“Recruiting?” Felicity muttered. “Yeah, right.”

Although Molly was tempted to make her sister explain exactly what she meant by that, she kept her mouth closed, knowing that it’d be too easy to get off track again, stealing even more of her precious sleep time. If she could get John out of the house in the next few minutes, she could get maybe an hour of sleep before she had to get up for good. With that motivation, she turned to John with an expectant look.

His gaze flicked over her sisters before returning to Molly. His hand left Warrant’s head, and the Great Pyrenees gave him a disappointed look before trundling toward the dog door leading to the backyard. Watching Molly closely, John finally answered. “Your mom’s in jail.”

There was an instant chorus of groans. “Again?” Charlie sounded exactly how Molly felt—disappointed but not surprised in the least. Jane had gone to jail more often than she’d attended any of their school events, and they had all grown up knowing the ins and outs of the entire criminal process, from arrest to court. That was one reason Molly had chosen to start a bail recovery business. Since they knew all of the players involved already, it had been easy to step into the industry.

“No wonder she was blowing up my phone last night.” Although she was pretty sure what the answer would be, she had to ask. “How’d you find out?”

“She texted me when she couldn’t get ahold of you.” He gave her phone another condemnatory glance. “Even your mom knows my number.”

He sounded so uncharacteristically pouty that Molly couldn’t hold back an eye roll. Normally, she’d try to be a little bit more polite, even with John Carmondy, but she was tired and it was early and she didn’t really care if he saw her mocking him. “If I save your number in my phone, will you leave now?”

He looked startled. “That’s it? Don’t you want to know which jail?”

“Not really.” She moved toward him, hoping to herd him out the door, but he didn’t move, which meant that they were now standing uncomfortably close. John seemed even bigger than usual, which made sense, since his broad chest was only inches from her nose. If only he didn’t smell so stupidly good, like leather and falling leaves and… Was that bubble gum? Only he could make the slight whiff of sugar and strawberries seem attractive.

If it had been anyone else, she would’ve backed up a step or two to reestablish her personal space, but this was John Carmondy, and she didn’t want to give up any ground to him. Even though she knew she was being irrationally stubborn, she couldn’t seem to help it. John brought out the teenager in her.

Cocking his head to the side, he looked down at her with a quizzical gaze. “Aren’t you going to call her lawyer?”

“She likes to represent herself.” That wasn’t quite true, but Molly really didn’t want to explain how her mom had fired or alienated every lawyer in Langston and the greater Denver area—possibly in all of Colorado. Jane was stuck with either using a public defender—who had an enormous grudge against her—or defending herself in court.