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Each step I took as I followed I expected to see him jumping out and shooting me. I was ready. I no longer cared, as long as people knew it was him, and Noah and Joel were kept safe.
Joel, however, caught up to me. “I called Noah. He’s on his way.”
“I wish you hadn’t. I don’t want him here now. Harvey wants to kill him.”
“Harvey?”He asked, laughing. I didn’t see how anything could be funny, but Joel was cracking up badly. “Harvey? What kind of fool name is that?”
The laughter was contagious, and maybe it was out of pure anxiety, but I laughed a little, too. “Yeah, not the best name, especially for the bad guy.”
“Bad guy,” he scoffed. “Looks like some uptight city fella ta me.”
Joel was brilliant with his deduction of Harvey.
I followed the tracks to the road, and saw them disappear, though. He’d had a car waiting.
Joel went out onto the road to look, but like usual, it was clear of cars. “Well, hell. I wanted to fill his ass with a few bullets,” Joel said, then, with a shrug, he came over to me, taking off his hat to comb through his hair with his fingers. “You want me to take that back now?”
The rifle. I gladly handed it to him and reached for my phone before I remembered it clanging to the floor at the house. “Call Noah back.”
“No need,” Joel said, nodding behind me. Noah was driving to beat hell right for us, skidding to a stop before he got out and came right over to me.
“Are you okay?”
He was freaking out, and for good reason, but I had to calm him. “He had a car waiting. We’re fine. It was Harvey if you hadn’t guessed already.”
“Get in. We’re gonna find that motherfucker.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Wedroveforanhour, but ended up at the sheriff’s office to file a report and give witness statements. The sheriff was all lit up with excitement, and so was the rest of the place, as finally, something big had happened in their tiny place in the world.
Damon and Burke called that night, as Noah and I were checking, for the third time, if everything was locked down tight and the animals were safe. The barn had more padlocks that I knew existed, and Noah had me waiting with a gun while he placed them all.
We went back into the house, and he ordered me to the bedroom. I thought he’d fuck my brains out to get me to chill, but no such luck. Lauder was waiting on the computer screen for me.
“Eli, I heard you had some… trouble.”
“Man, I love how he gets to tell you things.”
“You’ve spoken to me about him as well, Eli. Be fair. This is a short check-in, just to see if you’re handling things all right.”
I relaxed some and whined, “I’m fine.”
“I can see you’re not tearing out your hair. That was… big. A big trauma. How will you handle it from here?”
That was a great question with no answer. I hadn’t thought that far ahead. Then, I blurted, “Keeping Noah safe!”
“I see. That’s good, and your instincts to protect him are admirable, but he’s likely thinking the same of you. So much so, in fact, that he called me to make certain this wouldn’t set you back in your progress. I know you will ride this out well, but if you need me, if you need him, we’re both here for you.”
“I know. What I’d like is for him to tie me up and whip the fuck out of me. I guess that’s losing progress.”
“Not necessarily. It’s an old crutch, and sure, we always think of them first, when we have things that unsettle us.”
“It’s the crutch,” I admitted. “I want to be able to do that again, for just being fun. Is that ever going to be okay with you and Noah?”
I watched him smile and blink slowly. He was a pretty man, but he could frustrate me so badly, I felt sorry for his submissives. “Of course. Eli, you enjoy it. That’s the part that will bring you back to it, eventually. When you can separate using it as a crutch to your wanting it to happen organically, then it’ll happen. And I think you’re very close to it. Besides this incident, you’ve been doing well.”
I smiled at the man before I knew I was going to. “Thanks, Brian. I… hate you sometimes, but you do help me.”
