Page 68 of Bad Decisions & Back Roads
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 abastardand 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 hadneverbeen 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?—
