by Frost, Sosie
“Right?” Quint winked at me. “She’s way out of my league.”
Samson might have bought the story, but Tidus usually had his thumb settled on the pulse of everything underhanded and shady in town. He scowled.
“That’s a lot of trouble for the wrong kind of pussy,” he warned.
For once, I agreed with Tidus Payne.
Samson opened my cell. “Sorry to mix you up in all this, Miss Barlow. Gotta admit, it would’ve shocked the town to think you had anything to do with these shenanigans.” He pointed to Quint. “But you better have one hell of an explanation as to why you’d destroy the sanctity of Butterpond’s most cherished tradition. When the historical society is through with you, you’ll wish you were back in this cell.”
The threat of a couple old ladies with oversize purse as big as their egos didn’t frighten Quint.
He stared only at me.
And his smile would forever punish me for being naïve enough to fall for a man like him.
“Nothing’s gonna scare me away,” he said. “Sometimes a little trouble is worth one hell of a reward.”
14
Quint
Some wicked part of me got a cheap thrill out of sneaking into Lady’s room.
Wasn’t only the sex. Lady had welcomed me into her bedroom after dark. Not just when she was waiting for me either. Fridays she dined with her family and grandmother. She’d wanted me there once she got back.
Told me we had to talk. That she had something important to tell me.
She’d told me to make myself comfortable.
But nothing about how I felt for her made me comfortable.
I’d snuck around with plenty of women, but they’d known what to expect from me. A quick night. Easy lay. And the reassurance that once it was done, they’d never have to look me in the eyes again. I’d screwed around with enough women to be shameful, but I’d never taken them home, and they’d never invited me to theirs.
Everything had changed.
And…I almost liked it.
I climbed the tree outside her window. Screw the door. Even she got a kick out of sneaking around, even if the bedroom faced away from the road and the Widow Barlow wouldn’t have seen me knock on the back door. But the secrets made Lady smile.
And got her excited.
I lifted the window. The old, wooden frame complained, but it didn’t squeak as loud as her bed. I shifted into the room, one cautious foot on the floor.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are.” I teased. “Or just come…”
A fist knocked the air out of my lungs.
Lady liked the rougher stuff, but she wasn’t strong enough to haul me around.
The hands grabbing my shoulders didn’t belong to my girl. I gritted my teeth as my back slammed into the wall. The darkness erupted into fireworks of bright pain. I blinked, my eyes adjusting in time to avoid the heavy-handed fist aiming to clobber me in the nose.
I ducked, and his hand instantly embedded in the wood paneling.
“What the fuck are you doing in my little sister’s room?”
Duke Barlow always had an anger management problem. Not that I blamed him. I might’ve reacted the same way had I caught Rem Marshall sneaking around Cassi’s room. Then again, Rem was one of my family’s closest friends…
And I was persona non grata trapped behind enemy lines.
“Now, Duke…” I held my arms out, attempting to signal friendship while lining up my own punch. “Let’s calm down—”
He braced for a head butt. Fortunately, I’d grown up in a household of five boys and had graduated from roughhousing and fistfights to the occasional brawl with Tidus at a local bar. My family fought as dirty as Duke, so I preemptively protected my balls as I rolled away.
“Duke, this isn’t what it looks like.”
“This is exactly what it looks like!” He snarled and blindly swung. “You’re in my baby sister’s room after dark!”
I pitched the desk chair in front of Duke and slowed him down.
“Careful,” I warned. “You shouldn’t accuse your sister of impropriety.”
“No, motherfucker. I’m gonna accuse you.”
I dove out of his path, but Duke was a big guy. Lucky for me, he was a good fifteen years removed from the days when he’d played high school football with Julian. The farm kept me agile and quick, and I escaped his attack with a quick dodge away from the desk. He charged, but he couldn’t stop in time.
He crashed into the desk with a yelp and crumbled to his knees.
I hadn’t even touched him.
Damn. And all these years I’d thought I was a better lover than a fighter.
Duke gave up and groaned, clamoring over the chair to turn-on the glass lamp. He motioned for a truce as he retrieved the object that had so effectively reduced him to a blubbering mess.
A scale model of the Eiffel Tower—
—Imbedded in his ass.
He tossed the toy away.
I laughed.
“Oh, come on, Duke…you gonna let a little toy slow you down?”
He spoke through gritted teeth. “Sodomy is an automatic timeout.”
“It’s like you Barlows never have any fun.”
“You’ve always been an insufferable ass.”
I shrugged. “At least mine doesn’t hurt.”
Duke nursed the swollen knuckles on his hands. He winced, yanking out a splinter from the wood paneling.
“You’re not leaving here without a black eye,” he said.
I crossed my arms. “I’ve been waiting. Never used to take you this long.”
He snorted. “I’m thirty-three. Not a kid anymore.”
“Then I got ten years on you. You wanna see how this plays out?”
“I might be older, but you’ve been in the hospital enough to make it seem normal once I send you to the ER.”
“Low blow.”
“That’s coming too.”
I’d hate to explain to Lady why I kicked the shit out of her brother. Certainly wasn’t in any of her plans.
But maybe I could work this out. Start fixing these problems before either of us needed stitches.
“You gonna let me explain what I’m doing here?” I asked.
Duke grumbled. He might’ve been a dick, but at least he was a good enough brother to defend his sister from a guy like me.
“I know exactly why you’re here,” he said.
We’d find out. “Why don’t you tell me what you know, and we’ll see if you’re right.”
“You’re taking advantage of Lady.”
Well, obviously.
But I couldn’t just admit to that.
Duke dropped the attitude and actually stared me straight in the eyes, man-to-man. Wasn’t sure why, but that was more unsettling than nearly getting my head ripped off.
“You should know better,” he said. “For Christ’s sake, man. She’s young. She’s naïve. You think I’m not paying attention, but I see the way she looks at you. The last couple years, all she’s talked about is touring around Europe. Now she gets her chance, and she’s cancelled two goddamned flights. She’s stuck in Butterpond, and you’re gonna tell me that it isn’t your fault?”
Guilt hit me harder than any punch. “She’s not doing anything wrong.”
“You got her arrested.”
“And the charges dropped,” I said. “Her reputation is intact.”
“I hope to Christ that’s true, but I’m not taking chances.” He stood to his full height. Even prepared to fight, the man wore a suit. He pulled his tie from his pocket and refastened it around his neck. At least he hadn’t used it to hang me. “I don’t know what possessed you to start screwing with her, but it ends now.”
“You know I’m not hurting her.”
“Stop bullshitting.”
The insinuation pissed me off, and I nearly raised my fists. “I would never hurt her.”
Duke laughed. “You’ve been hurting her! Every single day. And the worst pa
rt is that you don’t even realize the damage you’re doing.”
And here I thought Regent was the melodramatic Barlow.
I shrugged. “What damage?”
Duke sneered. “Lady has been in love with you ever since she was a kid.”
Jesus Christ.
I stumbled backwards. Didn’t need the Eiffel Tower model to take the breath out of me.
I crashed into her bed and sat, but that only insulted Duke. He launched at me again, but I scrambled away from her sheets before he had an aneurysm.
“What the hell are you talking about?” I asked.
“Lady’s always loved you, you son of a bitch. Ever since we were kids. Probably my fault—because that damned rivalry between our families only made you look more attractive to her. It’s natural for a young girl to get infatuated with the wrong type of man.”
Was he fucking serious?
I rubbed my face, but the news still reverberated in my brain like his fist had lodged it there through my nose.
“I never talked to her in high school,” I said.
That insulted him more. “Yeah. You ignored her. Didn’t even know she existed until this summer, and that was fine by me. No one wants to see their sister in pain, but I would have preferred her ignored and invisible than seduced and brokenhearted.”
“How the fuck was I supposed to know she liked me back then?”
“By not walking around with your head up your own ass, but that’s too much to ask of a Payne.” He pointed at me. “It’s over now. I don’t want you around her anymore. For as much as I hated the thought of her traveling alone in Europe, I would send her there tomorrow if it meant putting three thousand miles between you and her.”
I stared at him, but I had no idea what to say. What to think.
What sort of asshole didn’t even realize when a woman was in love with him?
The answer was worse than any punch to the gut.
The type of man who’d never cared about himself enough to think such a gift were possible.
“She’s a grown woman…” I stumbled over my words. “She can make her own decisions.”
“Yeah,” Duke said. “And you’re gonna help her make them.”
Oh, Christ. I didn’t like that tone. “I’m guessing you want me to break it off.”
“You will.” He nodded. “But I have a couple other requests. Some messages you need to take to your family.”
Great.
He wasn’t just punishing me for Lady. He’d go after my family.
“You trying to intimidate me?” I asked.
“We’re passed intimidation. Either you do what I ask, or I ruin everything and everyone you love.”
“Fantastic.”
“First.” He counted on his fingers, though I doubted he usually started with the middle. “You’re gonna leave my baby sister alone.”
I thought about it for a long moment. “…Pass.”
“Then you’re really gonna have trouble with the rest of my requests.”
“It’ll be a cold day in hell before I take directions from a Barlow.”
“You’re not gonna have a choice,” he said. “Here’s my problem, Quint. I gave your family a chance to sell the farm. A good price too. Probably more than that land is worth, and certainly more than Julian would see from his harvests for a couple years. But the Paynes do whatever they can to make things hard.”
“Give yourself some credit, Duke…” I grinned. “There’s one talented Barlow who can make me very hard.”
“Cut the shit.”
“Let me guess. You’re gonna sue us?”
“I’m trying to avoid that,” Duke said. “A lawsuit looks bad for all of us. My family won’t make any friends in Butterpond that way, and we’d be in litigation for so long that my family would forget about any monetary recourse and the lawyers’ fees would break yours. No sense in it.”
“You afraid of the fight?”
“I’m being kind.” He paused. “I’m proposing your family sell the farm, pack your bags, and leave Butterpond.”
“And if we don’t?”
“Then we’ll have problems.”
“We live for problems. Problems are what turn a Payne boy into a man.”
Duke nodded and paused, reading my expression. “It’s amazing how popular your alpaca has become.”
Was he kidding me?
I nearly kicked his ass then and there.
“Don’t tell me you’re the freak sending me all the lewd shots of Alicia,” I said.
“…Lewd?”
“Fuck me. You’re worried about Lady sleeping around when you’re the one with a digital camera full of udders.”
Duke frowned. “They’re not lewd.”
“Yeah, right. You had me fucking terrified that Butterpond’s first donkey show was gonna feature an alpaca!”
“The fuck is wrong with you, Quint?”
“Me?” I held my arms out. “I’m not the one stalking a damn barnyard animal! Butterpond passed bestiality laws, you know. We were supposed to be done with that shit when Bill Ridgeford married his chicken.”
“Jesus. The pictures were a warning, not pornography.” Duke stared at me. “What the hell does Lady see in you anyway?”
“I’m the sort of guy who doesn’t take pictures of Alpaca asses, so I think she digs me.”
“The sooner she gets to Europe, the better.” Duke nearly drew his fist back again. “Here’s the problem with the damned alpaca. Your family conveniently adopted that monster just in time to secure the variance to rebuild your barn.”
And it had been a wonderfully devious plan too. “We’re an animal sanctuary now. Do a lot of good with weird animals—but you’ll understand why I don’t invite you to the petting zoo.”
“I’ve talked with the farmer who sold you the animal,” he said. “He told me the deal was good for one alpaca.”
“Thank God.”
“And yet you have two.”
I failed to see the problem. “Micah bought Alicia fair and square for Julian.”
“The farmer didn’t realize the animal was pregnant when he sold her. The baby? Albert?” Duke smiled. “The farmer is very interested in exploring whether the birth of that cub constitutes a breach of contract.”
“Cria.”
“What?”
If he was threatening me, the least he could do was learn the terminology. “A baby alpaca is called a cria.”
Duke nearly swore. “It doesn’t matter. The farmer can figure that all out once we pay for his lawyer to investigate the contract.”
This was pathetic, even for a Barlow.
“You think we’re going to sell you the farm because that goddamned alpaca has finally figured out a way to make us bleed from our bodies and our wallets?”
“If the alpaca doesn’t convince you, maybe the geese will.”
Now it was getting weird.
“Great,” I said. “You sent me pictures of geese too?”
“Notice anything interesting?”
“I’ll say anything you want as long as I don’t gotta put the lotion in the basket, you freak.”
“I had a friend in the state conservation department capture one of our hostile little geese. He gave it a GPS tracker.”
“Sure.” I nodded. “Because that’s a reasonable thing to do.”
“We noticed that Gretchen Murphy does an excellent job patrolling both Butterpond and Ironfield as a Geese Police Patrol Officer. She chases them from Butterpond, and they fly away to the city. Problem is…once they’re in the city, she’s called to retrieve them again. And after she scares them from Ironfield, the flock settles back in our town.”
Duke was a bastard, but even he couldn’t insinuate that a girl as sweet as Gretchen was anything but honest.
“What’s your point?” I asked.
“You and I both know the geese themselves won’t cause a problem…but if Marius were confronted about this…”
“You think a SEAL is going
to care about geese?”
“He’s running for mayor. If elected, he’ll control the town’s pocketbook, and with it, any contracts with animal control officers. If the town learned that Gretchen chased the same geese every spring and fall, but Marius still paid her from Butterpond’s coffers…that could cause quite the scandal.”
“Are you really that desperate?”
“I wasn’t…until I realized how much damage you’d cause my sister.” Duke shrugged. “I'll do whatever I can to protect Lady.”
“Does that include renting out every venue in Ironfield on the day of Cassi’s wedding?” I asked. “That’s hitting below the garter belt, and you know it.”
“That was Marquis’s idea.”
“He’s a prick.”
“We don’t plan on ruining your sister’s wedding—provided we receive confirmation that you’re selling the farm.”
“And if we don’t? Would you rescind the job offer to Honey Hudson?”
“Oh, no,” Duke said. “If she refuses this proposition, we’ll simply offer her something better. She won’t be able to say no.”
“Now why the hell would you do that?”
“Because I hate your family, but I know a perfectly good business opportunity when I see it.” Duke adjusted his suit jacket. “Her barbeque is the best I’ve ever had. And if the Barlows can benefit from something, then I’ll see it done.”
“Even if it benefits Tidus?”
Duke hummed. “Tidus won’t do anything that benefits himself. How long will she really keep him around? Honey can do better than a former addict skulking around her food truck.”
“He’s changed.”
“He’s still a Payne.”
And that was Duke’s fatal mistake. He’d always underestimated us.
“No one in my family will be threatened by an alpaca, a flock of geese, some brisket, or a crowded wedding held on our farm.”
“Mild inconveniences,” he agreed. “But perhaps enough trouble to realize how damaging truly scandalous information could be for your family.”
“Like what?”
“Information that could ruin lives…and shatter faith.”
The bastard. He had dirt on Julian and Marius, and he made life difficult for Tidus and Cassi, but I had one brother he had yet to manipulate.
“V?” I clenched my jaw. “You’d go after a man of God?”