Page 28

Six Months Later

“W hy are we doing this again?” Loyal asks as he puts the car in park.

“Because it’s an easy way to get intel on our target next door. Now let’s go.”

Before he can respond, I jump out of the car.

“Wait up, Bails!” he hisses as he gets out.

I wait on the sidewalk and check out the neighborhood. It’s a little older, but well-kept and nice. A step up from my old neighborhood for sure.

“Hi, are you here for the open house?” the realtor says from the front porch.

“Yes, we are.” I smile sweetly. “This is such a lovely area. I know we’re a little early, but I really wanted to make sure I saw it before everyone else.”

Her eyes widen in excitement. The poor woman thinks we’re going to buy this house when we have no intentions of doing so.

“My name is Angela, and what’s your name?”

“Mary Beth,” I lie, shaking her hand once I’m close enough.

Angela checks out Loyal and holds out her hand to him. “And who are you?”

“Andy. Her brother,” he says without giving the woman the attention she’s desperate for.

Her face falls, but she shakes it off and leads us inside. “Well, let’s get started. This house has four bedrooms and two full bathrooms and a half bath downstairs. The kitchen has been remodeled in an open concept. The master is on the main floor here, while the other three bedrooms are upstairs. Where would you like to start?”

“Actually, is it okay if we look around by ourselves?” I ask, cutting her off.

Angela sputters for a second before regaining her composure. “Of course. I’ll be right here. Let me know if you need anything, and I mean anything at all,” she says as her eyes flash to Loyal.

“Come on, sis. Let’s start upstairs and work our way down,” Loyal says as he puts his hand on my lower back and pushes me toward the stairs.

“Don’t you think a Christmas tree would look great over there?” I ask, pointing toward the big bay window.

“You and your Christmas trees,” he muses as we walk upstairs.

Once we’re out of view, we relax.

“This house is pretty nice,” I tell him as I head toward the bedroom I have in mind for my recon.

“Yeah? Are you and Savage in the market to buy a place?” he asks.

I walk over to the window and crack open the blinds. Perfect. This room has a clear shot of the backyard, and you can see the back door.

“No, not yet at least. We’re good jumping between my place and the clubhouse for now,” I tell him as I reach into my purse.

I pull out a small camera that Dex gave me. “Give me a hand?”

Loyal comes up behind me, and I hand it to him before stepping out of the way. He rigs the camera up at the top of the window seal, knowing where I want it without asking.

“How does it look?” he asks once he’s done.

Pulling out my phone, I hook the camera up to the server with the help of the neighbor’s Wi-Fi.

“Perfect,” I mumble right as a mower starts up somewhere outside.

“Goddamn…” Loyal mumbles in awe.

“What’s up?”

Stepping forward, I see that our target is in her backyard in a sports bra that crisscrosses on her back and athletic shorts and mowing the lawn.

“That her?” he asks as he runs his hand over his mouth.

“Yeah. Her ex is worried about his teenage daughter staying here with her.”

“Why?” Loyal asks without looking away.

“As far as I can tell, he didn’t want anything to do with getting divorced. It was all her. Then once it happened, I guess she started putting herself first and made changes that she wouldn’t do when he was still in the picture. Had a real glow up, and he’s not happy about it.”

“She doesn’t look like no mom.”

“She had her daughter at sixteen, and she’s thirty-two.”

“Fuck…”

I cross my arms and smile. “Loyal, are you crushing on our mark?”

A devious smirk crosses his face. “I like my girls a little bit older.”

I laugh, shaking my head. “She’s more than ten years older than you. Shit, her daughter is closer in age to you.”

He shrugs. “What can I say? I have a type.”

“Learn something new every day,” I muse.

“Come on, sis. We got other things to do.”

Shaking my head, I walk out in front of Loyal and head down the stairs. When Angela sees us, she pushes off the counter and smiles.

“So what do you think? The closet space in this place is amazing, isn’t it?”

“Oh yeah, it’s great,” I tell her, even though I never looked at anything but the bedroom that overlooked the neighboring house.

“Make sure to check out the master. I think you will love it.”

I go to tell her we’ve actually seen enough, but Loyal brushes by me and heads down the hall. I shoot her a smile and head after him.

“What are you doing?” I hiss.

Loyal looks around the room. “I’m selling our cover story. What are you doing?”

“Trying to get us out of here.”

“Wouldn’t it be weird if we came to check out a house but only looked at the rooms upstairs?”

“I mean, it might be a little suspicious.”

Loyal and I go room to room, and I watch as he inspects the place from top to bottom.

When we head back to the kitchen, he peeks around.

“How much is the asking price on this place again?” he asks Angela.

“It’s at two hundred and fifty thousand, and the current owners would like a short sale. Are you interested?” Angela asks.

“Actually…”

Loyal cuts me off. “We will be in touch soon.”

I throw him a questioning look over my shoulder that he ignores as he pushes me toward the front door.

Once back in the car, I turn toward him as he starts pulling out of the driveway. “We’ll be in touch soon?”

“Don’t worry about it. Now do you want to stop for ice cream on the way home or not?”

“Is the sky blue?” I ask sarcastically.

I don’t know what he has planned, but I can’t wait to find out.

“S eriously, I had no idea that he was into older women. Then again, I guess I never thought about him in a relationship,” Bailey says from the bathroom.

I highly doubt the kid wants a relationship, but I keep that to myself.

Unable to stay away from her any longer, I walk over to the bathroom and lean against the doorframe. I watch as she drops the curl she just placed in her hair and picks up a new strand.

“Seriously, though, he’s closer in age to the woman’s daughter than he is to her.” She pauses. “Oh god, what if our client, the girl’s dad, finds out that Loyal is sniffing around their house? Does our contract prevent him from coming after us?”

“Dex made sure our contract was airtight in our favor,” I remind her.

Bailey rambles some more, and I tune her out as I watch her.

God, she’s really fucking beautiful, and I’m one lucky bastard who gets to call her mine.

“Hayes, are you listening to me?”

“Baby, I don’t give an absolute fuck about Loyal’s love life. As for liking older women, who gives a shit as long as he’s not looking at you.”

Bailey rolls her eyes and smiles. “Are you going to tell me where we’re going?”

“And ruin the surprise? Never.”

“I hate you,” she says with no heat.

“Pretty sure that’s not what you were saying this morning when I woke you up finger fucking you.”

Bailey huffs. “Must you be so crass?”

“Have you listened to yourself?”

She drops the last curl and shuts off her curling iron before unplugging it and setting it back down on the counter.

“Okay, ready.”

“I don’t know why you curled your hair when it’s going to get fucked up on the bike.”

“Because I honestly never even thought about it. You said date, and I wanted to make myself look good for you.”

I pull her into my arms, my palms cupping her ass. “You don’t need to try and make yourself look good when I already think you’re the most beautiful woman in any room.”

She kisses my lips softly before patting my chest. “Come on, Romeo. I want my surprise.”

Bailey sighs. “I love it here.”

“Me too,” I say as I kiss her neck.

We went out to dinner and then went for a ride after. We drove around for a couple of hours before ending up at the lake. The water laps against the shore, and there’s a slight breeze in the air.

“So, I want to talk to you about something.”

“What’s up?”

I pick up her hand and hold it in mine. My thumb starts moving along her finger where a wedding band should sit.

“What do you think about getting married?”

Bailey leans forward, pulling herself off my chest, and turns, looking at me over her shoulder.

“Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

“You want to marry me?” she asks, pointing at herself.

“Bails, you’re my old lady. As far as I’m concerned you and I are already married. Everyone knows that you are mine and I’m yours, but I thought that maybe you would want to walk down an aisle in a white dress toward me and sign a piece of paper, proclaiming our love for the world. If you don’t, that’s okay, but I thought I’d ask.”

She opens her mouth several times and shuts it.

“Speechless, huh?” I tease.

“Of course I want to marry you. I’ve wanted to marry you for real since we were seven years old and got married on the school playground,” she says, making me chuckle.

“I forgot that we did that.”

One day during recess, all the girls decided that they wanted to throw a wedding. Bailey had grabbed my hand and volunteered us as tribute. I thought it was stupid, but I didn’t put up a fight. We stood there in front of our class and proclaimed to love each other for life. The teachers thought it was cute until I leaned in for a kiss and quickly ended the wedding.

“So, what do you say?”

Bailey pulls her hand from mine and cups my face between her hands. “I will marry you in every lifetime, without question.”

I pull her back into my chest and kiss the hell out of her. Only when we’re both breathless do I pull away and rest my forehead on hers.

“I probably should have asked your dad this time, huh?”

Bailey tosses her head back and laughs. “He’s going to kill you.”

I shrug with a smile on my face. “He’ll get over it.”

“Sure he will,” she teases.

“What kind of wedding does my girl want?”

“God, I don’t know.”

“Did you plan anything the last time you were engaged?”

Bailey cringes. “Nothing. Every time he would mention it, I would change the subject.”

Because you knew you weren’t going to go through with it.

I hum. “Do you want to get married here in front of all of our family and friends? Or do you want to run off somewhere and elope?”

“What do you want?”

“Baby, I don’t care as long as at the end of the day I get to crawl into bed with you.”

“So romantic,” she teases.

“I know. You really lucked out when it came to me.”

Bailey turns in my arms and leans against my chest. We stare out over the water while she thinks about what she wants while my mind drifts off.

Most guys would be nervous asking their girl to marry them. They would have had a ring ready and gotten down on one knee and professed their love. I wasn’t worried, though. I knew she would say yes, and while I have a ring back at the clubhouse, I knew she wouldn’t want any fancy proposal. That’s not us. I knew my girl would want something low-key and just us.

Even if she would have said no right now, I know that eventually she would have said yes. Besides, I don’t need a fancy piece of paper saying that we belong to each other.

“Okay, I have an idea…” she says, pulling me back to the present.

“What’s up?”

“What do you think about Vegas?” she asks, making me chuckle.

“You want to get married in Vegas?”

She turns toward me and smiles. “Okay, hear me out…”

She doesn’t even need to tell me what she’s thinking because I’m game.

Look out Vegas…looks like we are coming your way.