Page 121 of His Wounded Heart

“You have this adorable little frown when you’re concentrating. Are you having to deal with a spreadsheet?”

I take off my glasses and toss them on the desk. We’ve been working across from one another in this head-to-head office setup for the last six days. I’ve been so goddamned bored waiting for mine and Dex’s plans to bear fruit, that I’m even ready to start going through my Navy mail today. Not only am I bored, I’m horny. But there isn’t a chance in hell I’m going to do anything about it when we have Bella in the house with us, and therein lies the problem.

Trenda disagrees with me.

She thinks we can finesse this if we have sex in the upstairs master, then she goes down to her room downstairs. While that is a wonderful suggestion, I don’t want the slightest chance of her impressionable girl finding us in bed together. Not that I think it will scar her. Nope, not that. I just think that any man who is in her mother’s bed better damn well be either her husband or her soon-to-be-husband.

And I’ve decided that’s what I want to be, her soon-to-be-husband. I want to be her husband here in Jasper Creek, but Arthur has bought up all the dry-cleaning franchises, so I have no fucking clue what I’m going to do for a living.

I bring this up to Josiah when I’m on the phone with him. It’s oh eight hundred and I’m freezing my motherfucking ass off outside calling him on my satellite phone, explaining my problems, when he suggests that I retire.

“I have retired, remember? I draw a pension from the Navy and everything. I’m talking, what is my job going to be every day?”

“Shit, Simon, not only do you have savings, you do have your pension, and those rental properties bringing in money every month. So, sit back and enjoy life. Maybe get her pregnant and become a house husband.”

“Not that childrearing isn’t a full-time job, but I’ve been missing the job. Not the fucking politics, but the puzzles, the strategizing, the juice. I always planned to stay until I got my forty in. By then I planned to have a plan. But I don’t have a fucking plan!”

I am so pissed at myself for not having had more foresight.

“The way I see it, you’re one of the lucky ones. Not everybody ends up with their soulmate.”

I rock back on my heels. Soulmate. That word has never passed my lips, but as soon as Josiah says it, it fits. That’s what she is to me. I think all the way back to that first moment she sidled up beside me at the check-out line, all smart-ass like, and even at that moment I knew she was pretty damned special.

“You with me, Simon, or did I just rock your world? I know that you’d prefer a root canal without anesthesia to discussing feelings.” Josiah laughed.

“Fuck you,” I said without heat. “I’m thinking.”

“Think faster. You have the makings of a beautiful life right there in your hands. Grab hold and don’t let it go because you can’t figure out what you want to be when you grow up. You’ve found the most important thing; the other shit will work itself out.”

“You’re right,” I say. I’m still in shock. The man is totally right.

“I know I am. Now I want to meet her, so you better be bringing her to the wedding. You’ve got three weeks to get a ring on her finger. I want to see that girl of hers too. She sounds like a little firebrand.”

“I have to go, Josiah.”

I hear him laughing before I end the call.

When I get back into the house, I smell something delicious coming from the kitchen, so I follow my nose. Trenda has stir-fry sizzling in the wok. I come up behind her and move her hair so I can kiss her behind her ear.

“What’s that for?” she asks.

“Just because.”

“That’s a good reason,” she responds.

“I’ve been monitoring the attorney’s office. They are executors of Harris’ will and they’re dragging their feet distributing assets because they haven’t heard back from Trenda. According to the notes taken by Horace Grant’s assistant, there are two very pissed-off people. They demand to be told who is holding up the process, and they’re threatening to sue the law firm. I’ve forwarded this to your email this time,” Dex said.

I look over to where Trenda is helping Bella with the homework she received from her schoolteacher.

“What else you got?” I ask.

“Junior and Richard are running the business since Daddy’s death and it’s not going well. The board of directors is pissed. I got ahold of the notes to the last board meeting, and they’re not happy with how things are being run, especially about the lawsuit they are supposed to be handling.”

“The company is being sued?”

“Yeah. I’m sending the filing over to you, as well as the board of directors’ notes. Here’s what’s been bothering me, Simon. Whereas Carla didn’t have any cash lying around to pay someone to take pictures, the boys have access to the company coffers so I think they do, even Richard, who’s broke.”

“Enough for a hit?” I whisper my question. I press my fingers against the bridge of my nose. Trenda had told me how her parents had actually tried to kill her youngest sister for the land her grandmother had bequeathed her. It’s possible that it has come around full circle and this time one of Bella’s half-brothers is trying to kill her.