“I meant, I would much rather be home, doing nothing. But when I’m with you, I’ll do just about anything, as long as you’re near.”
That made my heart fuckin’ soar.
“Damn,” I said. “You sure do know how to make my heart ache.”
She smirked at me. “You’ve gone out of your way to make these last couple of months great for me. Leaving your family so I would be comfortable here. Keeping them at bay when we both know they want to see you. Don’t think that I didn’t miss that call you had with Shine last night when you thought I was in the shower already. You told him not to come.”
I had.
Because I didn’t want him here when we were just starting to have good times.
Shine was, by far, Dory’s least favorite fan.
Or, at least, he had been before. Shine was a great brother, if overprotective.
I knew that he was only watching out for what he thought I would want.
Yet, he’d still had a hand in making Dory feel unwelcome all these years.
And though I hadn’t done much better myself, I was trying to salvage my relationship. To make her realize that I was going to do better. Be better.
Shine being here would put that in jeopardy. Maybe in a few months, when our baby was born, and I was one hundred percent sure that I’d won Dory over, then I’d start allowing them back into our lives.
But until then… no.
They’d all have to wait.
Because Dory would always come first for me.
“What do you think about the name Harker?” she asked softly.
I frowned. “Harker’s kind of odd, isn’t it?”
I’d never heard it before.
She smiled. “I wanted to stay with the Crow/Raven/Dracula theme y’all inadvertently have going. Or you do anyway. Harker was a character off of the old Dracula movies. Jonathan Flynn Harker. I was thinking Harker Flynn Crow as a name.”
The fact that she wanted to name our child after me in some form or fashion made a place inside my heart start to repair. Something I’d broken when I’d allowed her to think she didn’t matter to me.
“I like it,” I admitted. “I like it a lot.”
“I know it’s odd,” she agreed. “But Bram is odd, too. So I was thinking it would be a perfect fit. But don’t say yes just yet, all right? Wait until you feel the name out. We have time.”
“Time,” I teased, “is becoming less and less with each week that passes. But I agree to your terms. I’ll sit on it for the next few days and get back to you.”
She jerked her head toward the bacon. “Your bacon needs turned.”
So it did.
• • •
Hours later, exhausted beyond belief, and fairly sure that if I didn’t catch a few ZZZs soon, I would be extremely short with everyone, even my boss who’d been super accommodating, I was sitting in the driveway on my bike staring at the front door.
I was waiting for Dory to pull in, but she’d stopped to talk to our elderly neighbor down the road that was out walking her dog.
They were talking about some man that she’d seen today, but each time she’d glance back at me nervously, as if she was scared of me.
So I’d gone around them on my bike and parked in the driveway, only to stare at them like an even bigger creeper.
Rationally, I knew that the old lady wouldn’t be doing anything to Dory. But that didn’t mean that whichever sick fuck had decided to get his rocks off on our new car wouldn’t come up.
So there I sat, even though I’d rather collapse into the recliner with Dory plastered to my side.
“Yo.”
I glanced beyond where Dory and the old broad were talking to see Wake walking down the street with his dog, Tex, on a leash in front of him. Tex was straining to get to the old lady’s dog, but Wake wasn’t allowing him an inch.
“Hey, Wake.” Dory waved.
If I’d thought that the old lady’s reaction to me was comical, seeing her look at Wake, who was a known felon, was even better.
She visibly recoiled at the sight of him and moved to where she was standing with the large brick mailbox between them.
Wake ignored her as he kept walking. “Your husband here yet?”
“He’s sitting there on his bike watching and listening to every word,” she said. “See?”
Wake looked up to find me doing exactly that and grinned.
“I see,” Wake said as he kept walking toward us.
Tex, the overly large Golden Retriever, sighted in on his next target. Me. Meaning he started to pull harder because he might actually get to get some pets as he was used to me doing with him.
“Hey there, Tex,” I called to him.
Wake let the leash go, and the fat Golden waddled toward me excitedly.
“Bit hot out here for a dog of his size to be walking, isn’t it? Plus, you came the long way,” I asked.
It wasn’t too long or too hot for Wake, who was in immaculate shape. But it was a bit much for poor Tex who was out of breath and panting.
“Tex needs to lose some weight,” Wake admitted as he walked into the yard and immediately offered me his hand. When I took it and released it, he went on. “My sister doted on him. But it isn’t healthy for him. So I’m trying to make it to where he gets some walks in multiple times a day. Though, just sayin’, but it’s not like I don’t have the fuckin’ time to walk multiple times a day.”
I raised a brow at him. “I thought you were going to start a construction business?”
He sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. “I did. And am. But nobody wants an ex-con in their house, apparently. Or building them one. So now I’m just twiddling my thumbs.” He paused. “It’s not like I don’t have the cash to live off of, though. So I’ll wait.”
Apparently, before Wake had done time in prison, he’d been in real estate starting at the age of twenty-one. From there, he’d started building houses.
In fact, he’d actually built the one that Dory and I were living in at that moment in time.
“You could just build them and then sell it through your corporation. It’s not like the business went to jail. Only you,” I pointed out.
Wake nodded. “That’s also on the list of things I may contemplate. Right now, I’m just trying to enjoy having some free time, and someone not watching me piss.”
I snorted as I glanced back at Dory, who was finally creeping toward the driveway.
I gestured for Wake to move over, and Dory pulled in with a wave.
After she rolled the windows up and got out with our dinner, I gestured for her to go inside. “You mind taking that in and giving me a few minutes with Wake?”
Dory eyed me suspiciously, then looked at Wake. “I have plenty of food if you’re interested in staying. I didn’t know what I wanted, so I literally ordered half of the menu.”
His lips quirked up. “I’ll think about it.”
With a wave, she walked inside, and I waited for the door to close before saying, “If you find this motherfucker, I want to deal with him.”
Wake had resources here that I didn’t.
And I wanted to make sure that I had a little chat with the piss ant before he was taken into police custody, because lord knew what the dumbass sheriff would do with him once he had him.