Desert Angel (Family Justice Book 2) (19 page)

“H
mmph,
well, what the fuck did you do?”

“You’re not going to like the answer.”

Alex was quick to respond. “Maybe you better not tell me then.” He thought for a moment with an unhappy frown on his face and added, “How ‘bout you just nod or shake your head?”

“Uh, okay. I suppose. But I reserve the right to plead the fifth if necessary.”

“
Pfft.
Fucking lawyers.”

Parker shrugged. Occupational reflex.

“The
she hates me
thing. Is this recent?” Typical Alex. Straight to the point.

With a strangled groan, he shook his head, no.

“Okay. Did she, uh . . . hate you when she and my folks were here last? When your dad was in the hospital.”

“Fuck.” He nodded.

Thinking out loud, Alex murmured, “Guess that explains why you and she managed to never cross paths even once that trip. I thought it odd at the time.”

Parker grimaced at the reminder and groaned, “Fuck,” again.

“Did you have anything to do with her breaking off her engagement?”

Parker clenched his fists and his mouth formed a thin, unhappy line. He shook his head, no.

“Whoa. Little too close for comfort?”

“Sidebar,” he mumbled.

“Go ahead but keep it short.”

“That little prick wasn’t good enough for her.”

Alex snorted, obviously amused. “Off the record? My folks did a happy dance when she broke things off. Something wasn’t right with those two.” Raising his eyebrows, he added, “Think I’m starting to understand. She didn’t agree to the engagement until after she’d seen you. Smacks of desperation or surrender.”

“My fucking life passed before my eyes when I heard she was getting married.”

That seemed to strike a chord with his friend.

“Understood. That’s how I felt when Meghan kicked my ass to the curb and left. Worst feeling ever. Didn’t think I’d recover.”

The band was making its way back to the stage and people began shifting to the dance floor. A couple of guys called out to them, motioning for him and Alex to come join the fun, but they both stayed seated and basically ignored everything going on around them.

“Okay. Two more questions and don’t even think about not answering.”

Parker sighed and waited like a man condemned—pretty sure he knew the question that was coming.

“Did you sleep with her while I was in Afghanistan?”

Shit, shit, shit.
He covered his face with his hands, leaned on his elbows, and hung miserably over the bar. Turning just enough to peek out between his fingers, he gave his friend the respect he deserved by looking him in the eye and nodding, yes.

The punch Alex threw knocked him off his barstool and sent him flying to the floor. If anyone even noticed, they certainly didn’t interfere. This was Whiskey Pete’s, after all. Punches thrown at the bar were commonplace, and unless a holy hell scuffle broke out and the bouncer had to get involved, people tended to mind their own damn business.

While his friend calmly went back to nursing his beer, Parker hauled himself from the floor, knocking peanut shells off his clothes.
Fucking, eh.
First, a ferocious slap, and then, a heavy punch. On both sides of his face, too. Looking in the mirror tomorrow morning was going to be fun.

Resuming his spot on the barstool, he swallowed what was left of the beer and cleared his throat. Massaging his jaw, Parker growled at his friend. “Thank you, sir. May I have another?” he sarcastically bit out.

Alex scrubbed his hands back and forth against his skull and snickered. “I’d count on it if I were you.”

A few seconds ticked by. “Last question,” Alex grumbled.

Jesus Christ. What the hell was left to ask?

“Got a plan for how to fix the mess you made, shithead?”

Parker shook his head. “Not a fucking clue, man.”

“O
KAY THEN,” MEGHAN CHUCKLED AFTER
looking over her shoulder in time to see Parker go flying off a stool and onto the floor.

Lacey gasped with Tori hanging onto her arm as she doubled over giggling.

“Holy crap!” Typical for Lacey Cameron. That was about as pithy as the woman ever got. Someday, Meghan was sure her friend was going to let rip with an epic tirade of vulgarity that would make the
Guinness Book of World Records.
She hoped so, anyway.

“That was fucking awesome!” Tori choked out between giggles.

Cam and Draegyn, their ever-present protectors who were just a few feet away, stood staring in bemused silence at whatever had just taken place at the bar.

She loved it when her sexy Major got all alpha and went into beast mode. Meghan should probably thank Angie now because she was pretty damn sure that once she and Alex were alone . . . well, after they laughed about whatever was going on, he’d be finishing out the night on top. The sound she made fell somewhere between a giggle, a sigh, and a moan.

Tori’s knowing snicker forced a rush of embarrassed heat up her neck and onto her face. Wrinkling her nose, she stuck her tongue out playfully at her friend and rolled her eyes.

“Shut up.”

“Didn’t say a word, Irish,” the naughty imp chuckled.

Watching their exchange, Drae walked over and jokingly smacked his wife on the butt. “Behave, woman!”

Tori snickered some more and whispered something in her husband’s ear that got the man laughing gleefully. Those two were always the life of the party.

Cam motioned to Drae, caught up with him, mumbled a couple of words that she couldn’t hear, then headed in the direction of the bar.

She stuck her free hand out to stop them. “Hold up, guys. I think we should just let the Major handle that by himself.”

Angie, who had run to the ladies’ room, was weaving through the crowd on her way back to join them when she noticed where everyone was looking. Meghan quickly got to her side and nudged her playfully.

Angie looked up, a curious expression on her face. “What?” she asked.

“Well, your brother—my hunky fiancé, just put Parker’s ass on the floor with one punch. Any idea what that was about?”

“How’d you know?” Parker asked.

His friend chuckled as he scooped up a handful of peanuts and put them down in a pile next to his beer. “The signs were all there. Just took me a while to put all the clues in the right order.”

Shelling a couple of nuts, Alex dropped the dusty hulls on the floor and popped the small nuggets into his mouth with a shrug.

“My sisters were pen pal fanatics when I was overseas. They used a team tag approach. Got a letter every week. Sophia would write about her exploits and give long, detailed updates on what our folks were doing . . . but Angie.
Shit.
All Angie ever talked about was Parker this and Parker that.”

More evidence for Parker that he’d had his head up his own damn ass. It’d never even occurred to him that anyone in their two families, let alone Alex who was halfway across the globe, saw anything unusual about his closeness to Angie. Had he really been that stupid?

“I might have had a shit ton of other things on my mind at the time, but it didn’t escape my notice that at some point, you more or less fell off the face of the earth as far as Angie was concerned.” Alex shrugged and continued to feed peanuts into his mouth. “If she’d had a boyfriend, it would have made sense. She’d always had a crush on you. Just figured that shit would stop when someone caught her eye.”

Parker made a strangled sound somewhere between a groan and a gasp. “I fucked up and she, well . . . she got hurt. I didn’t mean to. It just happened and . . .”

“I will fucking kill you if the word
cheat
comes out of your mouth,” Alex growled in a not-at-all-friendly tone.

Parker jumped and almost toppled off his stool. “Fuck, no! Shit, Alex. It wasn’t like that. Nobody cheated.
Fuck,
” he ground out.

Suddenly, Alex grew menacing. “You’re too fucking old for her, man.” The barely concealed displeasure radiating off his oldest friend cut like a knife.

With all the sincerity he could muster, Parker met his friend’s gaze. “That was true then—but it’s not true now. She’s grown up and I’ve stopped pretending. Has to count for something,” he mumbled.

Alex sat quietly and worked on his drink. Finally, Parker said, “I can fix this,” without actually knowing how.

“In case you hadn’t noticed, so far you’re zero for two. Each time you two occupy the same space, UN Peacekeepers are needed. And tomorrow your face is gonna be a sight, so . . .”

“Let me ask you something,” he murmured. “If Meghan had refused to come back after you came to your senses, would you have given up and gone away?”

“Fuck to the no,” Alex growled. “I would have bought the house next door and driven her up a wall until she gave in. The woman belongs to me. Plain and simple.”

Parker sighed heavily. “I’ve made my share of mistakes with Angelina. Coming on too strong earlier was one of them. It’s just that when that damn song started up . . .”

Parker noted the way Alex tightened up and cleared his throat when he mentioned the song the band played. They’d said it was a request.

“You motherfucker,” Parker ground out. “That was you, wasn’t it?”

Alex didn’t exactly say anything—just sat there with an amused smirk on his ugly face.

“Why, I oughta kick your sorry ass for a stunt like that. You knew that fucking song would stir the pot!”

“Settle down.” Alex chuckled. “I figured it would lighten things up—never expected you to drag my little sister into the shadows and accost her.”

The whole thing became funny. Laugh out loud, write a screenplay about it, never gonna get old funny. They had laughed together for a minute before Parker smacked Alex hard on the back.

“Help me, Major Obi-Wan. You’re my only hope.”

“Stupid, you are,” Alex smirked. “Women” he snorted. “Strange and mysterious creatures. Surprise them you must! Upper hand you must take if hope you have of winning.”

“Well, fuck, dude! The surprise dinner worked out so damn well, right? So did tonight’s little unplanned get-together. I think the surprise factor is a bust. Got anything else?”

Alex thought for a moment then told him, “I’m sending Meghan and Angie to Sedona for the weekend. They’ll be at the L’Auberge. You’ll look in on them for me while they’re away from the Villa, right?”

“G
UYS . . . GOTTA TELL YOU. DIGGING
these morning meetings. Including Brody and adjusting for the time difference totally works for me.”

Drae looked over at Cam, who was gathering a bunch of blueprints into a pile, and jeered, “How ‘bout you take your mouth off his cock and stop with the goody-two-shoes act? It’s too fucking early for words. Admit it, you asshole.”

Alex laughed when Cam grabbed hold of his crotch growling, “Suck me, St. John, you pussy.”

Drae hurled a wadded ball of paper at Cam’s head, snarling, “Lube up your asshole, more like it!”

Ah, the boys! He sure did love it when they were around.

Flexing his dad muscles, he told them, “Settle down, kids. Class is still in session.”

It was like watching a meerkat comedy routine when his two closest Justice brothers pushed and shoved each other to get to the head of the line then stood at attention like it was troop inspection time . . . waiting on his next words. Sometimes, like now, he couldn’t tell if they were just fucking with him or if their reaction was a result of their brotherhood.