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But I don’t.
I love you.
It’s all I can say, but I hope he knows that those words mean everything to me. My heart hasn’t gone anywhere.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
BROTHERHOOD
CALLUM
I’m doing a walk around the property when my phone buzzes and I see that it’s Sutton, so I hurry back to the car so I can be louder. With every pass, I haven’t seen anything that’s alarming, which has been a relief, but I’m still not able to relax. None of this with Junior is lining up for me.
I answer right before I reach the car.
“There you are,” I say.
“I’m sorry, Callum. Are you okay? Scratchthat. I could tell by your messages that you aren’t. I had to replace my phone tonight. It’s been a crazy day—not as crazy as yours. But I didn’t hear your messages until half an hour ago.”
“I love her, Sutton. I love her, and I should’ve known it wasn’t going to work when she showed up at my house in a wedding dress, but I fell anyway and now…now she’s here in Utah and I’m here and—FUCK!” I take a deep breath and slam my fist against the steering wheel. “I don’t know what to do. This guy, her ex…he’s threatening her. He says she has to marry him and—”
“What? That fucker! She’s not marrying him, absolutely not,” Sutton yells. “God, you just got my heart rate up with that one. I knew you loved her after Thanksgiving. That was…well, it softened this heartless heart and that’s saying something. Listen, Callum. We’re going to figure this out.”
“He’s threatening to hurt the emus if she doesn’t marry him,” I tell him. “One is already dead. I called the sheriff’s department, and they’re not doing a fucking thing to protect Ruby.”
“What in the ever-loving fuck?” he says.
I hear him rustling in the background.
“I’ll call you back. I hope it won’t be more than an hour, but I need to make a few calls. I swear I’ll call you right back. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Love you,” he says and hangs up.
It’s forty-five minutes when he calls back, and I’ve walked around and looped back to the car in that time.
“It’s Wyatt,” he says when I pick up. “Sutton’s here and I’m putting you on speaker. Theo’s connected on this call too.”
“Hey, Callum.” Theo’s voice is distant and there’s a lot of background noise.
“Hey.”
“I’ve filled them in,” Sutton says. “Now, I need you to walk me back a little. I thought you’d said Junior owns that property now…and Ruby found out about it on her wedding day.”
“That’s right.”
“When you called this morning, I emailed the county’s office and called again…they haven’t been helpful at all, but I was alittlemore forceful today—okay, a lot more forceful—and they emailed the documents over tonight. I didn’t see them because of running around to get the phone—it doesn’t matter—the point is, he does not own that land.”
I freeze and wait for him to say more. When he doesn’t, I say the obvious.“What?”
“The document her parents signed was something that had been in Mr. Jones’ family before. It states that in order to sell the property, it must go to a member of the Jones family. Marrying Ruby is the only possible way Junior could get that land, so she absolutely cannot marry him.”
“There’s nothing binding her to Junior at all? Nothing binding him to the land? How did her parents get the money for the decked-out RV?”
“If it’s something her parents weren’t in on, I suspect Junior funded that.”
“I’d hate to think they were in on this with Junior.”
