Depends on Who's Asking - Lani Lynn Vale Page 0,58

dove at Saint to protect him, but he only laughed.

“Those are the good guys, baby.” He patted my thigh and got up.

That’s when I saw the piece of wood sticking out of his shoulder.

“Umm.” I pressed on his back. “You seem to have a rather large splinter in your right shoulder.”

“Pull it out,” he grunted.

I reached for the wood, thinking it would come out easily, but it sure the fuck didn’t. The t-shirt was in the way, but I also thought the wood might be lodged into his shoulder too tightly for me to pull out.

He grunted out a curse, and I dropped my hand from the wood. “Let’s have someone who knows what they’re doing look at that.”

Smoke came over, his butt wagging, and licked Saint’s face.

“He protected me today,” I said softly. “I don’t think things would’ve turned out so well if he wasn’t here.”

Saint pressed his hand to Smoke’s face and dropped a kiss onto his furry doggy head.

“Glad that he was here when I couldn’t be,” he said as he eyed the man on the floor.

The dead man that was bleeding on my brand-new hardwood floors.

“You know him?” someone asked.

I looked up to see Booth standing there looking at me.

I grimaced.

“Yeah,” I confirmed. “Dillan and I had a run-in today with him in the parking lot. He, uh, wasn’t very happy with me.”

“What are you talking about?” Booth asked.

I stood up and hurried to the kitchen to look for the donuts that’d started this all.

I found them, surprisingly unharmed, and walked them back into the room.

Saint saw the box and frowned.

I flipped the box open and showed him.

The donuts read ‘Happy Birthday Saint.’

“I was going to bring those to you last night, but you’d said that you were having a long night, and you were super busy, so I was going to wait until this morning,” I whispered quietly. “Happy Birthday, Saint.”

He stood up, getting slowly to his feet.

“What do these donuts have to do with that guy?” He pointed at the person.

Booth reached into the box and plucked out the ‘B’ in birthday before taking a bite.

Hayes came up second and got himself one, too.

Then my dad was there, pulling me into his arms.

Saint took the box of donuts that my father had thrust into his arms, and then my dad squeezed the shit out of me.

“Tell us what happened with him,” Dad ordered.

I then went on to tell him about parking in the lot and getting the donuts.

“Well, it started out with me running inside and getting these donuts. While I was there, Dillan saw this jerk-off park in her parking lot, so I went and said something to him as I was going out to my car. He was a dick about it and left his car there to go into the bar. So, I called my dad,” I answered.

“That’s where I come in,” Dad said. “I didn’t see the guy. I just followed up on the complaint. One of the new rookies made the man move his car while I shut down the bar for over-occupancy with the fire marshal.”

Saint started to take off his Kevlar vest, being careful of the piece of wood sticking out of his back, and I walked over to him and held out my hands for him to hand it to me.

He gave it to me, and I grunted in surprise at the weight.

“Why does this feel heavier than my dad’s?” I asked curiously.

“It’s loaded down with enough magazines for my Glock that I could fight my way out of a third world country,” he explained as he turned his back to face the others. “Can someone help me rip this tee so I can see what we’re working with?”

“Hey, buddy,” Malachi joked. “Did you know you have a splinter?”

The others chuckled as my dad reached forward and ripped the shirt at the seam, exposing Saint’s back to the entire room.

“Nice tattoo,” Clayton said. “How long that take you?”

“Four sessions at about eight hours a piece,” Saint answered. “How fucked-up is it?”

I walked over and peered at his back, as well as the sliver of wood, about eight inches long and an inch in diameter, sticking out of it.

“None of your tattoo,” I said, running my fingers around the edges. “It’s…”

I yanked it out before he could tense up.

Saint cursed, long and loud. My dad stepped back, laughing. And my brothers, who were expecting it, had their phones out to take a photo.

“What the fuck?” Saint asked,