Bounty (Colorado Mountain 7)

Through this declaration, Deke’s body went wired.

“They mentioning you?” he asked.

She shook her head and he relaxed. “Not according to Joss. But Mr. T has people monitoring that, like always, so he always knows what people are saying. So—”

She was cut off with her phone ringing.

Deke twisted, grabbed it, saw the display said it was her girl Lacey, and he gave it to her.

“Fun’s over,” she muttered as she took the phone from him.

“For now, Jussy. Take your calls. Make your calls. I’ll be here when it’s done.”

She smiled at him, took the call and put the phone to her ear.

“Before you start, I know, and hang on,” she said into it and put it face down on her chest. “Can I talk you into going to get sandwiches?”

She could talk him into anything.

He still didn’t move.

“You good here on your own?” he asked quietly.

“Not sure ghosts can touch you and I think they have to be tethered to the place they died or their home or something so I think I’m all right.”

She said that like she thought ghosts were real.

So he grinned at her.

Yeah, she’d be all right.

He dipped close, touched his mouth to hers then rolled off her.

He was reaching for his jeans when he heard, “I’m back.”

Lacey also must have heard a few things because the start of her conversation was about Deke.

They’d moved on to Bianca after he was dressed.

He put a knee to the bed, bent to her and brushed his lips against hers, pulled away and looked into her eyes.

She nodded and his gaze fell to her mouth as she used it to tell him silently, “I’m good, honey. Go.”

That was when Deke nodded, pushed away and walked out to his truck to get their sandwiches.

* * * * *

Deke let himself in Jussy’s front door and heard her playing guitar, the sound drifting into the big space.

If you’d asked him two months ago if he could tell from someone playing a guitar if they had the gift or if they just knew the chords, he couldn’t say he could tell the difference.

Listening to Jussy play, he could now tell the difference.

And it was good she was playing again. She hadn’t touched her guitar in the last week even if she’d had time to do her thing, this because her wrist was wrapped.

That wrap was now gone.

More good.

He walked into the room, seeing her in a tank and panties cross-legged in her bed, her guitar in her lap, her notebook open beside her, pencil in it, and she still was strumming but her eyes were to the door, watching him enter the room.

Deke then watched those big brown eyes warm at the same time he felt that warm in his gut.

She sniffed and begged, “Please make that smell be the southwestern turkey grill.”

Her favorite, turkey and jack with whole roasted green chiles grilled into a cheesy mess on white bread.

“Not gonna buy you ham the day after we found out that fuckface who strangled you bought it.”

She hated ham.

Deke figured that wasn’t the reason she grinned at him.

He walked to the nightstand as she swung her guitar out and set it on its back in the bed, walking on her knees to where he dumped their sandwiches and a grocery bag.

He pulled the two six-packs out, one of Coke for him, one of cherry Fresca for her. They were cold.

He popped a can from each, set them aside and muttered, “Be back.”

He took the rest to her fridge, shoved them in and then he was back.

She was again on her ass, her hand wrapped around a pack of paper plates held up in the air.

“Dude,” was all she said.

“What?” was his reply.

“Nothing says environmentally unfriendly more than a paper plate, except,” she gave him a wicked grin, “a paper towel.”

He sat on the edge of the bed and started pulling off his boots. “That’s just plain not true.”

“I’m a liberal artist. They find out I use paper plates, they won’t ask me to play at concerts to save the whales and shit.”

He looked to her. “You play those concerts?”

She was still grinning, though it was no longer wicked. “No.”

“Then you’re good.”

“I am but only because I have stoneware on order and might get a kitchen in the next century, so soon we won’t need to resort to paper plates,” she muttered. “And just for the record, I do want the whales to be saved…in a big way.”

He looked to her, smiling and twisting fully into the bed as she unwrapped sandwiches, putting them on paper plates.

“Speakin’ to that, not the whales, the kitchen, called Max,” he shared. “Told him progress on your house was suspended today due to celebratory circumstances.”

She waggled her brows. “Did you tell him all the celebratory circumstances?”

“No, but I’m gettin’ he gets ’em anyway seein’ as he said his wife Nina wants us to pick a date to go to The Rooster. That’s us, not you. They’re payin’,” he told her. “Client dinner. Max can write it off. Nina can look you over. And we can eat a fuckin’ great steak.”

“I’m in as soon as my black eye is totally gone.”

“I’ll let him know.” Deke took the plate she gave him with the sandwich buried under an upended Big Grab of Chili Cheese Fritos. “Get your calls done?”

She’d taken a big bite, was nodding and chewing.

Once she swallowed, she said, “Lacey and Mr. T. Mr. T and my publicist are on it with the LA cops so they can put a lid on anything leaking about this having anything to do with me. Mr. T is good at that shit. I don’t wanna know and he doesn’t share his secrets, but I figure he’s right now deep in the throes of palm greasing.”