The Will(160)

Jake unwrapped one arm so she could turn and take it.

“Stuff smells crap,” Conner muttered as she lifted it to her mouth and took a sip.

It was at that, finally, when Josie smiled and it was genuine this time.

There it was.

He was right.

They had this covered.

*

“Mickey said and word was you got in there, but Jesus Christ,” Coert stated, his eyes to the front door of Lavender House.

Coert and Jake had just left Josie after Coert and one of his deputies moved the stubbornly lingering group of *s off Josie’s property. He’d reported to the owner that he’d dealt with the situation and he’d done this with two things on his agenda. Reporting to the owner that he’d dealt with it and getting a look at Josie.

“Pure class, even rattled,” Coert noted, looked to Jake and grinned, something Jake could see since he turned on the outside lights when Coert arrived in his cruiser. “How’d you get in there?”

“She thinks I’m the shit,” Jake told him, grinning back.

Coert kept handing him crap. “So you’ve brainwashed her.”

Jake kept grinning but his grin died when he asked, “You know I like taking your shit, Coert, but gotta know. Until shit gets sorted with the will, she got a genuine threat from her uncle?”

Coert’s face also got serious. “Judge’ll have to make that decision, Jake. Until that time, assets will probably be frozen. If you mean can the old guy make her let him in or even make her let him stay, again, judge’ll have to handle that. But until the will is assessed and judgment made, if things are acrimonious, Josie’s already here so she’ll likely be ordered not to sell anything, they’ll let her stay and he might be allowed to get in and look around but other than that, he’ll be ordered to steer clear.”

“So she’s good,” Jake said.

“If she’s got her own assets to live on, yeah,” Coert confirmed.

She did. She’d told him. So that was at least one thing they didn’t have to worry about.

They still had two more.

“You know if Terry Baginski is invested in Stone Incorporated?” Jake asked.

“Lotta local folks are investors in Stone Incorporated,” Coert answered.

“I’m takin’ your non-answer as a no, you don’t know.”

“Yeah. I don’t know for certain but I wouldn’t be surprised,” Coert replied and his voice got lower when he went on, “Be less surprised she’s in on this just to piss you off.”

Jake shook his head. “Banged her between number two and number three which was a long time ago,” he pointed out. “She was the worst lay I’d ever had, bar none. Been years. I’m not her favorite person but actively tryin’ to piss me off…” he trailed off disbelievingly.

“Women do a lot of crazy shit, they get it in their minds to do it,” Coert noted and Jake thought he was not wrong, his earlier conversation with Donna being proof of that. Then Coert changed the subject to ask, “Stone after Lavender House?”

“He was,” Jake answered. “Then he got a look at Josie and decided he preferred her. She wasn’t interested, tried to be cool about lettin’ him know that, but she heard him talkin’ smack about her. She leveled him and clearly he didn’t like that much.”

Coert’s brows shot up. “No shit? This is retaliation for a crash and burn?”

“More like a detonation, but yeah. Guy’s dick is microscopic.”

At this, Coert got closer and warned, “He’s your threat, Jake. If he’s bankrolling that old * for a shot at Lavender House, this could get ugly. Lotta folks in this town will stand up for Lydia Malone and say it straight she was all there until the day she died. But Stone’s got the money to drag it out if that option’s to be had.”

This was not good news.

“She gave Josie to me in her will,” Jake confided and he saw Coert’s brows draw together.

“Say again?”

“Lydie,” Jake explained. “She gave Josie to me in her will.”

“Josie…the person?” Coert asked, his brows now shooting up.

“Yep,” Jake answered.

Coert stared at him a beat before he burst out laughing.

Jake let him but crossed his arms on his chest while he did it.

When Coert got it under control, he stated, “That does it. Clearly Lydia had lost it before she passed, leavin’ her girl to you.”

“Bite me,” Jake muttered good-naturedly but tensed when he saw Coert suddenly get serious.

“Thought the world of you,” he said quietly. “Your kids. Everyone knew it. You were the son she never had. The son she always wanted. Your kids the grandkids she never got outside your girl in there. Straight up, man, after you scraped off Sloane, lots of talk in this town, wondering why Lydia didn’t fix you up with her girl when she was around, seein’ as she was around often enough. Anyone who knows her would not be surprised Lydia wanted that as her final wish. You could get a hundred folks in a courtroom to say that same thing and do it under oath. I am not kidding.”

Jake could say nothing. Coert’s words about him being the son Lydie never had were stuck in his throat, making it prickle.