Page 13 of Hold On

Ren laughed. “Snap.”

Dominic frowned. “What?”

“My brother Will is in charge of the archaeological dig. I’m helping out for a while.”

“My brother’s the boyfriend of Theo Wetherby, heir to this place. I’m—”

“Dominic!” a voice yelled.

Dominic pushed to his feet again and flinched with pain.Shit.Of course the guy was hurting. The bike had flipped him across the ground.He could have died.Ren’s stomach churned.

“Don’t tell them what happened,” Dominic said. “Please.”

Ren watched two young guys running towards them, one a head shorter than the other. The taller one looked like a younger version of Dominic.

“Where’ve you been?” demanded the shorter one. “Trying to escape? How did you get out of the dungeon?” He gasped. “And out of the shackles? Was it the food you couldn’t handle? Bread and water not enough?”

Dominic laughed but Ren caught the other guy’s wince followed by an elbow into the chatty guy’s ribs.What’s that about?Not that it shut chatty guy up.

“And you’ve made a friend already. Or had you stopped him to beg for rescue?” He held out his hand to Ren. “I’m Theo Wetherby. This is Col, my boyfriend and you’ve met Dominic, Col’s brother. He’s not really trying to escape, are you, Dominic?”

“Ren Scott.” Ren shook his hand.

“Are you visiting Asquith?” Theo asked. “You’ve left it a bit late. We close in fifteen minutes. Wonderful things to see. Do come back tomorrow.”

The two of them positioned themselves between Ren and Dominic which was…interesting. Why did they feel the need to protect him? And what was behind all the jokes about escaping?

“I’m with the dig. I’m living here temporarily.” Ren picked up his helmet and gloves. “Nice to meet you, Dominic.” He nodded to the other two and got back on his bike.

He headed up the drive knowing he was trying to make this into more than it was. If Dominic had wanted to escape, he’d have asked Ren to help him or the offer to call the police would have been accepted. No. Theo was just a joker. Even so, those quips were hiding something. He’d keep an eye open for Dominic because his curiosity had been piqued.

Not just my curiosity.Maybe recuperating here would be more fun than he’d thought.

A few minutes later, he’d found a large garage at the end of the stable block. There were three cars in there but plenty of room for his bike. He pondered for a moment, then left his helmet and gloves. The helmet didn’t fit in the side compartment but it would be better off there than in the tent. He locked it to the bike anyway.

He took off his jacket, slung it over his shoulder and walked back through the grounds towards the dig. He wasn’t out of trouble over the collision, which had clearly been his fault. If Dominic told that pair what had happened, they might call the police. And if Dominic changed his tune and said Ren had asked him not to call the police or an ambulance, Ren was in deep trouble.

When he reached the tent, there was no one around. He left his jacket but stayed in his leather trousers and went looking for Will. He and several others were where Ren had found the mosaic.

They’d uncovered quite a lot of it. There were more flowers and geometric patterns with ivy twisting throughout.

“That’ll do for the day,” Will said. “Cover it up.”

He came over to Ren as the others pulled tarps over the area and secured them with sandbags.

“You’ve got your excited face on,” Ren said.

“And here I was, trying to play it cool. You did good, bro.”

Ren rolled his eyes. “Talk like a normal human being, and you know damn well you wouldn’t have missed it. Sooner or later someone would have worked that area. I did wonder if you’d set it up for me to find, then decided not.”

“No, because you’re thirty-one, not seven. You might moan about that coin I planted but you were thrilled.”

Ren glowered. “For about three minutes until Dad pointed out it was a parking token. And I was five.”

Will grinned. “You kept it.”

“I thought I’d give it you when you got your first parking ticket.”

---