Chapter 11
As she pulled into the parking lot at the compound, she admitted it felt weird. She’d always been here in a professional capacity as a vet, not as a client. She didn’t like the change. Knowing she was here because it was a safety net—and spending the night—felt wrong. She was bad at asking for help, and, at this point, it felt like she was in the uncomfortable position of needing a lot of help.
It wasn’t her style. She’d always been fiercely independent. At the moment her relationship with Ice and Levi was getting a tad too complicated.
As for her relationship with Rory, she didn’t understand what was happening, yet obviously something was blossoming. She wasn’t against it. He was a good man, and he’d certainly been a huge help.
He was also a strong alpha male, and that in itself was incredible sexy. Even better he seemed unaware of it. That there was a physical attraction was obvious, and that was good too. But it was hard to imagine any kind of a relationship at the moment with so much stress involved. At the same time it was also almost impossible to ignore how very much her heart and soul were susceptible to his particular brand of charm.
She also hated that she was connecting to Rory over this nightmare. She’d love to get to know him more, but it worried her that maybe what she felt wasn’t real. Although it felt real. More real than she’d felt in a long time.
When she got out and closed the truck door, he walked around and held out his hand. “Don’t be nervous,” he scolded.
“You know them as equals,” she said quietly, willing him to understand. “This feels different.”
At her words, he stopped and studied her for a long moment. “I can understand that,” he said. “But just because you’re here and need help doesn’t make you any less than them. Everybody has a particular skill set. Yours is with the animals. Theirs is with security.”
She considered that for a long moment, then the door opened, and puppies cascaded toward them. She bent down to scoop up one particular wiggling ball of energy and buried her face in his fur. “My, look how big you’re getting.”
The puppy wiggled so hard trying to reach her face that she couldn’t resist him and let him clean one cheek. Then she hugged him tightly again. Rory gently stroked her back, offering comfort, somehow understanding on an altogether different level what she needed. Then she handed the puppy to him and said, “Your turn.”
She reached down to snag another one and saw Alfred at the door with a puppy in his arms. “I guess it wasn’t a bad deal to bring them?” she asked.
Alfred smiled and shook his head. “No, we’ve all fallen in love with them.”
“Anna was afraid of that.”
Alfred beamed. “You mean, Anna was smart enough to know that,” he corrected.
Louise chuckled softly at first and then in great rolling waves of laughter as she realized just how sneaky Anna had been. Because, between the men who had their separate living places here and the others who lived within the actual compound, there was a good chance not one of these puppies would end up adopted anywhere else but here. The doors beside her opened, and Ice stepped through.
She took one look at Louise, her arms full of puppy, and grinned. “I don’t know how you can possibly not keep every animal that comes through your clinic,” Ice said with a big smile. She held out her arms, and Louise passed her the puppy.
“It’s hard,” Louise admitted. “It’s one of the reasons I do a lot of work for Anna. Whenever I get strays, we work out a deal where she takes them until we can get them adopted out. Otherwise I’d keep them all.”
Ice ushered her into the kitchen. “Alfred is ready to serve dinner.”
“Thanks for the invite,” Louise said a tad more formally than normal, still uncomfortable with her reason for being here.
“You’re part of us. Don’t be formal. Alfred’s always happy to feed somebody else. Besides, we need to make some plans. We have to pull the plug on the drug crew and get the control back in our hands.”
Louise liked the way Ice thought. And she was right. “You’re correct. I feel like a victim. A puppet whose strings are pulled by somebody else. It’s really frustrating. I want it to stop, but I don’t know how to make that happen.”
“That’s where we come in,” Levi said. He leaned back in a big chair at the table. Louise stopped and contemplated the massive table in front of her, set for what looked like several dozen people. “How many people is Alfred serving every night?”
“Well, right now, counting only those in the house, I think we’ve got sixteen.”
Louise shook her head. Alfred walked in just then, pushing a large cart. He took one look at her standing there and motioned for her to take a seat. “Hurry up and sit down,” he said. “Bailey is coming with the other trays.”
She took a seat beside Rory and watched as Alfred emptied the cart by putting heaped platters of food up and down the table. “Alfred, you’re a dream to be able to cook for this many all the time.”
He chuckled. “It’s what I do. You do what you do. I do what I do.”
How very true. These men couldn’t set bones or fix tomcats, and she couldn’t possibly cook a meal like this for this many people or set up security or bait a trap for some assholes making her life difficult. It really was about everybody having their own talents and contributing where they could, doing what they could do. She watched as everybody served themselves from the platters, even as Bailey came around with another cart. She had vegetables and salads and buns. When she got to Louise, she grinned and asked, “Are the puppies okay?”
“The ones I saw so far look great,” Louise said with a big smile. She watched the relief and love blossom on Bailey’s face. Louise realized again how absolutely right Anna had been to place them here. As Louise let her focus return to the table, she caught sight of Levi’s thundering frown. But there was no heat in it.
Then he shrugged.
Her gaze twinkling, she said, “You knew that would happen.”
“I love them too,” he confessed. “But we’re not keeping them.”
“We aren’t keeping six,” Ice corrected with a smirk.
Trying to head off an argument he must have heard many times over, Rory reached for the platter in front of him and dragged it slightly closer, saying, “Serve yourself, Louise, before there’s nothing left.”
“I can’t imagine there would be nothing left. A ton of food is here.”
“Really?” he asked. He motioned to the other end of the table and said, “Take another look.”
Several platters were empty or almost empty. She figured the bread was to fill up some of those deep holes in the men. Dinner was roast chicken, cut in quarters. She didn’t think she could handle a whole quarter, but Rory obviously did as he placed it on her plate and then held out a large Caesar salad for her to take or not as she chose. It was her favorite. She dished up the salad beside the chicken and dug in. “I’ll be lucky if I eat this much.”
Levi looked at her. “Are you kidding? Almost every one of the women here eat more than you.”
“I’ve never been a big eater,” she confessed. “Maybe because I’ve never had this kind of food before. I’d probably eat a lot more if I lived here,” she admitted.
Ice nodded. “Good food is the heart of a good family.”
Louise realized just how much she liked Ice—her philosophy, her mannerisms, her gentle soul and steely personality. Not many people would fool her. But she would give the shirt off her back if she thought it would make somebody else’s life easier.
Dinner was a quiet affair as everybody ate. Obviously thoughts were heavy as nobody brought up much lighthearted conversation. When she was done, Louise pushed back her plate with a happy sigh. Alfred was down at the far end. She leaned forward slightly and said, “Alfred, that was delicious. Thank you so very much.”
He looked up with a pleased smile on his face. “You only ate the chicken and salad. You could have had some roasted vegetables.”
She grinned. “I did wonder if there is dessert.”
Everybody turned to look at Alfred who raised innocent eyebrows and said, “I didn’t make any dessert tonight.”
A shock wave went through the table as people realized they might not get a sweet treat at the end of their meal.
Louise shrugged. “That’s all right. I don’t get dessert most of the time.”
Bailey chuckled. “What he means is, he didn’t make the dessert tonight, but I did.”
A cheer went up around the table.
“Dare I ask what it is?” Louise asked. “How lucky for Alfred to have found you.”
Alfred nodded. “I’d be lost without Bailey as this place has grown so much, and there are just that many more vegetables to prep and roast.”
“And custards to bake and muffins to mix and cakes to throw in the oven,” Bailey added with a laugh. She smiled at Louise. “I got a hankering for cream puffs today.”
Levi straightened. “We’ve got cream puffs coming?” He looked at his plate, as if measuring to see if he still had room. “In that case, … they’re really light. I can get a couple down.”
Louise watched as all the men inhaled a mess of food. When they were done, everyone picked up their knife and fork and plate and took them into the kitchen, a process they’d done many times over, and then they all came back again in a single line.
Rory took her plate even though she would have been happy to have taken care of her own. When he sat down beside her again, a stack of clean plates were in his hands. He took two and passed the rest down. Before she knew it, Bailey was back with more platters, … platters of cream puffs. She set three down, spanning the long table. Levi grabbed the platter closest to him and dragged it to the end where the four of them sat. Ice snagged one and put it on her plate. Louise watched as Levi took three. Rory looked at Levi’s plate, nodded and grabbed three for himself. Looking at Ice’s plate, Louise took one cream puff and laughed. “I can see why you grab fast around this place.”
“You have to do the same with coffee. Speaking of which, there’s a fresh pot.”
Rory pointed to the sideboard. “Would you like a cup?”
A few minutes later, over coffee, Ice brought up the subject sitting in the back of Louise’s mind. “Anyone have suggestions about Louise’s issue?”
Louise was surprised that everybody in the compound was involved. A lot of the women were here too, but then it was part of the life here. If they sheltered somebody who was potentially in danger, and that danger came home, they needed to know as well. She settled back to see what people would say.
Levi said, “Louise wants to set a trap. Take back control and find a way to get the men coming after her.”
“We always prefer to take control away from the bad guys,” Stone said from the far end of the table. “Waiting for somebody else to act is incredibly frustrating.”
“The question is whether they’ll attack her apartment or they’ll come here,” Rory said. “We deliberately left a slow trail so anyone watching could follow. Logan and Harrison stayed back and went a different route just in case somebody was trying to follow them.” He looked over at Logan with a raised eyebrow.
Logan shook his head. “No sign of anyone that I could see. Stone, do you have anything to add to that?”
“Nobody following you on your way here.”
“Okay, so they didn’t necessarily follow her here, but we’ll assume they’ve tracked her to this point. Which begs the question, will these men make a move on her, or will they either rescue or take out their men currently in jail at the police station first?”
“Or both at the same time. Which would be a better idea on their part.”
“If they have the manpower, yes, it would be,” Rory said. “Divide and conquer.”
“Meaning?” Louise asked.
“Meaning, if they attack the police station, it will keep the police focused at home, leaving the attackers open to come after you here.”
She frowned. It was hard to think of things like that. She’d spent her life trying to save animals. These animals were spending a lifetime trying to kill people. They came from such different worlds. “My apartment is empty. What’s the chance they’ll go back there?”
“They didn’t get anything the first time, so I highly doubt they’ll go back. Unless they think you’re there.”
“In which case I should head over there myself,” Ice said.
Louise turned to look at her. “Why you?”
“Because I will go as a dead ringer for you. I have the same body type but different colored hair. I have wigs for just this type of occasion.”
Louise opened her mouth to protest, but Rory reached over and squeezed her fingers. “It’s what we do. Remember that.”
Stricken, she turned her gaze from one to the other. “What if one of you gets hurt? Because of me?”
“If anybody touches Ice, there’ll be a hell of a lot more brimstone and hellfire coming their way,” Levi said, his voice hard, his hand covering Ice’s.
Louise slumped in place. “Send me instead. You guys just make sure you’re ready for whoever comes after me.” She studied Ice. “What if they shoot you when you get out of the vehicle?”
The two women stared at each other.
“She’s got a point,” Levi said. “They’ve proven they’ve got sharpshooters.” He frowned, contemplating the idea.
Ice shrugged. “You know we have to take a chance on some of this.”
“No, we don’t,” Louise said.
“We’ve already decided they want to talk to you, not just shoot you,” Rory said. “They’ve had plenty of opportunities to do that already, so keep that in mind.”
She winced. “Great, just what I want to think about. The only question they could possibly ask me is about the case of drugs. And we already said the cops have it.”
Levi’s phone went off. He pulled it out and checked the caller. “It’s the police department.” He pushed his chair back and walked a few paces away so he could hear the conversation better.
Louise looked at Ice and Rory. Both watched Levi. She twisted to see the look of surprise on his face. He shook his head and kept talking, but he walked farther away. She sagged back in her chair. “It’s not good news, is it?”
Rory grabbed her hand and held it firmly in his. “It doesn’t matter what kind of news it is. You’re here, and you’re safe.”
She gave a shuddering breath and smiled at him. “Thank you for that.”
A lopsided grin slipped out, and he said, “You’re welcome.”
*
Rory caught Ice’s gaze. Had she figured out the phone call? He’d assumed there’d been an attack on the police station. The question was, how many more were dead? This gang was cleaning up pretty fast. Whether that would be enough or whether they still felt they had to come back after Louise, he didn’t know. Levi continued his phone conversation. When he put away the phone and walked back, he said, “Change of plans.”
Everybody at the table turned to look at him.
“One of the men being held at the police station is dead.”
Rory glanced to see the color bleaching out of Louise’s face. “One of the shooters?”
Levi nodded. “None of the cops were hurt. The shooter ingested poison somehow. A full investigation is underway. Now they have to look at their own men. They had a cleaning crew in today they haven’t been able to locate, or maybe the man being held had something hidden on his person he could take himself.”
“He would know what was coming. Maybe he had an opportunity to take himself out first.”
“The good news is, the second man is talking. Once he realized his companion was dead, he agreed to cooperate with the authorities.”
“Has he offered anything useful yet?” Rory asked.
“He’s in the interrogation room right now. I trust Detective Mannford to figure this out.”
“Excellent,” Ice said. “Should I call him?”
Levi nodded. “He has the files in front of him. He’s going through those before speaking to the gunman but would like to connect with you.”
She poured a fresh cup of coffee and said, “I’ll call him now then.” And she walked out.
“Is this detective somebody you’ve worked with before?” asked Louise.
“Several times.” Levi sat down again and said, “For the moment we won’t try to bait a trap. We’ll see what information they can get from this other man, while our goal here remains to keep you safe. So, whether you like it or not, you’re here for the night. We will get you to work in the morning, and somebody will be at the clinic all day with you. It’s Saturday tomorrow, so I presume it’s a full day?”
She nodded. “Yes, it is. No surgeries but my schedule is fully booked.”
“Then there’s Haggerty’s mare. Do you think you’ll see Moonrise?”
Louise turned to Rory and smiled. “Only if Moonrise is in trouble. It’s Mona Lisa I’m more concerned about.”
At the confused looks, Rory explained the mares were both heavy with foals.
The news lit up everyone’s faces.
Alfred walked toward Louise with a stack of towels. “I have a room set up for you. It’s on the third floor. Rory can show you where it is. I just took these out of the laundry. You can have a nice hot shower or a bath if you want. I’m sure the guys will entertain you tonight. There are lots of movies and other activities. I’ll take the puppies outside for a walk, and then I’ll retire to my quarters.” He gave a wave and headed back to the kitchen.
“How long has he been here with you?”
“Since we first formed the company,” Levi admitted. “I’d be lost without him.”
She glanced at the stack of towels and then turned to Rory. “We should’ve grabbed clothes and an overnight bag. Why didn’t I do that?”
“I think we were a little too busy dealing with the shock of having your place turned upside down.”
“Still it was foolish. I have to go to the clinic tomorrow in the same clothes I wore today. And that’s after working on several horses today.”
“We can run past your place first thing in the morning on our way to the clinic. You can do a quick change, and then we can carry on.”
She brightened. “Thank you. That’d be great.”
Rory stood and said, “Levi, if there’s nothing else to discuss right now, let me get Louise settled in her room, and I’ll return.”
Levi glanced at him. “Don’t bother coming back. Head to the office. Once Ice is off the phone, we’ll have a meeting.” He glanced at the other men at the table. “Give us twenty and then come up.”
The men nodded.
Rory snagged his hat off the sideboard, then reached out a hand to Louise.
She stood. With a smile to everyone, she let Rory lead her down the hall. Rory watched the amazement build on her face as she took in her surroundings. “It’s an amazing place.”
“It’s all stone and concrete,” he said. “It’s a damn fortress.” He led her to the elevator and pushed the button.
“An elevator? Is this a house or an office building?”
“It’s almost an apartment building at this point.” Rory nudged her in as the double doors opened. When they arrived on the third floor, he led her to the appointed room.
She stared in both directions. “How many bedrooms are up here?”
“At least a dozen, I think, although some aren’t necessarily being used as bedrooms right now. The offices are on this floor too.”
He walked to his room, opened the door and put his hat on his dresser, turning to give her a moment to see inside. “This is my room. Alfred always puts our guests next to the person who brought them.” He moved to the next door and smiled. “This is for you.”
She stepped inside and realized the bedding had already been turned back for her. The window was open, and the curtain flowed gently in the breeze.
“This is beautiful.” She smiled. “This place is absolutely amazing.”
“It is. Not all the bedrooms have en suites, but most of them do.” He motioned toward the door on the far side. “There’s your bathroom. Do you want to have a shower now, maybe get cleaned up a bit?”
“I still have to put dirty clothes back on though, so I’d rather shower before bed.”
“Not quite, Ice is grabbing you a change of clothes. You’re both about the same size.”
As he finished speaking Ice walked in with a stack of clothing in her arms. “These should do, at least temporarily. You’ve got time for a quick wash and change but that’s it.”
Surprised and touched, Louise accepted the clothes, turning to stare at Rory as Ice left.
“Then in that case, do what you need to do.” He checked his watch, adding, “We’re a few minutes ahead of our meeting.”
“Back quick,” she walked to the bathroom, overjoyed at being able to get into clean clothes. But not wanting to take too much time, and a pro at cleaning up after working with animals, she washed fast. When she was done, she dressed quickly amazed at how well Ice’s clothes fit her own lean body. Her skin now shiny pink, she opened the bathroom door to find Rory leaning against the door, on his phone.
She walked to the window as she braided her hair. “This place is huge.”
“It is. And they’re expanding all the time.”
She nodded. “I see the heavy equipment down below. What’s that for?”
He stood beside her, his hand resting on her shoulder. “They’re putting in a big pool, hot tub and tennis court area. Fitness is very important to everybody here.”
“Hmm, wow,” she said in awe. “This is unbelievable.”
“I think that’s how we all feel. Every one of us is damn glad to be here.”
She turned to smile at him. “You don’t miss the ranch?”
“It took me a long time to leave. I should have handed the ranch back over to my brother earlier. It was hard, but it wasn’t my place. Even though it’s where I grew up, it was my dad’s and my brother’s. It wasn’t my life. But it took me days to deal with the grief of leaving that lifestyle. Something about working the raw land sat perfectly in my soul. But I also realized I wasn’t ready to step out of life to that extent either. I still wanted to do a lot more. I needed to do a lot more. Levi offered me the perfect opportunity to do that. Down the road, who knows?”
He smiled and with his arm tucked around her shoulder led her back to the door. “You okay to go to the meeting?”
Her footsteps slowed. “I am, but I can’t say it’s where I really want to be.”
He frowned and looked down at her. “Where do you want to be?”
She slipped her arms around his waist and rested her head against his chest. “Right here.”