Page 15

JAXON

I showed up at Colt and Jade's place at the same time as my parents.

The summer sun was still blazing, but sunset was around the corner.

Dad and I had spent the rest of the workday successfully avoiding each other.

I didn't always get along with my dad, but I also hated it when we weren't talking.

Mom was carrying a bowl of potato salad, and Dad had a grocery bag that was overflowing with chips.

Mom pushed the bowl into one arm and grabbed the bag from Dad.

She said something quietly to him, and he nodded.

It was always comical, and, at the same time, cool, to see my petite Mom boss around my six-foot-plus Dad and have him respond like a chastised little kid.

I pulled a twelve-pack of beer off the passenger seat and shut the door just as Dad reached me. "Jax," he said quietly.

"Yeah?"

He lifted his face and looked at me. "You know I'd never hit you, right?"

I nodded. "I know, Dad."

That was all he said. Dad and I weren't big on words unless we were mad about something. Then the words always flowed easily, too easily.

Music started up in the backyard, and Colt already had the grill going in high gear. Dad motioned with his head toward the house. I walked up next to him.

"Besides, you know damn well I'd flatten you," I said jokingly.

Dad chuckled and raked his hair back with his fingers. "I have no doubt of that … asshole."

I elbowed him, and he elbowed me back. That was the way we handled shit between us.

We'd both been in a crappy mood this morning, and somehow those situations always ended up with both of us needing space from the other.

But I knew that I was fucking lucky. All of us were.

Our dads had grown up never feeling safe or secure or loved.

They had each other, and for a good part of their lives, they had my mom.

She looked after them more than they realized, and they were all fiercely protective of her.

The four of them made it to adulthood … but barely, at least according to them.

They left out a lot of the more sketch-ass parts of their early twenties, but all of them came out of it alive, and they were people we could all look up to.

"Whooee!" Uncle Slade hollered as his horseshoe swung around the stake. Crusoe wore a sour face. He hated to lose as much as Slade loved to win.

Cormac, or Mac as we called him, was standing with his mom, Aunt Britton. She was trying to get a closer look at a cut near his eye. Cormac was the youngest of the bunch, twenty-four today. He was also the wildest. He'd had more trips to the ER than the rest of us put together.

Jules carried a tray of hamburger patties out the back screen door. Her long, golden hair was piled up in a half-bun, half-ponytail at the back of her head. Jules was just three months older than Cormac, but she was about ten years older in maturity.

Cormac tried to push his mom's hand away, but Britton was persistent. She looked past Cormac. "Jules, come over here when you get a chance. See if you think this cut needs stitches."

"No fucking way I'm getting stitched up this close to my eye," Cormac said.

Cormac was smaller and slighter than the rest of us, but he was wiry and tough like his dad, Uncle Slade.

He occasionally hung out with some of the shadier guys in town, but most of the time, he was with Theo because he loved to mountain bike and ride BMX.

He just managed to get hurt a lot more because, as his mom liked to say, caution was not in his vocabulary.

Stella walked in carrying our gift.

"Yes! There's LaLa with my gift. Did you get the ones I asked for?" Cormac finally waved his mom away and Jules walked over to my sister with a big grin.

Stella laughed. "Nope, after you sent me a dozen texts with links to the ones you wanted, I bought an entirely different brand."

Cormac's mouth dropped open in disappointment.

Stella laughed. "Oh my god, you're such an idiot." She handed him the gift.

Slade came up from behind and slapped my shoulder. "What have you been up to, buddy? Hardly see you these days."

"Hey, yeah, not much. Just working for the old man." I glanced around. "Theo's not here yet?"

"He was riding first, and his mom warned him not to show up stinking like mud and sweat, so he's probably heading home in between to shower. Theo said you were hanging out with Nathan Walsh's daughter."

Theo had a big mouth. "Yeah. In my defense, I didn't know who she was and she?—"

Crusoe came up from behind. "And she is hot, hot, hot. By the way, I saw her today."

I snapped my face his direction. "Where?" I asked abruptly.

"Uh-oh, I know that face," Slade said. "You like this chick. With all the women following you around like lovesick groupies, you couldn't find one who wasn't attached to that asshole Walsh?"

"No one like her," I admitted. "Where'd you see her, Cru?"

Colt walked over. "Who wants cheese? And Slade—double or triple?"

"Fucking triple," Slade said. He held out his arms. "Look at me, I'm wasting away with you working my ass off at the building site.

" Slade owned a fishing boat that people chartered for deep sea fishing adventures.

In between, when Slade wasn't on the water, he worked at Colt's construction sites with Griffin and Theo.

Cormac worked with his dad on the boat, but in between, he mostly just got into trouble.

He still lived at home, which worked well considering his lack of steady income.

"Cheese," we all agreed. Colt had pulled on an apron. Slade had lightning-fast reflexes. He reached out and untied it as Colt walked away. "Colton Stone in a sweet little apron—hell has frozen over." Colt lifted his middle finger at him, shook his ass a few times and walked back to the grill.

"LaLa, is it all right if I put your veggie patty on the grill next to the burgers?" Colt called across the yard.

"Just don't let it touch the meat," Stella called back. She and Jules had started a game of horseshoe.

"Veggie burger for me, too," Jules called.

Dad walked over with a beer. He had a second one for Slade. Slade lifted his beer in toast. "Hey, did Colt tell you about those guys who were lurking around the jobsite this morning?" Slade asked Dad.

"Haven't really talked to him," Dad said. "Who were they?"

"They pretended they were from the city, trying to make it seem like they were inspectors or something, but city inspectors don't usually show up in Humvees with tinted windows. These dudes looked like they were Secret Service or at least playing Secret Service agents."

"Yeah, they're part of some security detail sent by Walsh," Crusoe said casually, even though his words rendered all of us silent. He took a sip of beer and then noticed that everyone was staring at him with mouths agape.

"What do you mean?" Dad asked.

"They were at Croft Beach earlier when I was surfing with Max and Riley," Crusoe explained.

"I was talking to Bridget." Crusoe grinned smugly at me.

"Anyhow, I pointed this big dickwad out to her.

He looked like a real fuckface dressed all in black and with a head as big as a truck tire.

She said he was part of her dad's security detail.

She tried to warn me to stay clear of him, but I told her I wasn't afraid. "

"Well, you should be," Dad snapped. "Idiots like that, who think they're badass but are generally stupid fucks, usually carry weapons, and they're not exactly the think-before-you-shoot type. Your cocky attitude and lethal right hook aren't gonna be any match for a Glock 19."

Crusoe smiled. "Yeah? You think my right hook is lethal?"

Slade chuckled, and Dad shook his head. "Really? That's what you got out of that speech?" Dad asked. "Just stay clear of them like Bridget warned." Dad looked over at me next. Our moment of truce was suddenly feeling less truce-y. "And how the hell did you get tangled up with Walsh's kid?"

"Told you, she was hot, hot—" Crusoe started, but Dad held up a big hand to stop him.

"Yeah, got it. Seriously, Jax, sometimes you need to think with your head instead of your dick," Dad said.

I laughed, but Slade laughed louder. "Holy fucking shit, did you seriously just say that to your kid?

You fucked every—" Slade started, but my Dad's expression stopped him cold.

Slade turned a pretend key in front of his mouth.

"Never mind, boys, the three of us were like angels.

Nuns would smile and wave at us as we trotted down the street in our pressed trousers and white button-down shirts. "

"Slade," Dad said.

"Yeah?"

"Shut the fuck up."

"Doing that right now. Oh look, Jade is bringing out the chips and dips, and they are calling my name." He paused before leaving, and I sensed the conversation was heading in a more serious direction. "Why do you think those guys were hanging around the worksite?" Slade asked Dad.

"Not sure, but I don't think they were there to sell bibles or ice cream bars." Dad looked at me. I didn't appreciate the accusatory scowl.

"Yep, those chips sound good to me, too," I said and walked away.

We downed burgers and potato salad and slugged back pitchers of lemonade in between beers.

Strange men in black Humvees and Walsh and his minions were put on the back burner while we laughed and retold stories about our childhoods, most of them with Cormac as the main character since he was the guest of honor.

Sitting there with my siblings and cousins made me think about Bridget.

It seemed she was basically a lonely prisoner in her dad's grand castle, although it wasn't a castle so much as a ridiculously big beach house with enough windows to wipe out a flock of seagulls and enough steel to make the whole place look more like a jail cell than a home, and for Bridget, it was just that—a fancy jail cell.

I'd somehow convinced myself that I would stop thinking about her by the end of the day, but my feelings for her had only grown more intense.

I didn't have her number, but I knew the way to her dad's beach house.

I rarely crossed what I called "state lines" into Oceanview, but I needed to see her.

There was a good chance I'd get shot or mauled by vicious Dobermans if I showed up at the house, but not seeing her wasn't an option.

I needed to find out why she'd walked out on me this morning.

It might have been my pride pushing this stupid idea or it might have been that I had really fallen for Bridget.

I was going with a little of both. I had another motive, too.

Walsh's security team were snooping around Colt's worksite today. I needed to find out why.

Laughter pulled me back to the party. Britton and Jade walked out with a big chocolate cake and glowing candles.

Cormac was flapping around the yard in his new swim fins while Stella snapped pictures of him.

I hadn't taken my motorcycle out of the old carriage house for a few weeks.

After the party, it was time for a trip to the neighboring town.

We were possibly the worst set of singers on the planet, especially when we all sang together.

Jules had a nice voice, and Theo's wasn't too bad, but with the rest of us crowing along it made the neighbor's dog howl when we sang "Happy Birthday.

" We all sat back down at the picnic table.

Colt had built it himself, custom-sized to fit the whole family.

Crusoe was checking out something on his phone.

Mom gave him the evil eye. She hated phones at the table.

He pushed it into his pocket. "This was important.

We're all meeting at the beach tomorrow after work for a rally.

I told people that Walsh was sending his thugs out to intimidate us, so we're going to show up and laugh in their fucking faces. "

Dad put down his fork and stared at Crusoe. "Is your head filled with rocks? Did you not hear me mention the Glock 19 problem?"

"I'll bet you and the uncles never backed down because of guns," Crusoe countered.

"Yeah, but we really did have our heads filled with rocks," Colt said. "And we just got lucky. Do not follow in our footsteps of blind fucking ignorance. We thought we were immortal."

"And you sort of were," Jade said with smile. "But Hunter's right, Cru. I'm sorry and it sucks, but there's no way to fight money and power. It's just a hideous fact of life."

"I'm already working on a way to save Croft Beach, and no one will have to get bloodied up or shot." Jules finished her comment and then dove her fork back into the cake. Everyone looked her direction. It seemed she wasn't going to let any of us in on her plan.

"What are you going to do?" Griffin asked.

"Throw magical pixie dust over the beach?

" Jules, with her small stature, massive blue eyes, button nose and long golden hair always got the pixie comparison.

When she was little, it was easy to imagine her floating out from some magical forest like a fairy.

We always called her pixie. In our defense, Jules literally spent a year wearing the silver wings Jade had sewn her for Halloween, so it was hard not to make the comparison.

Jules swallowed her bite of cake. "Hmm, best cake ever, Aunty," she said to Britton. Then she looked solidly at her brother. "No pixie dust required. No brute strength and brawn. Just brains. And that is all I'm going to say."

"Well, if Jules says she's found a way to save the beach, then I believe her," Stella said.

They were the only two girl cousins, so they always had each other's backs.

For the rest of us, we were wiser to the world.

Like Jade said—no amount of strength or determination worked against power and money.

Now, if only I hadn't found myself tangled up with a girl who was surrounded and controlled by that same power and money.