17. Holden
HOLDEN
I was still thinking about the doctor — Audrey — when I walked into the kitchen to find Graham and Ridge deep in conversation. They did that a lot — had deep conversations — but I wasn’t always a part of them, which was fine with me.
If you gave me a choice between jumping naked off the rope swing over the river or having a deep conversation, I’d take the rope swing every time.
But this time was different, because this time it was about Audrey.
I walked past Graham, leaning against the kitchen counter, his beer about gone, and opened the fridge. “What’s up?”
Blue, sitting on the floor and looking eagerly at the fridge, whined.
“No bacon for you,” I said.
“We’re talking about Audrey,” Ridge said.
I grabbed one of the pre-made meals left by Reva, our part-time cook and housekeeper, and took it to the island. “I figured. What about her?”
“The daughter,” Ridge said.
Graham’s expression was still stormy, which was no surprise given the way he’d reamed me a new asshole in the truck on the way home from town. “We should cut her loose.”
“Too late for that,” I said, putting the container with Reva’s meatloaf in the microwave. “We brought her home.”
Blue laid down on the floor now that bacon was off the menu.
“I was on the spot, thanks to you,” Graham said.
I watched the numbers tick down on the microwave. “Bullshit, old man.” Graham Calloway was never on the spot. “You want her here.”
I knew I’d hit the nail on the head when he took a drink of his beer instead of arguing the point.
“We need a solution to the little girl,” Ridge said. “It wouldn’t be appropriate for her to stay with us in the main house while we fuck her mother.”
The microwave beeped and I pulled out my food and took it to the island. “What about the old foreman’s cottage?”
Ridge considered it. “Not a bad idea.”
Graham rubbed at his salt-and-pepper beard. “Been a while since anyone’s lived there.”
“We can clean it up.” I doused the meatloaf with barbecue sauce. “It’ll be nice. And it’s just over the knoll at the back of the house. They’ll have privacy.”
Graham drank the last of his beer and took it to the sink to rinse out the bottle for recycling. “What do you know about the ex?”
I knew the question was directed at me because I was the one who’d been stalking — following — Audrey around for the last two months.
“Name’s Dean Ashcroft. He’s a fucking douchebag.” I took a bite of the meatloaf and chewed. “Damn, Reva’s meatloaf is the bomb.”
“Define ‘douchebag,’” Graham said.
“He gets in her face at their pick-ups and drop-offs with Ella.”
Graham scowled. “Ella?”
“The daughter,” Ridge reminded him.
“How does everyone know this shit but me?” Graham asked.
Ridge shrugged. “Found out when I showed Audrey to her room.”
“I’ve been stalking — I mean following — her,” I said, shoveling another bite of meatloaf into my mouth.
“This asshole hurt her?” Graham asked. “Hurt the little girl?”
“Don’t know about that,” I said. “But Audrey’s definitely afraid of him.”
“What makes you say that?” Ridge asked.
I thought about it, pictured the way Audrey looked when she talked to Dean Ashcroft in the donut shop parking lot, the way she kept distance between them, shrank away when he got too close. “She’s different around him. Not as… ballsy.” I shrugged. “It feels like she’s afraid.”
Graham swore. “I should kick your ass.”
That was directed at me, because I’d known about Audrey’s domestic situation from the beginning.
“You can still call it off.” I said it because I knew he wouldn’t. “Send her home. No harm, no foul.”
“She lost the Hunt,” Graham said.
“Yeah, but we run the Hunt now right?” I added more barbecue sauce to the meatloaf. “Who’s gonna say anything? Who’s even gonna know?”
Graham’s jaw twitched, the way it did when he was clamping his teeth together, trying to control his temper.
“There’s another possibility,” Ridge said.
Graham folded his arms over his chest. “I’m listening.”
“We could help her,” Ridge said. “Set the ex straight.”
The perpetual frown on Graham’s face deepened. “Fuck, no. That’s the last fucking thing we need.”
“If you say so,” I said.
Graham looked at Ridge. “Call Aloha. Put him on the ex so we know what we’re dealing with.”
It took effort to keep from gloating. If Graham was siccing Aloha, hacker extraordinaire, on Dean Ashcroft, that meant he was all in on Audrey Sterling, however much he tried to deny it.
“You got it,” Ridge said.
“In the meantime, we put the doctor up in the foreman’s cottage when the little girl is here, keep our distance on Mondays, Tuesdays, and every other weekend,” Graham said. “And we stay out of the messy stuff. Period.”
I scooped up the last bite of meatloaf and took the container to the sink. “Sure thing. Whatever you say.”
It was easy for me to go along because I knew Graham was full of shit.
Because I knew that deep down, he already wanted Audrey Sterling as much as I did.