Defending Harlow (Mountain Mercenaries #4)(55)

Milo nodded, but Sammie simply continued to stare at him with big eyes.

“You were protecting Harlow?” Jasper asked, his confusion easy to see.

“Yes,” Black told him. “I know it’s hard to trust anyone, but you can absolutely trust me and Gray and the others. We spend our lives trying to help kids like you, and people like your mom and the other women here at the shelter. As big men, we know we could easily hurt those who’re smaller and not as strong as us, but that’s not right. I heard the crash and didn’t know what was going on, so my first instinct was to get in front of Harlow and protect her.”

“I don’t need protecting,” was Harlow’s muttered response behind him.

Black didn’t take his eyes off Jasper. He could see his words were penetrating. It would take a while, as he’d been through a lot in his young life, but Black hoped Jasper would realize that not all men were like his father.

“I trust him,” Harlow said as she finally moved around to Black’s side. “He was protecting me, just as you were protecting Milo and Sammie.”

Jasper’s body finally relaxed. He nodded and slowly walked back to the kitchen table, where he’d been doing homework.

After a few minutes, the mess had been cleaned up, and Milo and Sammie had gone upstairs to get ready for bed. Loretta had fussed over them both, and Black saw her sneak the youngsters a small piece of chocolate to boot.

“Well, that was exciting,” Harlow said dryly after the kitchen cleared out.

“I hate that Jasper felt the need to protect those kids from me,” Black said.

Harlow put her hand on his arm. “Don’t take it personally. It takes time for them to overcome hard-learned lessons.”

“I know. I still hate it.”

“You’re a good man,” Harlow told him, looking at him with admiration in her eyes.

Now Black really wanted to kiss her . . . but she still thought they were friends. Didn’t want to date.

Consciously relaxing his hands so they didn’t clench into fists again, Black decided tomorrow he was going to let Harlow know that not only were they dating, but they would be doing so for the foreseeable future.

They just clicked. They got along better than Black got along with most people in his life.

“You about ready to go?” he asked. Meat would be driving by the shelter in a bit to make sure all was well and to scope out the area. There hadn’t been any more fires or incidents, but because the arson investigators didn’t have any leads on who might’ve set the gas-station fire, no one wanted to leave anything to chance.

“Yeah. I just need to get the cereal bowls down so the kids don’t have to climb on any furniture to get them out of the cabinet in the morning, and put out the fruit, and make sure there’s enough milk and juice.”

Black smiled at Harlow as she flitted around the kitchen, making sure everything was ready for breakfast in the morning since she wouldn’t be there. “When does Zoe get back?”

“She’s supposed to be back this Sunday. I heard Loretta on the phone with her earlier tonight. I didn’t get a chance to ask her if everything was going okay.”

“I’m sure it’s fine. Zoe would call you if something was wrong.”

“True. Okay. I think I’m ready,” Harlow told him.

Black reached out without thought and caught her hand in his. He twined their fingers together, loving how right it felt. She didn’t protest or pull away, so she must feel it too.

He opened the front door and looked around, making sure things looked safe. He was about to step onto the sidewalk—when he stopped and stared at the side of the building.

Written in large, red block letters were the words GET OUT.

He heard Harlow draw in a deep breath as she saw the vandalism.

Black pulled out his phone without a word and dialed Meat’s number.

“I’m on my way,” Meat said.

“Good, because someone spray-painted shit on the wall of the shelter,” Black said.

“What? Motherfuckers. Okay, okay, I’ve got my laptop with me. Instead of just driving by, I’ll go in and see what I can find out. Is Loretta still up? I’m going to need to talk to her, maybe show her the tapes and see if she can recognize whoever did it.”

Black immediately felt better. He hated that someone had gotten this close to Harlow and the others, though. While they were eating dinner, someone had stood right outside and defaced the building.

Even worse, they still didn’t know who wanted the women and the shelter gone, or why. The “who” was probably someone who wanted the building, but Meat hadn’t been able to narrow that down yet. He also admitted he hadn’t had a chance to dig too deeply into the owners of the surrounding buildings, but on the surface, those properties all seemed to have been purchased by different developers or companies.

Seeing the fear on Harlow’s face, which she was trying so hard to hide, Black made a decision.

Fuck what Rex wanted.

Black was going to make it his top priority to have a nice one-on-one chat with Brian “Bear” Pierce. This harassment was going to end once and for all.

He knew going behind Rex’s back was risky. In fact, if Black made even one mistake, it could jeopardize the entire Mountain Mercenaries operation, and could possibly get him kicked off the team altogether. But it was something that had to be done.