9. Be A Doll and Keep The Noise Down
Be A Doll and Keep The Noise Down
Bree
It’s been a few days since I came back from Grandma’s, and the distance gave me a false sense of security. I started to forget, with a couple of nights of sleep and Grandma’s cooking, just how scared Nolan had me. I came back to a quiet house, a quiet phone, and a feeling that my exhaustion had been making me a little dramatic.
I spent the afternoon with my family, catching them up on how Grandma is, as well as the gossip from her little community, and cuddling the babies before going home, feeling happy and refreshed. I let myself into my house, took a shower, put on some clean pajamas, lit some candles, and poured myself a large glass of wine. Then, my cell vibrated.
Unknown: Princess. Where did you go?
Then again.
Unknown: You can’t just disappear on me like that, Bree. It made me feel crazy!
And again.
Unknown: Don’t do that again, Breanne! I was worried about you.
I froze as I stared at the messages on the screen and watched as another arrived.
Unknown: You do not leave Forest Falls. If you leave again, I will hunt you down like the prey you are, and I promise I always find what I’m hunting. You’re in my sights, Bree, don’t make me pull the trigger!
It was the worst message. The most terrifying. I spilled the red wine onto my gray carpet in my haste to put it down and run to the bathroom. I locked the door and climbed into the tub, and that’s where I woke up, terrified and alone, not knowing what I needed to do to make this stop.
‘Bree, you okay?’ Missy asks, pulling me out of my fog as we sit in my living room, drinking iced tea. I wanted to sit on the porch, but Missy wanted my air conditioning.
The weather is nice, hot, and sticky, but I like it. The sky is so blue on days like today that it doesn’t seem real. No matter how many of these days I’ve had in my life, the blue of the sky never seems any less impossible. It calms me, and right now, I need calm, but the needs of my pregnant best friend are greater than mine.
‘Yeah, I’m good.’ I smile softly at my friend.
‘You’re still not sleeping.’ It wasn’t a question, so I didn’t answer. ‘Why don’t you go see a doctor?’
I shake my head, no. ‘I’ll be fine. It’s just a phase.’
‘Bree, I don’t…’ She’s cut off by the loud rumbling sound of an engine that approaches and comes to a stop outside, and Missy being Missy, she has to take a look. I watch as she stands to peek out of the window.
‘Marissa, get away from my window.’ I shake my head and force a small laugh. ‘Jesus, you fit into this town like a hand in a glove.’
She laughs. ‘Breanne, I am expected to know the comings and goings. My clients rely on me.’ She returns her attention to the window. ‘Oh, my god.’ Her words come on an exhale. ‘Honey, is that your new neighbor?’
Word got around that the cottage next door had been sold and everybody has been waiting to find out who to. Whoever it is will have a fridge and a freezer full of casseroles before the weekend is out. I know it. The women of Forest Falls talk, and they won’t be able to help themselves getting a look. It was the same when Cara arrived. Missy too.
‘Bree, get over here.’
Pushing myself up from the couch, I join her at the window, and she grabs my arm. ‘Man, you are so nosey.’ I chuckle as I stand to take a look. ‘ Wow ,’ I say with a slight sigh when I see the size of the man with his back to us as he reaches into the back of his pickup. He’s tall and wide and, God , so muscular.
‘Yeah, wow,’ Missy repeats excitedly, but I can’t tear my eyes off the man.
He’s unloading boxes, wearing a black t-shirt that shows just how large a man he is, as well as all the tattoo-covered skin of his arms. It lifts as he stretches up to raise the boxes, showing a strip of skin above the well-worn jeans that he’s wearing very, very well, and he has on boots—good god, he’s hot. Then he turns around, and I swear my heart stops.
‘ Oh my god ,’ I whisper, breathless, as I step back from the window, and Missy turns her attention on me.
‘Bree, you okay?’
Rushing for the door I head outside to see for real with Missy hot on my heels behind me, and I freeze on my porch.
‘Ohhh puppy,’ Missy calls out as he opens the truck door, and an excitable rottweiler jumps down and runs around the yard. He waits for the dog to relieve itself before he starts to play with it, a beaming smile stretched across his face. ‘ Oh goddam , come on.’
Missy grabs my arm. ‘Wait, what are you…’ I don’t get to finish my question as she steps down from the porch and calls out.
‘Hey!’ She waves as he looks up and raises his hand.
‘Hi.’
God, his voice is so deep. Was it always that deep?
‘Are you the new owner?’
Missy approaches the hedge between the two yards, and he does the same, so I do, too, but he hasn’t looked at me. He is still smiling while my heart is racing, and I don’t think I can talk.
‘Um, yeah, Arlo.’
‘I’m Missy, welcome.’ She grins, but I can’t speak.
He holds out his hand for hers, and she takes it. I stare at how small her hand looks in his. Then he turns his attention to me.
‘Bree?’ Arlo asks, finally seeing me, and the shock that matches my own causes him to frown and heat races across the surface of my skin as my heart beats an impossible rhythm behind my ribs. Arlo. It's really him , after twenty years he just shows up and the whoosh of my blood in my veins is loud in my ears as my body tries to process the shock.
‘Wait, do you two know each other?’ Missy gestures between us, and Arlo’s gaze holds mine. ‘Um, I’m going to…’ Missy, reading the room, backs away and heads back inside as Arlo and I stay locked in a confused stare across the rose bushes.
‘Why are you here?’ I ask, my voice sounding strange, robotic almost, but quiet, too quiet.
‘I bought this house.’
He thumbs behind him, and my tiredness forces shock to give way to paranoia. Have I got this all wrong? Could it have been Arlo this whole time? His showing up here out of the blue, right now when all this is happening to me, has thrown me for a loop.
‘Right next door to me. In the small town you knew I grew up in, hours away from where you lived.’
‘You accusing me of something, short stuff?’
He smirks, and, exhaling at the sound of that nickname, I shake my head.
‘Why are you here, Arlo?’ my repeated words are desperate, and he seems to soften at the sound.
‘As strange as this is, it is purely coincidental. I wanted a change of pace, somewhere I could walk my dog off-leash without worrying about traffic. I started looking for small-town properties, and I found this one.’
‘But it wasn’t even on the market.’
‘A friend of mine knows the previous owner and knew they were looking to sell. I made an offer, and they accepted.’
Holding my gaze, he smiles, just slightly, as his dog appears at his side and takes both of our attention.
‘Beans, this is Bree,’ Arlo addresses the dog, then looks up at me as he backs away. ‘Good to see you, pix. Be a doll and keep the noise down, would you?’
Then he turns and heads inside the house, leaving me standing there like an idiot.
It’s been two decades. I was about to turn eighteen the last time I saw or spoke to Arlo Harper, and apparently, he can still stun the words right out of me.
‘Bree.’ Missy’s voice has me turning toward my porch and I find her staring at me, so I turn and walk in her direction.
Oh my god , she mouths as I get close, and she reaches for my hands.
‘Breanne, tell me you’ve fucked that man. If you haven’t, you have got to fuck that man,’ she says, and I balk.
‘Miss!’ I’m shocked, for some reason , at her bluntness. I really should know better.
‘I’m serious, girl. That is a smokin' hot piece of ass right there, and he’s on your doorstep, literally. I know he would show you a damn good time.’
‘Pregnancy is turning you into a horndog.’
She cackles. ‘I know, Nick is exhausted but happy.’ I shake my head. I love this woman, but I can’t quite process what just happened enough to laugh or say anything at all. Arlo is here, in Forest Falls, right next door. My Arlo… except he’s not mine, not anymore, not for a long time. ‘Okay,’ she squeezes my hands, ‘so, I need information, and I need it now.’ Dropping my head, I step up onto the porch, then feel her arms around me as she senses the turbulence in me. ‘Let me call the girls.’