“Welcome back.”
“Thank you. Had enough Vegas to last me the rest of the year.”
Bruce laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. “Let’s get you back to the comforts of home.”
Jesse climbed in the front seat, glad to see Bruce had already pushed the seat back as far as it would go, not that it was the amount of legroom that Jesse liked or needed, but it would do for their short ride back to his house on Pleasant Lane.
“So, you have a good time?” Bruce asked as they pulled out of the airport loop.
“I think so.”
“Not sure? You were there, right?”
“Well, it wasn’t my weekend. I enjoyed myself, but it’s more important that Zach and Evie enjoyed themselves.”
“I’m sure they did. Especially with Corie tagging along.”
Jesse held back a shudder. It only made sense for his grandmother, thee Leona Lovell, star of stage and screen, to have a personal assistant. And that assistant had been like family before she was officially hired, but Corie had her doctorate in fuckery and bullshit. If there was trouble with a side of drama to be had, Corie would find it. Luckily, Evie wasn’t afraid to tell her no.
“I’ll swing back with the pass van at seven to pick up Zach and the rest of the gang.”
“Thank you.” Bruce knew Jesse well enough to know that was enough conversation for today. He turned the country music he had streaming through the car’s speakers back up and let Jesse enjoy the rest of the ride back to his home at Pleasant Lane in silence, the way he preferred it. His own brain produced enough ambient noise most hours of the day. Jesse pulled out his phone and checked his emails.
His meeting with A New Way Forward or ANWF, was locked in for ten a.m. the following morning in the big conference room at the ranch. The Democratic action committee had reached out to him a few weeks before, hoping to convince him to run for Congress. Paul Cogger would be vacating the seat and there was a push to fill it with young, progressive blood who would do well across generational demographics.
While Jesse was an older millennial who’d spent 90 percent of his free time in service to the elderly folks in their community of Charming, he was convinced they had to have the wrong Pleasant. When they pressed him on the opportunities this could provide for himself and his district, he’d resolved to hear them out.
He and Zach had been running their family’s luxury dude ranch for over ten years now. Things were going well, great if he was being honest. Most weeks they were booked to capacity. The calendar was filled with weddings, reunions, corporate retreats all year long, thanks to the changes he and his brother had made when they took over from the former manager. Jesse had set out to make his parents and his grandmother proud, honor what his grandparents had intended and so far, he and Zach had pretty much nailed it.
The ranch was in good hands with Zach as the face of the business and Lilah there to support him. It might be time for Jesse to step away and, for once, look toward a future for himself. Only Lilah knew he was meeting the folks at ANWE Zach thought he was meeting with some new vendor, and would only step in to smile and grease the deal if Jesse wanted to go ahead with a contract. He’d tell Zach after, depending how things went. After Zach returned from his honeymoon.
Jesse looked up as Bruce pulled up to the gates of Pleasant Lane, the private cul-de-sac he shared with his brothers, cousins, and his grandmother on the outskirts of Charming. Miss Leona was still acting regularly on a primetime medical drama called Rory’s War and doing guest spots on other shows and cameos in the occasional film, but she always spent her weekends at home. She was probably out, spending the afternoon with her girlfriends. No doubt bragging about the grandchildren she hoped Zach and Evie would unleash on the world as soon as possible.
The gates swung open and Jesse tried to ignore the way his nerves reacted. He knew the drill, the way his body switched gears when it was time to switch tasks. He had his to-do list for the afternoon and the evening. Several dozen laps in his pool followed by a large dinner. He planned to be in bed no later than ten p.m. As they got closer to the head of the cul-de-sac, something felt off. There was a red Buick SUV parked in Miss Leona’s driveway.
“Pull up to Miss Leona’s,” Jesse said.
“Sure thing.”
A mysterious lack of dogs caught his attention too. His black Lab, Clementine, was usually waiting for him on his front steps or his grandmother’s porch; and their other dogs—Poppy, Euca, and Sugarplum—rushed any car that drove up the lane. He assumed they were all inside his grandmother’s house, which was the center of their sprawling property.
Bruce pulled to a stop beside the red Buick. Jesse thanked him and climbed out of the truck. He grabbed his stuff before he walked up the front steps. He stopped as he took in the calm and eerie silence. Not a single bark or whine. Fear gripped his throat. For a split second he considered going back outside to catch Bruce in case he needed backup, but his feet were already walking him deeper into this house. Where was his grandmother and where the fuck were the dogs? He heard a noise when he stepped into the kitchen, but it wasn’t until later that he realized what that noise had been.
He rounded the large kitchen island and caught sight of a tall man sprawled out on top of Miss Leona’s sectional. Underneath him was Miss Leona. Jesse knew what he was seeing, knew he couldn’t unsee it. There was no doubt as to the consensual nature of it all because, well, just because, but that didn’t make a damn difference. No way this shit was happening, not on his watch. The wall between his temper and the rest of the world was paper-thin, on a good day. In that moment when he saw this elderly man tongue kissing his grandmother, his brain lit a match and that wall was incinerated in seconds.
“Get the fuck off of her!” Jesse didn’t yell. He roared, trying to take the man’s head clear off his shoulders with the power of his baritone. The man’s head popped up, his eyes flashing wide with horror. Jesse recognized him as the man stood and stumbled backward. August LeRoux, a prominent accountant in town, tripped over the edge of the coffee table and fell right on his ass on the Spanish tile floor. The fly on his slacks was down and he was wearing about 40 percent of Miss Leona’s red lipstick on his wrinkled, freckled face. That about did it for Jesse. He charged forward, ready to Uncle Phil the man right out the front fucking door, but Miss Leona was quicker, popping off the couch and shoving Jesse right in the center of the chest.
“Now what in the hell is wrong with you?” she yelled back at him.
“What is he doing here? What are the two of you doing?”
“No way! No sir! You back that trolley right up. This is my house and you are not going to come in here speaking to me or my guests like that.”
Jesse knew she was right, but he was too focused on the way her usually pristine wig was cocked a little to the left. This was not fucking happening.
“You need to leave right now,” Jesse said over the top of her head. Miss Leona looked back and forth between them before she rushed over to Mr. LeRoux’s side. She knelt down, lightly touching his shoulder. Mr. LeRoux was holding his wrist, pain spread all over his face.
“Yeah, I’m alright. Something’s wrong with my wrist.”
The flames burning through all of Jesse’s control dulled themselves for just a moment. Mr. LeRoux was hurt. “Here, let me—”