Unexpected Love (Jo's Story) (32 page)

“No, not really.  Was hoping to just relax.”

“Oh come on big brother, your such a fuddy duddy!”

“Call me what you want Molly, but I had a long day and so did Jo.”

She looks at me, “you don’t want to go to a movie?”

“No, not really.  Like Jake said, it has been a really long day.  I have been up since 6:00 and at work since 7:30.  I'm just ready to relax and possibly go to sleep.”

“It’s like 7:00, how can you be ready for bed?”

“Molly, its fine, let’s just go,” Ryan tries not to sound irritated but fails.  I know he is exhausted too. 

“Why don’t you guys just stay here and watch a movie in the theater?  Rent something I don’t care.”

“Really?”  Molly perks up.

“Yeah, Ryan looks exhausted and I'm sure it would be less crowded.  Get whatever I don’t care there is like a mile long list of stuff you can rent.”

“Thanks,” she kisses his cheek then gets up and grabs Ryan’s hand and they go toward the house.

“Nice save,” I smile.

“The guy looks almost as tired as you.  What did you guys do today?”

“Well I didn’t get to do anything exciting, but Ryan got to run like twenty laps to spy on a meeting.”

“What kind of meeting?”

“One of the guys wanted a meeting with Lewis.”

“Already?”

“Yeah, we are moving along pretty good with this.”

“Good,” he finishes his food.  “You want something to drink?”

“Sure, I will take a beer.”

“Ok, I will be right back,” he gets up and walks into the house.  I just sit there and look out over the back yard in a daze.  This day has been a long one.  I am just ready to crawl in bed and lay in Jake’s arms.  “Hey, you alright?”  He sits next to me and hands me a beer.

“Yeah, just enjoying the quiet, I don’t get this very often.”

“I bet not.  And after all the crap with my brother I bet it is nice to not have to deal with cooking, cleaning, and all that good stuff.”

“I'm not gonna lie, it is amazing!”

“So, what do you want to do?” He wraps his arms around me and starts kissing my neck.

“Honestly?”

“Yes,” he looks at me.

“I would like to go up to your room, put on one of your t shirts and crawl in bed and watch a movie.”  I see him smile.

“Sounds perfect to me,” he stands up and puts his hand out for me to grab.  We walk up to his room and I sneak a peek in the theater and see Ryan and Molly all snuggled up on the couch.  I smile, I hope they don’t get crazy into it like Jake and I.  I'm sure he will be cautious after what he just went through with Hailey.

“How long is Molly in town for?”

“I'm not sure; my guess is she has something this week.  I don’t know her schedule depends on what her clients want.  I think she might be working in town this week.  I heard her on the phone earlier with someone talking about ordering some stuff for a job she is working on.  I don’t really know, I try not to pry in her business.”

“Yeah, I was just wondering because I know that if she expects to see a lot of Ryan this week it probably won’t happen.  I'm actually surprised he is here, he was going to be helping Lucas at the restaurant in return for a place to stay until he can get a place of his own.” I sit down on the bed and take off my shoes.

“You should rent him your place and move in with me.” 

I look up at him in shock.  “I think that would be a little fast, us moving in together.”

He smiles, “I was kidding Jo.  I know it is too soon.”

“Besides, I don’t think I want to move out of the school district the girls are in.  They already have a few friends that are in school with them.”

“Oh yeah, well that is good.”

“Yeah, Abby is so excited for school to start.”

“I bet she is, they had a lot of fun with Bridgette and Morgan last week.”

“Yes, they did, and now that I know they only live a few blocks from me I will have to take the girls over there to play more often.”

“So what do you want to watch?” Jake grabs the remote.

“Not sure, find something good I'm up for whatever.”  I stand up and go to my bag.  “I need a shirt,” I smile at him.

“Oh, yeah,” he walks to his dresser and grabs out a shirt for me.  I look at it and it is a team shirt.

I smile, “should I have expected anything else?”

“Hey, it has my name on it and everything,” he laughs.  I shake my head and go into the bathroom and change.  I put on my shorts that I grabbed and then his shirt.  It smells like him.  I smile at my reflection.  I look at the hook next to the sink and see the locket that he got me from Virginia Beach.  I haven’t worn it since Saturday because I didn’t want it to get lost with all the stuff going on especially at work.  I walk back out and see that he has changed into shorts and climbed into bed.  I crawl in next to him.  He smiles at me and moves his arm so I can lie on his chest.  “How about some “Die Hard”?”

“Love those movies,” I smile.

“I figured, that’s why I stopped on this one.” He puts his arm around me and pulls me close.  He pulls the blanket up over us then turns off the lights.

“Setting the mood or something,” I smile at him.  He looks down at me and gives me that smile. 

“You have no idea how tempting it is right now,” he says then goes back to watching the movie.

“You and that damn smile,” I snort then wrap my arm over his stomach and snuggle up to him.  I feel so good lying here next to him.  I am almost asleep when my phone pings for a text.

Hey, Lewis just called me, they are changing his exchange to tonight at 10:00 at the warehouse location by the station…what’s the game plan?

It is Ryan.  I get out of the bed and see that his car is still parked outside.  He is still here someplace.  “I have to go talk to Ryan,” I say to Jake and walk out the door.  I see him sitting on the couch when I walk down the steps.  “Where is Molly?”  I ask him when I am behind him.

“She is taking a phone call for something with work.  Lewis just called me like five minutes ago freaking out wanting to know what to do.”

“He has to go.  You and I have to go; I don’t want him there by himself.  Call Bob and Jean see if they can meet us at the station.  We have about an hour.  Tell them to meet us as soon as possible.”

“Ok,” he grabs his phone out of his pocket, “should we just take my car?”

“Yeah,” I yell as I am running up the steps.  I go into Jake’s room and right into the bathroom to get dressed again.

“Baby, what’s going on?”

“I have to go; I have something that I have to take care of.”

“It’s 8:30 at night what do you have to take care of?”

“They moved their drop off with Lewis from tomorrow morning at some residential to a warehouse that we think might be involved with their major drops.  I need to wire him before he goes.”

“You’re going to work right now?”

“I have to,” I walk out of the bathroom dressed and lay my shorts and t shirt on the bed.  “Hopefully I won’t be gone long, but I will be back.  I am just going to ride with Ryan.” He gives me that worried look.  “I'm fine,” I bend across the bed and kiss him.

“You better come back.”

“I promise,” I smile and get up and go back downstairs.  I can hear Ryan telling Molly that we are leaving and she is just as pleased as Jake is possibly less. 

“Hey,” I hear Jake and see him standing at the top of the steps.  “Be careful,” he smiles at me.

“I will be,” I smile and walk toward the front door.  Ryan opens it for me and then we are on our way to the stations.  “Did you get a hold of Bob and Jean?”

“Yes, Bob said he would be there soon, Jean said she had to call her mom and get her to come over to keep an eye on the kids and she would be there.”

“Ok, so what I want you to do is call Lewis and have him meet us at Pier Park.  We need to get a wire on him.”

“You think they will suspect that?”

“They might, but we will get Andy from tech to give us something they won’t be able to find.  We need to get eyes in there.  He isn’t going in without them.  This is way too big for him to not have us being able to see what he is walking into.”

“I agree,” he grabs his phone and dials Lewis.  I listen to him talk as we drive to the station.  When he parks I see that Bob is already there and that Ricky is still there.  He must have had some stuff he wanted to check out and came back after we left.  I walk in and see Ricky and Bob are waiting for us in the board room.  I go into my office and grab my laptop.

“I think I am going to call Chief and let him know too,” I say as I walk into the room.

“He is already here,” Ryan says.  “I saw him when we walked in.  I'm sure he will be here soon.”

“Ok, so this is what I want to do, I want to make sure that we have something that is undetectable that we can have Lewis wear, but it has to feed video I want to see what is in that building.  My guess is there is nothing there now, but if we have to do a bust there, at least we will know the lay out.”

“Ok, I will go down and talk to Andy,” Ryan heads out of the room.  I hear him say hi to Chief then he is standing in the door way.

“Working awfully late aren’t you?” He walks in.

“Lewis got a call to meet tonight at the warehouse up the street.  We couldn’t pass up the opportunity to check it out.”  I smile at him.

“Jo, you’re going to work yourself to death you know that?” He shakes his head at me.  “Are you going to get a wire on him?”

“Oh yes, video feed.  I was just saying I don’t think there will be much there tonight, but if we end up having to do a bust at least we have some sort of idea what we are up against.”

“See, I knew I promoted you for a reason,” he laughs.  “If you need anything let me know.”

“Will do,” I smile.  “Ok, Bob see if you can get a van set up outside of the warehouse without it being obvious.  I want to be as close as possible in case something goes wrong so we can get in and get him out if we need to.  Ricky, I think I want you in a squad down the road too.  I will have Jean stay here in case we need backup.” They both nod at me.  They both leave the room and I sit down in front of my computer.  If this doesn’t go anywhere tonight I need to get in contact with the other dealer that wants out.  Captain Williams gave me the information on them this morning. 

“Hey Jo,” Ryan is standing in the doorway.  “We should get going we have to meet Lewis in like twenty minutes.”

“Ok,” I grab my phone and follow him out the door.  We climb in the unmarked squad that Walsh gave us and head toward Pier Park.  “Where is he meeting us?”

“I told him around back, that way hopefully no one will see,” he pulls up to one of the buildings in the park and goes around the side.  I see Lewis standing there and he walks toward us.  He opens the back door and gets in.

“Hey,” he says and looks at me.  I can tell he is freaking out.

“Hey,” I give him a reassuring smile.  “You have definitely done a good job at getting their attention.”

“Yeah, they want me in that is for sure.”

“We will take care of you Lewis.  Don’t worry about that.  Here put this on,” I hand him a baseball cap.  “Inside of here is a little camera.  It is so small they won’t even suspect it,” I show him where it is.  I can see him relax.  “We will be stationed outside the building, not far I want to be able to get in if I need to.  I have five people ready to charge at the drop of a hat.”

“This is crazy you know that right?”  He laughs nervously.

“Well, if it works, then it won’t be crazy anymore,” Ryan says. “She is the leader of this team for a reason Lewis, she knows what she is doing,” Ryan pats my knee.

I smile, “that’s right; hopefully I am right about this.  I don’t think there is going to be anything there tonight.  I just want you to look around as much as possible and give us a good layout of the building.  I realize that too much would give you away just do what you feel comfortable with.  If you can’t do it, don’t worry, we will go with what we can get.”

“Ok, you’re the boss,” he looks at me.  I see the fear in his eyes and feel guilty for getting him into this. 

“I will get you out Lewis, one way or another, I promise you that.”  He nods at me and puts the hat on.  “Show time,” I smile at him and get out to let him out of the car.

“Thanks Jo,” he smiles as he turns and heads out of the park.

I sit back down and shut my door.  “God I hope this works, if it doesn’t I'm moving to Mexico.”

“Oh Jo, you will be fine.”

“You do realize that I just promised my boyfriend’s brother that I am going to get him out of this right?  I mean I just promised him the impossible!”

“It’s not impossible, just tricky.”  He drives back toward the warehouse and parks the car about a block from the van that Bob is in.  We walk to the van and get in.  “How’s the feed?”  Ryan asks when we get in.

“Looks good, he is about a block away from the warehouse now, looks like he stopped at the coffee shop up the road to kill a little time.” Bob says.  I look at my watch it is 9:15.