Chapter 37 Home Sweet Home
HOME SWEET HOME
brIGGS
It’s wine night, and the girls are officially done with letting Lilah skip out on what has clearly been made into a tradition.
We met with a builder for Mom earlier in the day.
She chose a design for her cottage house, three bedrooms—because she expects the kids I’ll have with Lilah to sleep over.
I can still see the glare Lilah shot me at that, because I had her just this morning, again with no condom.
She’s gotta know, at this point, I’m fucking trying to knock her up. The woman wants four babies and neither of us is getting any younger.
I pull my truck into a pub on the outskirts of Kelowna. It’s the same pub I’d met Carson at before.
I gave Lilah my card and told her to take the girls for dinner, that I’d pick her up from Madelyn’s when she was ready. Being away from her is beginning to feel like a chore.
I slide into the booth opposite Carson. “You wanted to meet in person?”
“I had him. Traced him to Vancouver. He was working under another alias. Patrick Jordan this time.” He slides a file across the table.
“The list of names I suspect he uses are in the file. But his real name is Jake Rosden. The woman he works with, his sister…” Carson’s brows hitch high. “She’s his wife. Felicity Rosden.”
“Fucking hell.”
He coughs, takes a swig of his beer and settles both elbows on the table as he says, “I figure they get off on the shit they do, the people they fuck—literally—over.”
I don’t want to hear this shit. It enrages me. “Have you alerted the authorities?”
“I have.”
“Good.” I nod. “Anything else?”
“It’s all in the file. Quite the operation, if you ask me.
” He leans back in the booth, then says carefully, “These are dangerous people. I don’t think I’ve uncovered even half the cons they’ve pulled, but I have made a few connections where the targets have gone missing after making a report to police of crimes fitting the nature of the cons the Rosden’s pull.
These people were clearly unwilling to move on with their lives.
Before they went missing, they were obsessed with finding them.
I spoke with members of the families of the missing, and it doesn’t look good.
” He rubs at the stubble on his jaw. “I believe the Rosden’s are capable of far worse than a good con, is what I’m saying.
I think it’s worth a little extra caution in regard to your woman. ”
“Noted.” I lift the file, already preparing a call to my contact in the RCMP. I know he’s looking into the case. I’ll pass on this information, and hopefully it will help to catch the sons of bitches doing shady shit to good people. Or worse.
I don’t even want to think about the worst the Rosden’s have done.
“Thanks for this.” I tap the table once with the file. “I’d like you to keep looking into the Rosden’s. Anything to help put them away.”
Carson shrugs. “It’s your dime.”
“Thanks.” I start to walk away, but Carson calls, “Be careful, Mr. Alder. I’m serious. I’ve seen a lot, but nothing quite like this.”
I nod once. And then I exit the pub, file in hand.
I call my contact in my truck as I head back to Sunset Falls. Back to Lilah.
After this, I just want her close. Safe. With me.
I’m on edge waiting for her call. After speaking with my contact in the RCMP, I’m eager to bring her home. I want her in my bed next to me where I can protect her. I would give my life to protect her.
I also have to have a conversation with her about her ex. I have to tell her how dangerous he and his companions are, and that she needs to be aware. I hate feeling like this.
I’ve never had someone to worry about like I worry about her.
But tonight won’t be the night for that conversation. Tomorrow isn’t, either, what with the engagement party Mom and Brandy have planned for us. She’s nervous enough as it is.
It’s half past nine when I finally crack and text her.
Me: How is your night going?
Her reply is instant.
Lilah: Good. I’m tipsy. You?
I begin to type that I miss her but delete and retype.
Me: I’m just working.
Lilah: You work too much.
I begin to type when another message comes in. Then another.
Lilah: I think I miss you.
Lilah: Or maybe it’s just Spookers and Senior I miss…
Lilah: I want to come home.
I can’t contain my grin as I type back.
Me: I miss you. I’m sure Spook and Senior do, too. I’m on my way.
Lilah: Drive safe. X
I grab my keys and hurry to my truck. Lilah’s words are still warm in my chest as I make the drive into town, and out the other side where Madelyn lives just on the outskirts.
She doesn’t live so far that she can’t walk into town, which, most days she does as she has a whole brood of dogs she walks with her into the clinic.
I dropped Lilah off earlier, so I know where I’m going.
But when I round the bend in the road, I don’t expect to see three women under the glow of a porch illuminated by string lights.
They’re all flushed, wrapped up in blankets and cardigans to ward off the chill that’s settled into the land with the sun.
Dogs line the steps, and there are a few more in the yard.
There’s a box on the front step that looks suspiciously like it might be filled with—ah, fuck no.
Lilah stands and I see a little ball of black fuzz tucked into the nook of her arm. I throw the truck into park and by the time my boots connect with the ground, Lilah is there with her new little bundle.
She blinks big brown eyes up at me as she says, “This is Hex.” When I don’t respond, she begins to bounce hopefully on the balls of her bare feet. “Pleeeeeasssssse Briggs. Please.” She brings the kitten to her face, fluttering long lashes at me. “Spookers needs a friend.”
“Did you just say Hex?”
She smiles a blinding smile and I know I’m done. Cooked. “A matching pair. It’s perfection.”
“You’re a nut,” I tell her. She giggles, taking my inability to refuse her a god damned thing as permission to bring yet another animal home.
She spins and calls to the girls, “He said yes!”
The girls hoot.
Lilah spins back to me, smiling that gorgeous smile that busts balls and cracks hearts as easily as a nutcracker cracks nuts.
“I didn’t say yes.”
She wrinkles her nose as she nuzzles the cat. “You basically did.”
“How do you figure that?”
She shrugs. “You didn’t say no.”
“Fucking hell,” I mutter, guiding her to the other side of the truck. “I hope I have sons.”
She frowns at me from her seat in my truck. “Why?”
“Because I need a daughter with your eyes like I need a hole in the head.” I slam the truck door and give a wave to the giggling pair that remains on the porch as I round the hood. Then I slide in beside Lilah and the kitten in her lap. I start the ignition and begin the drive home.
I figured Lilah slipped into a tipsy snooze until she lifts the kitten when the lights of the house come into view. She says soft and warm to the ball of fur, “Home sweet home, Hex. Home sweet home.”
One day soon she’s going to say those very same words as I drive her and our baby to this very house the first time.
I can’t wait.