Chapter Eleven Alejandro
Chapter Eleven
Alejandro
The mostly quiet ride didn’t do a damn thing to slow my racing thoughts, though I appreciated that Reed hadn’t questioned the hot-pink duffel bag.
By the time we made it back, Beau and two of his deputies were guiding guests from the lodge to the parking lot. Ryder moved fast. Looks like Trevor does, too. I hated that I was no longer completely hating that man.
Clearing my throat, I shoved down the uncomfortable lump rising in my chest and got out of the truck with Reed. We weaved through the crowd of disgruntled guests.
“I’ll go find Ryder and Trevor,” Reed said before heading off.
I went searching for the woman who made my pulse fly for reasons I was determined to ignore.
I found Audrey in the living room with Chase and Seraphina. Chase was deep into building a LEGO Star Wars ship on the coffee table, a roaring fire behind him while the two women talked and watched him work.
My body stalled at the sight. Because of her. Him. Safe and smiling as a family. Something I’d convinced myself I didn’t want after Beth and I blew apart.
Apparently, all that self-talk back at Audrey’s house to convince myself I couldn’t interfere in a family that may be being rebuilt was out the window. Because now I was standing here like I couldn’t breathe unless I was part of the picture too.
“You’re back.” Her soft voice tugged me out of that dangerous spiral and back into a world where I had to live and die alone.
“Look what I’m building, Uncle Alex!” Chase’s proud voice saved me from myself.
I tore my gaze from Audrey and took in his progress.
“Very cool. Box says ten plus, huh? Crushing it.” I winked, then gave Seraphina a nod before turning to Audrey.
“Here.” I handed her the bag. “Please don’t smack me for going through your stuff, but it seemed important yesterday that you had, well . . . your stuff.”
Her eyes widened slightly. “Drawers?” she mouthed, stepping closer while positioning her back to her son and Seraphina.
“Among other things.” I couldn’t stop the grin from landing hard.
Color rose up her neck and into her cheeks. Pink, to match the pair of lacy ones I’d packed.
I set down the bag and shrugged out of my jacket. The fire had me roasting while standing before her. The heat—not the thought of her in pink lace—had me burning up.
“Mind watching Chase for a second?” Audrey asked Seraphina, effectively back-seating my thoughts, cutting off that avalanche of a disaster on the verge of happening in my head imagining Audrey in only pink panties.
“Of course,” Seraphina offered.
Audrey nodded, then gave me a subtle gesture. Time to get away from her son’s ears for whatever conversation we were about to have.
“How much did Ryder already tell you?” I asked while following her down the hall, past the kitchen, to a small nook tucked off to the side, just big enough for a love seat and not much else.
“Ryder told me it’s not safe for the guests to be here. Hence the herd of people flooding outside when you showed up.” She dropped onto the love seat, elbows on her knees, face in her hands.
Not exactly an encouraging sign.
I considered sitting beside her but opted to keep some distance. I leaned against the wall, arms folded, trying for casual. It felt about as natural as Reed telling a joke.
She slowly lifted her head, hands falling to her lap. “Alejandro.”
It wasn’t just that she’d used my full first name—it was how she said it. Soft. Intentional. Like it meant something. And damn if it didn’t knock the wind from me.
I held still, waiting for her to follow it up, trying not to breathe too hard. If she knew the effect she had on me, I was screwed.
Before she could continue with whatever she’d planned to say after my name, I rushed out, “How are you feeling? Still out of character, or are you back in the zone today?”
Her lips twitched like she assumed I was joking.
I wasn’t.
“Well, I was starting to feel like myself again until the hammer was dropped about Mitch. Why?”
Right. Him. The reason we’re in this mess. And as much as I wanted to ask her about those divorce papers, I figured Ryder should be the one to do that, especially since he’d told Reed over the phone before we arrived that he hadn’t known about them.
“Just curious.” I shrugged.
“And now I have a question for you: Why’d you put up a mini wall between us yesterday only to go and pack my stuff today?”
I still couldn’t believe she had my words translated last night. I had to be more careful when I let the Spanish slide out loud. “It was only a mini wall, like you said. Doesn’t mean I can’t pack you a bag.”
“Going through my underwear doesn’t qualify as dangerous?”
Way to throw that back at me. It hit me just as hard in English, too. “Only dangerous if you want to slap me for doing that.” I tried my hand at a smile, doing my best to be charming and hoping nothing I did was creepy. I mean I had gone through her dresser.
“Not mad at all. In fact, very grateful. Skipped right over the thank-you I owe you. Gracias.”
“De nada.”
Her smile was contagious, and I gave her the best one I had in me right back. Well, my mom said it was. A little teeth. Let the dimple show. Something like that. Probably looked like a psycho instead.
“So, um, why’d you do it despite being all wall-y on me?” She made a little hmmm noise. “Wall-E, ha. One of Chase’s favorite movies. We should’ve watched that last night.”
“I’ve, uh, seen that a few times myself.” I tipped my head toward the hall. “Don’t tell the guys.”
She laughed, and it was as innocent as the expression on her face.
How were we stealing a quiet, easy moment like this after what she’d gone through? I had no clue, but I didn’t want her having to deal with any dark topics again. I wanted to keep her in the light forever.
“I was just trying to be nice. Friendly. Brotherly.” Partially true. Not the brother part.
“You see me as a sister?” Both brows shot up.
“Not even a little bit,” I couldn’t help but admit. “Don’t have one to know how I’d act around a sister, though,” I tacked on.
“Right.” She flicked her tongue across the front of her teeth.
Yeah, don’t do that.
“I’m not supposed to even be talking about this, am I? I promised to not talk about them yesterday, right?”
Them? Underwear. Drawers. Panties. Pretty in motherfucking pink. Not that I’m gonna ever find out. “You can talk about whatever you want.” I waved the white flag, surrendering. How could I not? She was smiling, and when this woman smiled it made my chest feel too small to contain my heart.
“Because friends can talk about anything?” Was that a question or a statement? “But one thing I know for sure: Friends don’t let friends wear granny panties.”
I wasn’t sure what I was doing, but instead of answering her, I dropped down on one knee in front of her.
A totally normal thing to do. And to an outsider, it probably looked as though I were about to propose.
Hell, thirty minutes ago I’d been holding her husband’s wedding ring. So this absolutely made sense.
I rested my forearm across my leg, and she took me by surprise by reaching for my hand. Our fingers threaded together like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Dios mío.
She exhaled, shaky and soft, the sound brushing my skin.
“Friends don’t see each other naked or talk about their underwear, now that I’m really thinking hard about it.
” She kept a tight grip on my hand. “Well, Hollis knows why I have so much lace, but she’s never had the pleasure of seeing me in any of it,” she added in a teasing tone. “That’s my best friend, by the way.”
“Ah, I see.” I was tempted to ask to be the second person to know why she loved lace, but I managed to behave. “I hate to say I’ve seen your brother in his skivvies before, but happy to report our friendship somehow survived. You can just put that in the ‘shit that happens during war’ box, though.”
Her smile reached her eyes, and I could barely breathe at the sight.
“Anyway.”
At my use of the awkward-killer word, as she’d called it yesterday, that beautiful smile of hers stretched even more.
“I think we’ll survive what happened and forget all about it soon enough.” I’d try, at least.
And now, time to pull away and locate that wall I was supposed to have up. But before I had a chance to do that, Trevor walked in with his impeccable timing, like he’d done in the kitchen last night.
“Everything good? Why are you on your knees?”
Good question, Trevor. No damn clue.
Audrey didn’t yank her hand away like I expected, so I had to do it.
“Something wrong?” Ryder joined the party, too.
Perfect. Just perfect. The hits kept coming. I finally got my ass up to stand and face two of the three reasons why I needed to keep my distance from her. Thank God Beth wasn’t physically around to remind me of number three. No, just her name in that file to haunt me. Close enough.
“He was, um, trying to calm me down,” Audrey said quickly. “You know how I get. Panic attack. I, uh, started spiraling, and he rushed over. I owe him one. He kept me from fainting.”
I could’ve kissed her for that lie, but I was distracted by the envelope in Trevor’s hand.
The divorce papers. His grip tightened on it as his jaw visibly tensed. He didn’t know, either? That realization hit harder than I’d expected, and it felt worse, because I had to assume Audrey had been afraid to tell him.
“We have an update?” She stood and stepped alongside me.
Ryder and Trevor exchanged a quick look as Trevor discreetly hid the envelope behind his back.
“Reed took a closer look at the inscription inside Mitch’s ring while you were, uh, calming down my sister . . .” Ryder cleared his throat, apparently now realizing how flimsy that excuse sounded. “He figured out the code was incomplete. Don’t ask me how. Over my head.”
“Wait, what about Mitch’s wedding band?” She shook her head, clearly confused.
Right, we’d skipped over that explanation. I’d been too distracted by discussing her panties and the fact we should no longer talk about them to give her the heads-up about the ring.
“There was a laser-etched strip of numbers hidden within his wedding band,” Ryder explained.
“Where does Reed think the other half of the code is?” I asked as Audrey processed the news.
“We think those men were looking for both their rings, not just Mitch’s. Reed believes the rest of the code is in hers,” Ryder answered.
Two halves make a whole. In marriage. In secrets. Heck, in life. Would I ever stop being haunted by the memory of my own vows?
“Where do you keep your band?” Trevor asked her.
Audrey pressed a hand to her chest. “It’s in a different box, not the one you must’ve found. The only other unopened one I have. It’s in the attic, just off to the left side of the folded-up ladder in the ceiling.”
“Reed believes the rings themselves are keys. If they’re scanned together and held up to the right reader, it should unlock something.”
“So you need both,” she murmured. “Takes two to work.” She shut her eyes, her voice becoming smaller. “I grabbed that box Friday night while you were at the movies to go through it. But wait . . . does that mean you also know about—”
“Yeah, we know,” Trevor cut in. “We know you planned to get a divorce and that you kept it from everyone.” He waited until she looked at him before adding, “What I want to know is, why?”
Her eyes flicked to mine, and the look of raw pain and regret burned through me.
All I could think was one thing: How do you bring a man back from the dead just so you can be the one to kill him? Because whatever that look meant . . . I was going to need to do exactly that.