Page 52 of Love and Loathing
Yeah, Alex didn’t care. The fake romance was getting in the way of his real one. He didn’t know who Mitford was or give a whit about Roger’s family’s reading habits, but he kind of hated both right now.
Roger came up the stairs, stopping with one foot on a step above the other. He straightened his belt over his beige uniform. “So, what’s this I hear about trespassers?”
Jessie pointed out to the water. “Jacob Whitley and Cecilia. They used Mr. Young’s dock to put Jacob’s boat on the water, and his truck is still parked down at the ramp.”
“You want me to arrest your sister?” Deputy Roger scratched his head.
“Yes, Jacob’s trying to get her to leave the country with him.”
Deputy Roger laughed. “Jacob and Cecilia?” He shook his head. “Nah. She’d drive him crazy.”
Jessie stepped closer to him. “Roger, Cecilia has twenty thousand dollars in her savings account.”
Deputy Roger’s face fell. “Right.” He nodded and turned to Alex. “You want to press charges?”
Alex stepped forward and put his hand on Jessie’s lower back. “I do.”
Deputy Roger turned to the mic on his shoulder and pushed a button until it fuzzed to life. “We have a code 63 at the Alexander Young house. Cecilia Winslow and Jacob Whitley are out on a boat off Young’s property, their truck is still on the boat ramp, and turns out Whitley is a dirty, scheming dog after all.”
“Roger that,” came a voice through the speaker. “Headed your way now.”
Jessie smiled up at Alex, a gleam of amusement in her moss-green eyes. “How do we always find ourselves in these situations?”
Alex grinned then. He couldn’t help it, and he wrapped his arm around her back.
Then fireworks in every color lit the sky with a big bang. Jessie jumped, then gave a nervous laugh and cuddled into his side.
Chapter 21
Jessie squinted in the morning light. Her muscles were sore, and she had a kink in her neck. And she was warm, really warm, and on top of something firm yet giving. Her head lifted and dropped with his breathing. Her eyes popped open, and she sat bolt upright, rocking the porch swing they’d fallen asleep on.
“Whoa, there, sweetheart,” Alex said, eyes still closed. “Don’t rock the boat.” He reached for her.
“What … what happened?” Her mind was a muddle of thoughts as she tried to piece together everything as fast as she could. Oh, right. Deputy Roger and Sheriff Chris had arrested Jacob and Cecilia coming out of the water. Cecilia had seen her and cussed her out so bad, it would take a month of Sunday sacrament to clean that mouth out. Jessie had tried to explain to her, but Cecilia wouldn’t listen, had literally plugged her ears and hummed loudly.
“She’ll have calmed down by morning,” Sheriff Chris had assured her.
Jessie wasn’t so sure. Cecilia was thoughtless, overly emotional, and made decisions based on her feelings and not reason. She doubted Cecilia would ever see what Jacob was trying to do and would be miserable to be around for months to come. But at least she was here and not on some plane to who knew where.
Alex rubbed her back, bringing her to the present. “You okay?”
She nodded and swallowed the lump in her throat.
“Hey, it’s going to be okay now,” he said, and he opened his arms for her. “Come here.”
She did, tucking her head under his chin and resting her head on his oh-so-firm chest. Yep, this definitely helped. She was feeling better already.
After they’d taken Jacob and Cecilia into custody, Alex had driven Jessie home and stayed with her and her family, talking late into the night. She’d been pleasantly surprised by how well he got on with her dad. Then her parents had finally gone to bed, and so had her sisters. But Jessie couldn’t. She couldn’t stop thinking about Cecilia. About the fact that she’d been out on that boat alone for hours with a man she knew to be a womanizer, about the fact that she was now in jail. She was too riled to sleep. And he’d seen that. He’d offered to stay. They’d gone out back and sat on the swing, talking for several more hours.
Jessie couldn’t remember falling asleep, couldn’t remember cuddling up next to him or burrowing her head in his neck, but waking up like that had been a surreal sort of dream.
“I’ve been thinking about it,” Alex finally said after a moment. “And I think I might know where Daniel is.”
Her little “happy cuddle with the muscley dreamboat” bubble popped. Oh, right. Daniel. Ugh. “Yeah.”
“Yeah,” Alex said. “Their dad might not have been wealthy, but their mom is. Comes from a real high-society family in New York and everything. The only reason either of them got into Brown is because she pulled strings.”
Jessie sat back. “I didn’t know that.”
