Love Under Two Jessops - By Cara Covington Page 0,2

out for her some."

Just mentioning the incident that had forced sweet Chloe to raise her gun and kill a man caused his brother to tense again.

Grant carried a heavy load of guilt - mainly because of the way he'd goaded Chloe that night - the night they'd installed themselves as her bodyguards, the night before that prick, Lockwood, had attacked - but the truth was they both blamed themselves for that bastard George Lockwood getting his hands on Chloe in the first place.

"Why don't I go put a pot of coffee on to brew? We can have our meeting in the kitchen. The table there's big enough. Might as well be comfortable."

"Good idea."

Andrew waited patiently as the men greeted each other out on the sidewalk before they finally headed inside. He shook hands with them, cousins all, who'd carved out time from their busy days for this meeting. After a few minutes of idle chatter, the scent of coffee inspired him to direct everyone to the kitchen. He bit back his laughter when he saw there were two chairs that each had a bed pillow upon them.

"The cushy chairs are for the twins," Grant said. "On account of their poor, abused bodies."

"Smart-ass." Chase Benedict sounded annoyed, but didn't shy away from picking one of those chairs and wedging the pillow behind his back.

Then, as everyone watched, Brian took his pillow and laid it on the seat and sat on it, sighing in satisfaction.

"That woman's turned you both into a couple of pussies. You're the youngest among us," Grant scoffed, "and you're acting like a couple of old, worn-out men."

"This has got nothing to do with our Carrie and everything to do with that devil horse," Brian said.

"I'm going to tell Carrie and Chloe you said that, Grant." Adam grinned then pulled out a chair and sat.

"Well, hell, Kendall, you're no fun at all."

Adam chuckled. "That's not what our sweet wife says."

Grant acted thoroughly disgusted as he brought mugs and cream to the table. He set the large coffeepot in the center, and for a few minutes everyone busied themselves pouring out their cups.

Finally, Jake opened his briefcase and set a file on the table.

"It's been fifteen years since the tragedy that took the lives of Donald and Alice Rhodes." Jake opened the file. "We have the bare facts. We know who they were, and where they lived. We know the business that Donald was in - real estate - and we know that they had appointed Donald's business partner, Ralph Baxter, as the executor to their estate.

"We also know that just after the estate was probated, the house sold, and the business put up for sale, Mr. Baxter disappeared with all of the cash - an amount in the neighborhood of five million dollars - apparently, never to be heard from again. He was able to do this because the lawyer that the court appointed to look after the girls' interests was someone Baxter had suggested, a man assigned to them from the public defender's office - and he, too, went missing."

"Slimy sons of bitches." Brian winced as he tried to adjust his seat. "What kind of a man steals from two young orphaned little girls?"

"The kind who, apparently, had already dabbled in reckless, if not illegal, dealings." Jake looked at his brother, and then faced the rest of them. "You need to know up front, that from both a criminal law and a civil law standpoint, the statute of limitations on this crime has passed. So even if we find these slimy sons of bitches, we can't have them charged, neither can we recover, through court action, the girls' inheritance."

Grant sat forward. "We figured that." He opened his hands. "It's not about the money. The cowboys here are going to marry Carrie in a few weeks, and, well, you have to know that Andrew and I are claiming Chloe. Hell, they're both going to be family, and they won't need the money."

That was completely true. Andrew never really gave the matter much thought, but most of the residents of Lusty had more money than they could spend in one lifetime. "It's about making something right. It's about standing up for those two young girls who were orphaned," he said.

"It's about justice," Chase said. "What we want to know is, can it be done? We talked, the four of us, and we figure, back then, no one bothered, because they were just little girls. They fell through the cracks and