“Look, I know something happened between you guys, but I’ve called in some favors so we can try to catch this creep who’s sending you those flowers. Rhodes has his tech team on it, too. I want you to know that we have everyone and every resource working on it.”
“Thanks, Hats. I appreciate you bringing the team in to figure it out. The deliveries have gotten pretty weird.” There was no reason to lie to her about how I was feeling.
She squished me closer to her for a minute, and I could see Ellis shifting on his feet. “Let’s go join this clue hunt Lila has got going.”
“Sounds good.” I hugged her back, glancing over at everyone scrambling for hidden notes on the shelves. “Looks like a crazy game she’s got tonight, but I’m in. Kipp looks pretty dangerous with that net.”
Kipp had taken one of the ‘butterfly nets’ that Lila made for the evening, and it looked like he had bad intentions toward our brother if I wasn’t mistaken.
Hattie snorted, “Yeah, he’s going to end up on the wrong side of one of the family prank lists if he isn’t careful. I want it noted that whatever he does isn’t my fault.”
By the end, stuffed with desserts and my sides hurting from laughing at Kipp chasing East around the room, the day's weight felt lighter. As we wrapped up, I checked my phone and saw one new message from Rhodes showing Opal with a new orange kitten. Apparently, they’d stopped by the shelter and finally got the kitten she’d wanted. It was adorable.
Maybe tomorrow I would think about taking him up on his earlier offer and go out to work in the greenhouses. A kitten was a pretty effective bribe. Who didn’t love kittens?
I still hadn’t talked to Maggie, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to dig too deep into what my family life had been like “before.” All I cared about was the Holts and what the “now” was. Maybe it was selfish of me not to care about my birth parents at all, but Maggie and Levi had raised me with all the love they could give. If there was a before, I didn’t want to remember.
Rhodes
The week dragged on endlessly, each day driving me a little crazier that Sage kept her distance. We’d now spilled over into April with the days getting progressively warmer, and Wild Bloom was busy. I knew she was swamped with work, so I tried to stop by without pushing, but my thoughts were a constant jumble. There was this distance that I hated, and more than that, I hated that it was my fault.
Wade had been spot-on telling me about Sage and her previous relationship, because it helped balance out the shit going on in my head. I knew where she was coming from now, and that helped me be patient. It might be selfish of me to think that way, but hopefully, when she was ready to talk, I could reassure her that loyalty was just the start of what I could offer.
“Boss,” Parrish’s voice came over the speaker phone. He’d been watching Catherine closely, as she had been sticking a little too close to town for my comfort. She’d swapped numbers and then bought a burner. It seemed no matter how many numbers I blocked, she just found another one. Each time the messagesleft were the same manipulative shit. “Found some shit that you might want to know about.”
I wasn’t so sure I wanted to know anything else, but at this point, keeping things stable at home meant staying on top of what my ex was doing.
“She’s been doing a lot of partying,” he started. I wasn’t surprised by the partying, but small towns weren’t her usual crowd. “Out at some of the biker bars in a few of the outlying areas. Jenkins Mill for one. Looks like she’s using. It might be why she’s running out of money.”
Running a hand over the back of my neck, I blew out a breath. “Try to see if she’s interested in a program. Keep an eye on her.”
For a brief moment, I thought about just paying her off, but she’d only come back again, especially if she was dipping her toes into drugs. Throwing money at the problem wouldn’t solve anything.
“Will do. How’s your new lady doing?”
“Fine.” The one word was growled out. “Ellis seems to be having a nice time.”
“Except for all those proof-of-life pictures you want him to send.” I gave a noncommittal grunt. Too bad for Ellis if he had to send me a picture of her now and then. “She’s going to be fine, boss. We’ve got her system up and running now.”
“If we could just get a handle on who had sent those creepy notes and the flowers, I’d feel better about where we are on everything.”
“Whoever this fucker is, he’s smart. The proxies for delivery were a stroke of genius, and the people he picked …” Parrishtrailed off for a minute in admiration. Whoever this was had chosen a low-tech method to stay under the radar, but it was effective. They’d used street kids and the homeless to order and deliver the flowers, adding another layer of complexity to the search.
The guy was smart. All we had established was that they were male and between twenty and thirty, but that was as far as we had gotten.
By noon, the crew I hired had finished all the foundational work in the greenhouse, including the irrigation and soil preparation. Opal was already at school, and the new kitten was safely settled in the house, napping in the sun. The little orange monster was actually adorable, but I wasn’t going to admit that I was getting fond of the way it curled up with me while I was in the office. Briggs had even caught me playing with Cheese when he’d video called me.
“Is that a cat?” he’d asked.
“If you have to ask, you have problems, man.” Flicking my pen back and forth for the kitten, he scrambled for it, making the papers on my desk slide precariously as his claws tried to capture the blue cap. “And his name is Cheese.”
“Dude. That’s a terrible name.”
“Can’t argue with you there, but he’s cute.” I held him up to the camera.
“He is pretty cute,” Briggs admitted reluctantly.
By the time he signed off, Briggs was a Cheese convert. If the kitten wasn’t playing, he curled up in the crook of my arm, his little paws retracting back and forth. He was soft as anything. Itwas one of the reasons Opal had picked him. He looked a little like he’d stuck a claw in a light socket, with his long hair on end, but he was really fluffy.
