Bounty (Colorado Mountain 7)

Deke didn’t say anything and not only because they heard Krys shouting from inside, “Motherfucker!”

“Yo,” Twyla gave her greeting, not breaking stride as she walked right by him.

He followed Twyla in.

He had a decent-sized Airstream.

Him, Jussy and four women was four women too much.

“I do not believe this shit!” Krys was still shouting.

“Calm down,” Deke grunted.

Her eyes cut to him.

“Calm down?” she yelled.

“Hey, Jus,” Lauren said softly and he took his eyes from Krys to watch Laurie push through and set the bag on the floor by the couch. “Krys and I went to your place. Got some of your stuff. Think you’re covered but you need anything else, you give us a call and we’ll take care of it for you.”

“Hey, I’m Lexie,” Lexie stated before Jussy could get in a word to Laurie. Lexie was sidling closer to Jussy, doing it with a friendly but cautious smile on her beautiful face. “I get that it’s not a good time for us to meet but Krys was calling around, saying you were staying out here with Deke and we thought…you know…”

She did not share what she thought Jussy knew.

Krystal did.

“Jus’s gotta stay here with you, we’re doin’ a once-over of this place and an inventory. Told Chace I wanted Jus’s ass at Bubba and my place and he said Jus wanted to be here so she’s here. But she’s here and we’re gonna scrub it down so a female can live in your lair without toxic spores taking root in her lungs, not to mention we’re makin’ sure you got some food to feed her.”

She said all this to Deke, not Jussy, and she wasn’t done.

“And if you give me lip, I’ll be glad for it because I’m lookin’ for a reason to lose my mind and someone to lose it on and you’re a big guy. You’ll be able to take it when I do.”

“You women wanna clean my trailer, I’m down with that,” Deke replied and watched three women blink at him in surprise.

Twyla did not. She was a sister to her sisters and she was a sister to the brotherhood and not because she was a lesbian but because she was a badass. She knew any man would not turn down a pack of women cleaning his house.

So she was grinning.

“But you can come back and do it,” Deke went on. “Jussy’s gotta lie down and get some rest and before you give me shit,” he said the last, his voice lowering. “I already changed the sheets.”

“Talked with Tate,” Twyla said at this point, cutting off a Krys who had opened her mouth to speak, or maybe snap, though she could have also been set to do more yelling. “I’m not on tonight at Bubba’s so I am on tonight to keep a lookout here. Tate thinks, days, when she’s up for it,” she jerked her head Jussy’s way, “she’s at the garage with Stella, at the bar with Krys or at the salon with Lexie. Never alone. Public. Lots of traffic. She’ll be good.”

Deke announced an alternate scenario which was actually the only scenario.

“She’ll be here with me and when she’s good to go back home, I’ll be there with her.”

“Brother, you got work,” Twyla reminded him.

Which reminded him of something else, he not only had to call Decker to activate him to find this Bianca bitch, he also needed to call Max.

“And that work’s at her place so I’ll do that work once the cops free up Jussy’s house, doin’ it with Jussy there,” Deke replied.

“Okay then, now we’ll look at the food situation and then we’ll go shopping. We’ll come back in a few hours to clean,” Laurie decided.

“He needs a coffeemaker,” Jussy put in. “If anyone has an extra or if one of you could go back to my house and get mine out of the utility room, it’d be appreciated.”

“I got a kettle,” Deke said to her. “Don’t need a coffeemaker.”

“Deke, you need a coffeemaker,” she returned.

“No I don’t.”

“Let me rephrase,” Jussy fired back. “I need a coffeemaker.”

Instantly, Deke looked to Lauren. “You got the time, bring her coffeemaker.”

And he watched Lauren’s eyes get so huge it looked like they’d pop out of her head, and she did this, he knew, because she was trying not to bust a gut laughing.

Deke ignored that.

It had not been lost on him in the last couple of hours what his response to Jussy’s attack, and more, Jussy’s response to his response, meant.

That was not for now.

They’d talk that through later.

He had his gypsy princess with a banged-up face, a fucked-up throat and a man out there who they didn’t know dick about intending her harm.

He’d lived through the shit that went down with Lauren and Tate, it being Deke who carried Laurie to his truck after she’d been kidnapped and stabbed and then he drove like a crazy motherfucker to get her to the hospital. It’d been Deke who’d taken Lexie’s back when the dirty, now-dead police chief Fuller had targeted Ty to plant shit in his house that’d get his ass back in prison. And he’d been one of the men helping dig Chace’s now-wife Faye out of the ground.

Shit for Jussy was not going to get close to being that extreme.

What happened happened.

And now for her it was over.

That was what he had to focus on.

After that, they’d sort out the rest.

“You all do the inventory and ask Jus what she likes. Make a list. Me and Deke gotta have words,” Krys bossed, shot him a glare then stomped out of his trailer.