Taboo Boss - Natasha L. Black Page 0,17

with my fingertips, I turned to Amanda.

“I need a break,” I said. “I’m not really getting anywhere, and it’s just frustrating me. I’m going to go see what my brothers have found out and check on everybody. Would you want to come with me?”

“Sure,” Amanda said.

We went to Mason’s house, and he met us outside. As soon as I got out of the car, he came around to give me a hug. He smiled at Amanda.

“Hey, Amanda, good to see you,” he said.

They had met on a few occasions when Mason came out to San Francisco, but she hadn’t met Ava, yet. We went inside and found Ava in the living room sitting on the floor with baby Robert. He was changing so much it was amazing. He looked distinctly different than he did the last time I saw him just a few weeks before.

He was sitting up now, clapping his chubby hands and occasionally reaching for the stuffed animals sitting around him.

“Ava,” I said when we came into the room, “I want you to meet my secretary, and the savior of just about every element of my life on a regular basis, Amanda.”

Amanda scoffed and shook her head but reached out her hand toward Ava. “It’s nice to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Nice to meet you, too,” Ava said. “How long are you guys going to be in town?”

Amanda looked over at me, and I gave a noncommittal shrug.

“We don’t have a set timeline, yet. I’m here for as long as I need to be to handle everything. Amanda was good enough to agree to come and work remotely from here. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to keep her, but as long as she’ll stay, I’m happy to have her.”

I noticed a slight flush go across Amanda’s cheekbones.

“I can stay as long as he needs me,” I said. “I am without pets, roommates, or any other obligation. Which I realize now as I’m saying it out loud sounds sad and a little bit pathetic rather than carefree and rife with opportunity as I intended it to.”

Ava laughed. “Well, if you need any girl time while you’re out here, just let me know. We can hang out.”

Amanda laughed and nodded happily. “I will definitely take you up on that.”

“Tom, can we talk for a bit?” Mason asked. “Jesse and Jordan are on their way over here.”

“Sure,” I said. “Let’s go wait outside for them.”

We went out onto Mason’s porch. There was already a small cooler sitting on it, which told me Mason had been doing lawn work that day. This was his style. Anytime he needed to go out into the yard to mow the grass, work in the garden, or anything else, he brought along a cooler full of beer. He reached into the cooler now and handed one of the bottles to me.

A few seconds later, our brothers pulled up and joined us. We started talking about Danny and all the shady things he did. It was worse than I even thought. I wasn’t around as much, so I didn’t see as much as my brothers did. They told me about how he drank the inventory of his own bar with the town drunks, who had moved over to his bar from ours. He would then charge everybody else who came in extra to cover the cost of what he drank.

“So, he’s an alcoholic,” I said.

“Absolutely,” Jordan said. “I’m just getting a chance to see what this guy is all about since I’ve been home the last six months, but it’s ridiculous from what I’ve seen. His place is falling apart, and everybody around town except for his little band of loyal drunks talks about it.”

“He’s probably bitter and jealous,” Jesse said. “We’ve been doing so well, and we never asked him to participate in any of the events.”

“Well, that’s not entirely true,” Mason said. “I did approach him about the classic car night. I thought it was the neighborly and professional thing to do to ask if he wanted to be involved. He immediately turned me down and had a few choice words for me.”

“He threatened you?” I asked.

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say he threatened me,” Mason said. “But he was definitely not pleased about having us in the neighborhood, and he let me know that.”

That was all I needed to hear. I reached into my pocket.

“I really didn’t want to have to do this,” I said.

“What are