Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
Grant
Iarrive home to two familiar cars in the driveway and my youngest sister popping her head out with wide eyes and a smile.
“Auntie May!”
Poppy’s elation at seeing her aunt does nothing to quiet the alarms blaring in my head. Especially when I see another woman pull a large pet carrier out of the back seat of her beat-up sedan and laugh as she turns to eye my vehicle.
It could be my imagination, but I think she’s just gone even paler than she usually is as that flash of a grin melts off her face.
The girls are clamoring to get out of their car seats. Lily unfastens her buckles and moves to help Pops, who’s struggling and groaning against the restraints keeping her from her beloved aunt.
My sister is standing with hands on hips and chin high, channeling her best Superman pose, when I round the vehicle.
“What is this?”
But before she can answer, her focus shifts lower and she drops into a crouch to gather the girls into her arms. “How are you? I missed you! I haven’t seen you in like three days! Did you grow?”
They chatter back and forth for less than a minute before I lose my patience. “May. What is this? Why is she here?”
She has disappeared into the garage apartment with whatever horror was inside the carrier. It’s best she’s out of sight because I don’t need the distraction of her long, dark hair and dark eyes and general… whatever it is about her that niggles me. I’m not in the mood.
May squeezes the girls tight while she explains. “I promised I’d find you a tenant, and I did. In record time, might I add.” She releases them and straightens. “You’re welcome.”
I spent a decent amount of time in my military career being observant, and I’ve honed my observational skills all the more in the last few years with law enforcement. It’s obvious the woman is moving in, and it’s also easy to see she can’t possibly be the tenant.
“No.”
“What do you mean?”
May’s giving me a look like she thinks I’m insane, and that’s great. She can think whatever she wants. It doesn’t matter.
“She can’t live here. I don’t know her. There’s no way you know her. I can’t have a stranger living next door to me.”
“Wait, this is his house? I thought you said it was your parents’ property.”
My head snaps to see her standing there, arms wrapped around herself.
It’s at once defensive and defeated and the suspicion in me settles a touch at the sight of her posture. In fact, something lurches in my gut when I realize she won’t meet my gaze.
May’s regretful groan and grimace draw my attention back to her.
“Well, it kind of is. They own the surrounding land and then my brother has this piece of property. So technically it’s his house, his garage, and his apartment, but like, you don’t need to worry. He’s a sheriff, he used to be in the Army, he’s a great dad, and he’s—”
“She doesn’t need to worry?” How does May not see the danger here? “I’m not—”
Wait. Why am I trying to have this argument in front of said stranger? “Excuse us for a moment. Girls, run inside and put up your stuff, okay?”
Lily and Poppy eye the woman, then May, then me, then finally skip and stumble inside. I take a few steps away and wait for May to join me.
“Um, hi. Perfectly nice woman, needs a win, and you’re acting like she’s a wanted criminal because…?”
I remember when May was curlicue pigtails and singing with a ukelele. I remember when she was sick in a hospital bed five times too large so she looked even smaller than she was. I remember this girl like a kid but she’s giving me such a stare of female disappointment, I shrink a touch.
“I don’t know her. You don’t know her. I have small children, and she may seem harmless, but the fact is, we don’t know. I acknowledge your experience has been—”
“If you’re about to say I’m sheltered because I’ve never left Juniper View, then you can take your altruistic ass and—”
“Sorry to interrupt, but could I say something?”
Her voice penetrates the cloud of frustration floating over me and May, and we both turn toward her.
“I’m so sorry about this, Sam. I had no idea he’d be such a jerk.
He’s got some control issues.” May makes a face, but she must see the woman—Sam, apparently—blanch at her words, because she adds, “Not in a scary way. Just in the sense that he’s not happy I found a tenant even though I told him I would and he agreed that would be good. ”
Sam swallows. “I’m sorry this is such a surprise. I’d like to make clear I had no idea this was your house or even that May is your sister.”
A strange impulse nudges me to step closer to her, but instead, I simply nod. “Acknowledged.”
Her long lashes flutter. “I can also tell you I’m not a criminal.
I have no record, and the only negative thing you might uncover is that I had some debts in my early twenties that snowballed and some more recent debt, but that’s all paid off and taken care of.
I don’t anticipate any issue paying rent, and I can provide you with references if you need.
” Her eyes shift right, then rise to meet mine for the first time.
“Also if you need to run a background check, I—you can. If you need to.”
Her word choice is specific and the specification that if I need to, I can, is clearly unusual. Most people don’t care if you run one, plus it’s standard practice when renting. I haven’t had to do it as a landlord since my sister has been the tenant the entire time I’ve lived in the house.
“I’ll need to.”
She nods ever so slightly, eyes down again. “Of course.”
May is squinting at me like I’ve betrayed everything we believe in, but what am I supposed to do? Does she actually expect me to let this woman live next door to me without any knowledge of who she is or where she came from?
Maybe if I were another man who’d lived another life.
I know too much, and I’ve seen too much.
I’d love to believe that every beautiful, down-on-her-luck woman is genuinely decent.
But I’ve changed since the mess at Patriot Ridge and hearing from the few women who talked about how several of them were recruited by other women.
It shouldn’t have shaken me, but it did.
And now I find myself worrying that this woman is some kind of honey trap sent to Juniper View to steal away the young women and girls of the town—that maybe she’s new in town, but only from where she was stirring up trouble in Silverton.
In my life in the military, I witnessed human depravity and cruelty outside the US.
I wasn’t na?ve enough to think there aren’t things wrong with this country, but my missions were out there.
To see the cult’s damage in real time in what is practically my back yard? That’s not something I can shake.
I can’t afford to sit back and watch bad things happen. The worst has already happened to these girls and now, I’ve got to protect them from anything else. I failed them once and I won’t allow complacency or a pretty face to shove me off my focus.
Oof, it’s getting a touch dark. Maybe it’s time for another check-in with my therapist.
May claps her hands together. “Okay, great. It’s agreed.
She’s staying here. And you’ll do what you need to confirm she’s not secretly on a prison break joyride, and everything will be fine.
” She loops her arm around Sam’s back and shuttles her toward the door to the garage, giving me a glare as they walk away.
I wait a few minutes, pulling in lungfuls of the crisp pine-scented air and willing myself not to lose my shit on my sister when she reemerges. Eventually, May comes trotting back down the stairs with a paper in her hand and strides right up to me, hands on her hips again.
“Did you have a little time to think about what you’ve done?”
“What I’ve done? Yeah. I’ve been thinking I need her information so I can run the check.” I haven’t said it, but I might just have a look at what police databases have on her anyway. Should be nothing, right?
If it were just me here, maybe I wouldn’t care. But with the girls, I’ll be damned if I let someone dangerous live fifty feet from my family.
May huffs. “Well, go be a hero. In fact, go right now and do whatever you’re going to do. If you’re going to kick her out, I want to find her somewhere else. So go check, I’ll stay with the girls, and then you’ll get this… whatever this is out of your system.”
She stomps past me and into the house where her tone instantly shifts to cheery Auntie May mode. So there’s that, then. No one messes with Ryan women when they’re like this—May and Eirinn get this from our mom. We Ryan men, along with Eirinn’s husband, know when and how to cut our losses.
And an hour later, once I’ve taken a look at her background check and her credit, I wonder what Sam told May. It didn’t seem like she knew about anything specific, but somehow, my sister sensed that the woman had been through something and needed a break.
Based on what I’ve just seen, I know she does.
There’s a file—LAPD with a signifier that sends my stomach to the ground.
My finger hovers on the mouse, but I don’t click it.
Domestic abuse reports deal with victims, not abusers.
Digging into this would be a blatant violation of privacy, and that’s not me.
I’m still not happy about the arrangement, but I’m appeased.
There’s no nefarious past waiting to haunt me with this person.
No arrests or ties to Patriot Ridge or any other cult to speak of.
I may be an ass sometimes, especially if I’m protecting my family, but I know enough now to drop the suspicion.
Doesn’t mean I’m about to invite her over for baby doll tea party time or movie night, but I can admit I need to make this right.
I knock on Sam’s door and after I do this, I’ll relieve May with an acknowledgement her instincts were right.
As soon as Sam opens the door, I get it done. “I apologize for my gruffness. I have to keep the girls safe, and I can’t have some random woman who could be a criminal living next to us. It’s just not a risk I can take.”
“I understand.”
She crosses her arms, not quite so deflated as she was earlier, but she’s bracing.
Her sweatpants bunch over her slippers and she’s wearing a tank top revealing pale skin completely inappropriate for the outside temps, though the heater in the apartment is effective.
It also shows off her toned arms and the slope of her neck and—and you’ve got to get a grip, man.
“I see no issues with you being here. You stick to your space, we’ll stick to ours, should be fine.” I run a hand through my hair, glancing around at the entrance that feels oddly confining all of a sudden. “I’ll have a contract ready for you tomorrow.”
Her lips press together in what looks like a way to avoid a smile, but then she nods. “Makes sense. And thank you.” Her dark eyes search mine and she bites her lip softly, like she’s working to find the right word. “Truly. Thank you for giving me a chance.”
I swallow hard, gaze locked on hers. I didn’t expect her gratitude.
I was an ass, and even though I have my reasons, I still snag on this moment.
I want to say something more, or reassure her somehow, or tell her I’m sorry for whatever’s happened to her, but that’s not my place, and… what would that even look like?
So I nod. “’course.”
And then I leave, striding back to my space, my house, my life. Giving her a chance is that simple—now she has a place to stay.
It ultimately has very little to do with me.