down. My cousins and I sort of stepped in to fill the troublemaker void, but we were never like them. None of us had ever had to fight with our fists to survive. We'd all had it good growing up.

Dad caused one of the thick-neck giants to drop down to the sand in a sort of big bully surrender. I was still holding my own but starting to feel all the bumps and bruises. With the help of the badass old man trio, we'd pretty much wiped the sand with our opponents. Ivan and a few others were still trying to hold the line, but the chaos came to an end when Officer Prentiss blew his whistle and yelled at us through a megaphone.

"All fighting stops now, or I will arrest each and every one of you." Red veins were sticking out from his neck. Officer Adams stood next to him, looking unsure of how all this was going to end.

We peeled apart. Ivan and his team of muscle-heads were close to surrender anyhow. Cormac, Griffin and I were bruised and bleeding, but the dads looked about the same as they had when they stepped on the beach. Colt had a cut on his lip, and Dad wiped his bloody knuckles on his jeans. Slade still had his fists curled. He glared at our opponents to let them know one move and he was going to lunge at them.

"You all right?" Dad put his hand on my shoulder.

I looked at him and nodded. "Thanks." Mom always liked to tell me that I'd never appreciated my dad enough, that I'd never appreciated how much he'd gone through to make it safely to adulthood, that I'd never appreciated the fact that Hunter Stone would smash mountains, cross seas and face down the fiercest enemies to keep all of us safe. But she was wrong, I did appreciate all of that about him. Sometimes it was hard growing up in his enormous shadow, but I still always stood in awe of him.

The moms reached us, too. My mom looked at the opponents and smiled. "Suckers. And whoever left my kid with two black eyes—I hope you're fucking constipated for the rest of your life."

Colt and Slade shook their heads with a laugh.

Prentiss and Adams had stayed back, out of the way but now seemed to consider it safe enough to walked toward us. I hadn't seen Walsh arrive, but he was there now, in his pristine suit and tie. He was flanked by a man on each side, both in fancy suits and glossy shoes. I glanced around the beach and that was when I spotted the one person I wanted to see. Interestingly enough, she was walking with Stella down to the sand. Stupidly, the first thing I thought was "LaLa better not be telling Bridget embarrassing shit about me."

Bridget was wearing a white dress and sandals, and she looked like the fucking angel she was as she came down the path. Seeing her jarred another memory, the short conversation with Alex on the highway. There was no fucking way she'd agreed to marry him. Just no fucking way.

Walsh and his two well-dressed sidekicks reached Officer Prentiss. He looked with disgust at his "security team." They looked like a bunch of nine-year-olds that had just had their asses handed to them in a game of tackle football.

"I want all of these men arrested, Officer Prentiss," Walsh said and waved his hand at our side. "And tell the crowd at the end of the beach that they're trespassing, and they need to vacate my land immediately."

Dad, Colt and Slade walked forward. They'd dealt with Prentiss in their younger days, when he was the young, inexperienced cop on the beat. According to them, he'd always been a weasel. At the same time, he had a loyalty to Trayton. He'd grown up here.

"Well, Officer Prentiss," Colt said looking straight at him. "Do you have room in that jail of yours for half a dozen Stones? Cuz all of us would do this again."

Mom marched forward. She was tiny, but everyone knew she was a fucking powerhouse. Prentiss flinched when she stuck her phone in his face. "Look what these assholes did to Cru. And Theo and the others ended up like this too. But go ahead, side with the rich outsider."

Prentiss lifted his cap and wiped sweat off his forehead. "All right, everyone. Let's calm down and talk about this."

Stella and Bridget reached us. Bridget glanced my way for a second and then avoided eye contact. Every muscle in my body throbbed, my face was on fire with pain and swelling made my knuckles ache but nothing hurt more than having her pull her gaze away so indifferently. Maybe Alex was telling the truth. All the physical pain vanished, replaced solely by the ache in my chest.

CHAPTER 24

BRIDGET

He was hurt, and all I wanted to do was run to him and lead him away to take care of his cuts and bruises. Jaxon stood there with his family, an unbelievably cool bunch of people, who came out to have each other's backs. Ivan and his band of brutish bullies looked broken beyond repair, both physically and in dignity. They'd been outmatched and beaten, even though there were nearly two of them for every single Stone.

When I got to the beach, I planned to run straight to Jaxon and let him know I never wanted to be away from him again, from this day forward, but then I saw him—the man who I'd come to loathe and mistrust as much as any horrid stranger. The man who raised me was just that—a complete stranger. But I had to keep up the farce. Until everything was in place, I had to pretend as if I'd come over to his way of thinking. I had to let him believe that I planned to marry Alex. I could feel the anguish coming from Jaxon. He was confused, hurt by my indifference, but I wasn't ready to break the act. There were still things in the works that needed to be completed before I could tell my dad to fuck off. And what a fuck off it was going to be.

Stella and I had met at the top of the trail. We spoke as casual acquaintances, but I hoped that one day we'd become like sisters. I'd never had siblings, and watching the Stones together, it made me realize how much I'd missed without a real family.

I stood back and watched helplessly as my dad steamrolled over everyone on the beach with his imperialistic arrogance. The locals had been told to leave, but they stood their ground, and it seemed that their main motive for staying was not just to keep their local beach but to show the Stones that they were behind them. The officers looked wholly out of their depth standing there between a large group of unhappy citizens, their citizens, and my dad's team. He'd brought along two of his harshest lawyers. They were insisting on arrests.

It seemed most of the small town of Trayton had made its way down to the beach. And their increasing numbers gave them more courage. They all moved closer to the action.

"Officer Prentiss, this is our beach, and we're not giving it up without a fight," a man with a thick beard and a Grateful Dead T-shirt yelled from the crowd.

"That's right," others said. "We've been surfing these waves for years, and we don't want a stupid high-end development at our back door."

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