Dizzy enters quietly behind her, sticking close to the wall. She eyeballs the flowers like they’re venomous spiders.
Violet rubs a petal carefully between thumb and finger. “Your mom must be a lovely woman.”
Ivy stiffens.
There is nothing lovely about Nicole. The woman is a snake. A selfish, controlling, narcissistic viper. “Destroy them.”
Violet’s eyes widen. “I’m sorry. I don’t think I heard correctly.”
“Burn them,” I manage through gritted teeth. “All of them.”
“I...” She swallows whatever she was going to say before nodding. “I can do that.”
“How’d they get here?” Ivy steps out of my arms. “How’d you take the order?”
“Actually.” Violet’s delicate brows draw down. “The only part of the order that came through me was the delivery. The flowers arrived like this.”
“So she knows where we are.” Ivy wraps her arms around herself as she faces me. “She sent someone here. She’s saying she can get to me. Here. Now. Anywhere.”
Violet’s expression turns frightened. Her shoulders turn inward as she concentrates on picking a bug off one of the blooms.
“Except she’s locked up. And will be for a long time. This is the best she can do, baby.”
“You don’t know that. You hope it’s true, but you don’t know for sure.” Dizzy peels away from the wall.
I glare at her.
Dizzy ignores me. “What if she’s behind the goat?”
Of course there’s always that fear.
“What happened to Stains?” Ivy asks.
“It doesn’t matter.” It probably has nothing to do with us.
“Clearly it does.” Ivy taps her toe, her chin jutting out determinedly.
“It’s dead,” Dizzy says. “Mutilated.”
Ivy presses the tips of her fingers to her mouth. “Who would do something like that?”
Violet has grown paler. She speaks to the flowers. “How awful.”
“We don’t know who it was,” I tell Ivy, hoping I can reassure her. “But that doesn’t sound like Nicole’s style, does it?”
“No.” She worries her lip. “But Nicole is communicating with someone on the outside. We don’t know who or why they’d help her. We don’t have a clue what they’re capable of. That means she can get to us. She can ruin our wedding. She can hurt us. I’m so tired of looking over my shoulder, Rogue. I thought we were done when we took her reasons to hurt me away, but now she’s being vindictive. I don’t want to go back to living in fear of her.”
“You won’t have to.” I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure she doesn’t ever have to feel like that again. “I promise.”
“I already am,” she whispers into my neck as I wrap her up in my arms. “And I can’t do it anymore. I want to livemy life, Rogue. My life with you. It feels like she’s stealing it from me. And she’s never going to stop.”
“So what do you want to do?” Dizzy plucks a single rose from an arrangement and presses her thumb into the stem until it breaks. The thorn must have punctured her skin because she pops her thumb between her teeth and sucks it. “How do we take it back?”
“I don’t know,” Ivy says.
“Let’s go back to the ranch,” I suggest. “It’s late. There’s nothing we can do tonight. Tomorrow is a big day.”
The one after is even bigger. I will not let Nicole ruin this for us.
