Bounty (Colorado Mountain 7)

“Do you all inject extra testosterone or is this just a Colorado Mountain anomaly?” Joss joked.

He shifted his gaze again to her.

She took in his face.

“Right,” she whispered. “Time for fun and laughter later.”

She gave wide eyes to her daughter.

Jussy wasn’t in the mood either and Deke knew it when she smiled a half smile to her mom that she didn’t mean and then looked into the dark where Maverick was being escorted on his approach to the deck.

Jussy remained standing by a chair while Rod draped himself casually over another one opposite where Jussy was at the pit. One of his long legs over an arm, the other leg splayed in front of him, back to the corner of the chair.

But the rock-god-on-a-throne bullshit was all a show. His attention was fastened to the kid coming up the steps and his mouth was tight.

Maverick made his ascent glaring at Jussy the whole time, which moved Deke to her back, and close.

The men and Twyla retreated but stood in the yard not near, not far.

“Right, now that I did all that to get to the great Justice Lonesome, what next? You want me to jump through burning hoops?” Maverick asked snottily.

The blood rushed to Deke’s head again as he growled, doing it beginning to move around his woman, “That’s it. You’re done.”

She caught his hand and did it tight.

That wouldn’t have stopped him.

But she also said in a voice that held persuasion and deep emotion, telling him she wanted him to drop the macho bullshit and let her guide this from here on out.

“Deke, baby. Please.”

He halted at her side, his eyes locked to Maverick.

He heard Justice take a deep breath, releasing his hand, before she stated, “Okay, Mav, you’ve got five minutes. You can be a douche or you can explain why you’re here. I would advise against being a douche for a full five minutes, though. Deke kinda likes me which means he definitely doesn’t like it when people do shitty things to me so I’m not sure how long I can hold him back.”

Maverick opened his mouth but before a sound came out, Rod spoke.

And he got more respect because Deke didn’t think the man had that pissed-off, kinda-dad, do-not-fuck-with-my-girl-or-I’ll-make-you-hurt tone in him.

But he seriously fucking did.

“For once in your life, son, be smart. And take that advice seriously, hear me?”

Maverick looked to Rod, to Joss, to Deke, and finally, like it took effort, he turned his attention to Jussy.

“It shits me to be here,” he declared.

“You’ve kinda made that obvious,” Jussy returned.

He shifted on his feet, a full shuffle, casting his eyes down to them, pulling his shit together, and he looked back up.

“Mom doesn’t know, but talked to Mr. T. He says the terms are ironclad. We…I mean, I contested the will so I’ve lost everything. And he isn’t backing down on that. So I need you to…to…I need you to talk to him, Jus.”

Jussy didn’t reply and the kid waited for it but not long enough to get his head straight, read the situation, and not give too much away or make himself seem like an even bigger dick.

“We had three attorneys that advised—” He cut himself off then kept going, “The one we got, I, Jus, seriously, I didn’t like him from the start. And I think he just wanted to take Mom’s…I mean, my money. I talked to Mr. T, said I’d drop the suit, he says he can’t do anything to help me. He says it’s all Dad. He says it’s all legal-like and the suit was filed so I relinquished all claim and now I have to pay back the money that’s frozen in my accounts or I can go to jail. But I know Mr. T can do anything and I know, if you talked to him, he’d do anything for you. So I need you to talk to him.”

When Jussy remained silent, the tension thick around the fire pit, his situation clear that he was not amongst friends, far from it, Maverick stupidly rushed to fill the void.

“I…I…well, I thought on it and I don’t even mind that…that…woman gets her piece.” He shook his head and right in front of Deke’s eyes, dropped more than a decade, turning from a boy who refused to be a man right into a stupid, selfish kid. “But, even you gotta agree that…that…woman…that it’s not fair, not right that she gets a third. A third of what’s ours. Yours and mine. I mean, that’s crazy, right?”

Finally, Jussy spoke.

“It’s clear it hasn’t dawned on you, Mav, that the money Dad worked his ass off all his life to earn is his money. It’ll always be his money. Even after he’s gone, it’s still his. And we don’t have fuck all to say about what he wants to do with it. He’s shared explicitly what he wanted to happen with that money and it’s not for me or you or Dana or Joss or anyone who loved him with all their heart to say anything different.”

The stubborn hit his face when he turned his eyes to Joss. “Even you gotta agree with me about her.”

“I don’t gotta do anything, boy,” Joss said quietly. “And for the record, I don’t agree. She loved your father, loves him in a way he’s gone and that’s never gonna die. She treated him right. She believed in him. She stood by his side no matter what, and I’m glad he had that, at least with one of the three women he let into his life.”

At her mother’s words, Deke felt Jussy’s hand brush the back of his in a searching way.

So he twisted his wrist and closed his fingers around hers tight.

She didn’t close hers around his the same way.