Chapter 17
Gray
Betty spent the next week cleaning out the shed, with at least another week of work ahead of her.
The temperature stayed in the upper forties during the day, then dipped below freezing at night—standard May weather for the Canadian forests at this altitude.
I called it the ‘false spring’. It was a pleasant reprieve and a chance to catch up on outdoor chores, despite the less than favorable result of melting snow—mud.
Everywhere you looked and stepped, there it was, wet and dirty.
It was the type of wet that leached all the way to your bones, leaving a chill that was unshakable.
It was unfortunate that this was Betty’s first impression of the place I loved. In the summer months, the forest was like heaven, tucked away in a secret fairy realm where time didn’t exist.
There was a muffled crash, followed by a string of colorful expletives coming from the direction of the shed. The front door was open to air out some smoke that had gathered when I bolstered the fireplace this morning. Her voice rang clear and crisp up the hill and through the cabin.
I learned the hard way not to rush into helping Betty in times like this.
The other day, after a similar crash, and my resulting sprint to her rescue, she nearly took my head off with a hose.
She brandished it like a lasso, screaming at me to “Stay the fuck away,” unless she explicitly called for my help.
God, she was charming.
Even so, the crash today made my skin prickle, and anxiety couldn’t help but rear its head.
I worried about her out there. She was tough, but the shed wasn’t, and I feared a collapse.
It was a rough early attempt at building, a learning experience for me.
I was a teenager just trying to survive on the bare minimum, in an environment I knew nothing about.
My mental state was poor; health was a borderline disaster.
It was a miracle those rickety shelves still held on despite shoddy craftsmanship and a decade exposed to the elements.
The whole damn structure lacked proper footings. In the real world, it would have been condemned by now.
I warned her to alert me if anything needed reinforcement.
She hadn’t said anything was wrong, but I knew better; that didn’t mean everything was right, either.
While I wanted to keep a close eye on her at all times, I also understood this exercise was something to keep her mind busy and focused, and to give her time to think alone.
It was the one freedom I was willing to extend, so I had to make the best of it.
There were subtle signs that she was starting to trust me with her family’s safety, and I wasn’t taking that lightly.
She argued with me less and less each day, and every time I tried to update her with new and developing information, she bit back less.
I wanted her to feel as though I trusted her in return.
This was a delicate situation we were in, and all I could do was remind her of that every chance I got and hope she understood.
We needed to rebuild our mutual respect, or maybe build it in the first place.
I called Ethan every other day on the satellite phone when Betty was out and busy in the yard or shed. While she knew I was communicating with someone, she didn’t know it was this direct. Letting her know I had a phone was dangerous.
If she knew, she would stop at nothing to find it. Desperate people made rash and often detrimental decisions. Letting her reach out to her brother or father would shatter the tenuous storyline I built to keep us safe.
According to Ethan, my family was leaving Betty’s dad alone thanks to the constant presence of the FBI he’d put in place.
So far it seemed the text message I sent her dad from Betty’s phone before leaving New York was also still holding strong.
Mr. Beaumont seemed content in assuming Betty was with Nash, and Nash didn’t appear to have a way to communicate from his location off-grid in Scotland—much to my luck.
As long as that lie held, things would be fine.
It had to be fine.
If not, there would be no way to send any followup texts to Betty’s dad.
I’d misplaced Betty’s phone somewhere between New York and Canada, and there was a strong chance I’d forgotten it at the townhouse in my rush to leave.
I could have sworn remembering to grab her red bag, but it wasn’t unlike me to forget things, especially with how frantic I was trying to transport a passed-out Betty and two cats.
My uncle’s reaction to my appearance in New York had been as expected.
He was livid. Although Derek and Ron were spotted alive after our run-in, they were visibly worse off than when I’d left them.
My uncle had more than likely tortured them for their failures, leaving both of them hospitalized and on the brink of death. I’m surprised he didn’t just kill them.
Ethan’s team was focused on finding more witnesses to bolster the case against Matteo.
Even with Betty and me willing to testify, he needed more information in order to arrest my uncle and bring him to trial for his crimes.
I could testify only about the murders of my parents and sisters, and while that should be more than enough, Ethan wanted to ensure my uncle would never see the light of day again.
I suspected that if Ethan poked around a little, he’d find more deaths going back decades. This case would be a complex web of illicit dealings and would likely shake up the fabric of New York’s crime elite, creating pushback and a scramble for anyone involved to buy their way out of it.
Everything hinged on getting this case right and keeping the witnesses alive.
God, I wish I’d known more about what my family was into sooner.
Since my father died when I was still in high school, I never understood the extent of our family’s affairs until the very end, and it was too late.
To be honest, I thought my father was a Wall Street financier right up until a few months before their murders.
I was too young to be let in on the family business before then.
“It’s adult business,” he always said. So, until I was eighteen and legally an adult, my father kept me in the dark.
Gazing out the front windows, a massive balled-up blue tarp suddenly burst from the shed doors and landed in the muddy yard with a splash. Betty followed, feet pounding the ground so hard she sent dirt sloshing onto her pants and shirt.
There was a shovel raised high above her head, and she began bringing the blade down on the mess of tarp, screaming and growling with each hit. With narrowed eyes, I noticed a few rats scatter from the tattered blue plastic. Betty chased after one, swinging the dirty shovel and missing sorely.
It would appear she’d located the nest. Good for her. But eradicating them was another story. Rats fled in all directions, escaping unscathed as they vanished into the trees.
On cue, Larry leapt from a nearby evergreen and darted across the yard, presumably in pursuit. He was like her tiny bodyguard, jumping to her aid where I couldn’t.
“Get ‘em, Larry!” I could hear Betty shout, her voice muffled behind the glass.
I chuckled, unable to contain myself. She’d ditched the sweatshirt today, opting for a simple, form-fitting long-sleeved gray t-shirt and work jeans that bunched at the ankles above her untied work boots.
She wore a pair of work gloves that were too big for her dainty hands.
Any manicure she’d left New York with was long gone by now.
I couldn’t help but admire her silhouette, the curves that always sent a thrill through my groin whenever she entered a room, radiating confidence and fire. So much fire.
When I’d rescued her from the tub incident last week, I’d caught more than an eyeful of her bare silhouette.
Until then, I’d almost forgotten what she looked like naked, skin soft and glowing, legs for days and the perfect ass, juicy as a peach.
My mind still clung to the fresh memory, brandished on the back of my eyelids, now and forever.
She was… breathtaking. I couldn’t help it.
While she’d kept her distance all week, it felt like she was having to try harder to do so. She’d acted spooked since the night I’d boldly massaged lotion into her legs and feet after the debacle with the swimming rodent.
I recall the moment now.
Her intoxicating and uniquely female scent drifted off her skin in delicate waves of vanilla and orange as I pressed my thumbs across her muscles, mixing with the lavender lotion I’d infused over the summer.
I could never smell that lotion again and not think of my weathered hands on her smooth skin—that shocking contrast?
My hands ached just thinking of it now.
She’d allowed me to care for her the way I longed to since she’d re-entered my orbit.
It was a bold gamble to approach her as I had, as mean and snarly as she was, but I let the buzz and confidence of a beer drive me.
Going in, I thought for sure she’d kick me away.
It was a pleasant surprise when she didn’t.
It was like taming a wild dog. She was spent after the adrenaline-induced tub drama, vulnerable enough to relax for one precious evening and let me care for her.
I wish our relationship could have progressed from there. She’d offered a tantalizing glimpse of a life filled with companionship, love, and trust, but it was fleeting.
The next morning, she dismantled the entire thing, placing all the unpacked emotions back into a box on the shelf, like one of my puzzles.
When I tried again to make her coffee, she refused and kept a wide berth, leaving both the breakfast and drink untouched before leaving for the shed. She’d outpaced me yet again.
I desperately wanted the sensitive, open version of Betty back. At least I knew she was still in there, somewhere.