24. Chapter 24
Chapter 24
Arlo
Never in my life have I been more scared than getting a call from Rina in the middle of the night, sobbing so much I could barely understand her.
Thank God for all the years in the Marines. My work brain kicked in, and I immediately went to her. The fact that my wife was basically traumatized needed to be put on the back burner as much as I fucking hated it. At least I got a second alone with her to make sure she was okay. I know I’ll be checking on her throughout the night because you couldn’t bind me tight enough to stay away.
When I return to the workshop, Ledger’s looking at me like he’s trying to solve a crossword puzzle.
“What—”
“Not now, Ledge, please,” I all but beg. Telling a guy who used to be like a brother to me, whom I cut out of my life along with everyone else, that I not only married his sister in secret but picked things back up fifteen years later is absolutely not something I want to get into right now. My concern is Rina and the fucker who did this. Everything else can wait.
He holds his hands up, but I don’t miss the flash of anger. It’s something I’ll have to deal with eventually, but not right now .
I walk gingerly around the space, careful not to touch anything yet and look for anything obvious: a shirt, candy wrapper, anything that the asshole could have left.
“Holy shit.” Oakley’s voice startles me enough. I have to steady myself on the wall to my side.
“It’s bad,” I confirm.
“She slept through all of this?” He looks around, cringing every time he sees a pile of basically scrap wood now.
His concern is something I immediately thought of and already have a plan for. I won’t let her work out here without protection again.
“Apparently. I don’t know when exactly she woke up, but when she came in, whoever did this was already gone.” My head flashes to the fact Rina was dressed in a tank top and boy shorts when she came running in here, completely unprotected and exposed. My fists clench so hard my knuckles crack before I give my head a small shake to focus on the task at hand.
“Hey, man, thanks for calling me in. I think Arlo and I have it if you want to head home. We’ll keep you updated on anything we find out.” Oakley turns to Ledger, and I’m more than happy he took the lead on that one because if I would have had to do it, I have a feeling a lot of information about Rina and me would come bubbling to the surface.
“I’d rather stay and help.” Ledger doesn’t concede.
“Seriously, we need to take pictures, look at the scene, all the police work, you know? It’s going to take all night too, so no reason for us all to be here and get no sleep.” Oakley says it casually, but my skin is itching.
Ledger looks between the two of us, but I look toward the ground. I can’t be positive that my face doesn’t give me completely away with how I feel about his sister, and although we aren’t hiding things anymore, this is not the time to get into it with her big brother and my teenage best friend.
“Okay, I guess.” He still looks confused, but maybe the cop card worked. “Arlo, thanks for texting me on the way. I think Ainsley and I have a pretty mellow day tomorrow, so call me if anything else happens. I mean it.” His serious tone leaves me feeling like an awkward teen again, afraid to upset my friend. But he breezes out just as fast as he came.
A throat clears, and I turn my attention to Oakley, who has a shit-eating grin on his face.
“He know about you and Rina yet?”
“I’m guessing no because I don’t have a black eye. Thanks for sending him home.”
“You’re so fucked.” He chuckles. “Okay, what do we know so far?” He moves on, and I choose not to address his words. I’m more fucked than he knows considering the woman of the hour is still technically my wife.
“Not a lot so far. There’s a note on the desk over there, but I haven’t found anything else.” The note I briefly got to read as I was pulling Rina out of the workshop turns my veins into fire. A new level of anger hits me hard, and all I want to do is strangle whomever this asshole is. I watch Oakley walk over to the desk, read the note, and jolt back as he does.
“Jesus. A stalker?” He looks at me with his eyebrows raised so high they’re almost in his hairline.
“My best guess.” I grind my teeth. “She hasn’t told me anything about a stalker, so I’m not sure if this is the first time or if he’s escalated.”
“If this is his first contact, we need to figure this out ASAP because I don’t want to know what his escalation looks like. ”
“Agreed. I’m going to take pictures, and then we can start going through everything if that’s okay with you?” I ask before I realize he probably needs sleep if he’s opening up Grind Time in a few hours. “Or I can take handle it, so you can sleep before opening.”
“Nah, Willow’s going to open, so I can hang out as long as needed.”
“Thanks, man.” I get everything photographed within fifteen minutes, and then my skin starts to itch. “I’m going to go check on Rina, then I’ll be back and start clean-up.” Oakley nods but doesn’t look up from the pile he’s shifting through.
I race up to the house and see she isn’t in the living room before heading to the bedroom. Rina curled up in the bed, tear tracks still fresh on her cheeks as she breathes softly, makes my heart hurt. I’m glad she’s finally asleep, but seeing her breakdown was so fucking hard for me. I’m torn between taking care of her and figuring out what the hell is going on with this stalker situation. I knew handling the workshop would be better in the long run, but all I wanted to do was hold her all night long. Take away her fears, and prove to her that I would be here for her and take care of any shit that pops up in her life.
Kneeling on the floor next to her, I softly run my fingertips over her temple, down her cheek, and across her lips. I lean forward, pressing a kiss so gently that she doesn’t feel it to her forehead before pulling back an inch.
“I’ll fix this, Emmerdeur. I’ll make sure you’re always safe and taken care of,” I whisper before slowly getting off the floor and getting back to the workshop.
Oakley and I made good progress into the early hours of the morning. By the time we called it, we’d gotten most of the space cleared and all the destroyed wood thrown out. I didn’t even have the energy to drive home; instead, I crashed on Rina’s couch, hoping I wouldn’t scare the shit out of her when she eventually woke up.
It’s where I find myself currently stretching after being woken up by the smell of coffee.
“Coffee?” Rina’s voice pulls me out of my sleep haze.
“Please.” She places a Grind Time mug on the table in front of me, and I smirk. “Steal this one?” I ask as I take a sip.
“I would never,” she gasps, with her hand over her chest in faux indignation. Dropping her hands, she chuckles. “I took it after I asked Oakley, thank you very much. Even offered to pay, but he turned me down.”
A genuine smile graces my face, one I haven’t felt since this whole thing started, but it drops just as fast.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
She sighs in response, and I put my coffee down and motion her over to me. Once she’s close enough to touch, I pull her into my lap. I realize she’s in nothing but a tank top and boy shorts, and I’m in only my boxers, but I’m determined to not let my dick run the show right now.
“I-I have no idea, honestly.” She sinks into me.
“Is this the first time something like this has happened?” I want to be gentle and not push her, but I also need answers.
The tension in her body is instant, and I know the answer before she opens her mouth.
“I’ve been getting texts…”
“Rina,” I scold before reeling myself back in. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I try so hard to soften my tone, but I know I fail.
“I don’t need to tell you everything, Arlo. Hell, we just started” —she gestures between the two of us— “whatever this is. And it seemed harmless. I just blocked the texts and moved on.”
“Texts, as in multiple?” Definitely having a hard time staying level-headed and not freaking the fuck out right now.
She sighs and leans into me. “Look, I was going to tell you if whoever this is had texted me again, but it has been radio silence for a couple of weeks, so I thought I was in the clear. The texts weren’t anything super crazy, but they were worrisome. I promise I was going to bring it to you with the next contact.”
I rub my hand up her back as she talks, hoping the sheer anger and fear I’m feeling right now aren’t translating into my movements. She doesn’t need to know how much this is affecting me. I need to take care of this, take care of her, and not let my emotions get in the way.
But they will always be in the way because she’s the love of your life. There’s no changing that.
Well, I need to try to stay rational because I won’t be any help to her if I don’t.
“Do you still have the texts?” I ask.
“I deleted them and blocked the number, but I took screenshots,” she says weakly .
“Good, that’s really good, Emmerdeur,” I whisper into her hair. “Can you send those to me?” She nods, sinking further into my hold.
“Who would do something like this?” Her voice has a slight tremor in it, and I know right this second I’ll do anything to make her feel safe again.
“I have no clue, but I’ll figure it out, okay? I think it’s a good idea to just stay in today, email your clients and tell them about the delay, and then regroup and start fresh tomorrow. Take the day to just be fucking pissed, and then we’ll get you back on track. I’ll handle everything else, okay?”
“Okay. Can we just sit here for a few minutes before I tackle all of that?” She sounds exhausted, and I wish there was more that I could do, but this will have to be enough for now.
“Of course. We can stay here as long as you want.” She snuggles into me more, and I pull the blanket I slept with over us both.
This feels like the calm before the storm, and I’m determined to weather it with her.
An hour later, I’ve gotten Rina settled back in bed, with her laptop and a shit-ton of snacks. My goal is to keep her there through the day so I can get some work done without her knowing or interfering.
Oakley texted me not too long ago and said he did as much clean-up as he could before Willow texted him for the morning rush at Grind Time. Honestly, I’m thankful he showed up at the drop of a hat and that he stuck around for clean-up. It saves me some hours that I’ll need to get everything else set up.
Now, I may not know exactly what Rina needs in her workshop, but I took pictures of the wreckage, so I’m hoping the lumber yard in Rosedale can help me piecemeal everything together.
The guy at the yard was pretty helpful overall. I showed him the pictures, gave him a generalized version of why I needed to replace everything, and he seemed cool with that. He seemed to know Rina well because he asked if she was okay without me telling him it was her workshop. My jealousy reared up instantly before I remembered he probably has delivered to her before.
This whole damn situation has me more on edge than I like, and I’ll own the fact that I looked at him like a suspect for a minute longer than I probably needed to. That’s not to say I won’t be looking into him just to be sure later.
When I got back to Rina’s house, she was sound asleep again in bed. Her exhaustion won over her need to feel useful, and I was grateful for it. The time it gave me allowed me to clear out the rest of the now scrap wood and bring in all the new boards I got. I attempted to organize it all how she had it, but I know I fucked a bunch of things up. She’s going to be pissed as hell at me for taking the initiative. She’ll focus on the money, attempt to pay me back because that’s just who she is.
I’m not taking the bait, though. I’ve saved, been frugal as hell since we got married, and if I’m able to put a smile back on her face, I’d spend it ten times over. I have never seen her more broken, and I want to do everything in my power to ensure it never happens again .
The only thing I can’t do, much to my annoyance, is build any of her pieces.
“Umm…” My head whips around at the small voice.
“Hey. I didn’t know you were up.” I internally cringe, knowing I need to explain what she’s seeing but coming up empty-handed.
“How?”
I look around and try to see it from her eyes. It looks like nothing happened. No broken glass, no shards of wood, and no tools out of place. You’d never know a crime took place here. I even managed to find her a new desk to put in the corner.
“I…” I suddenly don’t know how to explain all of this. Sure, helping with clean-up and getting things set back up is a natural step, but taking it upon myself to do it all before she even stepped foot back in here was probably a little extreme, even for me.
Before I can register her movements, her body slams into mine. Legs tangle around my waist as her arms wrap around my shoulders.
Home. This is exactly where I’m supposed to be.
“Thank you,” she breathes into my neck.
“I couldn’t rebuild anything, although I did think about it.”
“Shut up. I can only take so much hotness, and it’s wildly attractive you even thought about doing all of this, let alone actually accomplished it.”
I chuckle into her neck as I hold her close to me.
“I’ll try to be less attractive, then. Sorry.”
“No, you’re not.” She laughs.
“You’re right, I’m not. I had to do something, and this was the only thing I really could do.” My tone shifts to reflect the seriousness of the situation. We could beat around the bush and act like nothing happened since it looks like nothing happened, but we both know that’s not realistic.
I gently place her down on her feet and press a kiss to her cheek.
“Well, I told all my clients it would take me a month to get back on track, and this exponentially speeds up that timeline. Do you want to see if Willow will bring us some food and talk?” she asks as she pulls back from me.
“Sounds perfect.”