Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
T heo frowned when his message to Gretchen went unread. While the party was still going on around him, he was no longer in a jovial mood. Gretchen was fine when she left to get her sweater, he was certain of it.
But then, she stayed away too long. He’d intended to go looking for her, but Sam dragged him to the brewery’s makeshift stage to sing “Friends in Low Places” with him.
Once the song was over, he returned to the table and saw the text from Gretchen.
He hated that she’d asked Edith to pick her up, but then, he had to admit that he’d had too much to drink to drive her himself.
He had texted to see if she needed anything, but half an hour had passed…and she hadn’t read the message.
Which was normal, he told himself. She had a headache. No doubt she’d gone straight to bed and to sleep.
Yet, his gut was telling him something was wrong.
So he gave up trying to reason with himself and called Edith.
“Well, this is a surprise,” she said, instead of hello. “I would have expected you and those wild brothers of yours to keep the party going ’til dawn.”
“I’m sure they’re going to give it the college try. I was calling to check on Gretchen. To make sure she’s okay.”
The pause that followed told Theo he’d been right to worry.
“Gretchen isn’t here. She texted to say she was spending the night with Nora.”
Theo glanced down the table to where Nora was laughing loudly at something Remi was saying.
“Theo,” Edith prodded, when he didn’t reply. “Isn’t she there?”
“No. She said you picked her up.”
“You need to find her,” Edith said, the alarm in her voice triggering his own.
“What’s going on?”
“I’m not sure why she lied to us, but I’m worried,” she said.
“About what?”
Edith sighed, and for a moment, he thought she wasn’t going to tell him. He knew Gretchen had been confiding in Edith, but he didn’t realize how much more Edith knew than him.
“I’m afraid maybe her ex showed up.”
“Her ex?”
“That’s not my story to tell,” Edith said. “But he’s not a good man, Theo. Please find her.”
“I will.”
“And call me when you do.”
Theo assured her that he would, then hung up, trying to remain calm.
“What’s wrong?” Levi said. “Where’s Gretchen?”
“I don’t know, but I need to find her. She has to be somewhere on the farm.
” At least, Theo hoped she was. Given that Edith hadn’t picked her up and she didn’t drive, he thought that was a somewhat safe bet.
Until he recalled her plans to employ Koda’s Uber service. If she did that…she could be anywhere.
Or perhaps this dangerous ex?—
Theo didn’t let himself think about that.
“Levi.” Theo was unable to mask his panic. “Edith thinks she might be in danger. An ex.”
“We’ll split up.” Levi placed a firm hand on his shoulder. Within minutes, Levi had gathered the rest of the family, divvying up places around the farm where she could have gone, each of them setting off to search the cabins, winery, big houses, barns, and stables.
Theo raced to the brewhouse, since that was where Gretchen was headed when she’d left the party. The entire time, his mind swirled over what Edith had said. Her ex wasn’t a good man.
Now he knew the “who,” the person who’d hurt her, who’d caused her to flinch when he moved too fast, tremble or whimper when he laughed too loud or thunder boomed. Who was to blame for the panic attacks.
Bile rose to his throat when he considered exactly why him touching her neck scared her and he recalled that damn sweater she’d shown up here in the day they met. The way it covered her neck.
Running down the hallway to her office, he pulled up short when he saw the door closed, the light off.
He’d needed her to be here, because the idea of her running—or worse, being taken by someone who meant her harm—was too terrifying to consider.
Opening her door, he turned on the lights, his hopes dashed when he found the room empty. Closing the door, he spent the next twenty minutes systematically working his way through every room in the brewhouse, even searching around the machinery in case she was hiding.
Hiding.
Shit.
He was an idiot.
He raced back to her office, because he was almost certain he’d seen…
Entering once more, he turned on the lights—and there it was. Her cellphone, lying face down on her desk.
Theo walked over to it, and as he did…
She came into view.
Gretchen was huddled behind her desk, her legs tucked against her chest, her arms wrapped around them, her forehead pressed to her knees. She didn’t lift her head when he slowly walked around the desk.
“Don’t hurt me!” she whimpered, her voice so scared Theo felt sick. Then he glanced in the trash can and realized she had been.
Who the fuck had done this to her?
“Gretchen,” he said softly, not wanting to spook her. “It’s me, Theo. I’m not going to hurt you.”
Slowly, she tilted her face to his. And Theo, who didn’t consider himself a violent man, was ready to hunt down whoever had put that broken expression on her face and pummel him to dust.
She blinked a few times, the remnants of dried tears on her cheeks. She was pale, and while her breathing was somewhat labored, he didn’t get the sense she was in the midst of a panic attack. Actually, he suspected he was seeing the aftermath of one.
“Please don’t fire me.”
He knelt slowly…so, so slowly, he hoped she wouldn’t even register that he was moving. He was careful to keep several feet between them. “I can’t fire you. I’m not your boss.”
He hoped that small joke might land, but it didn’t.
Instead, fresh tears filled her eyes. “I’m sorry.”
He shook his head. “Kitten, you don’t have a damn thing to be sorry for.”
“I lied to you about the migraine.”
“Don’t care.” Then he lifted one finger, her words reminding him. “Give me one second. Don’t move. There are a lot of people out there looking for you, worried about you. I want to tell them you’re okay.”
A strangled sob was her only reply to that.
Theo quickly fired off a text to the family text thread.
Found her. She’s okay.
That second part was a lie, but he was prepared to move heaven and earth to ensure that by the time they left her office, she would be.
Then he sent one more text.
Please tell Edith.
After that, he turned his phone off because he suspected his family would inundate him with a bunch of questions he didn’t have the answers to. Right now, Gretchen was the only thing that mattered.
Theo’s knees were starting to scream at him for his crouched position. “Can I sit with you?”
She wiped her eyes and took a second to consider the question. Mercifully not too long. She nodded.
He dropped down onto his ass, sitting crisscross, trying to figure out what the hell to say next.
Gretchen solved that problem for him. “I swear I’m not crazy.”
He frowned. “I never thought you were.”
One shoulder lifted slightly.
“What happened after you left the brewery, kitten?”
Her eyes welled with tears. “I like when you call me that.”
He grinned, though it was forced. “Then I’ll keep doing it. Is this because of him? Your ex?”
Gretchen looked startled, but only for a moment, then she just looked resigned…and so fucking weary, he didn’t think a year’s worth of sleep would put a dent in her exhaustion.
“I called Edith,” he explained. “To check on you. She was concerned perhaps he’d found you.”
Gretchen’s eyes flew to her phone on the desk.
“My family is texting Edith, letting her know you’re okay.”
“I can’t go back there.” Her voice was thick, raspy, further evidence that she’d been crying hard and for a long time. Before, everything she’d said had been spoken in soft whispers.
“Go back where?”
“To Edith’s. I don’t want him anywhere near her.”
“Then we’ll make sure that doesn’t happen.” Theo had zero information, but he managed to piece together enough to know this ex, whoever he was, truly terrified her. Theo couldn’t let himself linger too long on what the man had done to Gretchen to produce that kind of deep-seated fear.
Still tucked into a ball, she glanced away from him, her eyes locked on the wall beneath the window. “I was young when I met Briggs,” she started, in such a way Theo wasn’t even sure she was talking to him as much as to herself. “Only fifteen.”
Briggs. He finally had a name.
“Did he live in the residential home too?”
Gretchen laughed at that question, though there wasn’t an ounce of mirth in it. “No. Briggs is a cop. He was thirty-five at the time we met.”
Anger flashed hot as Theo’s temper exploded. “He was a pedophile,” he said, his jaw clenched tight.
Gretchen kept staring at the wall, shaking her head. “No. He was a groomer. He never touched me until I was eighteen.”
That did not make it fucking better, but Theo didn’t say that aloud because there was no way he could temper the fury in his tone, and he didn’t want to frighten her more.
“Shaw had graduated and joined the Navy when we met. I hadn’t really felt lost or lonely until my brother wasn’t there anymore.
Not that I blamed him for going. Shaw had his…
his own things to deal with. Looking back now, I can see he was the smarter one, making his escape from that damn city the second he could.
But after he was gone, I realized how alone I was.
And then…there was Briggs. He gave a talk about drugs and gangs to all us kids at the home, and afterward, he chatted with me a little bit.
I don’t even remember what he said, just that I’d been flattered that out of all the kids there, I was the one he wanted to talk to.