Accidental Knight: A Marriage Mistake Romance(9)

“Here at the ranch,” I say, without trying to sound nasty with how obvious it is. “And wherever else he needed me. I’ve been on his payroll for years.”

“You?” she barely whispers. “Wait. You’re telling me...you’re his companion? The helper? His old Army buddy?”

It’s hard not to snort.

I’ve never been called anyone’s 'companion.' Yeah, I was in the Army, and so was Jonah, but it sure as hell wasn’t at the same time. The Korean War was a long damn time before I did my duty for Uncle Sam in both recent brushfires, Afghanistan and Iraq.

“What are you doing here at the house?” she asks as her eyes dart up and down my torso. “Gramps always said you lived in the cottage.”

My jaw tightens. I look her over slowly, study her huge eyes. Doesn’t look like she’s in any condition to hear the whole truth, so we’ll start easy.

“I just took a shower here to clean up. Pretty much had to after chasing Edison damn near to Big Fish Lake.” That horse is a Mustang in a steed’s body, I swear.

There’s not a latch he can’t master. If I hadn’t been inventorying my gear on the back porch, I wouldn’t have even seen him on top of the ridge behind the house.

Next to his granddaughter, Edison was the one thing in this world Jonah Reed loved above all else. I’d promised to keep an eye on them both, just like I had him. Naturally, I had to go chase the horse down like a crazy man, even though I knew she’d be showing up sometime today.

“Give me a minute, and I’ll tell you more. Let me get dressed, and I’ll meet you in the kitchen.”

I don’t wait for a response. I head into the bedroom and shut the door behind me.

Shitfire.

I expected trouble, but this?

Jonah warned me about his daughter-in-law, Molly, and his son, Gary. Said they’d pitch a fit over the will. I expect they’ll be along shortly, too, pouring gas on a raging fire. But he didn’t tell me to protect my eardrums from Little Miss McScreamy.

If she’d howled half an octave higher, I wouldn’t have even noticed how sweet she looked.

Eyes like an overgrown maze you could lose yourself in for days.

Soft, windy brunette with just enough wave to be too damn fistable.

Hips that curve straight off this earth to heaven. A lush, thick ass that could do terrible, terrible things to a man who’s been cooped up and brooding as long as me.

But it can’t. I swore I’d do Jonah right, and we’re getting off to a bad start when I’m standing here thinking x-rated scenes about his own flesh and blood while my ears are still ringing.

Worse, he’s trusting me to execute this shitshow of a plan he cooked up to save our skins.

Fuck me blind.

I touch the side of my head. There’s no pain now, but I sense a permanent headache coming on.

Actually, it’s already here. Waiting downstairs.

How I let myself get roped into this insanity still has me baffled. Sure, Jonah was a sly old fox. So sly, he not only convinced me, but got his starch stiff lawyer man to go along with it, too.

A grin overrides my ability to hold it back as I yank open a dresser drawer.

Jonah Reed was one hell of a man. His presence hasn’t diminished a bit since the day he shoved off his mortal coil.

I owe him a lot. I wouldn’t be standing here today if not for him.

Hell, I wouldn’t be standing period. We met up when I was at my lowest, clueless where to go or what to do. I’d been lost in every damn mental, emotional, and metaphysical way a human being can be lost-lost.

But old Jonah found me with a flat tire on a road to nowhere in the middle of a blizzard.

That road led to this ranch. I’d blown a tire right next to his milk can mailbox, and if it wasn’t for his driveway being right there, I’d have wound up in the ditch.

Buried in the endless, impassable snow that kept falling. The drifts spilling off the hills out here will consume miles of highway for days. I’d managed to limp the truck a short distance up his driveway before the snow wrapped around my tires, rendering me dead in the water.

I was ready for the worst, a frozen death in the middle of Jack Frost’s finest.

Jonah Reed wasn’t having it.

He came barreling down the road, cutting right through the blizzard. Pedal to the metal and balls to the walls.

I smile at the memory, shoving a t-shirt over my head, then work my hair with a comb in the mirror.

He’d fishtailed around the corner, and without letting off the gas, dropped the plow on the front of his old red and white GMC. That old man plowed through the three-foot-tall snowdrifts like Zeus moving mountains, shifting gears like he had a third arm as the snow flew over his windshield.

His grin was as wide as the brim on his red and black plaid hat. Maybe a little maniacal, if we’re being honest. His stark white false teeth rivaled the snow when he stopped next to my truck and rolled down his window.

And how could I ever forget those first simple, fiery words?

“Get in here, boy. Buckle up. Gonna be a bumpy night.”

Men like him are few and far between.

Blasting through those drifts the entire two and a half miles to his house was more than bumpy. It’d been downright treacherous.

To this day, I’m not even sure if he could see through the blinding snow or not. I hadn’t been able to, but he’d kept the GMC between the ditches, and we made it to the house, no worse for wear.