Chapter 18 Hide Everything
HIDE EVERYTHING
The next morning, Clay was walking out of his front door when the headlights of his brother’s SUV drove by, then turned and came back.
He wasn’t getting a break from anyone.
He hadn’t seen Ford in a few days. Though Reenie lived in the cabin next door, she didn’t stay there all the time, she and Ford splitting their time between his brother’s house and the cabin.
He was positive they weren’t alone more than one or two nights a week, not that he was keeping track.
“You’re out early,” he said.
“Reenie left for work twenty minutes ago. No reason for me to stay here,” Ford said. “How are you doing?”
Clay looked at his brother sitting in his driveway in his SUV with the window down. “Fine. Why?”
“I haven’t seen you since Saturday?”
Since their talk that night. “Your point?”
“I noticed you had a visitor on Sunday for a bit.”
He let out a sigh. “You saw or Dad told you?”
“Saw first, then Dad mentioned it. It’s not like it was only five minutes for Meredith to pick up her things.”
“What is it you want to know?” he asked.
“What’s going on with you two?” Ford asked.
“We are really going to have this conversation in the driveway?”
“Nope,” Ford said, turning off his vehicle. “We can have it over coffee. It’s early.”
It wasn’t even six thirty. Staff started at seven. He was always there before everyone else. It wouldn’t hurt to be late and his brother knew that.
“Didn’t your girlfriend give you breakfast this morning?”
“Nope,” Ford said. “I get my coffee in town. She gets up early, eats and is out the door. I shower after her.”
“And you get your breakfast in town while you scope the area out,” he said. But he returned to the house, his brother following. He needed to put his truck in the garage at night so he could have just pulled out rather than get stopped for this conversation.
“I’d rather have it with my brother and find out what is going on in his life.”
“You didn’t get enough out of me on Saturday?”
“That’s different from you spending time with Gale’s friend.”
“She’s my employee,” he said. “Could be it was about work.”
“Nope,” Ford said. “I know you. The whole wedding thing wasn’t your idea and though you’re warming up to it, the last thing you want to do is talk about it more than you need to.”
“It’s not the end of the world,” he said. “It’s bringing in money for the farm.”
“So it’s about Mom and Dad, yet you don’t want them working it.”
“They do enough,” he said. “Dad likes to man the bar.”
The two of them actually got along well during those times. Maybe it was something they could bond over without realizing it.
It’s not as if they talked much while they worked.
“And Mom enjoys socializing, but she doesn’t need the stress of the food for weddings,” Ford said.
“Exactly. She’ll do what needs to be done if someone wants it and we’ll figure it out, but it’s working now. Meredith did a lot on Saturday and didn’t need to. She’ll be a great addition to the business.”
Ford smirked and walked over to get a coffee. “Are those muffins? How come Mom gave you some and not me?”
“They aren’t from Mom,” he said.
Ford took one and grinned, then bit in. “Could they be from your new wedding planner who was picking apples in your yard?”
“Dude, are you watching me?”
Ford shrugged. “I learned my spying techniques from you.”
“Whatever,” he said. He picked up a second muffin for the morning. They were damn good.
“You look troubled.”
“I always look troubled to you and everyone else,” Clay said.
He’d been hearing it most of his life. You’d think by now everyone would understand him and give him space.
Especially since he opened up to Ford. He knew his brother would keep that information to himself.
“I wonder if talking to me let you lift the window a crack with Meredith.”
He kept chewing as his eyebrow rose.
Ford would keep the silence with him.
They could sit here for hours waiting for the next one to say another word.
He had shit to do.
“What do you want to know?”
“Do you think she’s hot?”
“Are we in high school? I remember you giving me shit when I brought up how you felt about Reenie.”
“That’s different. I never hid how I felt. You hide everything.”
“There isn’t anything to hide.”
“Come on, Clay. Don’t make me sit here for hours. I’ve got a busy day. There is more going on and I know it. Something is pulling you toward her. You like people you can save.”
“I’m not drawn toward that,” he argued. “They just find me.”
“So there is an issue?”
“Not an issue,” he said. “But trouble seems to follow her everywhere.”
“Anything I need to be on the lookout for?”
It wouldn’t hurt to fill his brother in.
He told Ford about the ex-boyfriend and how that went down, keeping out specifics of what Meredith did, but not how Fredrick reacted days and weeks later.
“What she did was petty and done all that day. Nothing major. This dick just kept it up. Anyone who taunts another with their weakness is a sign for me.”
“I don’t like the thought of anything dead left for someone. I don’t care that it was bought at a grocery store.”
“My thought too. She doesn’t seem to think he’s a threat. Not a physical one. He claims he didn’t touch her car and she believes him,” he said.
“Do you think she still cares about him?”
“No,” he said. Not with the way she was clinging to him on Sunday.
Control he always prided himself on diminished rapidly.
“And you know this how?” Ford asked, a smirk filling his face.
He narrowed his eyes. “Because I know. Leave it.”
Ford laughed. “Fine. Those things happened a few weeks ago, right? Nothing more?”
“She got a letter on Saturday. It was pretty vile. She thought it was from the ex, but the ex says it was from the woman he was cheating on Meredith with.”
“Did you see the letter?” Ford asked.
His brother was taking this a lot more seriously now.
“I did. I stopped over on Sunday to get these muffins. I looked around her place at the locks. I’m not happy with the quality of them, but not really sure I can go in and change them just yet.
She’s got a nosy neighbor who watched me pull in out of his window and then leave.
Meredith said this guy is the neighborhood watch. ”
“That never hurts,” Ford said.
“She wasn’t happy that I made a big deal about looking around her place for those things.”
She’d followed around on his heels asking him a million questions.
He saw the disappointment in her eyes that she thought he was there to visit her, not check up.
He didn’t like he’d put the look there and kissed her before he left.
In the past, he wouldn’t have cared if a woman felt that way.
Why was he so bothered that Meredith had?
“Few women are.”
“She wasn’t scared before, but she was after. It’s been more annoyance prior. That’s fine. But I don’t want her scared.”
“You want her aware,” Ford said.
“Yes. She’s used to having her head in the clouds. Being around kids and planning activities.”
“This isn’t what you’re used to either,” Ford said. “Sounds like you’re both at different extremes.”
“Yeah,” he said, finishing his muffin.
“What’s the next step? That’s it, you don’t talk to her again until there is a wedding to prepare for?”
“I didn’t know you were my event coordinator.”
Ford finished his coffee and put the cup in the dishwasher. “Just want my brother to find what I have.”
“I think you’re reaching.”
“I think you’re shrinking back,” Ford said.
“You saw me kiss her in the woods,” he said. “Didn’t you?”
Ford burst out laughing. “I was coming to join you fishing. I thought for sure you’d hear me. You hear everything. But when I saw what I had, I realized you were distracted.”
Which explained why his brother was questioning him more than expected.
“That’s not distraction,” he said. “If I had felt threatened, I would have taken you down.”
“Did she know you had a gun on you? Does she know you always do?” He concealed one on his ankle.
“I doubt it,” he said. “It hasn’t come up.”
“How do you think she’d feel about any of that?”
He shrugged. “It’s nothing I can change, so if she’s thinking anything at all, she better catch up on who I really am.”
Ford grinned. “Which means you’re thinking of something too.”
“I’ve got shit to do,” he said, standing up.
“And I’ve gotten more out of you than I thought,” Ford said. “Keep me posted on anything with the ex.”
“You’ll be the first to know.”