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After the amount of fun the Mighty MacDougall Brothers brought to their New Year’s Eve barbecue, it seemed only fitting to show them what an Australian barbie tastes like.
Yes, the Aussie thongs will get donned and not the thing you put on your bum. The flip-flop kind of thong. We bought a bulk lot of them in various feet sizes as part of our Fainting Goat Ranch merchandise and will be handing them out to everyone later in gift bags filled with delicious chocolate Aussie treats. Tim Tams, Caramello Koalas, Violet Crumble, Wagon Wheels, and Cherry Ripes, among other Aussie staples.
What there won’t be is anyshrimpon the barbie.
Forty-Nine
SAFE HOUSE RITUALS
Tucker
I carry mycoffee out onto the front porch, inhaling the fresh mid-morning air, and take a seat on the garden bench that has become my daily ritual while being the perfect cover for keeping an eye on the neighborhood.
Looking over to the neighbors’ front porch, I send Phoenix’s phone a code, letting her know I am watching. When she turns her head, I raise my cup of java. She nods subtly from where she’s sitting with our pretty charge playing Scrabble with the elderly black couple next door.
I have been at the safe house for nearly five weeks, and I hate having to go silent on Ophelia. No Cocky Caveman commenting. It is safer that way, and I had to go off the grid.
It has been quiet in our camp and Edge’s camp. Too quiet for his liking. It is turning into a long-ass waiting game.
Here it is business as usual, although the team and I are on high alert twenty-four-seven taking shifts sleeping, and for all appearances, to the elderly neighbors, we are just a group of guys and gals living everyday lives next door with our young friend, keeping her company while her beau is in Afghanistan. Not a bad cover story.
Phoenix and Slade take different shifts at their respective day jobs to add to the nothing-to-see-here, but they are posing as silent bodyguards in their downtime. Phoenix’s work schedule is more flexible at Mack & Cooper Investigations. It has been super quiet around here, so she’s gotten back into a part-time work routine.
We take all the necessary precautions to go over security footage, watch for tails, sweep for any trackers on our cars, and make sure no vehicles or people are loitering around our street. And as an added precaution, our charge is always in a head-to-toe disguise when she is outside the walls of Slade’s home.
Edge was probably right in thinking nobody would even have a reason to look for his lover here in San Diego. We got her out of Alaska on the quiet. No flight plan got lodged; it was a well-executed strategy with the help of Boxer’s contacts.
The couple FaceTime regularly, using fake accounts. I sometimes chat with Stephanie, a trained female soldier turned agent and part of Edge’s team. She is a close look-a-like for the female we are protecting in the endeavor to act as a decoy and lure the evil mofo out. But no dice thus far, so we hold the fort until Edge lets us know otherwise.
Steph is a cool chick in a sisterly way. She talks about her girlfriend—a closely guarded secret until she is ready to let others know. I am honored she let me into her inner circle of trust. Our conversations have helped break up living in close quarters with the other team members and living with the silent torture of being separated from the women in our lives.
Edge’s flower deliveries for his woman come from what Slade acknowledges as a friendly, long-standing local company is the only constant a few times a week. The guy is showing the love from afar.
I did take the liberty of making plans to ensure Ophelia felt my presence while separated. One week ago, I sent word to Gwendoline via Shamus because I would need her assistance. Who better than the friend who knows her the best?
Angus slipped Gwendoline his phone, so we could talk and kept Ophelia busy after deliberately hiding Bobby and Banjo, the miniature donkeys, using the excuse he went down to the field, and they were nowhere. I must remember to ask him what he did with the little guys because it couldn’t have been easy to keep them hidden. According to Gwendoline, the miniatures all have a special bond with Ophelia, and she only needs to call their names, and they are showing themselves for roll call.
Gwen now knows I am serious about her friend, and I would never do anything to hurt Ophelia. I led with my heart and laid it all out with a private conversation between the two of us.
I had no shame in enlisting Gwendoline as my eyes after discovering Jensen Peterson’s attraction to Ophelia when I did my spontaneous drop-in the day before our non-date in a hot air balloon.
I would not be around to deter Mr. Peterson, so Aussie BFF only had to get word to the MacDougall brother, Angus, if Shamus wasn’t around for operation: Jensen-get-the-fuck-away-from-my-woman to get put into action.
I was always a man with a plan.
I do not doubt Jensen’s a nice guy, but I knew when I first met the pocket rocket I wouldn’t let her slip through my fingers without further investigation into matters of the heart.
I don’t blame him for having eyes for Ophelia, she’s the complete package, but she’s my package to unwrap and no other man’s.
Gwendoline told me the date of the first anniversary of Ophelia’s parents’ death is the 26thof January. Then she dropped the bombshell. Her parents weren’t the only ones in the vehicle when the drunk truck driver hit them side-on just before midnight on their way home from Gwendoline’s family’s barbecue. Ophelia was also in the car, in the backseat, and then she told me something, which explained a lot, and it wrecked me. Maybe Gwendoline shouldn’t have told me, but it changes nothing about how I feel about Ophelia. She survived, and I thank the powers above she did, so I could meet her and make her mine.
That piece of information tore me up on the inside and not for my selfish reasons, but her loss. Christ, she’s dealt with a lot.
There were so many “what-ifs” Gwendoline rattled off, her anguish still very much alive for her best friend, something she hides well from Ophelia, knowing the past can’t get altered, but she can be a strength for her friend’s future.
Ophelia needs her space from me, and I get that even more now, but I can’t let her slip through my fingers. The heart knows what it wants, and I know she is who I want in my life regardless of her secret.
With this new information, I put the wheels in motion to bring my sisters back from Alaska so that they may offer comfort and add to the small sisterhood of friends she has in Paisley and Gwendoline. The plan was for Shamus to escort my sisters to his parents’ winery estate, arriving on the 25thof January, where they will live until further notice under the protection of his family.
