Page 36 of Jethro

"Told them what?" said a voice from the end of the counter.

The man in the gray T-shirt set down his cup, laid his ball cap on the counter, and slowly turned around.

Carter knew the face from his phone screen. Jethro Lyons was taller than in the photograph, with a plain gold band on his left hand. The Shadow Warriors parted to let him through, and he stopped at the edge of the booth.

"Mr. Langley."

"Jethro." Carter's voice cracked on the second syllable. "I... I didn't realize..."

"That I was here? I've been here the whole time. I heard every word. I've been working really hard on my temper for the last forty minutes." He tossed a cream-colored envelope onto the table. The return address read The Grande Nashville.

"Your wife's Thanksgiving invitation came this morning to Aurora’s old address. Lots of friendly questions. What I drink. Which shifts I work. Where I go fishing. Written on stationery from the Grande Nashville. Aurora tells me that's a Beauvois hotel." Carter was shaking so badly Ham considered getting medical in the room. The he reconsidered.

"My answer is no. Not Thanksgiving, not Christmas, not any other day." Jethro leaned in, hands flat on the table, his eyes dark and steady. "I've carried men off mountains and pulled children out of burning houses. I saved your daughter in that fucking hellhole that you tried to force her to forget.

“I'm not afraid of you, your wife, Dustin Morgan, Lawrence Beauvois, or anyone you can hire. But Aurora is my wife, and she is done being told she's worth nothing but her money. Do you understand me?"

Carter nodded. He could not have spoken if his life depended on it, and he was beginning to suspect that it might.

"Go home. Tell your wife and your friends exactly what you saw here. And stay away from my wife unless she asks for you. If she does, come with an apology and nothing else."

Bennett clicked off the recorder. Ham stepped aside, leaving a path to the door, and the others went back to their tables as though Carter had already ceased to exist.

At the door, Carter looked back. Jethro sat with his back to the room again, unafraid. Now Carter understood why. Every man in that diner was watching his back.

In his car, his phone buzzed. Missy. He let it ring.

He had come to Belle Fleur to ruin a man. Instead, he had walked into a room full of the last men on earth he should ever have lied to, and he had done it with a smile, on the record, in front of the husband himself.

He had been caught in the act, and every one of them knew it. For the first time in thirty-four years, Carter Langley was more afraid of someone else than he was of his wife.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Carter stopped the car three blocks from his home. There was nothing wrong with the car. There wasn’t a malfunctioning traffic light. The truth was he was terrified of what his wife was going to say. They owed money to Dustin and Lawrence, and there was no way they could repay it.

If the house belonged to them, they could sell it. But it didn’t. With Aurora having claimed the inheritance and trust, she was now the legal owner of the house. She could evict them if she so chose to do.

They’d already sold many of the household belongings. She could sue them for doing that as well. Everything was out of control. In his mind, he’d blame his wife for most of it. Her spending habits were that of a drug dealer, minus the selling of drugs.

But if he were being honest, his own spending had reached epic levels in the last few years. Three country club memberships, one he didn’t even go to. Six luxury cars for two licensed drivers. The family home in the Garden District. Two properties in the Dominican Republic, one property in Washington, D.C., and a penthouse in Manhattan they hadn’t even seen yet and it had been owned by them for eleven years.

Unable to sit there any longer, he drove the short distance to the house, parked and walked inside. His wife was seated in the living room, a small fire burning in the fireplace. It wasn’t cold outside but there was a slight chill in the air. It didn’t matter. Missy always liked a fire for effect.

She took a slow sip of her martini and that’s when he noticed that Dustin and Lawrence were waiting for him as well. He put his keys down and turned to Margie.

“A bloody Mary please,” he said. His wife eyed him with a strange expression and he knew why. He never said please to the help. Never. He ordered them. Pointed. Grunted. But never used pleasantries.

“I suppose that tells me what I want to know. It didn’t go well,” she sneered.

“He’s more than you know,” he said calmly. Dustin and Lawrence leaned forward staring at the old man who suddenly looked decades older than when he’d left that morning.

“More how?” asked Missy.

“He. He’s actually a good man. Marine veteran, multiple deployments, college degree, spotless record.”

“No one is spotless,” smirked Dustin.

“A group of men were waiting for me,” said Carter calmly.