He yanked a t-shirt over his head, shoved a hand through his hair, and started for the stairs.
“Says he's her fiancé.”
Zander paused halfway down the steps. Brantley Anderson was in town? Interesting.
Honestly, Zander hadn't expected the rich, playboy asshole to come after Caroline himself. He didn't get the impression that this was a deep, abiding love affair between two soulmates.
No shit, she's your soulmate.
Zander shoved that voice very firmly to the back of his mind. The last thing he fucking needed right now was his own subconscious talking about what Caroline meant to him.
Zander continued down the stairs. Brantley Anderson just seemed like the type of guy to have other people do the hard things. And surely coming to Autre, Louisiana in the middle of the night to convince his runaway bride to come home would seem hard.
If it didn't seem hard, it would mean that Brantley thought he had a compelling argument, or a tantalizing bribe, or enough force to get Caroline to come back with him easily.
The idea of Brantley forcing Caroline to leave Autre had Zander's gut clenching and he grabbed his boots from beside the front door and stomped out across his front porch, down the steps, and across his yard to his truck without even putting them on. He threw the boots onto the front seat and climbed in and started the engine.
“I'm on my way now. Where do you have him?”
“We're in my kitchen.”
Zander liked that. Beau lived in the first cottage behind the bed and breakfast. That meant Brantley was not inside the main house causing a commotion that Heather or Crystal would get involved with or that Caroline might come down to investigate.
“You okay for a few minutes?”
“Oh, we’re fine.” Beau said it confidently and Zander had to wonder if there was rope, a shotgun, or Beau’s dog Bear involved. Or all three.
He wasn’t worried about Beau. Beau was built big, wide, and tough. He was a bayou boy. He hunted gators and played football and could absolutely hold his own with any of the other bayou boys. Which meant that handling a pampered millionaire from New Orleans should be a piece of cake.
Still, Zander found himself speeding through the sleepy streets of Autre, glad that Brantley had decided to sneak down when everyone else was tucked in bed.
He pulled up alongside the B & B and stomped around the side of the house, still without boots.
He let himself in through Beau’s front door.
Beau and Brantley—it was indeed Brantley Austin Anderson sitting at the handmade kitchen table—both looked over.
Brantley wasn't tied up, but Bear was sitting next to Beau between Brantley and the front door. And Beau apparently hadn’t needed a shotgun to convince Brantley to sit still and wait for local law enforcement.
Brantley did have a bleeding lip though.
It wasn't enough.
Zander was shocked by how badly he wanted to hit the man and make him bleed more.
And he was not happy about it.
He wasn't into getting worked up over women or jealousy. He also wasn't into hitting first and asking questions later.
So he'd ask a couple questions first.
“How'd you find her?”
“So you know who I am,” Brantley said.
“Of course.”
Brantley looked him up and down. “You're the cop?”
Zander glanced at Beau. Apparently, Hebert had told Brantley he was calling the cops. “I am.”
“You're the one that kept her from coming home with Christopher.”
Zander braced his feet apart and crossed his arms. “I'm the one who kept him from taking a woman against her will.”
Brantley rolled his eyes. “Whatever.”
“How did you find her?” Zander repeated.
He swore to God that whoever had told Brantley that Caroline was staying here was going to have a pissed off Landry, out of uniform, breathing down his or her neck.
There was an unspoken rule in Autre. Zander got answers. Sometimes they were official, and in those cases he wore his uniform to do the questioning. If he showed up without his badge, people knew whatever they talked about was off the record.
Sometimes that was good for them. If they wanted him to know about something that wouldn't be officially investigated or wouldn't necessarily lead to their own entanglement with the law.
Sometimes, it wasn't so good for them. Because that meant Zander didn't necessarily have to operate within the confines of the badge either.
He took his oath to his badge seriously. He’d become a law enforcement officer because he believed in what they did. But he was first and foremost an Autre boy. A Landry. He would use whatever resources and tools he had to keep Autre and the people here safe. Usually it was best with his uniform and badge. But not always.
“I tracked her down,” Brantley said with a shrug. “That's all you need to know.”
“That's not all I need to know. I need to know exactly how you found that she was staying in this location.”
“I have my ways.”
“You're pissing me off, Anderson. You really want to do that?”
“Are you threatening me?”
“Are you refusing to answer questions from law enforcement? If you have nothing to hide, that's pretty stupid.”
“Why is law enforcement questioning me?” Brantley returned. “Am I being investigated for something? Am I under arrest?”
Zander looked at Beau. “Was he trying to break in?”
“I got to him before he did anything like that,” Beau said. He narrowed his eyes at Brantley. “Maybe unfortunately.” He looked back to Zander. “He tripped over some stuff on the back porch and I heard him. I don't think he’d even gotten as far as the door.”
Zander focused on Brantley again. “You’re trespassing on private property. That's a start. Then there’s the lion cub you gave her.”
Brantley’s gaze wavered. “My fiancée is here. I’m concerned about her. We were supposed to get married a few days ago. I'm here to check on her.”
“You didn't talk to her brother? The one who came down to ‘check’ on her before, and who she told to leave her alone?”
“Well, obviously I have a different relationship with her than she does with her brother,” Brantley said with a slimy smile. “What kind of guy would I be if I didn't come down and see if she was okay?”
“At two a.m.? Four days later?”
“I've been trying to call her. And we were all thinking that she'd come to her senses and come back. I guess I finally got tired of waiting.”
Zander felt rage sweep through him.
He would've been concerned about anyone who had someone stalking them in the middle of the night, of course, but the idea that someone was coming after Caroline, while she was sleeping and completely vulnerable, in the place where he'd put her to keep her safe, made his blood boil.
When he protected someone, he fucking protected them.
He wanted to lock Brantley up so he knew exactly where the asshole was and what he was doing at all moments.
“Maybe we should go downtown.”
“Maybe you should back off,” Brantley said. “I haven't done anything wrong.”
“Owning a lion in Louisiana is illegal.”