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Thankfully, I’d held on to two of the designer dresses I’d been given in the past. They were my favorites, and I was not willing to part with them just yet.
“Get rid of those. I don’t want you wearing something another man bought for you.” His tone was clipped.
Scowling at the wall, I tried not to lose my temper on him and remain calm. “How do you know I didn’t buy the dresses?”
“Did you?” he drawled in a way that told me he already knew the answer.
“No,” I said through clenched teeth. Hating that he was calling me out on this.
He let out a heavy sigh. “I want to dress you. Everything that touches your body, I want to have paid for it. The idea of you wearing something another man paid for makes me feel unhinged.”
Closing my eyes, I shook my head. Men. “Okay. Fine. Send the fancy folks over here to fix us up if you must.”
“I must,” he replied in an amused voice.
Dovie wouldn’t know what to think about all this. She would probably love it. She’d never gotten to go to any events with me that men had taken me to before. Having him include her as if it was a given that she would go, too, was just another reason I feared this man would own my soul.
“Thank you. For including Dovie,” I told him.
“She’s important to you,” he said.
“Yes,” I agreed.
“Call me if you need me.”
“I will,” I assured him.
“Even if you’re bored,” he said.
I laughed. “I am not calling you if I am bored.”
“Ah, come on now, baby. You know you like to hear my voice.”
I bit my bottom lip and smiled at the glass doors leading outside. Even over the phone, he could give me stomach flutters.
“Yes, I do.”
There was a pause, and then he let out a groan. “I need to go.”
“Bye, Storm,” I teased, then ended the call.
Feeling better after talking to him and no longer stressing over the change in our life, I decided to go wake up Dovie. I didn’t want to eat breakfast alone, and I was excited about telling her about tonight’s plans.
• Four •
“Quality time with your brother not sound appealing to you?”
Storm
She was happy again. I’d been close to leaving here and dealing with the consequences when I checked the cameras in the house and found Briar frowning as she stood in the living room. Talking to her, distracting her from whatever she’d been lost in thought about, hadn’t eased my mind. Looking at my phone and seeing her and Dovie on the back porch bed swing, laughing and talking, however, made me settle.
I clicked off the camera and slid my phone back into my pocket, then glanced up to see Thatcher watching me with a dark amused gleam in his eyes.
“Does she know you have her under twenty-four-hour surveillance?” he asked, then took a drink from the cup of coffee in his hand.
“It’s for her security,” I bit out, annoyed that he knew what I had been looking at.
“Is that what we’re calling it these days? What happened to good ole stalker activity?”
“That’s not what it is.”
Fuck, he was getting on my nerves.
Thatcher smirked. “I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. I’d do it. If I gave a shit, that is.”
I did not want to be compared to the psycho. “Wilder did it with Oakley,” I reminded him.
Thatcher chuckled. “Yeah, keep trying to convince yourself that what you’re doing is the same as what Wilder did, but we both know it’s completely different.”
I wasn’t arguing about this. It wasn’t his business.
“Where is King?” I asked him.
Thatcher shrugged. “Hell if I know. Probably changing motherfucking diapers.”
Great. I needed to talk to him. He was aware Briar and Dovie were living with me now, but I still wanted to make sure he didn’t say anything tonight to make her feel unwelcomed. I knew Rumor would be there with the baby, and she didn’t know about Briar yet. Or at least, I didn’t think she did. King hadn’t mentioned it. Sure, Briar was the daughter of the man who had molested Rumor when she was younger, but Briar was also the one who had poisoned the bastard and dumped his dead body in the ocean.
I needed to find King.
“Storm,” Sebastian called, and I turned to see him coming out of the underground cellars that were hidden beneath the stables.
“Yeah?”
He glanced at his brother, then back at me. “I’m headed to Tennessee in the morning to look at a horse. You want to go with me?”
Fuck no. I shook my head. “Not good timing for me.”
“He’s got to be close to make sure the little songbird doesn’t fly away,” Thatcher said, but I ignored him. It was just best to let his shit slide off my back.
“No one wants to go. Not even Wells,” Sebastian sighed. “I hate road trips alone.”
