She would love this man until the end of time. This man would be there for her day or night, in sickness and in health.
She had no questions whatsoever. Jax Jackson belonged to her. Jax Jackson was her man, her lover. And while he had her body, was taking and claiming her, it was her heart he wanted most.
Jax loved her. She would spend her life making sure she was deserving of his love.
Chapter Twelve
“He’s fucking her,” Tyler said, standing at the bay window overlooking Circle J Farms. “I can feel it.”
“The only thing you feel is that hard-on you’ve had for Brianna since you were a senior in high school.”
“Don’t be sick, man. She was just a pretty young thing then.”
“A pretty young thing you happened to want to fuck,” Flint pointed out. “Don’t feel bad. I did, too. We all better thank God she never got a hold of me back then. Lord knows with my cocksure attitude, love-’em-and-leave-’em business cards, and don’t-call-them-because-they’ll-definitely-call-you kind of attitude, we probably wouldn’t get a second chance now.”
“I forgot about those little calling cards you passed around,” Tyler said, remembering how he and Jax had told him the only way to make an impression on a gal was to hand off a business card after a tryst. They had gone on to forget about it. Then one rainy afternoon, their mother approached them and wanted to know what kind of older brothers would set up his younger brother to fail in life.
Being a forthright fellow, Jax had said, “Momma, excuse me for saying so but we didn’t set him up to fail. Thanks to those cards, Flint is getting laid from here to Morristown.”
They were grounded soon after that. Hell, they’d probably still be grounded to this very day if the damn meth heads hadn’t killed their parents.
Tyler’s eyes watered at the memory.
“What’s wrong now, big brother?” Flint asked. “Tell me you aren’t crying over lost time in the sack.”
“It’s not that,” Tyler said, using his shoulder to wipe away fallen tears.
“Mom and Dad?”
“It’s like yesterday. One minute they’re here and the next they’re gone.”
“Five years pass in the blink of an eye,” Flint said philosophically. “I’ve thought a lot about them lately, too. We know they liked Brianna and—”
“They hated her father. They may have liked the girls, but they died thinking Alberto Baldini would eventually bring the very trouble he represented straight to this town.”
“I know what you’re thinking. Don’t say it because there was never any evidence about that.”
“No, there was not,” Tyler said, thinking back to the accident. “It was an accident. Dad had no idea what was going on in that lower barn. He hadn’t used it in years. Baldini was too smart. His boys and those who dealt with him didn’t go to abandoned properties and start cooking meth in a stranger’s barn.”
The landline rang and Tyler grabbed it. “Tyler Jackson here. Hello?”
“It’s Andrew. Man, I’m sorry. They walked.”
“What do you mean, they walked?” God, he was furious!
“We didn’t have enough evidence to hold Handsome Reynolds. He and his buddies walked out of here right after they got here. Several guys from New York picked them up.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Tyler slammed the phone down before Andrew said anything else.
“They walked.”
“Fuck yeah,” Tyler said, remembering the very day, the first and last hour anyone was held in conjunction with the meth lab discovered on their farm all those years ago. They’d found two fellows who had even said they ‘might have cooked there in the past but they couldn’t remember’ and due to the lack of evidence, they were never tried and never convicted. They left the Erwin area before Jax could even make it to the jail to question them himself.
Flint picked up the phone. “I’ll let Jax know.”
“Tell him they have more boys in town. We may be expecting trouble later tonight.”
* * * *