Page 3 of Laurels and Liquor

Breathing out a long sigh, I lift my arms to return the embrace. He’s right. For too long, this pack hasn’t operated as a unit, and it’s cost us dearly. Not that I can blame anyone but myself for that. I let us drift apart when I focused on keeping my secret more than I focused on my pack mates. But we can’t let that happen anymore. I tried to solve this problem by myself, and I failed. I need them as much as they need me.

“I love you, Luc. I’m so—”

“Rhett knew what he was doing. He wouldn’t apologize, and we shouldn’t either,” Lucas interjects darkly.

I scoff a half-hearted laugh. He’s right again. Rhett would never apologize for his actions when it comes to our safety. There are more than a few people in my life I know to be capable of committing murder, but he might be the only one who would be proud of it. I’d let Ted know to watch out for Rhett’s prison phone call, and hopefully I’ll get more details of what happened last night. But for now, I just need to be present for my pack.

I look up at Lucas with a grateful smile. His eyes are still sad, and there’s a smear of something dark under his fringe that looks suspiciously like blood, but he’s still looking at me with the familiar warm smile I know and love. We meet in the middle in a tender kiss, and I let myself forget the world for just a moment and enjoy this. But as soon as we pull apart and start walking toward the house, reality comes crashing down with the ringing of my cell phone. As soon as I see the number on the screen, my heart drops. Lucas gives me a confused look, but I give him a little shake of my head and motion for him to go. My ringer cycles for the third time, but Lucas relents and goes inside. Once the door latch clicks behind him, I swipe to answer.

“Hello, Father.”

Chapter two

Lucas

Pausingontheotherside of the door, my jaw clenches as she answers to Leopold St. Clair. There’s a heartbeat when I consider going back out, grabbing her phone and hucking it into a lake, but I manage to resist. Instead, I stalk through the mudroom and into the kitchen. I know there’s a bottle of something brown in here, and I fucking need it.

When Lex texted—God, was it only eight hours ago?—and told me Rhett and Lydia were making a hasty exit from the wedding, I don’t think anything could have prepared me for what I saw in the backseat of Caleb’s SUV. Rhett, gray and nearly unconscious, his knuckles and face swollen, and Lydia, dress half torn away, and arms covered up to the elbows in his blood. And the worst of it is not knowing how or why. I knew Lydia’s dickwad ex, Darren McLaughlin, must have been the culprit, but how did things escalate to stabbing?

The questions nagged at me the entire flight home, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask. It was all I could do to keep it together for Lydia as she sat motionless for long stretches, then would jump randomly like a ghost had tapped her on the shoulder when I tried to comfort her, to only then break down into tears in my arms. She never spoke, and while she’d let me hold her and soothe her, I doubted it really did any good. I didn’t know what to say or do. All my experience with my sisters and mother never prepared me for this level of panic.

I step through the open doorway to the kitchen and reach out toward one of the upper cabinets to look for that bottle, but I stop short. There’s a black leather folio on the island counter, a red bow on the cover.

“What the actual fuck…” I whisper, frozen with confusion.

“We closed on the Magnolia Garden.”

Mateo’s forlorn words pull my attention, and I turn to find him coming up the stairs from the basement, running a hand through his hair. He makes his way to the fridge, opening the doors and staring at the contents but not seeing them, eyes distant.

“What are…” I start, but then stop.

The Magnolia Garden Theater. The project.Rhett’sproject.

“Lex and I signed the papers on Friday. We’d planned on driving by after we’d picked y’all up from the airport and telling Lydia. And then we’d come back here and celebrate,” he goes on, words wavering with anger, or something else, I can’t tell.

“We have got to fucking stop trying to surprise Lydia,” I spit under my breath, redoubling my efforts to find that bottle.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Mateo snaps.

I shrug. I hadn’t meant for him to hear me, but too late. I find the bottle of rum behind my collection of exotic spices, right where I’d hidden it. Not even bothering with a glass, I flick off the cap, watching it ping off the floor before rolling under a piece of furniture. Fuck it. The bastard can stay there. I’m sure as hell not going to need it again.

“Think about it. We tried to throw her a surprise party for her birthday, and she nearly died in a car accident. We tried to throw her a surprise party to celebrate her joining the pack, and someone broke into her apartment. Now we try to surprise her with this and—”

I gesture vaguely as I take a long pull from the bottle, but my meaning is clear enough. I gasp as I pull away, licking my lips and enjoying the spicy burn as it slides down my throat.

“If this pattern continues to escalate, the next time we try to surprise her, someone’s going to end up fucking dead,” I finish.

Mateo thinks for a moment before he huffs an ironic chuckle and shakes his head. I glance around the room, a little lighter now that the alcohol is mixing with lack of sleep. Offering him the bottle, he takes a long drink.

“Lydia’s downstairs, in her nest. Had to carry her, though. She got to the dining room and just… froze.” Mateo sighs, passing me the bottle.

I breathe deep, sighing on my exhale. But I realize right away why Lydia shut down. After living here for so long, I’ve sort of gone nose blind to my pack’s scent unless I really concentrate. They’re part of the intangible aura of “home” this building has. But now, I can smell Rhett everywhere. It’s like the absence of him amplifies his scent, and my heart aches. With the state she’s been in, it’s no wonder she reacted like she did.

“Yeah, I figured as much,” Mateo replies heavily after I explain my theory. “My first instinct was to take her up to Rhett’s room, but…”

He trails off, but I can finish the thought easily enough. If the hint of Rhett’s scent that lingers in the common spaces was enough to make her go catatonic, then plunging into a sea of it would definitely do more harm than good.

I look between his face and the basement door, my heart squeezing. I’m so lost, so out of my depth. Rhett would know what to do, how to soothe her. Mateo is doing his best, but there’s something special about the bond Lydia and Rhett have. He runs his hand through sandy brown hair before gesturing for the bottle again. We share another long pull each, and I might as well be floating. Too much liquor without food, but I can’t make myself move to address that. Mateo gives me a searching look, and the words forming in his soft brown eyes make me growl in warning.

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