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I nodded and hurried after her toward a man who was waiting with a black bag slung over his shoulder and one of those enormous professional cameras in hand.
He’d already scoped out the yard and had a few places in mind to click off some shots. I swear, I was this close to getting stung by a bee at the rose arbor, but I didn’t say a word.
After getting a majority of my poses in the gazebo, Mother decided she wanted a family portrait taken here too, since the photographer was on hand.
Twenty minutes of moaning and grumbling later, the men in the family joined us. Max might have been the only person to tell me I looked nice, but he was too self-absorbed at the moment, lost in his own thoughts, to notice anyone else, and I was grateful.
I wasn’t sure what to think of him anymore. I might’ve even trusted Garrett more than I did Max. Garrett had always been open and forthright over any loathing he felt. Max was too guarded, and now I knew he wasn’t quite as kind as I’d
always thought he was.
Lost in my own thoughts about how I wanted to avoid Max from here on out, I nearly jumped out of my skin when a loud crack, like a tree limb falling and crashing to the ground, came from the trees just inside the woods.
“What the devil was that?” my father groused as Mother gasped and clutched his arm.
“I think someone’s out there,” Max reported, lifting his hand to his eyes to shade some sunlight as he gazed into the woods.
I zipped my attention that way, only knowing of one person who frequented this forest. When I saw a shadow slipping through the trees, I gasped and set my hand against my chest.
“That better not be my fucking diaper vandal,” Garrett roared. He took off sprinting into the trees, and Max started after him.
Worried about Knox, I started off too, but Mother caught my arm and tripped me up. “Felicity! Do not go out there.”
I opened my mouth but had no idea how to answer.
Seconds later, I heard a shout, and then Garrett’s triumphant, “Got him!”
“Oh, God,” I whispered, praying it really was some random peeping Tom, and not Knox.
But luck wasn’t with me as both Max and Garrett dragged a resisting, scowling Knox into our yard.
As Mother continued to hold me back at her side, my father stepped forward, frowning. “What’re you doing on Bainbridge property, boy? Just who do you think you are?”
“He’s one of the Parkers,” Max reported, and Garrett growled. “Are you the asshat vandalizing my room with dirty fucking diapers?”
Knox glanced at him briefly. “Why would I vandalize your room when I know you weren’t the one to get my sister pregnant?” Then he sliced a glare Max’s way that was so hard and accusing I gulped in fear, worried he might try something to really get himself into trouble.
“Stop looking at me like that,” Max ordered just as Father glanced at my mother and said, “Call the sheriff.”
Mother nodded and turned toward the house to get a phone. I pulled free of her grip and remained where I was on the steps of the gazebo. Knox hadn’t looked at me yet, and I willed him to just as much as I willed him not to. I ached for some kind of message from him, reassuring me he was going to be okay, just as much as I feared he might give us away if he glanced anywhere toward me.
My father strolled up to him and caught his chin. As he moved Knox’s face up into the light, I saw a couple of scratches on his cheek. Covering my mouth with my hands, I hoped he was okay. If he’d been up in the tree watching us when the limb had fallen, he could’ve been hurt badly.
“What’re you doing here, boy?”
Knox jerked his chin from my father’s hand and glared at him with defiance. “I just wanted to see all the girls in their pretty dresses.”
I blinked at his answer, because it wasn’t something Knox—the Knox I knew—would ever say. I swear, he dumbed himself down just to irritate my father more.
It worked. Father’s scowl deepened. “What makes you think there would be any girls in dresses here?”
Knox began to glance my way, and I held my breath, but at the last second, he turned back to my father, a look of confusion crinkling his brow. “Isn’t this where that big, fancy cotillion’s supposed to be tonight?”
My father huffed, “No, it is not. Why in God’s name did you assume that?”
“Well...” Knox appeared to be genuinely confused. “This is the nicest house in the entire county. Where else would it be?”
The compliment threw my father. He sputtered for a minute before booming, “Well, you’re wrong. The cotillion is to take place at the antebellum center in town, I believe.”
