Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
TIMOTHY
I glanced down at my phone, surprised to see Mark’s number flash across the screen. I stepped out of the meeting with the HVAC accountant.
“Hey,” I answered.
“Holy motherfucker, T,” Mark said by way of greeting. “If you don’t marry Gia, I will. I’m serious. I’ll seduce her with shitty poetry and a bass boat.”
Despite everything, I barked out a short laugh. “What happened?”
Mark’s tone turned hard. “Jimmy’s been yanking her chain for days.
He cornered her at the hospital today and got in her face.
Tried to rough her up about the DEA bust. I know he leases out the plot, but they’ll start looking into his financial records.
They’ll get him and he knows it. He asked her to spy on you to see if you’re the rat who reported him. ”
If that bastard laid a hand on her—
Mark kept going. “She told him no. Same answer she’s given him every time he pushes. She wouldn’t help him dig up dirt on the family. Then he threatened Sofia.”
My vision tunneled. “He did what?”
“I damn near swung on him,” Mark said. “Coming after you is one thing. Coming after your little girl? Hell no. But then…” He gave a low whistle. “Your woman went feral.”
“That son of a bitch. I’ll kill him. I swear to God, I’ll—”
“Shut up and listen,” Mark ordered. “I’m trying to compliment your future wife.”
I went silent.
“She stepped right into Jimmy’s space. Told him if he touched Sofia, every Hurst in the county would fill him full of holes.” Mark paused, savoring it. “Then she said if they somehow missed, she’d put a bullet in his head herself because the one thing her father taught her was how not to miss.”
God, I loved that woman.
“Not. To. Miss. She was terrifying,” Mark said, sounding almost reverent. “I mean that as the highest compliment. She kind of reminded me of your mama. Sweet until suddenly you’re standing in front of a beautiful storm wondering if your obituary’s already been written.”
I grunted, because if I opened my mouth, I might start grinning like an idiot.
“Now,” Mark said, his voice dropping, “bad news. She may’ve won that round, but Jimmy ended Misty’s health insurance. Gia’s going to be beat to hell over it. And Misty…” He exhaled hard. “Misty’s not doing good, man. Jimmy thought hurting her sister would make Gia fold.”
“But she didn’t.”
“No,” Mark said, sounding equal parts horrified and impressed.
A dangerous swell of pride hit me right alongside rage.
“Anything else?” I asked, already reaching for my keys.
“Jackie said he’s close, which in his terms means he found something big.”
“Then we can end this thing soon and get you out. You okay?”
“No. Not okay,” Mark said. “I need three beers, a therapist I can fuck, and about a hundred miles between me and that evil son of a bitch before I catch a murder charge.”
“You sound close.”
A humorless laugh crackled through the phone. “Buddy, I’m way past close.”
Then he hung up.
I headed for my truck, one thought pounding in my skull. Find Gia.
I’d make sure she was okay. Then I’d make sure Jimmy McClary never got within breathing distance of her again.
My phone rang when I was within five minutes of the vet hospital. Figured I’d start looking for her there and then get her schedule from Marty.
Josh.
My grip on the phone tightened.
Josh usually texted. He rarely called unless something was on fire, bleeding, or dead. Sometimes all three.
A cold knot formed low in my gut. I hoped the baby and Erika were okay. “Hey.”
On the other end, Josh sounded sick. “I didn’t know,” he blurted. “I swear to God, I didn’t know. I screwed up.”
I swallowed hard. “What did you do?”
“He’s here.”
Every muscle in my body went tight. “Who’s here?”
“At the equine conference. At the clinic. We’ve got two hundred vets crawling all over our center between sponsors, speakers, and exhibitors. I’m not in charge of this event. That’s Dr. Tori who runs the equine center. If I had—”
“Josh.” My voice came out sharp enough to get his attention. “Who?”
A beat of silence. Then—
“Gia’s ex. Justin Stevens.”
Dread slid straight down my spine.
Josh kept talking, words tumbling over each other now.
“He brought some woman with him—girlfriend, fiancée, hell if I know—and he’s strutting around like he owns the place.
Then Dr. Tori wanted me to give him a tour since he’s apparently some well-known, boarded equine surgeon with at least one, maybe two new procedures named for him that she wants to hire, but that’s not the problem. ”
My hand clenched so hard on the steering wheel the leather groaned. “What’s the problem?”
“He confronted Gia, which wasn’t pretty. The things she claims he did at their last practice to make her life miserable… It was bad. How could anyone do that to someone as kind and hard working as her unless they were an insecure asshole?”
Rage flashed, hot and violent, through me. “You can’t hire him, not if you want Gia to stay. I need her to stay.”
“I don’t want someone like that in my practice.
If my wife gets within spitting distance of that guy, it’ll be war.
Erika adores Gia. This guy is the kind of walking ego Erika wouldn’t like.
If she gets a whiff of him mistreating Gia, it’ll be bad.
Hell, if she hears what he did to her back in Tennessee, she might set his car on fire with him in it.
Not a hard stretch to bet Gia blitzed this guy’s ass herself before she moved here.
” Josh swore under his breath. “Shit, the asshole’s heading out, probably to confront her again in the parking lot. I gotta go.”
“I’m pulling in right now.”
* * *
GIA
I hit the truck’s steering wheel. It wouldn’t start again.
I’d tried all my secrets for turning it over.
Now I’d have to go back inside and get someone to jump it, unless I took my own car to the farms or used my car to jump the truck.
I hated driving my little car down the pothole-filled dirt roads.
I dropped my head, pulled in a deep breath, and got out.
“Gia.” The deep voice cracked through my panic.
Turning, I saw Timothy striding toward me with a look that made me lean against the truck for support. It wasn’t anger or softness, but purpose. Pure, focused, dangerous purpose.
Justin and Amy trailed behind him. Of course, Justin wasn’t done. He’d never let me get away with that much humiliation without getting his ounce of payback.
Fresh nausea rolled through me.
Then Timothy was close enough to blot out the rest of the world.
“Gia.” His big hands wrapped gently around my arms, steadying me when I hadn’t realized I was shaking. “Look at me.”
I tried. I really tried. But my eyes kept darting past his shoulder to see Justin’s reaction.
His hand slid to my jaw, firm but tender, anchoring me. “Look. At. Me.”
The quiet command cut through the chaos in my skull.
I met his eyes.
Concern lived there and beneath it was a kind of steel that promised violence if anyone bothered him.
“Whatever he was to you…whatever he did, it’s the past. What matters right now is right here,” he said it like he was reminding me of something sacred. His forehead dipped closer. “I won’t let him hurt you anymore.”
Somewhere behind him, distant and warped by the roar in my ears, Justin shouted, “Gia—”
Timothy cupped the back of my head and kissed me. Not sweet. Not tentative. A claiming, grounding kiss that knocked every frantic thought clean out of my head and replaced them with one thing—him.
Air rushed back into my lungs when he pulled away.
“I’ve got you,” he said against my mouth, voice rough with conviction. “I swear it.”
Emotion hit so hard it hurt. My fingers lifted to his cheek, dragging over rough stubble, needing something real to ground me. For the first time all day, my mouth remembered how to smile.
He pressed his forehead to mine. “That guy is nothing to you now.”
“Gia…Regina!” Justin hollered.
Timothy jerked back, offended on my behalf. “Did he use the R-word?”
A startled laugh escaped me, half hysteria, half delight. “I believe he did. He uses it when I don’t listen.”
Slowly, Timothy and I turned.
Amy stood beside Justin, arms folded, looking entirely too entertained. In my peripheral vision, I caught Josh stalking our way with murder brewing in his expression.
Justin’s gaze bounced from Timothy’s arm around me to my face. “Who’s this bastard?” he sneered. “Is he your flavor of the week?”
Timothy tensed, going predator still. Every hard line had sharpened into something brutal enough to make sane men back away.
How could I have ever compared Justin to this? This was power and determination. Justin had intelligence and conceit with a side dish of vanity, not this.
Justin’s mouth curved in practiced sympathy—the kind that never reached his eyes. “Come on, Gia,” he said gently, as if soothing someone unreasonable. “There’s no need to make yourself upset over the idea of working together again.”
Josh stepped forward beside Timothy.
“Hold up on this notion of you taking a job here,” Josh said, deadly calm. “Did you just call my brother a bastard and imply our Dr. Gia is a slut?”
The world shifted. One thing everyone knew about the Hurst brothers was this—they could fight each other, hate each other, bloody each other, but the second an outsider came for one of theirs, they closed ranks like wolves around the vulnerable spot in the pack.
Timothy moved me behind him. Josh stepped in beside him to put a six-foot wall between me and my ex.
I’d never been someone seen as worth defending like this before. I had never been the person people chose. I was tucked safely inside the violence they were willing to unleash on my behalf.
Then, as if there wasn’t enough testosterone or impending felony charges in one parking lot, Sheriff Dante Rivera stalked up in full uniform, complete with the brown hat.
Dante had first been introduced to me as Josh’s best friend and best man, but then I started treating Dante’s five-month-old Schnauzer.
Over the course of four emergency visits, the furry terrorist had eaten six pacifiers, half a sofa cushion, a sock, and, somehow, a decorative bar of soap.
Dante and I had bonded while I induced vomiting in a seventeen-pound demon dog determined to bankrupt him on emergency vet bills.
“Ladies. Boys,” Dante drawled in his peacemaker voice, hands settling on his duty belt. “What we got goin’ on here?”
Josh jerked a thumb at Justin. “That is Gia’s ex. He just called Timothy a bastard and implied Gia’s a slut.”
“It’s rich coming from him,” I said from behind Timothy. “He broke his marriage vows several times before I divorced him.”
Dante slowly turned toward Justin. “That right?”
Justin frowned, trying to puzzle out what was happening.
He knew the courtesies of the South well enough—yes ma’am, no sir, firm handshake, practiced smile—but he’d never understood the soul of a place like this.
He was too full of himself to grasp that in the South, communities were braided tight: family, church, business, friendships.
Everything was all tangled together into something powerful enough to close ranks against a man like him.
Dante smiled. It wasn’t a comforting smile. It was the smile of a man who’d absolutely help you change a tire…then arrest you…then stop by your mama’s house to politely explain why you were stupid.
“I never implied that about her,” Justin said quickly, taking a step back. “I’m here to say hello to Gia since I’m in the area and considering a job here.”
“That so?” Dante asked, suddenly laying his Southern accent on thick enough to pour over biscuits. The accent was objectively ridiculous coming from a Hispanic man who grew up in Miami and moved here in middle school. He’d grown up speaking faster Spanish than English.
Dante tipped his hat back. “Well now, let me offer a little friendly local guidance. Looks to me like you’ve managed to stir up the Hurst boys.
” He glanced at Timothy. Then Josh. Then, disturbingly, seemed to count heads like he was assessing burial logistics.
“These boys,” Dante continued conversationally, “are the sort to shoot first, drag you out to the back forty second, and argue over who gets to feed what’s left of you to the bears. ”
His pause was so dramatic that I expected background music from a mafia crime movie to chime in.
“Now legally”—Dante tapped the shiny badge on his chest—“I’m required to strongly discourage that sort of behavior.” Then he smiled wider. “Unofficially… I’m off duty in thirty-seven minutes.”
Justin went ghost white.
Amy grabbed his arm. “We should go.”
“Excellent instinct,” Dante drawled approvingly. “Follow that feeling.”
Justin pointed weakly at me before he walked away. “We need to talk later. Gia—”
Timothy lunged forward.
Dante casually hooked an arm across Timothy’s chest without even looking at him, stopping two hundred-plus pounds of fury like he was restraining an overexcited Labrador.
“Nope,” Dante said mildly. “Not while I’m wearin’ the hat.”
Timothy glared. “Take off the hat.”
Dante considered it. Reached up—
Lifted it an inch—
Set it back down.
“Nope. Pension’s too good.”
A laugh burst out of me—sharp, helpless, and wild with relief. Every man there turned toward me.
Timothy’s entire face softened.
Josh looked startled, then pleased.
Dante grinned. “Got Doc Gia laughing. I’d call that crisis management achieved.” Then he pointed at Justin’s retreating back. “Good thing you called me, Josh. Now, I may just be a hick sheriff, but I wouldn’t recommend hiring him on here. I think it will land your bastard brother in prison.”
Josh chuckled and shook his head. “I wouldn’t do it for my brother.
He’ll land his own ass in jail over Gia if that guy pushes him.
I wouldn’t hire him because of Gia.” He gave me a hard stare.
“We can’t lose you. I’m serious.” His gaze darted to Timothy for an instant.
Then back to me. “The clients love you. You’re damned good at this. We need you here.”
“Josh, can you push off whatever calls she’s got for about two hours? I’m going to take her to lunch.” Timothy took my hand and led me toward his car.