Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
T he sound of Reed’s neck cracking filled the car. It was satisfying and painful at the same time, but the discomfort was worth it.
This was the second night he’d camped out in his car opposite to where Lauren and Charlee lived.
Ideally, what he’d like to do was take her and Charlee to his place. He had cameras and a good security system. They would be safe there, but it was way too soon to ask Lauren to consider it.
His phone beeped, and he looked down, smiling when he saw his brother’s name on the screen. “Ben, how’s it going?”
There was a beat of silence before he spoke. “It’s going.”
Reed sat a little straighter. It was only him and his brother now; their parents had passed a few years ago. When he’d been in the Army, the lion’s share of looking after their parents had fallen on Ben’s shoulders. He’d taken the burden, but the guilt that he hadn’t been around much sat heavily on Reed. “What’s going on? Do you need me? I can be there in fifteen.”
Considering he had no idea where Ben was, the timeframe was a bit pie-in-the-sky, but he wanted his brother to know all he had to do was ask and he would drop everything to be at his side.
“I’m fine. I don’t need you, though I appreciate the offer. It’s just wedding stuff. Fern’s driving me a little crazy with everything she wants. It feels like we’re putting on a damn extravagant show instead of a wedding. I’m ready to elope but if I even utter the word Fern is looking daggers at me.”
Reed hadn’t ever warmed to his brother’s fiancée, she was more about the material things, than emotional connection. After he’d expressed some concerns to Ben, his brother had then ignored him for three months, Reed had swallowed his misgivings and apologized to Ben. He didn’t want to be estranged from his only remaining family member. Besides he and Ben had been close growing up until he’d gone and joined the Army and had been posted in another state before he’d become a SAS soldier and had been stationed back in Perth.
“I’m sure once the wedding is done and dusted, Fern will return to the woman she was before the planning started.”
“Maybe,” Ben said.
The joy his brother usually had when talking about his fiancée was absent and raised red flags for Reed. “Are you having second thoughts? Because I know it will be a hassle to cancel everything but if you’re having doubts it’s better to say so now and not after the fact.”
“You sound like Clara,” he grumbled. “She said that to me last week.”
Reed had always liked Clara, he always imagined that she and Ben would get married. They’d been best friends for years, but Ben had met Fern, and here they were, a couple of months away from a wedding. “I’m not going to tell you what to do, but maybe you should just think about it. If you need anything, anything at all, even if in the end you do decide that this isn’t what you want, call me. I’ll help you.”
“I know. I’ve got to go. Talk to you later.”
“Later, bro.” Reed disconnected the call and ran a hand down his face. He really needed to make time to see Ben and look him in the face and ask the same question. If he saw any doubts at all on Ben’s face, he’d encourage his brother to reconsider his decision. If he had to give some money to Fern’s family to help cover things, he would. His brother’s happiness was important to him.
Of course, it could just be pre-wedding jitters and Fern had turned into a bridezilla, but once the vows were spoken everything would be different.
However, Ben and Fern were a problem for another day. Today was Monday, and Charlee would be going to school and Lauren to work. Even though he wanted to watch over both of them, he couldn’t split himself into two. But he knew there were some safety measures in place at both places. There were still things he could do and would do.
“Reed! What are you doing in your car?” Charlee knocked on the window.
He opened his door and got out, his muscles protesting the movement. It had been a long time since he’d been stuck in one position for over eight hours, but the discomfort had been worth it because he’d kept Lauren and her daughter safe.
“Hey munchkin, what are you doing out here?” He looked around but couldn’t see Lauren. “Does your mum know you’re not in the house?”
“I went to fill the bird bath. I do it every second day for Sally and Terence. I saw your car and came to see why you were sleeping in it.”
What should he say to Charlee? He couldn’t tell her he was protecting them because he knew Lauren didn’t want Charlee’s world to be turned upside down. “Come on, let me take you back to your mum. She’s probably worried that she can’t see you.”
Charlee skipped beside him. “Did you go to PT? You said you go every morning, but you don’t look like you’ve got wet hair.”
Reed snorted quietly at her observations. Was there anything that got past this little girl? He doubted it.
“Charlee!” Lauren’s panicked cry filled the air, and he hurried Charlee up the driveaway.
“She’s here,” he called out.
Lauren rushed up to them and pulled Charlee in for a tight hug. The little girl tolerated it for a few seconds before she pulled away. “Mum, you’re squashing me.”
“Don’t you do that to me again,” Lauren admonished.
“But Mum, I was just filling the bird bath like I always do.”
“The bird bath is over there, young lady,” Lauren pointed to the cement structure in the middle of the yard. “When I came out to tell you breakfast was ready you weren’t there.”
Charlee shrugged the way kids do when they didn’t think they’d done anything wrong. “I saw Reed’s car, so I went to say hello.”
Lauren’s focus narrowed in on him, taking in the rumpled state of his clothes. She had no idea that when he’d left her house on Saturday night, he’d rushed home for a shower and a change of clothes before coming back and parking on the street. He’d watched the house all day on Sunday, only leaving after he’d called Andy who’d taken his place so that he could run a couple of errands before coming back.
“What are you doing, Reed?” Lauren asked.
“My job,” he responded, because that’s exactly what he was doing. If Lauren had come to Power Security with her current situation, this is what they would do. They’d provide around the clock surveillance to make sure that nothing happened to them. The fact that she hadn’t didn’t matter at all. As he’d repeatedly told her, she wasn’t alone. She was family and had all of Power Security to look out for her.
“Charlee go inside and brush your teeth. We have to leave for school soon.” She kept her tone light but her eyes didn’t stray from him and they were shooting flames in his direction.
Reed prepared himself for the lecture he was about to receive.
“I don’t believe I employed your services,” Lauren ground out, propping her hands on her hips. “In fact, I thought when you left on Saturday night you agreed with me that Patrick was just being Patrick and I didn’t have to worry about him.”
“I didn’t say anything like that at all. In fact, due to not having any evidence that Patrick was up to something was one of the reasons why I was hanging around. He’s here for a reason, you said so yourself, and it was only because you were tired and overwhelmed that you’d convinced yourself that you were safe.”
Reed was an ass for pointing out how she’d buried her true feelings because it all became too much for her. He didn’t blame her for what she’d done and why. So much had happened in the span of a few hours that anyone would react the way she had after the evidence they found showed Patrick looked like a standup guy. Sometimes those were the guys that needed to be looked at the most. Not to mention the way he’d acted at the café was in contradiction to the report Wilt had found.
“That’s low even for you, but…” Lauren sighed and tugged her ponytail. “Even though that’s what I did, it doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice your comfort by staying in your car.”
“I’ve stayed in worse places.” Reed noticed that Charlee was standing at the door, she hadn’t come out, which surprised him. Or maybe she was worried her mum was going to scold her. “Charlee’s at the door.”
Lauren waved at her daughter as though to let her know everything was okay. “I need to go. I need to get her to school and then to work.”
“I know.”
“You’re going to follow me aren’t you?”
“I am.”
She nodded slowly. “And what are you going to do then? You can’t split yourself in two and be at the school watching Charlee and at the bakery watching me.”
Of course she’d state the obvious. “The café has cameras, so you’re covered there. As for the school, as much as I want to stay out the front and watch her, that’s not going to happen because all it would take is for one person to notice my car hadn’t moved for hours and call the authorities. But I also know the school Charlee goes to has measures in place where they won’t release students to anyone not on an approved list and they’re very conscious about who they let onto school grounds.”
How did he know this information? Had he asked Wilt to provide it for him?
“Of course, you know all this,” she mumbled. “As you can see we’re safe, so we don’t need to be watched all the time. You can go home and catch up on your sleep. And…” She leaned forward and sniffed. “Shower.” She said the last with a smile on her face so he knew she was teasing.
“I’m wounded. Are you saying you don’t want a hug?” He made a move to hug her, and she squealed and took a couple of steps back. He clutched his chest. “You wound me.”
Lauren rolled her eyes. “Whatever.” She turned and headed back to the house. She was wearing a pair of jeans that hugged her ass nicely.
Stop staring. Stop staring.
He couldn’t drag his gaze away, not only from her shapely ass, but the slight sway of her hips. Everything about Lauren was alluring, and now that he’d spent time with her, he wanted more. Wanted to know all about her. What had it been like when she’d been pregnant? How was Charlee as a baby? Where were her parents? Did they live somewhere else? Was that why they weren’t in her life?
The door shut behind her, and he blew out a breath. Now that Lauren knew he was here and that he would follow her, there was no point standing in her backyard, he may as well get in his car and wait until they left.
He’d reached his car when his phone rang again, this time it was Steve. “Hey boss, what’s up?”
Reed had texted the team Saturday night stating he wouldn’t be at PT for a couple of days, and no one said anything. It seemed word had spread about the creep that harassed Lauren and how he’d stepped up to the plate. Of course, no one knew he’d told Patrick he was Lauren’s fiancée, although Steve and Tabitha had heard Lauren when she’d berated him at the café for being bossy. Neither one had said anything, but Steve had probably guessed his reasons for saying it.
“You coming into the office today or will you be watching your girls?”
Your girls.
Reed liked the sound of that. “I’ll be following Lauren when she drops Charlee off and then when she goes to the café. I got Wilt to run a check on the school and their safety procedures. They’re solid. I’ll need to go home and shower before I come into the office, but I plan to be there. Why?”
“I’ve been talking to Damon and we’ve both decided that we need to set up a roster to watch Charlee’s school. We’ll contact them about our plans, too. Wilt also sent me the report on Patrick, and what’s in it doesn’t match up to what I saw on Saturday. I also rewatched the security footage. If he is as clean as what we found out about him, I don’t think he would’ve acted the way he did. Something’s not adding up, which is why I think we need to take some precautions.”
One of the main reasons Reed had followed Steve when he started Power Security was because the guy was a brilliant leader and he never discounted something anyone said. If anyone of them had any doubts while they were on a mission when they’d been in the Army or on the ones they did for the Federal police, he would listen and they would all talk it out. He’d already solved the problem he’d deduced about having a car out the front of Charlee’s school. “I need to see that footage. Lauren said something to me Saturday night that I want to check out.”
“I’ll have it ready for you. What time do you think you’ll make it into the office?”
Reed glanced at his watch. “About an hour.”
“Sounds good. We’ll call a meeting when you get here, because I’ll be interested in hearing what Lauren said about this guy.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lauren’s car reversing out of the driveway. “Gotta go, they’re leaving.”
“Copy that.”
Reed ended the call and started his car. He would have preferred to have been the one driving them. Maybe in a few days he could persuade Lauren to let him.