“What are you guys doing?” Hallie steps out onto the porch and Gray grabs her arm, pulling her to him. It takes less than a minute for Lainey Rai to also step out wondering what we are doing.
“Stay inside.” Gray orders, his voice gruff, and it makesLainey Rai jump. Her eyes are round as she looks at him, wondering what she did wrong. His face softens as he looks at his daughter. “Please. I’ll come and get you after I know what this is.”
She looks between him and the flowers, but decides that it’s probably not the right time to argue and goes back into the house. Right after the door closes, she sits on her knees on the bench seat of the breakfast nook to watch out the window. Gray moves to put his body between her and the box.
Looking up to see where Marley is, I find her at the bottom of the porch steps and point toward her dad who is standing a safe distance away with Kinley. She nods and moves to her dad’s other side, his arm goes around her shoulders as soon as she’s next to him.
Mason turns his ball cap around with the bill in the back, something we both do in the field when we’re focused on something, and looks over the flowers and the box. I hear voices inside and look up to see Sloane standing next to Lainey Rai, her head moving around to see what’s going on. Mason looks at Gray and he shoves Hallie behind him, putting his body between the box and all three of them, just in case.
“There’s a card.” I tip my head toward the little envelope in the fork sticking out of the top of the flowers.
Mason looks at it and smiles as he looks at me. “How bad do you wish it were just a dumb-ass boyfriend who didn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground?”
“Pretty fucking bad.” I agree with a grin and pluck the card from the fork to read it out loud.
Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
Don’t stay away too long, baby,
‘Cause I’ll doANYTHINGfor you.
P.S. I thought you might want your cat back.
Hallie sucks in a breath behind Gray, and I hear her whimper. In my peripheral, I see Marley and Kinley move in unison to cover their mouths with their hands. They look so much alike they could almost be twins, it’s ironic because her actual twin is right next to me. Lifting my eyes to Mason, I silently ask him if we really want to open this box. A slight shake of his head is my answer.
Mason looks up at Hallie. “Sweetheart, do you really want to see what’s in this box?”
Tears are already running down her cheeks and she looks from him to the box and back to him. “I gave my cat to a friend for safekeeping, she was supposed to be safe.” As the realization of what’s in the box sinks in, she’s bawling as she talks.
Gray puts his arm around her and looks at Marley before he says, “Come on, honey, let’s go in and let them take care of it.”
Marley grabs Kinley’s hand and they follow Gray into the house with a blubbering Hallie.
We wait for them to go in and close the door before I look back at Mason. “Well, fuck. This just amped up a notch.”
He takes a deep breath. “Fuckin A.”
CHAPTER TEN
JAX
“THIS GUY’Sa piece of shit.” Callum’s voice booms over the speaker of Mason’s phone, which is lying in the middle of Mr. Harlow’s desk.
Pulling my eyes from the beautiful blond in the horse pen across the yard, I look at Mason, he’s flipped his ball cap backwards like it’s his thinking cap. “We already know that, we had to bury a dead cat he sent with a gigantic bouquet of flowers. But I feel like you’re going to tell me something that’s even worse than killing animals.”
Marley being outside with no one at the stable with her is making me antsy. Especially after getting the dead cat the other day. She shouldn’t be out there by herself, but she won’t listen to anyone when we tell her it’s for her safety, she insists the horses need attention every day.
She’s stubborn enough that she won’t be swayed.
When Mason told me there was going to be a conference call with Callum and Spits this morning, I wasn’t happy tohear we were meeting in the office to do it. It just seems so far away from the stables.
Turning my head back to the window, I resume my position, leaning on the frame of the big picture window of the office, my eyes glued on the slight frame with the perfect curves holding a training stick in the pen. The horse has finally started approaching her, but on his own skittish terms.
The irony in the situation almost makes me laugh out loud. Just months ago, Marley wouldn’t approach me or let me close to her because of her own past trauma, but now she’s letting me in, a little at a time, on her own skittish terms.
Since her breakdown in the stable the other day, she’s talking to me more when I’m around her. I actually even got a smile from her yesterday. It was like seeing the sun after a cloudy day.
