She nodded her head slowly, her lower lip trembling now. “He was getting his mates to send me messages about what he was going to do when he got out. I figured if he didn’t know where I was, then nothing would happen.”
“That’s why you didn’t move closer to your dad in Austin. He’s too high profile,” I guessed, hating that she was still going through hell.
“That’s why. Plus, I found this place here, and I kind of like all of you.” Her tone was lighter now, but there was a new strain I’d never seen around her eyes and mouth.
When I got stressed and had to talk about my problems, I always ended it by joking around, so that’s what I did right then, seeing from her face that she didn’t want to talk about it anymore. “Even Elijah?”
“Well,” she snorted drily, “let’s not push it.”
Laughing, I bumped her shoulder. “Just to say, girl, if anything happens, I want you to tell me so that we can break his legs. He’s not getting near you.”
Her face softened as she leaned into my side. “Thank you. I wasn’t sure I’d made the right choice when I moved here and my toilet overflowed on the first night, but the next day when I met all of you, I knew I’d chosen perfectly.”
It’s weird how people meet and know they’re going to be friends for life. I’ve had friends who I thought were the shit, and then they stabbed me in the back. Friends who I was so close to, but we just drifted apart. Friends who I just knew I’d be friends with until I died. I was thankful for all of them now—even the asshole ones—because they brought me to where I was today. Her hell had brought Sadie to us, and I was grateful she made the choice she did. I wanted to say she was one hundred percent safe with us, but I knew we’d keep her as safe as we kept each other.
I also knew that if my cousin found out, he’d make sure the guy need surgeons to go really deep to remove whatever object he shoved up his ass. He’d probably also pay them off not to give him any pain relief. As much as I wanted to make that happen as soon as fucking possible, this was Sadie’s story to tell him. “I have one favor to ask, Sadie. Can I please tell my brothers? They’ll keep it quiet, but the more people we have watching your back, the safe you’ll be.”
She chewed her lip for a moment as she thought it over. “Can we wait until we have a release date for him, please? I just need a little more time to get the balls to tell people.”
That I could understand. “Absolutely.”
“Thanks for being a great friend, Ari. You and Beau have made me feel like I’ve lived here my whole life. I’ve been really homesick and missing my family—and my sister’s an arsehole who picks and chooses when she graces you with her appearance—but you two have made it so much easier for me.”
“You’re stuck with us now, and I have it on good authority from many, many people that my family are like herpes—you think you’ve gotten rid of us, but then we come back even bigger and badder.”
Throwing her head back, she burst out laughing, the sound carrying over the enclosed space for the goats. I was so relieved she was able to do it after talking about that level of trauma that I didn’t notice Gaynor had been affected by it until she righted her head and screeched, “Oh shit on it, I’ve killed your bloody goat!”
A day in the life of a Townsend, people wouldn’t believe it unless they saw it firsthand.
Quick enough, his legs started to move again, and then he was rolling over until he was on his belly, looking in our direction.
“Oh, thank God,” she moaned, holding her chest. “He looks like he’s glaring at me. I’m sorry, mate, I didn’t mean to,” she cooed as she walked over to him.
Bleating loudly, he got up and ran away from her, pooping for half of the journey. “That’s my boy.”
Wrinkling her nose at it, she walked back to where I was. “Didn’t you have to go and collect your nerdy gaming shit?”
With a wide grin, I got up and dusted my ass off. I was looking forward to this so badly.
“We’ll take my car,” she suggested, and that’s when the excitement dimmed slightly. They’d done a little bit of work on the car, but it was still a scary thought to be riding in it in the state it was.
As we walked around the side of the house, I pulled my phone out and set the alarm via the app on my phone. “Is there still a spring poking out of the passenger seat?”