Chapter 42

Jade went looking for Big Red Bronson, the man who she’d originally beaten in the fight ring, then made friends with over drinks, and finally flirted with despite his dim-witted difficulty in picking up the innuendos she was throwing down. She found him playing a game of Stones with several of his Red Bronson cousins, a game that they had excitedly explained to her in-depth while they were all in their cups. The way the bandit family spoke about it, Stones was a nuanced game of skill and talent, wit and intelligence. It was as complicated as an obscure card game and as cutthroat as a duel.

Jade watched a few rounds and still couldn’t understand how it was more than throwing stones as close to a target as possible.

“Alright,” she mumbled to herself. “Let’s do this.” Then she switched back to her regular voice. “Big Red is big, right?” Tori asked me.

“His name isn’t ironic,” I chuckled.

“OK. So big and muscley. And he’s a bruiser, so is he built like ... a muscley UFC heavyweight?”

“That would be a pretty apt comparison,” I nodded. “Slightly cauliflower ears, a strong jaw, an intense look in his eye when he focuses on something. He’s relatively clean shaven, for a bandit, and looms over his cousins at maybe 6’7”.”

“Alright,” Tori nodded. “And last question, because it would be important to Jade. Does he have big feet?”

I laughed, and Elyse and Rhia chuckled. “Would you have checked out his feet when you were with him?”

“Absolutely,” Tori said. “It’s one of the first things I would look at because of my martial training - just because most people in the world aren’t doing Kung-Foot doesn’t mean I don’t need to be prepared.”

“Wasn’t it Foot-Fu?” Rhia asked.

“Whatever,” Tori smirked and rolled her eyes.

“OK, yes, you’ve noticed that he wears very large boots,” I said.

Jade approached the Red Bronson’s playing Stones, waiting for one game to end before clearing her throat while sauntering towards them. “Afternoon, lads,” she said. “Red Bronson.”

“Aye,” answered Red Bronson.

“Red Bronson,” Jade acknowledged the next one.

“Yarp,” Red Bronson nodded.

“Red Bronson, Red Bronson,” Jade said to the next two.

“Howdy do, Miss Jade,” Red Bronson said.

“It’s always a pleasure, miss,” Red Bronson grinned a little lasciviously.

Jade stopped in front of Big Red Bronson. “Red Bronson,” she said, putting more warmth in her voice.

““ello, Jade,” he rumbled back.

“Could I talk to you? In private?”

“Um,” he said, looking at his cousins. Two of them gave him thumbs up, having heard about the flirting that had happened on the hunting trip. “Sure,” he said.