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Remy held up both hands. “I definitely don’t want to get you fired. You know how I love a woman in uniform.” He growled low in his chest. “Especially when I get to help her out of that uniform.”
Gerard coughed. “Seriously? You two need to get a room.”
“We have one,” Remy and Shelby answered simultaneously and laughed.
“Later,” Deputy Taylor said.
Gerard followed the trailer. His team fell in step with him, Remy on one side, Lucas on the opposite. The others trailed behind.
“Your mission has gone from the murder of a goose to the mystery of a human foot missing its body.” Lucas walked beside Gerard. “Makes your assignment more interesting.”
Gerard shrugged. “What gets me is that the goose had a broken neck, yet it ended up on Bernie’s front porch.”
“How did a goose with a broken neck get onto her front porch?” Beaux asked.
Gerard snorted. “Good question. If someone murdered the man who’s missing his foot, why risk being caught putting a dead goose on her front porch?”
“Could it be that the goose and the foot are unrelated?” Valentin asked.
“Maybe,” Gerard said.
“She’s not an heiress or a princess in hiding, but she’s not bad-looking,” Romeo commented from behind Gerard. “Is your client married?”
Gerard shot a frown at his teammate. “Widowed.”
“Ah, a widow.” Romeo’s eyebrows rose. “Recent?”
“Leave her alone.” Gerard glared at his friend. “She’s got enough on her plate. She doesn’t need you stalking her. Not only does she have to deal with a potential murder on her property...” Gerard waved at the field of watermelons, “these watermelons have to be harvested in the next day or two, or they’ll rot on the vines. Her pickers were supposed to pick today but couldn’t do the work with the place being turned into a crime scene.”
“Are they coming tomorrow?” Remy asked.
Gerard shook his head. “They can’t get back to her farm for three weeks.”
“Which means her crop will rot in the field,” Lucas concluded.
Gerard hadn’t yet brought up his offer to have his team harvest the melons. Now was the perfect segue into that topic. “Not if she finds another crew of pickers to bring them in.”
Romeo’s eyes narrowed. “Where are you going with this, man?”
Gerard shrugged. “I have an assignment. What do you have?” He turned to the others. “What do any of you have to occupy your time now?”
Remy grinned. “Nothing, yet. We aren’t needed at the boat factory. The contractor will begin work on Monday, and we’ll just be in the way. We can harvest those melons for Ms. Bellamy.”
A collective groan sounded from the rest of the men.
Gerard’s lips twitched but managed to keep from grinning. He’d hoped Remy would make it sound like his idea. Gerard would help harvest whether or not the others decided to help.
“I’ll get more information from Bernie—Ms. Bellamy—about how we should go about picking watermelons,” Gerard offered.
“After we erect a pigpen,” Romeo grumbled.
“Join Brotherhood Protectors…” Beaux said.
“Save the world…” Valentin added, “one pig at a time.”
The men were still chuckling when Bernie brought the tractor to a stop near the pigpen.
“Wow.” Lucas covered his mouth and nose. “I say we get this pen up as quickly as we can.”
