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"I’ll look into it," Travis says. "Just drop me an email with the details so that I can get Bentley on it. I don't know why we didn't just ask him first."
"Because we didn't want to involve anybody else," Cole says. "Bentley is somebody else."
"Heissomebody else, but he's somebody else that I trust with my life. I trust him far more than my dad, and I know that he won't turn against us. He'll help us make sure she’s safe," Travis counters, and I can’t help but feel a little uneasy.
I chew on the inside of my cheek, trying to decide whether I think this is a good idea or not. But the fact of the matter is, this is outside of my skill set and, as much as I want to help Briar, I can’t, and we need to know who the threat against her is if someone knows what she did.
If Bentley is someone who can help and Travis trusts him, then I'm fully on board for that.
I look at Sawyer and I can see all over his face that he agrees with every thought that just ran through my mind. So I turn to Travis and nod. "If Bentley is the guy for the job and we can trust him, then let's do it."
"I don't like this call, T. The more people that know, the more in danger she’s in. Hasn't she already suffered enough?" Cole questions, his arms folded across his chest.
Travis looks at him with a straight face and responds, "Of course she has, but this is how we keep her from going through anything else."
"Well, then we have to tell her what the plan is." His tone leaves no room for argument.
He and Travis sit in a stare-off for what feels like at least a couple of minutes before Travis nods.
"Fine, we can tell her, but I'm not going to be the one to do it. She hates me enough as it is already. One of you guys can take the brunt of her anger for a change." He finishes his cup of coffee and heads back upstairs, the slam of his door echoing out through the house.
"Not it!" Sawyer calls out, touching the tip of his nose and jumping to his feet. I roll my eyes and shake my head at him before he lets out a whoop of joy. "I’m gonna go walk the dogs, then we can go for a run later."
He grabs leashes off of the hooks and the dogs all clamber toward him as I watch, laughing far too much at him trying to get everybody hooked up.
"I can do it," Cole says before I get a chance to. "I can explain it to her in a calmer way, and there's no point in her hating you as well. I know I've started to make headway with her, but if she's going to be angry at anybody, it might as well be me."
"You don't have to," I offer, more than happy to give her the bad news. It's not like it won't be the first bad news I've given her since she arrived here.
"No, it's fine. I've got it," he says, the metal feet of the stool scraping back on the floor as he stands making me wince. "I need to go and see my dad today anyway. So I'll speak to her when I get back."
"Are you going to speak to him about Briar?" I ask, and he nods.
"There's no time like the present. I might as well start fighting the battle now so that we can at least try to win the war later."
CHAPTERTEN
BRIAR
Ilook down at the text message on my phone and want to crawl into a deep dark pit of despair again. These last few days have been almost perfect, and in one quick hit, my mom manages to rip away any joy I’ve been feeling.
Mom:
We need to talk. Please come by the house, or I can take you out to lunch, but we *need* to talk. I need your help.
God only knows what sort of mess she’s gotten herself into now, and I hate how much duty I feel to fix whatever it is that she’s broken, but I can’t change who I am.
I’ve always been the one to save us. Save her. It’s like a part of my DNA, so even though it makes me hate myself, I find myself responding to her.
Me:
I can come by the house, what time? What’s wrong?
Mom:
Thank you, sweetheart, you have no idea what this means. Pop by for lunch, Chase will be gone by then.
Yeah, that doesn’t seem ominous at all.
