19. Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Nineteen
Raif
R aif doesn't know what he did wrong. Everything seemed to be going well at the lake, but during their hug, she’d pulled away so quickly.
Had wanted out of there as fast as could be.
Practically ran their horses back to the stables and was in her car and gone before he could try and talk to her about it.
He does what he does whenever something bad happens, he pouts.
He goes through the list of things to be done that day.
Axel wants to add onto his cabin, so Raif fells a couple of dead trees back in the forest and hauls them by hand over to Axel’s cabin.
He should be using tools and machines. Knows it’s stupid to use his hands like this out in the open.
Anyone watching would question his show of inhuman strength. But Raif doesn’t care, he’s in a mood.
Ash went back to the fire station today for a shift, but Raif has the next couple of days off. He wants to spend them with Ash. He feels like they were getting somewhere. That she was seeing how much he cares for her. But maybe he played his hand too soon. Maybe it was too fast for her.
He knows she lost her boyfriend James a few years ago.
But loss has no time limit. There is no set expectation of when she would want to be with someone else.
And he will wait for her, forever if needed.
He’ll be her friend, her confidant. He’ll be whatever she needs him to be because she’s his mate, and he’d do anything for her.
Doesn’t help his crappy mood, though. He’s stomping into the lodge with his toolbox to fix a door hinge when Axel stops him with a hand on his forearm and a jerk of the head. He follows Axel to his office. Raif can tell there’s something up with Axel, that Axel has definitely picked up on his mood.
Raif drops his toolbox to the floor and plops himself down in a chair across from Axel’s desk.
“What’s up, little brother?”
“Don’t call me that assshole.” Raif crosses his arms across his chest. He doesn't want to be here in Axel’s office getting scolded for his grumpiness.
“What’s up, Raif? You’ve been in a better mood for weeks since you started at the fire station. Now today you’re walking around here like you’ve got a stick up your ass. Something happen?”
Raif keeps his face turned away. He doesn’t want to look at Axel, who looks so much like their father, like this. Acting like he’s in charge, like he’s the disciplinarian.
“Something happen with Ash?” Axel’s voice is softer, still gruff, but the edge is gone and replaced with something easier. Something that makes Raif want to talk.
“It’s just...I thought we were going somewhere. I thought maybe she had feelings back. We hugged, you know? Like she let me hold her. And then...then she ran away. Took off without saying much of anything. I don’t know what I did wrong.”
“Maybe you didn’t do anything wrong. Maybe it wasn’t you at all.
Her previous partner died, right? That’s a lot to go through.
And if she hasn’t had another relationship since then, there could be a reason why.
Maybe she’s not ready for one, maybe her feelings for you scared her. Maybe she needs time.”
Raif huffs out a big breath. Axel is right. He’s saying everything Raif already knows. Ash and he didn’t talk about it. He told her she was important to her and they hugged, but she never told him how she felt, not really.
“Glad we got that out of the way.”
“Ass,” Raif grumbles, fiddling with his fingers. He knows the emotional talk with Axel is over, they don’t do that, not really. But he appreciates his brother’s advice all the same.
“I actually brought you in here to talk about Harvey Group.”
Ah, yes, Harvey Development Group. The fuckers who coerced Maury, their accountant, to embezzle millions from the lodge, basically dooming it to fail all under Axel’s nose. Harvey Group, which then made Maury disappear after he confessed to Raif and Axel. Those assholes.
“You never found anything in the cabin they stayed in or on the grounds, right?”
“Nope nothing.” That was Raif’s job in all this.
To scour the earth trying to find any clues Harvey Group left behind.
But all he found was the normal, dirty cabin after a guest’s stay.
Nothing suspicious, but he doesn’t put it past the two men from Harvey Group who approached them and stayed at the lodge for a week.
But that was before, when the lodge was failing. Before Chloe and her friend Danielle came in and saved them. Got the books straightened out, got funding for the lodge and advertising, and most importantly, guests. Now it’s been quiet for months. Harvey Group not making a move.
“Well, I got this in the mail.”
Axel passes a plain white envelope across the desk. It’s unremarkable, no writing or addresses.
“What is it?” Raif asks, turning it over in his hands.
“Open it.”
Raif opens the flap and pulls out pictures.
They are of him, at the fire station, out on calls.
One from just a couple of days ago, when they got a call about a man having a heart attack in a shopping center.
Raif flips through them multiple times, noting that thankfully, none are of Ash. Just focused on him.
“I don’t get it. What is this?”
“I’m not sure. I think it’s from Harvey Group. I don’t know what they’re playing at here. All the pictures are of you out volunteering. There’s none of the rest of us and none here at the lodge. You notice anyone following you?”
“No, not at all.”
“Keep an eye out. I’m guessing this won’t be the last we hear of them. There’s something clearly going on.”
“Should we contact the police? That detective who helped us last time when we found out Maury had been stealing?”
“There was never any proof that Harvey Group was involved. Any case we had against them died when Maury disappeared. I don’t know what they’d do to help.”
Raif nods in understanding. He gets it. It’s them against a big corporation.
And with no proof of anything, there’s nothing they can currently do.
The pictures concern him. They are of him, only him.
He doesn’t do much besides work at the lodge and volunteer.
He doesn’t know what they would watch him do, but he feels like he should be on high alert.
That something is coming, something big.