Rugged Guard - Jason Collins Page 0,1
it from him?”
“Because Dad owed a lot of people?” Eddie went on, “I don’t know. It doesn’t seem too far-fetched for me to think that he got himself into whatever trouble seemed to follow him back home.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” I sighed. “Either way, we’ll know soon enough.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I hired a P.I.,” I explained. “Her name is Viv Torres.”
“She sounds expensive.” Eddie chuckled. “How much is a P.I. going to set us back?”
“Eh. I wouldn’t worry about that.” I waved a hand. “Viv’s rates are about right for a private investigator in the area. I checked. What I’m more concerned about is the full-time bodyguard.”
“A full-time bodyguard?”
“Viv insisted,” I continued. “After I told her what a few of the letters said and about the checks, she said it just makes sense for us to be protected, at least until we can figure out what’s going on.”
Eddie hummed before he spoke again. “Makes sense to me. How do you feel about it though?”
“What makes you think I feel a certain way about it?”
“Because you like having your space.” Eddie laughed. “Because you’ve spent the majority of your life trying to stay away from other people.”
“Hey, that’s not even true—”
“Okay, okay, maybe I’m being a little hyperbolic,” Eddie cut me off. “But seriously though. You don’t even like it when I’m in the same room as you for too long. Are you going to be okay with a bodyguard watching your every move?”
“I’ll be okay,” I replied. “As long as he’s just doing his job and not snooping around or anything.”
“Yeah, we’ll see about that.” Eddie grinned before turning his attention back to Dad’s notebook, flipping through its pages for a second time.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen. My name is Viv Torres,” Viv started with a serious look on her face. “Have you two ever worked with a private investigator before?”
Viv had just walked through our front door, but everything about her energy suggested that this place was somehow already familiar to her. Or maybe that was just how Viv always carried herself, like she’d already been inside a space she was entering for the first time, calm and stoic.
“No,” I admitted.
Viv nodded in response. “Right. Well, let me give you my usual spiel, then.”
A small smile cracked on her face before she went on, “Hiring me might be the absolute worst decision of your life, gentlemen. I know you want me to look into your father’s life, and I just want you to know that you might not like what you see. I’ve worked with clients before who’ve discovered that their fathers were hiding all kinds of secrets, from being cocaine traders on the weekends to being serial killers while they were out on the road.”
“Jesus Christ,” Eddie murmured underneath his breath, his eyes going wide.
“Now, the only reason I’m telling you all this is that I want you both to be sure that this is what you want, someone to come in and exhume everything about your father that they possibly can,” she explained. “Because it’s my job to turn over every stone, gentlemen, even the ones that can’t be turned back over. Understood?”
“Understood,” I replied. “And that’s exactly what we want, Viv. We want to find out who was sending those threatening letters to our father, even if it leads to finding out something that seems bad, at first—”
“Although, if it turns out that our dad was a serial killer, feel free to not tell us?” Eddie suggested with a frown. “There are a few stones I’d rather keep un-turned, if that’s okay with you.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Viv answered before she looked back over at me. “You’re the one who runs the B&B full-time, right?”
“Yeah. Eddie helps out a lot, too, but—”
“Then Derek’s going to be with you,” Viv interrupted my response as she quietly snapped her fingers. “Derek! Get in position.”
Derek?
I looked back over at Viv, confused by her giving instructions to someone who wasn’t in the room. But a few seconds later, another figure stepped through our front door, his frame immediately catching my eye.
Holy shit.
Derek was hot.
He was built like he spent all his free time at the gym, his muscles bulging through his tight t-shirt. And the way his hair swooped down over his forehead sent butterflies all through my stomach, the casual hairstyle suggesting that there was another side to him, a side that probably stayed hidden beneath his gruff-looking exterior.
I suddenly wanted to know everything that I