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I loved my uncle, and knew he meant well, but I didn’t appreciate the way he butted into my business.
“She was injured during the attack.” I flexed my fingers at my side, turning back to him. “I drove her to the hospital.”
“I saw you down at the cottage.” He narrowed his eyes.
I paused. “I drove her home afterward.”
Grayson looked between me and my uncle, taking a sip of his scotch, as if he could swallow the tension now filling the room.
“Women throw themselves at you every chance they get, and you have never driven any of them home.”
“Like I said, she was injured, so I gave her a ride.”
His gaze lingered a tad too long, his head tilting in silent challenge. “From the looks of it, it seemed like more than just a simple ride home.”
“You were watching me?” I scoffed.
“I was waiting for you after seeing the news.” His gaze moved to the cottage at the bottom of a slight hill from the main house. “When I looked outside, I saw you with your arm around her.” He licked his lip. “I thought you didn’t date.”
“I’ve dated lots of women,” I retorted.
“That encounter looked like more than a one-night event.” Uncle Alexander raised an eyebrow.
First, he gives me a hard time for having only one-night stands, and now he’s giving me a hard time because he thinks I’m too interested in a woman? Pick a side.
I didn’t appreciate this crap. I tried to bite my tongue; wanting to show respect to the man who’d helped my mother through all those difficult years.
Triedbeing the imperative word.
“I don’t mean to sound crass, but this needs to be said.” My uncle looked into the bottom of his glass, where two ice cubes were dying a slow death. “She’s not Lockwood material, Hunter.”
“So long as you don’t mean it to sound crass.”
My uncle tightened his lips. “She’s the daughter of a killer. A child killer.”
A muscle twitched in my jaw. “When will you ever let go of this pedigree bullshit?”
“People look at you, they see billions in the bank.”
“Which is it?” I asked. “Is she a gold digger or bad for our Lockwood brand? Pick your issue with her.”
“The Lockwood name and fortune are something people try to go after all the time. What kind of an uncle would I be if I didn’t warn you to be careful?”
“All due respect, I’m not a child anymore.”
My uncle’s heart was in the right place, but he’d always been overprotective, overcompensating for us boys being fatherless. Particularly when it came to trusting new people. Like how Alexander always insisted on meeting any new friends of ours, and when he did, he’d basically interrogate them with questions about their background, intentions, and even their family history. It was infuriating enough as a teenager.
And now here he was, doing something similar when I was a grown man.
“I have to go,” I snapped. “So, if you don’t mind, I think it’d be best if you just leave.”
I did not appreciate him bulldozing his way into my life and trying to tell me how to run it.
My uncle’s chest swelled as he set his glass of scotch on the coffee table and walked toward the front door—the grand entrance. Where he stopped and turned, his shoulders softening.
“I didn’t mean to offend you, Hunter. I’m sorry. I just want what’s best for you.”
The slight quiver in his voice sent a pang of guilt through me, a stark reminder that behind his prickly demeanor, he was trying to protect me.
