Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Daphne walked into the bar, Callie on one side, Amber on the other, laughing at something. Lovell skimmed his gaze over her, noting her movements. Not quite back to normal, but much less stilted than when he and Philly had dropped them off a little over two hours ago.
At his side, Philly chuckled, pulling his attention to his brother. “What?” Lovell asked, braced for Philly to say something about the way he’d assessed Daphne.
“Check out the room,” Philly said.
His muscles snapped tight as he went on alert, scanning the crowd gathered after a day of skiing on fresh powder.
His eyes swept the room once, then a second time.
Then more slowly, a third. Not a threat.
The three beautiful women had caught the attention of many folks in the bar, and more than a handful stared or cast surreptitious looks their way—men and women alike.
“How’d it go?” Philly asked, sliding his hand around Callie’s waist and pulling her to his side.
“Dreamy,” she replied, lifting her lips for a kiss. No hardship for Philly to deliver. The man was smitten with his wife. The feeling was mutual, so Lovell didn’t feel the need to tease his brother.
“You’re moving better,” he said to Daphne.
“As long as I keep moving, I think I’ll be fully back to normal in another day,” she replied, her attention on the back bar. “Something from there wouldn’t hurt either.” She pointed to the artfully arranged and backlit bottles.
Lovell gestured to the bartender, then pointed to the table by the window he’d reserved for them. The older man, with his well-manicured gray mustache, long-sleeve button-down, vest, and bow tie, nodded.
“We’re over there,” Lovell said to Daphne, jerking his chin toward the table.
“I’m going to head out,” Amber said before they took a step. “I want to help Dottie with the dinner cleanup.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Philly replied.
“We told her you’d be home late,” Lovell added.
“I appreciate that, but I like the work. It helps me sleep,” she added. Not giving anyone else a chance to protest, she hugged Callie, then Daphne, then turned and left.
“You don’t think she feels she has to work, do you?
” Philly asked as they wound their way around tables.
The sun had set long ago, but lights lined the buildings and walkways, sparkling off the fresh snow.
A pretty sight that made Lovell wish they’d put an insulated sunroom on the clubhouse. Or a wall of windows.
“I think she has her routine, and her routine both gives her purpose and helps her process what happened to her,” Daphne answered. “She may not always need it, but she must need it now.”
Philly let the subject drop as they sat.
Ten minutes later, Daphne had a cocktail, Callie, sparkling water with lime, and he and Philly, beers.
They’d also placed their dinner order, burgers all around, and put in an early dessert order of chocolate fondue.
The last wasn’t really his thing, but Callie and Daphne had wanted it, and he figured between the two of them, they’d finish it off.
After raising a toast, Lovell glanced at Philly, who gave a small shake of his head.
Lovell lifted an eyebrow. He loved his brother, but sometimes he questioned his choices.
They’d made a plan while the women were in the spa, and he doubted the sisters would hop on board without a fight.
Daphne was a straightforward person, though, and ripping off the Band-Aid and telling her seemed like the best approach. Philly had other ideas.
Daphne sipped her drink and laughed at something Callie said.
Then again, maybe Philly had a point. If they brought it up now, there was a fair chance Daphne would walk out without eating. And if she did, Callie would follow. At least Philly’s way, when they did storm out, they’d have full bellies.
They sipped and ate as the conversation flowed, mostly about the antics of Callie, Philly, and Daphne as kids. None of them had had great childhoods, but they’d found friendship and adventure and fun in each other. He liked seeing them laugh.
By the time they finished dessert, which he had to admit was pretty damn good, it almost felt like a normal night. As if the threats to him and Daphne had blown out with the storm. As if the conversation they needed to have didn’t need to be had.
Waiting by the front door for the women’s coats and hats, Daphne stretched her arms overhead. She only winced twice but pushed through the tightness as she twisted her body side to side.
“Lovell’s going to the cabin with you, Daph,” Philly announced.
Lovell jerked his attention from Daphne to his brother.
“No,” Daphne replied, without missing a beat in her stretch.
“Yes,” Philly replied
“No.”
“Yes.”
They were like a fucking Ping-Pong match.
“Gabe,” Callie cut in. He turned to his wife. Lovell chanced a glance at Daphne, but she remained unbothered as she hooked her elbow around her other arm, pulling it across her body.
“Babe,” Philly replied.
“When did you decide this?” Callie asked.
“While you two were in the spa. We popped over to his apartment so he could grab a few things. His bag is in the car,” Philly answered.
The sisters looked at Lovell. He had nothing to say so shrugged.
“And you decided this without asking her?” Callie said.
“Harder to say no when he’s here with his bag and no car,” Philly replied.
“And yet she’s saying no,” Daphne interjected.
“Way to back someone into a corner,” Callie muttered.
Philly remained silent. A beat passed, then Daphne’s eyes narrowed on Philly. “Don’t you fucking dare,” she said. Lovell stilled; there was obviously some kind of family/old friend communication going on he wasn’t privy to.
Philly grinned, then tipped his head and flashed what Lovell could only call puppy eyes at her. “You wouldn’t want your sister to worry about you, would you? Out there, all alone.”
“Oh my god,” Callie said, looking heavenward. Lovell loved his brother, but Callie did put up with a lot.
“You did not just pull that card,” Daphne shot back.
“I did,” Philly said more gleefully than he should. Especially since Lovell would be the one suffering her wrath.
“You don’t have to do this, Daph,” Callie said. “No offense, Lovell,” she added, her eyes flickering to him before landing back on her sister. “The cabin is wired to the teeth and connected directly to HICC. It has a safe room. I’m not worried.”
But even Lovell heard the lie in her voice.
Just because Daphne was protected didn’t mean Callie wouldn’t worry about her being on her own.
Philly had filled him in on the cabin, everything except who owned it, and he trusted HICC had it locked down like Fort Knox.
Still, there was such a thing as safety in numbers.
Not always, but in this case, the cliché held true.
Daphne opened her mouth, closed it, then glared at her brother-in-law. “Did I tell you it’s a one-bedroom cabin?”
“He has an air mattress,” Philly responded. “And a sleeping bag.”
She turned to look at him. Lovell wished he could say her gaze was assessing or furious or curious or any kind of emotion, but it was completely and utterly blank.
“Daph, you don’t have to do this,” Callie repeated.
Daphne’s gaze slid back to Philly. “Fine, I’ll agree to it, so long as you put him through hell on my behalf, Cal.” She nodded to Philly.
For the first time, Philly blinked.
“Oh, you can be sure I’d do that regardless of whether you agreed,” Callie replied.
“Then we have a deal, Gabe,” Daphne said with all the warmth of a deal with the devil. “You can follow me,” she said, flickering her gaze to Lovell. “Wait, Gabe said you don’t have a car.”
“I have an electric car. It’s good in the snow, but if there’s no outlet to recharge, it’s not worth bringing. Philly told me to leave it at home.” He braced himself for an explosion. What happened was even worse.
She heaved a sigh, as if he and Philly were little more than errant children needing tending. “The valet is pulling my car up now. You better get your things.”
Since Weeks and Beeks were out of the picture, they’d agreed there was no reason Daphne shouldn’t drive her Bentley. The fender needed fixing, but the damage didn’t impact its driving.
“Go with him, Gabe,” Callie said. Philly didn’t argue, and the two hustled out of the lodge. Philly’s truck wasn’t far, but the icy air hit his lungs and froze his legs as his jeans pressed against his skin.
“Well, that went well,” Philly said, his breath fogging in the cold.
“You aren’t the one staying with Daphne,” Lovell countered. “Did you have to be so…”
“Blunt? Dictatorial? Despotic? Tyrannical? High-handed? Yes, I did. Trust me, it was easier this way. Or at least faster.”
“Again, says the man who isn’t staying in close quarters with the woman he dictated to.” They reached Philly’s truck, and he pulled the back door open, then grabbed his bags. “At least I can comfort myself knowing Callie is going to give you hell.”
Philly leaned against the driver’s door as Lovell hitched his duffel over his shoulder before grabbing the air mattress container.
“Yeah, I didn’t totally think that part through. But we’re married—she won’t leave me. Or castrate me. I’m pretty sure about that.”
Lovell glared at his brother as he slammed the door. “You’re right, she probably won’t do either of those, but I hope she makes your life miserable, and if Daphne kills me, I hope you get blamed for it.”
Philly grinned, then slung an arm around his shoulder. “Ah, I love the brotherly love.”
The “brotherly love” he felt for Philly increased with each mile he and Daphne traveled.
Granted, he’d agreed to the plan. He couldn’t put the blame entirely on his brother.
But it was a hell of a lot easier to think about ways of making Philly pay than it was to guess what thoughts percolated in Daphne’s mind. Because she gave him nothing to go on.
He shifted in his seat so that he could watch her without obviously staring. Her gaze stayed fixed on the road as they headed down the eastern side of the lake. She didn’t huff at him or glare or even give any indication she had a passenger. It was as if he were a nonentity in her world.
As the tires rotated against the sanded asphalt, he considered breaking the silence, then opted to keep his mouth shut.
This eerie sort of invisibility was better, at least more predictable, than what she might let loose if he started speaking.
A whole devil-you-know kind of thing. He’d withstood torture for four days after being captured once in South America; he could handle a twenty-minute car ride in silence.
Switching his attention to the window, he watched the snow-covered forests pass in the light and shadows of the headlights.
He very rarely came to the eastern side of the lake, and as the houses grew farther apart and a comfortable darkness blanketed the landscape, he started wondering why.
The town and the main highway were on the western side, and the Warwicks’ lodge sat at the northern tip of the lake.
But the east side wasn’t that far from town.
And it was a hell of a lot quieter. Maybe the real estate prices were better?
He owned his apartment, but with a few of the other guys buying homes, he’d been considering the idea, too.
Not something he’d ever thought he’d have a chance to do.
“Why do you think Weeks killed Beeks?” Daphne asked.
He’d gone down a real estate rabbit hole, and it took him a few seconds to register the question. “Who knows. No honor among thieves and all that?” He had a few thoughts, but given her silence to date, he kept his response brief.
“That saying started appearing in the US in the 1800s,” she said, although he wasn’t certain she was talking to him. “It’s a bastardization of the idea that there was ‘honor among thieves.’ A concept first recorded in ancient Rome, then repeated in various works of literature.”
“It seems like the Romans should have known better,” he said.
“Their empire experienced enough treachery that attributing a code of honor to people who essentially live without any doesn’t make a lot of sense.
At least not when applied to those who chose that lifestyle rather than those forced into it. ”
Daphne tipped her head. “I’ve always thought that, too. I don’t live well with other people.”
He paused. “That was a change of topic,” he said after absorbing her words.
“It’s something you should know. I live alone and have my way of doing things.
I’m not inconsiderate, but I have things I need to do in the morning before meeting Callie each afternoon.
I’ll write, eat, stretch, maybe go for a walk.
” She slowed the car and put her blinker on before turning onto a narrow, plowed driveway.
“Got it. No cooking together or chatting over a cup of coffee,” he said.
“I hope that won’t be a problem?” They approached a gate and she pulled to a stop.
“You’re working, Daphne,” he said. “You don’t have a nine-to-five desk job or meetings to schedule or whatever else might pass as a ‘normal’ job, but your writing is work. I can, I do, respect that.”
She turned, her gray-brown eyes studying him, as if looking for any falsehoods in his statement.
Apparently satisfied, she nodded. “Thank you.” She rolled her window down and a burst of freezing air filled the car.
Leaning over, she typed a code into the keypad, then set her palm on the reader.
A beep followed, then the gate started swinging open.
“You should also know, though, that there really is only one bedroom and one bathroom. I’ll keep to myself, but it’s going to be cozy,” she said.
“Again, not a problem. It has a roof and heat; it will be better than a lot of places I’ve stayed,” he replied. Of course, none of those places had Daphne. None of those places had a smart, fierce, loyal, stunning woman that he wanted, even if he shouldn’t.
He exhaled. Four days. He’d survived four days of torture. He could handle a few days in close quarters with Daphne Parks.
He just needed to keep reminding himself of that.