Jason's Princess: A King Brothers Story by Elise Manion

you just want to move the truck back to the office and do clean up there, that’s fine too, but either way, I WILL be following you home today. Understand?” Praying she wouldn’t go completely ballistic, he stared her down. It took her a while to respond by throwing a dishtowel in his face. He laughed.
    “Fine. Get to wiping, Boss .” She sneered, letting him know that she didn’t respect the title one bit. He chuckled and began wiping.

CHAPTER 5
    WORKING FOR THE WEEKEND
    The rest of the week flew by in the same way; Julie would drive her truck to the construction site, parking near his trailer, and Jason would immediately show up for breakfast. He usually stayed with her until the lunch craziness was done. The quick kiss he had given her on Tuesday wasn’t repeated, to her confusing relief and dismay. She believed his sudden interest in her had to do with keeping her safe, nothing more.
    She admitted to herself that they were developing an odd friendship of sorts, as they talked about everything in her small Cafe Armstrong kitchen. Jason was still a bossy autocrat, but she was beginning to see a very caring side to him. He had good rapport with the majority of his crew. Her observation was that he was fair and genuinely cared for each worker, but he was guarded with all of them except his brothers. When Josh and Jarod were around, the atmosphere was completely different; competitive and comical. They were his family but they were also his best friends.
    She remembered a time when Billy had been counted as Jason’s friend. Billy had told her that he loved Jason, though she never understood why. As her relationship with Billy grew, she noticed that his friendship with Jason became strained, then distant until finally they were no longer friends but outright enemies. The week before her parents died they had been out at one of the taverns in town. Jason and his brothers had come in that night looking for them. She couldn’t remember all of the details because she had had a few too many, but a brawl had broken out. She had taken Billy to the emergency room for a broken nose. He withdrew from her emotionally afterward. Billy broke her heart in so many pieces that she was still missing a few.
    When the horrible news of her parents death came, she realized Billy had already left town. She blamed Jason for it. Before the fight in the tavern, Billy had told her Jason had been harassing him behind her back and because the Kings were affluent in their town, Billy could never make any charges stick against Jason, especially with Jarod making his way up in the sheriff’s department. She had tried to contact Billy’s parents to find out if he was ok but they wouldn’t accept her calls. He had completely vanished from her life.
    She was left with a twelve year old brother who’s grief was almost beyond them both, and she had no prospect of work or means of support. Her parents had purchased a small life insurance policy, which was enough to pay off the small house they currently lived in, with enough money left over for her to invest in her food truck. She had to drop out of school and it was touch and go for a while. Lauren had done all she could to help but she was a struggling student herself, and Julie wouldn’t hear Lauren’s desperate plan of moving in with her to help her with Charlie. One of them dropping out of school was enough.
    But Josh was relentless and practically shoved his family at her. She couldn’t stand the sight of Jason and wasn’t really thrilled with Jarod, but James and Camille King had been a godsend to her mental health, offering them as much pseudoparental advice and encouragement as both Charlie and she needed. Josh, however, had stepped in and helped when Charlie had spiraled out of control four months later. Josh had absconded with him in his camp trailer. Julie thought she should go with him but Josh had begged her to trust him. He told her that Charlie needed a little “man time”. He