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And it was silly to hide in the bathroom. Like everyone didn’t already know what was going on.
“Get a grip,” I whispered to my reflection, before getting myself together, and moving out into the bedroom to find Donovan getting clothes together.
“Is everything okay?” I asked, sensing something tense about him.
“I have to go out today,” he said, and his voice sounded far away. Almost as if it was coming from behind a wall. And I could almost see it, too, the wall he was constructing around himself.
“Okay,” I said, hearing a tightness in my own voice.
He must have heard it too, because his head turned to me.
“It’s about the car chases and shit,” he told me. “We are trying to get to the bottom of it,” he said as he yanked his pants up his legs, and I was left wondering how he managed to do that without hurting his hand and ribs.
“But you’re hurt. Can’t it wait until you’re better?” I asked.
“Not taking that risk with your and your sister’s lives.”
“Okay. But… can’t someone else go then?”
“This is my mess,” he said, pulling on his shirt, but leaving it unbuttoned as he walked across the room toward me. “I have to clean it up,” he said before closing himself into the bathroom.
Feeling quite thoroughly… dismissed, I tried not to take it personally as I grabbed my laptop, then took it across the hall to brush my teeth before heading downstairs.
I could smell bacon cooking as I made my way into the kitchen, finding Eddie there already, flipping fried eggs on a giant skillet.
“Breakfast sandwiches this morning. I gotta get to work,” he said, giving me one of his trademark smiles. “And I hear everyone else has plans too.”
“Not me,” I said, shrugging, trying not to be in a bad mood about the conversation with Donovan.
He was just feeling unnecessarily guilty, that was all. And I guess if I were going to a meeting while injured to figure out why someone had hurt me, I might be a little moody too.
“No, you too, pretty lady,” he told me, dropping an egg, cheese, bacon, and English muffin sandwich onto a plate, then handing it to me. “So eat up while you can.”
I was actually starving.
We’d gone straight upstairs after getting back from the drive, and I hadn’t gotten a chance to get any dinner. Add in all the sex, and I was feeling quite depleted. The plate actually shook slightly in my hand before I put it down on the table.
“Where am I going?” I asked Eddie, feeling a little out of sorts. Donovan being weird, him going to a meeting that may or may not be dangerous, and, apparently, someone else making plans for me.
“Alaric and Levee are taking you girls over to your place while Booker and his guys work.”
“Oh, okay,” I said, figuring that made a certain amount of sense. People were typically home when others were around doing projects there.
“And I hear Remy is dropping over,” Eddie said.
I thought nothing of it then.
It wasn’t until after the men had all come in to grab Donovan—who offered me a goodbye that didn’t include eye contact—and Triss and I were shuffled into what had to be another spare club car—a kind of flashy, unmistakable yellow Jeep, and we got to the house to oversee the work that I finally understood.
Remy was coming over.
Because Triss had made a decision without me.
It occurred to me as I sat cross-legged on the couch in the living room, barely registering the hammering and drilling because I was deep in a scene where my characters were being pulled apart, and I was happily spilling my conflicted feelings onto the page.
But by then it was too late.
Because not ten minutes later, Remy was walking in with a tall, lean Doberman who was calmly looking around our home, taking in the men at work, then, as it looked at me, its little nubby tail started wiggling side to side.
“Maeve,” Remy greeted me with a warm smile. “I probably should have confirmed this with you before I went ahead and brought her over here,” he said, walking forward with the dog at his side. “But she’s been needing a home, and she would be a great companion for some women looking for a scary-looking, but very sweet dog.”
“She is very cute,” I admitted, closing my laptop, then reaching out toward the dog. “What’s her name?”
“Dolores,” he said, nodding when my brows raised. “I know, different,” he said.
“I love it,” I told him as Dolores’s tail started wagging harder.”
“The last owner docked her tail and cropped her ears,” Remy said, tone going tight. “Barbaric,” he mumbled to himself.
There were rumors around the clubhouse, and the women who hung around it in the past, about Remy’s anger problem. It was often started by people doing cruel things to animals.
