Page 87 of A Case of You

She leaned over and high-fived him.

Jake was going to be checked out at the hospital, then Baker Acted for evaluation.

Especially since he kept claiming the girls were “psychopaths” who’d threatened his life.

Stuart had received a frantic call from Emma and had raced home to find out what had happened, Brandon arriving only minutes later. Stuart had played Jake’s voice mail for the deputies, and then downloaded it as an audio file to send them for evidence.

As far as the deputies were concerned, it was cut-and-dry. Self-defense.

Brandon stared at them. Even Stuart was smiling now.

Finally realizing his stomach was going to behave, Brandon dropped his hand. “Okay. Step one, we need to get Jeff to the ER to get looked at. Step two…”

He stared at his house, which a short while ago had been filled with deputies and EMTs.

Other than Jeff’s injuries, everything was back to normal.

He slumped into a chair, shaking his head. “What. The.Fuck?”

Emma got up and walked over, leaning in to hug him. “Sorry, Dad. But you always taught me to stand up for myself and people who can’t take care of themselves. I wasn’t going to stand there on the phone while he was trying to kill Jeff. If you want to ground me, I get it, and I won’t be mad over it.”

Grace stood and walked over, joining their hug. “Me, too, Pop. If you tell my parents I’m grounded, I get it.”

A ragged breath escaped him. He was still trying to process this. “You guys could have been hurt or killed.”

“But we weren’t, Dad. We knew we could take him.”

“Yeah,” Grace said, grinning. “At least I didn’t resort to my first idea.”

“What was that?”

“Before Em took him down with the dip net, I was going to charge him with the barbecue fork, impale a kidney, and start twisting.” She mimed the action. “Big, meaty target. I figured that’d at least slow him down.”

Brandon barely got turned before he vomited on the floor.

Chapter Twenty-Three

“Good morning.”

Jeff opened his eyes and managed to turn his head to see Brandon sitting next to his hospital bed.

The doctors had wanted to keep him overnight for observation. Plus his primary doctor, when he heard about it, ordered in-hospital bloodwork for his Lyme, since he’d never made his appointment yesterday.

It was the next morning, and Jeff now sported a spiffy new PICC line.

They were already administering meds to him through it, and his stomach was revolting in protest.

But he wasn’t complaining too much, because they’d also started an IV on him, to push antibiotics for his abrasions, and to give him pain meds for them.

Damn good thing, because he could barely move. Even turning his head was almost too much for him.

“Shouldn’t you be at work, Master?”

Brandon scooted closer and pressed a kiss to the tip of his nose. “I had to see how my guy was first.”

“What time is it?”

“Nearly eight. I made Stuart go to work. He wanted to come by, too. It took me threatening to take away her car to make Emma and Grace go to swimming and school.”