charges against the fucker.
“Fuck no,” she said numbly. “Never. He…” Her voice cracked, and I brought the back of her hand that I held to my lips.
“How did he know where to find you?”
“He put a new phone with a tracker on it in Addy’s backpack. All I did was take out pup, her stuffed animal, last night. I guess I should’ve gone through the thing.”
“Jesus,” I said, gripping her hand tighter. “This is not your fault. That guy has serious issues. There’s no way anyone would anticipate a fucked-up tactic like that.” I glanced over at her tears, “Hey, it’s over. He’s back where he needs to be. We were all pretty much ready to pack it up anyway. Take a breath, sweetheart. We’ll get home, and Jake and Ash will bring in the food to put a smile back on my woman’s face.”
“Sounds good.” She sighed.
“So, no running to the cemetery then?” I teased, thanking God that she was settled down and out of that same zone she was in the night we left Addy when Derek had pulled his shit in front of me.
“I can’t believe Addy saw all of that. She’s never seen him pull something like this. I’ve always sheltered her from it.”
“We’ll make sure she’s okay. If we’re all swimming in the pool with her, we’ll make it fun tonight.”
We rolled into the place before anyone else. Addy was still sound asleep, and unfortunately, I had no room set up for her in this damn house. I had Avery follow me to one of the rooms on the first floor, Addy drooling adorably with creases in her cheeks from sleeping so hard on the ride up to the house.
“Do you think she’ll be okay in here?” I asked. “I have the glass doors on all floors open for whenever she wakes up. That way, we’ll be able to hear her.”
“She’s fine,” Avery said, brushing the hair from Addy’s forehead and offering her a small and raggedy, gray stuffed animal.
Must be pup, I thought with a smile of adoration.
I heard Jake come in and left Addy and Avery in the bottom room. It was the one closest to the open glass door, where I’d had the security company set the motion sensors for anything that would walk out to the pool area.
“Pool’s closed? You’re such a fucking asshole sometimes.” My brother nudged me and grinned, testing the waters in his own way. “How are the girls?” he asked as I grabbed bags of food from Ash.
“What the hell, man?” I shook my head while Ash laughed along with me. “Did you buy out the entire restaurant?”
“Jake acts like I’ve never asked for a McDonald’s cheeseburger before,” Ash said with a wink to her husband.
“No tomatoes, I know.” He smirked at her.
“Oh my God,” I heard Avery say, her voice light with humor. “First of all, McDonald’s doesn’t put tomatoes on their cheeseburgers unless you ask for them, and second, what army are we feeding with all this food?”
Ash shook her head. “I tried to order, but Jake wanted to prove he was a fast-food champion or something. Poor girl taking his order probably quit her job tonight after that.”
I looked at Ash’s humored expression as she leaned into Avery at her side and hugged her. “You wear the pants in that relationship,” I teased. “How the hell did you allow this dip shit to ruin some girl’s day?”
“She was laughing too hard.” Jake arched an eyebrow. “I tried to get assistance, but some gorgeous brunette in my car was laughing so damn hard she couldn’t help, which made it all worse.”
Avery started laughing as we set all the food on my counters.
“How unacceptable,” Ash said, countering Jake, going to my fridge and pulling out a beer for himself, me, and Avery.
Jake grabbed the ginger ale I had on hand for whenever the two showed up, and he handed it to Ash while Avery came to my side. I could feel all her energy had been drained, so I held her close after twisting the cap off her beer and handing it to her.
Jake took a sip of his beer. “The experience could have been so enticing, yet here we are.” He held out his hands to what easily looked like twenty fucking bags of food. “The poor girl is most likely still frazzled.”
I looked at Avery’s gleaming eyes as we watched Jake and Ash play out their excuses for ordering everything on the menu. “Well,