“Of course not,” I answered automatically, standing up straighter. “But where is your guard, sir?”
“Hopefully far, far away from here.” Farrow looked at me for a moment before sighing. “You may as well take a seat, kid.”
I hesitated for a minute before sitting next to him, making sure to keep at least a foot between us on the mossy log.
Farrow held the joint out to me. “You want?”
I pinched myself, not sure if, in my quest to get away from the lodge, I’d stumbled into theTwilight Zoneor not. Then I shook my head. “No, I don’t smoke.”
Farrow nodded his approval. “Good, good. It’s a nasty habit I’ve never been able to kick since my hippy days.”
Despite myself, I couldn’t help but ask. “Your hippy days, sir?”
Farrow grinned. “What, you think just because I’ve been dressing in three-piece suits since I could walk that I wouldn’t go through a hippy phase? I did grow up in the sixties, kid.”
“It’s Dallas, sir,” I corrected and immediately regretted it when Farrow frowned at me.
“I know that, son,” Farrow said gruffly.
We lapsed into silence for a few minutes, the scent of the marijuana making me feel dizzy, until Farrow turned to me suddenly. “What are your intentions with my granddaughter?”
I reeled back away from him. “Pardon?”
Farrow rolled his eyes. “Don’t play coy with me, Agent Wilson. I see how you and your team look at my Lennon and I don’t like it.”
I felt my proverbial hackles rise at his words. Farrow Holloway could insult me all he liked but my brother and our team were off-limits. Even if he was the former vice president of the United States of America.
“Sir, with all due respect, that is none of your business,” I said firmly, trying my best to remain professional.
“Lennon’s business is my business, she’s my only granddaughter and my pride and joy,” Farrow asserted with a huff as if his words would be obvious to a toddler. “And I worry about how attached you’re all growing to each other.”
I thought about the other day when he’d offered to give Maverick and Zeke the day off at first but not me or Brooks and my stomach sank a bit.
“Do you not want us around Lennon because we’re foster kids?” I asked, offense coloring my voice.
Farrow frowned at me like I was stupid. “What the hell are you talking about? Why would I care about something like that?”
“Your type always cares aboutpedigree, don’t you?” I asked, mimicking the words that the men had been using at the party yesterday.
“Don’t be silly, son, my own wife was an orphan. Don’t you know that?” Farrow asked before taking a long drag of his joint in an effort to calm himself down.
His words surprised me.
“No, I didn’t know that,” I told him honestly.
“Yes, so before you come up with some narrative about me in that head of yours, just listen to me.”
I waited.
Farrow seemed more human than I’d ever seen him as he nervously fiddled with the zipper of the vest he was wearing. The man had exuded confidence the night of the accident when he’d swept in to save the day, but now he just seemed… old.
“My family is very old, which I’m sure you’ve gleaned at this point. The Holloways have been around since before the Mayflower and if you asked my mother she could have told you down to the year about our family history,” he said with a shake of his head.
“That sounds horrible,” I said dryly, making the old man chuckle.
“It was. She was obsessed even though she married into the family. But we’ve always been entrepreneurs, doctors, lawyers, and her favorite: politicians.”
Farrow said it with a level of disgust that surprised me. He seemed to revel in all of the attention he’d gotten yesterday that had stemmed directly from his political career.
