Page 62 of Thrown Off Balance

I swallow hard as nervousness and fear slithers up my spine. If something happens and things go sideways, there are so many men putting their lives on the line. I don’t want something to happen to any of them.

“Dang, look at him go. He scampered up that thing like a little squirrel. How does he even do that?” Lincoln practically gushes.

“We get it, you have a man crush on Mason.” The eye roll is evident in Cole’s voice.

“Of course I have a man crush on Mason! Who doesn’t? He’s like a real-life GI Joe. That man is almost fifty and he’s still got it. Quite the silver fox.”

“I'm not almost fifty,” Mason growls.

“Dude, you’re forty-seven. I hate to break it to you, but that’s almost fifty.”

“Not helping, Linc,” he hisses as he pops over the top of the fence and lands on his feet like he’s done this a million times.

“Ha! Maddox, dude, are you really struggling that much? He’s got four years on you!” Lincoln howls with laughter.

I grin, wishing I could see Maddox trying to get over the fence. Leave it to Lincoln to make such a stressful and serious situation into something to laugh about.

“I’d love to see you try this, man,” Maddox grunts as his head pops over before disappearing again.

“I’d love to see Peck try this. We need to see who the manliest one is from Bennett Bradley Security,” Blake cuts in.

“My dad is,” Mason chuckles. “I guarantee that man could make it over the fence without even breaking a sweat. He’s built like a machine. I'm sure he could run laps around all of us.”

“I don’t know… Papa Bennett is pushing seventy.” I can picture Lincoln stroking his chin as he thinks.

“I could definitely do better than you, Linc,” John, Mason’s dad, murmurs.

“What the heck? You’re on this mission too?” Lincoln’s shock is clear as day.

“Of course I'm involved. I work for Bennett Bradley Security. What else would I be doing?”

“Well, you said you couldn’t babysit today, so I assumed you were busy,” Linc scoffs.

“Yeah, busy protecting the family.”

I smile at his simple statement. They don’t look at each other as being part of different families. If you live on Mulberry Lane or someone in your family does, then you’re part of the family. And they take it seriously. They will protect each other at all costs and do anything for their family.

Being part of such an amazing group of people is overwhelming, but the best thing I’ve ever experienced in life. I know I’ll always be taken care of there. If Cody and I get married and have kids, I’ll never have to worry about who will take care of them if something happens to one of us because they’ll have dozens of people lining up to help.

“Plus, who am I babysitting? Holt’s nineteen and Emma’s twenty-two. They don’t need babysitters anymore.”

“We got a puppy.”

“You want me to babysit your puppy? For what?”

“So we can go out for dinner. She can’t be home all alone! She’ll get scared,” Linc grumbles.

“Lincoln, I swear…”

“You’re not supposed to swear, Daddy Bennett.”

“Shut up, Linc. We’re supposed to be focusing on Jude and nothing else. We need to focus so no one gets hurt. If you can’t be quiet, I’m calling Liv,” Mason hisses as he quietly slides the back door open and slips inside.

“Zipping it! I don’t need that little spit fire to come yell at me. She’s a handful, man.”

Maddox steps inside the kitchen a few moments later with two other men following him. Mason makes hand motions and they all nod their heads, moving in different directions.

“They’re getting in place. We’ll be hidden until we know what Jude’s plan is. We don’t want him to catch sight of us and realize he’s being set up.” Mason places a hand on my shoulder and watches me carefully. “I’ll protect you, Sloan. You’ve always been like a niece to me; I won't let anything happen.”