It Wasn't Me - Lani Lynn Vale Page 0,43

me in the mornings. But only in the mornings when he first woke up and didn’t have his coffee. Nine times out of ten, or the five out of seven days that I’d woken up next to him, he’d been in a bad mood until he’d either A, gotten his coffee or B, gotten his other fix—me.

Three, he was honestly one of the greatest men that I’d ever met in my life, and that was saying something because I’d grown up with some great ones.

The woman sneered and snatched up the meat that she’d tried to stick on the shelf with the candy and stomped away.

Jonah turned to start pushing our items closer to the cashier who was finally able to help us.

And when we got out to Jonah’s truck, I was chuckling softly to myself.

“You just say what you mean, don’t you?” I teased. “Am I going to have to learn how to protect myself?”

He scoffed and started to put the groceries into the backseat of the truck.

When everything was in, he turned the cart around and shoved it hard in the direction of the cart return.

It traveled all the way across the parking lot, into the cart return, and slammed hard into the poles that were made to contain the cart. The entire cart return clanged with the metal meeting metal with such force.

I snickered and rolled my eyes.

“You’ll never have to learn something like that,” he said. “Because I’ll always be there to protect you. But, I highly doubt that you’ve grown up with who you did without soaking up a few moves.”

That was truer than true. My father had made sure that we all knew how to protect ourselves and damn well at that.

I couldn’t count the number of times he’d put us in a choke hold and say, ‘Get out of it.’

At the time it’d been play. It’d been something fun he would do with us, and us girls would laugh and squeak and try to get out of it and never accomplish it. At least at first.

But then we’d gotten older.

We’d gotten smarter.

We’d also gotten more observant.

If he was able to get the drop on us—which was rare—then we knew exactly how to get out of it…and quick.

Quick enough that eventually he’d started to find new and inventive ways to try to trap us.

Tickling was his favorite form of torture, and since I hated torture, aka tickling, I was very careful to pay attention and be ready for anything.

And then the Army had happened.

I’d also taken quite a few self-defense classes and had trained for a year and a half in Jiu-Jitsu before I’d quit when I’d been stationed overseas.

“You’re right,” I admitted. “Dad taught us everything he knows.”

The drive to Jonah’s brother’s house was quiet and short.

After announcing that his mother was going to meet him there with the animals that she’d been watching for him, he hadn’t said another word as he’d driven through the quiet city streets.

I’d sat quietly as well, worried and overthinking things as I tried to think about how I was going to respond to the questions I knew were about to be thrown our way.

When we arrived, I was surprised to find that we were at a house not far from Jonah’s. Though, saying that, it was in a neighborhood and not with nearly the same amount of land that Jonah had.

“This is nice,” I said softly.

“Downy has three kids,” he said. “They’re not at home anymore, all of them off at college or beyond, and they’re considering downsizing. He said he wants to find a place on the lake, so this may not be theirs much longer.”

That was a shame.

It was beautiful.

“Are you close to your brother?” I questioned.

Jonah grunted out an ‘I guess’ and got out of the car.

My lips twitched as I followed behind him, making my own way out onto the road and staring nervously at the number of cars that were in the driveway.

I wasn’t sure what I expected when I walked up the path to Downy’s house with Jonah.

But I hadn’t expected to see a dog that looked to be older than dirt to growl at us from its position on the pathway.

When Jonah continued to walk toward the dog without a care in the world, I squeezed his hand.

“Umm,” I said. “That dog isn’t going to bite you, is he?”

“She,” Jonah muttered. “And Mocha is so old that I highly doubt she could even muster the strength to bite. At