17. Hunter
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
hunter
The grocery store was more packed than usual. I smiled at a few familiar faces and did my best to steer clear of anyone who’d want to chat as I cleared out the shelf of beef jerky and then rolled my cart towards the meat section.
My phone rang and I picked it up without looking. “Hello?”
“Hey, darling. It’s Mom.”
I fought a laugh. “Hey, Mom, it’s your son.”
She snickered. “Are you? Are you my son? Why have you been holding out on me about Emma?”
I winced as I rolled up to the fresh cuts of steak. What the hell was I supposed to say to her? Lying to Lynn Harlow was never a good idea.
“There’s a lot of reasons,” I said vaguely.
“Hmm.” Oh god, I knew that tone. She wasn’t buying it. “You know, I found out on Facebook. Facebook, Hunter.”
“I know,” I sighed. “I’m sorry. There’s been a lot going on recently.”
“You clearly have my phone number, don’t you? And just so happen to live on the same farm. Not only are you my son, you’re also my neighbor. Last time I checked, your phone and truck work just fine.”
“They do.” I grunted as I added a couple steaks to the basket. “Do you need anything at the store?”
“Yes. How about you pick up some chicken and potatoes and come by and explain what the hell is going on?”
Dammit. I really didn’t want to do that. I could lie to everyone else, but my mom? She’d know. Lynn Harlow knew me, Cam, and Sammy better than anyone else and there was no getting shit past her. We’d all learned that time and time again.
“I can’t,” I said. “I was gonna?—”
“I know how long your to-do list is, and yet, I’m not asking. Pops is out of the house for a couple hours so you don’t need to worry about him. I’ll see you in half an hour.”
She hung up before I could argue. I stared at my phone screen for a moment and cursed, sliding it back into my pocket. Fuck. I really didn’t want to do this, but I had no choice.
Well, I technically had a choice. But if I didn’t show up, she’d show up on my doorstep instead.And that would definitely not be a situation I wanted to happen. I’d never hear the end of it for as long as I lived.
I traded steaks for chicken and then headed to the vegetables for potatoes. Once I had them in the basket, I went to checkout. The lines were slow moving, but that was part of being in a small town sometimes. I sighed as I joined one, leaning against the bar as I waited patiently.
“This place is awful.”
My hackles raised and I closed my eyes for a moment, finding every shred of willpower I had. Then I turned around to see Josh standing there with a hand basket, a sneer on his ugly face.
“Then leave,” I said.
“Have your fiancé sell me the company, and I will,” he said. “Don’t you want a good little wife who isn’t running a Fortune 500 company? Someone to have your hillbilly kids?”
“I’m going to give you a sound piece of advice,” I said. “Which is to either shut the fuck up or I’m going to beat the shit out of you in a grocery store.”
“You wouldn’t,” he snorted. “I’m just telling you the truth. Trying to save you some trouble. I can’t see Emma sticking around here long.”
“So which is it? Are the options that she leaves to run the company or she stays here and sells it to the smallest man on the planet?”
His eyes lit up with fury, cheeks reddening. “You don’t know the real Emma.”
“I know her more than you do,” I said. “I know she’s smart and capable. I know she can do anything she sets her mind to. I know she’s better than you will ever be. I can’t see why she ever married you, but I can sure as hell see why she divorced you.”
Speaking of her divorce. Now I remembered that this son of a bitch had slapped her.
“She’ll do the same to you. She’ll just move on to fucking whoever?—”
I threw the first punch. And god, was it satisfying. Josh’s perfect nose crunched under my fist as it landed, and his head whipped back. He hit the tiled floor and was out cold.
Well, then.
I hadn’t expected him to go down so easily. I scratched my head, not sure what to do now.
“Hunter Harlow, what the hell are you doing?”
I looked up to see Bud, the sheriff. It was clearly his day off, because he was in velour joggers and his wife stood next to him, her eyes wide. She was clearly fighting a laugh.
“In my defense, I didn’t expect him to be knocked out,” I said. “I thought he’d at least punch me back once.”
Bud shook his head. “Goddammit. I’m off today, Harlow.”
“Yeah, so look the other way? You do it all the time anyway.”
“We’re in the middle of the grocery store, in the middle of the day,” he griped.
I glanced around at everyone staring. “This man said some unkind words about my fiancé, Emma Madden.” I announced. “He’s her ex and a no-good son of a gun, so I couldn’t just let him walk away after what he said.”
Murmurs followed. Bud’s eyes lit up with anger as Josh started to come to.
“Bud, I didn’t see anything.” The woman in front of me said.
I realized I knew her. She was Lee Zeller’s girlfriend. Lee was a local electrician I’d helped countless times over the years. Most recently, it’d been showing him how to keep his tomato plants from dying.
She winked and then turned to look at the cashier. “Did you see anything?”
“No, ma’am, I did not.”
Bud’s wife gave his arm a tug. “You would have done the same damn thing.”
He let out a grumble under his breath.
“And you are off today,” I reminded him.
“What the fuck?” Josh mumbled, slowly sitting up. “You broke my fucking nose! You stupid country cunt!”
Lee’s girlfriend scoffed.
I held up my hands in feigned innocence. “Didn’t touch you.”
His face contorted with rage as blood dripped down his butt-chin to his eighty-dollar T-shirt. “Everyone saw you punch me!”
“I didn’t see shit,” she said. “Anyone else?”
“Nope,” the cashier chimed.
“I didn’t either,” Bud’s wife said. “You look a little lost, though, honey.”
“Don’t honey me, you hag.”
Bud’s expression soured. “On second thought, I think I am working today.”
“Good luck,” I told Josh. “Also, after this, you need to get the hell out of Citrus Cove. If you ever speak that way about Emma or anyone else in this town, there will be hell to pay.”
I turned around and ignored the chaos that followed. By the time I managed to pay for my groceries and get out to my truck, a cruiser had pulled up and Josh was arguing with Bud and another officer.
Bud was shit at his job. Over the last two years, I’d seen him fuck everything up countless times and had nothing positive to say about the police, but this had worked out. I smirked at Josh, gave him the bird, then loaded up my truck and left the parking lot.
I’d been wanting to punch that guy since he’d tried to force his way through Emma’s front door. My knuckles smarted, but it was worth it. I smirked as I headed home, but my stomach knotted up as I went down the driveway to my parent’s house.
I parked and sat back, readying myself. I wasn’t ever going to be ready for this.
I grabbed the bag of potatoes and chicken, and hopped out of the truck. The front door swung open as I went up the steps. I gave Mom a kiss on the cheek.
“Took you long enough,” she chided.
“I punched a guy at the store,” I said.
“Oh lord. Why?”
“He’s Emma’s ex,” I explained, leaving out the ex- husband part. “Nasty. Deserved it. Then he called Bud’s wife a hag.”
“Oh. That was a poor decision. About one of the only things that’ll make Bud get off his ass is an insult to his wife.”
“Agreed.” I took the bags to the kitchen and sat them on the counter. I glanced at the sink and cursed. “I forgot to fix this.”
“Pops already fixed it,” she said.
“I’ll double check,” I said, already kneeling down. I opened the cabinet and peeked under, humming to myself. She was right though, he’d patched it up. I double-checked a few things and got back up, meeting her all-too-knowing gaze.
“So,” she said, giving me the look . “Spill.”
“I don’t know what to tell you,” I said. And that was the damn truth. I didn’t know how to do this. I’d made a promise to Emma to keep her secrets, but now standing here, I felt the weight of that burden. “I don’t have much to say, Mom. I love her.”
“This is Emma we’re talking about.” Her eyes narrowed on me with superhero perception. “Emma, who you’ve been arguing with until you were blue in the face since she moved here.”
“I know,” I said.
“So you’re telling me that was all an act? Or what? The two of you can barely stand in the same room together, even during the holidays.”
“I’m aware,” I said. “And all I can tell you is that I love her.”
“What do you mean that’s all you can tell me?”
“That’s all I’m going to say,” I said firmly. “Everyone is getting up in our business and I just want some privacy.”
A long, drawn-out sigh. “Hunter, this is just so out of character for you. I love Emma, I just never thought the two of you would end up together given how strongly you seemed to dislike each other.”
All I could do was shrug, which made her shake her head.
“Out of all my kids, you’re the one who made me gray first,” she muttered.
I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Is that where I got my grays from?”
She shook her head at me, but smiled. “Probably, unfortunately. I’m gonna let all of this go for now, but I want you to know, I’ll get the truth. None of you can hide a damn thing from your mother. Honey and I have already been talking about this, and I know what you look like when you’ve been caught with your hand in the cookie jar.”
I grimaced. I appreciated the reprieve, though. “At least you didn’t say I don’t deserve her, like Pops did.”
She pressed her lips together. “He’s… I don’t know, Hunter. I’m sorry. I love your father, but he’s always been tougher on you. When I first found out, I was a little hurt and hysterical because I felt like you keeping this from us was big.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “But I have my reasons. And I need you to trust that I’ll tell you those reasons when I can.”
“I can do that,” she said. Her eyes narrowed. “Are you taking care of yourself? You look tired.”
“I am tired,” I said. “I’m doing my best. You don’t need to worry about me.”
“I’m always gonna worry about you,” she said.
“I’m pretty sure I got my ability to worry about everyone else from you, too.”
“Probably. Just promise you’ll tell me if you need something.”
“I promise,” I said immediately.
She nodded and seemed to relax a fraction, her shoulders softening. “Alright. Well, I’m going to cook up some dinner if you want to hang around.”
“I think I will,” I said. “Need anything else fixed?”
“You can take a look at the washer if you want. It’s been rattling recently.”
“You got it.”