30. Audrey
AUDREY
I stayed away from the Bulls for the rest of Monday. They confused me, made me want things I shouldn’t want.
Made me think about things I shouldn’t be thinking about.
I put on some music and set about unpacking our things at the little cottage until it was time for pick-up at Ella’s school.
I watched my rearview mirror closely, worried Dean might start something, but he never appeared and I brought Ella back to the farm and passed the main house without stopping to talk to Ridge, who was walking from his workshop to the main house.
Ella begged to go see Blue, but I told her the dog was busy working and successfully distracted her with homemade spaghetti, garlic bread, and two games of Chutes and Ladders.
It was the kind of uneventful night I needed, and as I read her a bedtime story and waited for her to fall asleep, windows open to the nighttime insects, I felt safe in spite of the altercation with Dean.
I tried not to think too hard about the fact that it was because the main house — and the Bulls — stood between me and the main road.
The next morning, I made Ella oatmeal for breakfast — no bacon — and even let her put in some chocolate chips, the second day in a row she’d had chocolate with breakfast. Then I took her to school and went to my shift at the hospital, feeling more like myself than I had since the night I’d walked into the Orpheum for the Hunt.
I tried calling Dean on my breaks, but he wouldn’t pick up and my nerves were raw by the time I headed back to the farm, this time without Ella, who was with Dean until the weekend.
It wasn’t unusual for Dean to freeze me out after a fight, but there was more at stake now, especially after the threats he’d made at the ranch.
I thought about it all the way back to the ranch, wondered if I should call my attorney and tell him what was going on, then decided against it when I did the math on how much it would cost just to talk to him on the phone.
I’d wait it out, hope Dean would calm down, see reason.
I’d just gotten out of the shower and was contemplating what to make for dinner when a motor sounded from the open windows.
I walked to the front door and looked through the screen, then spotted an ATV heading toward the cottage, careening down the hill at breakneck speed, the engine getting louder with each passing second.
The rider wasn’t wearing a helmet, which made it easy to see it was Holden, his long blond hair blowing in the breeze as he barreled toward the porch.
He was shirtless, his lean defined pecs on display, and the black-and-gray images covering his arms seemed to move with the ATV, writhing like living things.
He stopped a few feet away, then said something I couldn’t hear over the ATV’s idling engine.
I shook my head and tapped my ear, and he cut the engine on the vehicle.
“What are you doing?” I asked him, a little too loud in the sudden silence.
“Coming to get you for dinner,” he said.
“Dinner?”
“Ella’s back with Dean right?”
I nodded. “Until the weekend.”
“Exactly,” he said. “Time for you to get your sweet ass to the main house.”
Right. The cottage wasn’t my permanent home on the ranch. It was just there for my time with Ella.
I’d let myself slip into complacency, had almost believed what I’d told Dean: that the Bulls were my landlords, that Ella and I were just having a fun adventure on the farm for the summer.
None of it was true. Not really.
I’d lost the Hunt, and now it was time to pay the price.
I looked down at my shorts and tank top, my bare feet. “Let me get dressed.”
“No need for that, doc.” He flashed a wicked grin that went straight to my pussy. “It’s just going to come off.”
“Wait here,” I said.
I went inside and packed a change of clothes and my toothbrush in a small bag, then grabbed my phone.
I slipped my sneakers on with no socks and walked down the steps toward Holden on the ATV.
He pulled a helmet off the ATV’s handlebars and handed it to me.
“Climb on, doc,” he said when I had it on. “Time for another ride.”