“No, just that she’s terrified.”
“Poor girl.”
“Yeah. I’m gonna have to kill something, and frankly, I’m looking forward to it. But in the meantime, I want to start working on a place for us to live.”
“You’re in the guest house that used to be Remi’s, right?”
“Yes. And that’s fine temporarily. But I want to make arrangements for something else, something ours, and honestly, more safely surrounded. You can’t get much safer than living between Havoc and you and Barron. One of the three of you will always notice if something is off. I mean, Analise called you Mrs. Kravitz.”
“I knew she started that!” Emmalyn exclaimed. She huffed out an exasperated sigh, then seemed to shrug it off — literally. “Doesn’t matter. She’s right. I keep up with everything. I don’tcare what anybody does, honestly I don’t, as long as they belong here. And I’m not ashamed to admit it.”
“I don’t think anybody faults you that, Em. I certainly don’t.”
“Neither do I,” Barron said, walking into the room.
“Barron!” Ronan said, getting up to greet him.
“Hey, man. You doing alright?”
“Yep. Just looking to get a little of your surplus land to build on.”
“I heard,” Barron said.
“Havoc?” Ronan asked.
“You know it. Don’t be too hard on him. He’s calling himself helping by smoothing the way for whatever you need.”
“He’s just like my dad,” Ronan said.
“And even more so as he ages,” Barron said.
“I’m thinking of giving him the land between us and the pool,” Emmalyn said.
“You don’t want to be nearer the corner? You’d have a little more space to spread out on that side,” Barron said.
“His mate is not exactly in a safe situation. Between us and Havoc, tucked away at this end of the street is for the best,” Emmalyn said.
“Havoc alluded to something like that, but didn’t mention any details.”
“She’s afraid if she puts her boys in school they’d all be found,” Emmalyn said meaningfully, without saying too much because Roslyn was sitting across the room with her crayons, though she seemed completely absorbed in whatever animated movie she was watching.
Ronan lowered his voice. “I’m going to have to do something about that.”
“You won’t be doing it alone,” Barron said.
“Appreciate that,” Ronan said.
“So, there’s four acres between us and the end of the street. Leave us an acre between us and you on that side, and the rest is yours. And it goes two acres deep behind us the whole length of the street, too, so the two acres that extend behind you will be yours, too.”
“That sounds perfect, Em! How much do you want for it?”
“What do you mean?”
“I know you paid Brandt for it. That’s how it works. You buy it, it’s yours unless you don’t want to live here anymore, in which case he buys it back. In this case, you’re selling it to me, so, how much?”
“Right, but I’m gifting it to you. He’s not out anything, so you don’t need to pay anything,” Emmalyn said.
“You paid for it, Emmalyn. If you give it to me, you’re out the cost.”
