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She wasn’t even going to pretend they were floating through life, living for today. She wanted all the tomorrows—no matter what they brought.
“I don’t know that…” Van began.
Hale held out a hand. “We’ll sit down and figure out our finances. Mine tend to come in big payments that I have to use to buy supplies and such, and we’ll have costs associated with starting up Van’s business. I need a system to help me make sure I’m making the most of my money during a job. The good news is we have a guy who’s good with numbers.”
Van nodded, obviously shoving some unnamed emotion down as he looked at his best friend. “I’ve got some thoughts about software that will help you estimate a job. We’ll make it work.”
It was such a relief that they’d both lost the pessimism and they were all on the same page.
“But until then, we need to talk about cars,” Hale said with a sigh as he moved into the kitchen to grab a mug. “Because we are now three adult humans with one car between us, and it’s owned by the county.”
At least she could help out in this way. “The good news is my sister and I have three. We never sold my mom’s Jeep. It’s in great condition. We can pay my sister for her part of the car. She’s got her own. All we have to do is drive it and my truck out here from North Carolina and we’re set.”
“Road trip.” Van grinned. “That’ll be fun.”
There was a knock on the door and Van started moving toward it. “I guess Jake got back early. I’m probably going to learn a lot about electrician stuff in the next few hours. I’m sure the system is elaborate.”
She actually wouldn’t mind learning some of that, but she was due at the station house in half an hour.
Hale poured himself a cup of coffee. “You want some toast, baby? I can do toast. I burn everything else.”
And Van was actually a good cook. Between the two of them they could do anything around the house. Except chop wood. No one had done lumberjack stuff yet, and she’d been promised. She wanted to watch her two hot guys chopping wood for their fire.
“Hello?” Van had opened the door. “It’s you.”
A chill went up her spine and she turned, her worst fears confirmed because there was a man standing on the porch. She hadn’t seen his face before, but from the way Hale paled, she knew exactly who he was.
“I tried to do this some other way, but I can’t let him have it.” The man pulled a pistol, leveling it at Van with shaking hands.
Her duty belt was still sitting on the table. She hadn’t put it back on yet so she couldn’t reach for her gun.
Hale gasped.
And Van slammed the door.
There was a thudding sound, but nothing came through. Van calmly threw the dead bolt and turned back to them. “You should probably call that in.”
Her heart had threatened to stop. She strode to grab her gun. “You get back. Call it in. I’m going to deal with him. Hale, what are you doing?”
Hale had moved to stand in front of the big bay window. He and Van were both standing there watching the unhinged man trying to get inside.
“It’s kind of funny when you think about it.” Hale took a sip of coffee. “He doesn’t know the door is fully reinforced. Oh, shit. That’s going to hurt.”
“Get away from the window,” she yelled because the man with the wild eyes was standing right in front of Hale, and he pointed the gun at his head.
He pulled the trigger and then frowned because the bullet hit the glass and then kind of bounced off and hit the porch.
Hale reached out and tapped the glass. “It’s so new I had to have it shipped directly from the manufacturer. It’s regular bulletproof glass but with an extra coating that’s not even on the market yet. Taggart did this dude a favor or something. Works well. Not a scratch.”
She took a deep breath. “Are all the windows that strong?”
Hale nodded, super calm for a dude who had a killer readily stalking him. “Yep. And the back door is reinforced, too. Some bad shit will happen if he tries to come through the chimney. Henry thinks it goes against like human rights laws, but I just think that maybe no one should climb down another person’s chimney.”
“I’m not climbing down Big Tag’s anything.” Hale’s head shook, and he put a hand to his ear. “Dude, I can’t hear you. We’re not coming out so you can murder us. Good luck with that.”
She grabbed her radio. It was good the guys were calm, but she had a job to do. She would send this Taggart guy a thank you note because his paranoia had likely saved them all. “This is Deputy Leal. I need backup out at the old Jones’ homestead.” She already knew the lingo. “We’ve got an armed man outside.”
