Lynn sighed. “What about turning on a motion sensor light in their back yard?”
“What about,” Bruno said from the spot all the way across the room, “someone just goes over there and confronts his ass, and doesn’t bother with stupid electronics to do a real person’s job?”
Laric stood up, clapping his hands. “Well let’s go.”
Bruno stood up and they both disappeared, making Crockett frown in confusion. “I don’t understand what the big deal is.”
“If Beckham had a stalker,” Trouper supplied from his perch across the room on the bar’s countertop. “And she was so cavalier about it, I would spank her ass.”
“You could try,” Beckham countered as she walked the floors with her baby, who was seconds away from falling asleep if the look in his eyes was anything to go by.
“I would accomplish,” Trouper countered.
She snorted loudly, making the baby’s eyes open wider, then droop once again.
“Same with Swayze,” Trick murmured. “I wouldn’t be very happy if she wasn’t a little more concerned about having someone that’s always there. I would be pissed as hell, to be honest.”
Crockett’s eyes turned from Trouper to Trick, who was leaning up against the counter, his back to the kitchen and his eyes to her.
Crockett sighed. “I’m not sure what, exactly, I’m supposed to do about it, though. It’s just… weird.”
“How about you let us take care of it,” Trick suggested. “You don’t worry about anything.”
“I…” Crockett trailed off when Hunt snorted in laughter.
“Damn, they got there fast as fuck,” Hunt drawled. “They had to have raced.”
Bruno and Laric had done that quite a few times since I’d been around, and didn’t really show any signs of stopping.
For this one instance, though, I wasn’t going to be concerned about their lack of care for themselves.
“Oh, there, he turned.” Hunt started clicking away on his phone, then pulled out a second phone from his pocket and started clicking away on that next.
“One Donahue…”
My phone rang, and I answered it.
“Donahue Ferrera,” Bruno said into the receiver. “Thirty-nine. Lives two houses down from y’all. He says that he’s in love with your woman and just wants to ask her out, but he’s too scared.”
I looked at my woman.
And she was mine.
After tonight, dealing with her family, I’d realized a few things.
One, I was overly protective of her.
Two, to be overly protective, there had to be something there.
Three, well, the thought of her being poisoned today, even with something that was so clearly mild, had enraged me.
Still, I was enraged. I wanted to go over to her father’s house and shove my size fifteen boot up her father’s ass.
Then shove it down her stepmother’s throat once it was thoroughly coated.
I was that mad.
“He says that he tries to work up the courage to talk to her, but always freezes up when she looks at him.” Bruno paused. “The guy is a little mouse-like, so I believe it. I told him it was creeping her out and to stop. He agreed and all but ran home.”
The thought of some mouse-like guy having to talk to a wolf-like Bruno was actually quite amusing.
I rubbed the bridge of my nose. “You believe him?”
“I believe him,” Bruno admitted. “Guy about pissed himself when we said that we were in an MC. He blabbered his entire life story. Single guy. Lives with his mother. Investment banker. Trust fund baby. Never had a girlfriend because he’s so shy. His mother called him and told him to come home because dinner was getting cold.” He paused. “There’s one other thing about him.”
I wasn’t sure that I wanted to know based on the tone that Bruno was using.
“Yeah?” I asked. “I’m not sure that I can handle any more news tonight.”
“Well, this actually kind of has to do with that.” He paused. “Or, just adding a little fuel to the same fire.” Bruno cleared his throat. “Apparently the stepmother urged the neighbor to keep at it. That she was more willing to talk to him later at night. That was why most of his attempts came after the sun set.”
“Jesus Christ,” I grumbled, pinching the bridge of my nose. “Of course, she would have to be involved.”
When I glanced up to look at the couch where Crockett was lying, it was to find her staring at me with a knowing look in her eyes.
When I hung up with Bruno, it was to hear her say, “Let me guess. Melody had something to do with this.”
I grimaced. “Yep. She told him you were easier to get a hold of at night. That was why you always saw him after dark.”
She rolled her eyes. “Of course, she did. Because why wouldn’t she? Which neighbor did it?”
I explained, and she shrugged. “I don’t really know my neighborhood all that much.”
No, she didn’t.
She hadn’t even realized that I was her neighbor—or that she had a new one at all for that matter.