Natalie Acres (8 page)

The room was dreadfully silent again.

“Why did you bring me here?” she asked, wondering if she really wanted to know. For the last twenty-four hours, Brock and Rory had seemed slightly guarded.

Brock took a deep breath. “We all needed to get away.”

“Why?” Her gaze hopped between men. “Why now?”

“You know why,” Brock replied, rising from the sofa. He stood in front of her with his arm extended. “Come on, baby. Let’s get some rest. Tomorrow, we’ll go explore and see what’s changed and what will forever remain the same.”

She placed her hand in his and he pulled her to him. When she landed against his chest, she caught a glimpse of another picture on the credenza. The photo left her teary-eyed. Pushing away from Brock, she slowly approached the piece of recently polished furniture and picked up the eight-by-ten frame.

“How’d this get here?” she asked, realizing an accusation was thick in her tone.

“Beats me,” Rory replied.

“I haven’t seen it,” Brock admitted, peering over her shoulder.

Trixie shook the picture in their direction. “I haven’t either, but I remember when it was taken. It was the day before Stephen kidnapped me.”

Brock and Rory leaned in closer. Trixie felt a suffocating sensation and quickly grabbed hold of the credenza, processing what this might potentially mean.

“He’s been here,” Trixie said, glancing around the office for anything else that might be inconspicuously out of place.

“
Who’s
been here?”

“Don’t do that,” Trixie said, shaking her finger at him. “If you haven’t seen this picture—and Rory hasn’t—then that can only mean one thing.”

“Hang on there a second, baby,” Brock said. “Just because this is here doesn’t mean Mitch is the one who developed the film and had the picture framed.”

“Who else would bother?”

“Perhaps Bertie? She and Claude spend a lot of time here. They had high hopes Mitch would one day return and reopen the camp.”

“Call her.” Trixie marched to the desk and picked up the receiver. “Call her right now.”

“Honey, it’s late,” Brock said.

“He’s right, Trixie.” Rory cupped her neck and peered around her shoulder as if he were looking down on a small child. She loved that.

Sometimes.

At the moment, she felt as if they were handling her with kid gloves, and she didn’t appreciate it. She wasn’t the same naïve young woman who’d once arrived at Cow Camp with dreams of meeting a handsome counselor who would eventually sweep her off her feet.

She’d captured prince charming, two of them to be exact. Three, if she wanted to reminisce and remember precisely the way things had been that first and last summer the four of them had spent together.

Her eyes averted and she focused on that precious image they painted. Mitch had her cradled in his arms. Brock and Rory were on either side of him.

“The four of us look happy here. We were good together, Brock,” she said, willing him to remember.

He flinched. “We were happy, baby.”

“We were young, wild, free, and hopelessly in love.”

“That’s right,” Rory agreed. “We were.”

“That’s right,” she whispered. “Until we weren’t.”

She insisted on showering by herself and that alone was enough to put Brock on alert. He marched down the hall and Rory followed him.

“This was a bad idea,” Rory said, squeezing by a number of boxes blocking the door to what was once Mitch’s private pad.

“Something is definitely off.” Brock slung one arm behind his back to caution Rory. Then, he used his foot to nudge open the door leading to Mitch’s apartment.

“What is it?” Rory asked, keeping his voice low.

Brock stilled. “If I knew that, I wouldn’t have warned you to stay back without offering an explanation, now would I?”

Rory peered around his shoulders. “Do you think Mitch has been here?”

Brock guardedly entered Mitch’s private quarters and flipped the light switch. The whole room was in complete disarray. While extravagantly appointed, the apartment hadn’t changed much since the last time they’d been there. Stacks of paperwork were shoved under the coffee table. Dated camp applications had been tossed haphazardly into a wooden bin.

At best the place looked clutter-fucked.

“What’s wrong?” Rory asked. “Everything seems perfectly normal to me.”

Brock walked inside and took a seat on the end of the sofa. He paid attention to particulars. The ashtray was stuffed with cigarettes smoked down to the filters. The wastebasket was crammed full with beer cans.

The dead giveaway was the new pack of batteries next to the television remote. Mitch never changed the batteries in anything. He would buy replacements and leave the unopened boxes on the coffee table in hopes someone else would take to task changing out the old for the new.

“The last time we visited, we couldn’t get in here. Remember?”

“Yes, but the door was locked.”

Sometimes Brock wanted to slap Rory on the back of the head and try, just attempt, to knock some common sense into his thick, literal head.

“Why yes, genius, I believe you’re right,” Brock drawled. “And…Mitch didn’t smoke.”

“I know—”

“Until he went to prison.” Brock picked up the ashtray and studied the round crystal dish as if it held all the answers to his questions.

Had Mitch been there or had someone else broken into the place and made themselves right at home? Was Mitch there now? If not, would he return again soon? Had he suspected they’d come there or worse, had he hired someone to follow them?

Having them tailed wouldn’t be beneath him.

Rory glanced around the room before turning his attention to Brock. “You don’t think it was Mitch. I can tell. You believe someone else has been here.”

“I don’t know,” he said, waving his hand toward the hall. “Go check on Trixie and stay with her.”

“Right.” Rory exited the apartment without a second to spare.

Brock rummaged through the trash. After confirming the wastebasket was full of beer cans and a few straw covers wadded up in tiny balls, he was convinced.

Mitch had definitely been there.

When he’d arrived and when he’d left weighed heavily on his mind, but the real question was—would Mitch return?

* * * *

Trixie turned off the water and threw back the shower curtain.

“Oh my God, Rory!” she screamed, grabbing a burgundy towel off the rack. “Why didn’t you tell me you were in here?”

Rory shot her a heated glance.

“Something is wrong,” she said, securing the towel under her arms and overlapping the corners between her breasts.

“It’s probably nothing.” He cupped her damp cheek. “I was just worried about you and wanted to be nearby. Is that a bad thing?”

“I don’t believe you,” she said, inhaling the air. Sniffing deliberately then, she loosened the towel and drew the material to her nose. “I knew it.”

Rory looked as if he’d seen a ghost. “Mitch?”

Trixie jerked the heavy cotton around her body once more and stepped away from the tub. “I know what you’re thinking.”

“Why don’t you tell me then because I haven’t a clue,” Rory rasped, his gaze pinned to her chest.

Trixie pushed by him. “I know why the two of you brought me here.”

“Trixie, wait,” Rory said, trying to grab hold of her wrist before she hurried by him.

Shaking off his grip, she rushed into Mitch’s apartment and immediately tilted her nose in the air. “That’s it.” She wheeled around and faced him. “He’s here. Isn’t he?”

“She smells his cologne on the towel.” Rory acted as if it were his lone duty to fill Brock in as quickly as possible.

Trixie stared at the coffee table. “Is he here or not?”

“I don’t know,” Brock replied, traipsing across the room. He opened closets and slammed doors. He marched into the bedroom and did the same, conducting a search, one that would perhaps answer questions or leave them to question the unanswerable.

“He’s been here. That’s why you brought me here. You’re trying to lure him back to Cow Camp. Aren’t you?”

Brock and Rory locked gazes.

“Stop doing that!” Trixie screamed, shaking from head to toe. The chill in the air was extra crisp when the overhead cooling unit shot a breeze of cold air across the room.

“Get dressed, Trixie.” Brock went to the refrigerator. “We need to talk.”

He opened up the fridge and a loud gasp resounded. Trixie didn’t even bother to look as she walked to the corner of the room where their luggage was stacked.

She knew what Brock had discovered. Mitch’s favorite snacks were likely accommodated by several cases of his preferred imported beer.

Rory frowned. “I thought Bertie said Mitch hadn’t returned here after his release.”

Brock slammed the refrigerator door and the bottles inside rattled. “Bertie has been covering Mitch’s ass since he was old enough to charm her into believing he thought of her as his second mother.”

“A second mother who is also on his payroll,” Trixie snapped. “Why would you believe anything that woman would say? She’s always been a fan of Jordie Anne’s and she never particularly cared for me, which means the two of you lost brownie points when you ended up fathering my children.”

“She doesn’t have anything against you,” Brock said. “And Bertie is a friend. She’s always been very good to me and to Rory and Mitch.”

“But she thinks of Mitch as family.” Trixie stooped over her bags and dug around for her pajamas. She couldn’t believe she was actually planning on staying there, sleeping in the bed she’d once shared with Mitch, Brock, and Rory together. “If Mitch has been here and he doesn’t want us to know, Bertie won’t utter a word.”

“She has a point.”

Brock took a deep breath and sat on the couch. “Trixie, we have something we need to tell you.”

Rory swung his leg over the arm of the sofa, right next to Brock. The two of them looked as if they were ready to confess their involvement in some major scandal.

“We met with him, Trix,” Rory said, his head down. “We saw Mitch in Asheville last night.”

His words were like a shot through the heart. She held her flannel pajamas against her chest and slowly rose to her feet.

“You saw him in Asheville?” she asked, wondering if she had been crazy before. Had Mitch visited their farm? Had he finally decided to return for her?

She swallowed the lump in her throat. “I knew it.”

“You knew what, Trixie?” Brock pressed.

“Several times I thought I spotted him. For nearly two weeks, I’ve been convinced someone was watching me. The two of you dismissed it but things didn’t add up. Home movies disappeared. Photographs and other items from the downstairs den just vanished.”

“Are you saying Mitch came to our home to steal from us?”

“Of course not,” she replied. “He wasn’t robbing us. He was trying to hold on to us. The DVDs he took were always returned the next day. The photo albums were his and yet he returned those, too.”

“You’re sure about this?” Rory asked.

“You know she’s spot-on,” Brock bit out. He dragged his palm down his face and finally said, “We brought you here because we thought this would be the last place he’d look for us.”

“And where did you come up with such an idea, Brock? Why wouldn’t he return here? This is the only home he has now. His roots are here. His family spent their summers here. Why wouldn’t he return home?”

“Because, Trixie, there are too many ghosts from the past lingering behind the Cow Camp gates. I don’t think Mitch is ready to face them.”

“You aren’t telling me everything. What else is there?”

Brock thinned his lips. His nostrils flared. “The biggest reason I thought he’d stay away is because of you. Your memory is here, too. You exist in every shadow. Hell, your pictures line his walls. I didn’t think he’d come home because if he wanted you, he knew where to find you.”

“Apparently not,” Trixie bit out, fury consuming her. “You made a reunion rather difficult. Didn’t you?”

“We tried,” Brock replied. “I won’t lie to you, Trixie. Not about this. Not about anything.”

“Well that’s a nice change seeing as you swept me off my feet and promised a sizzling intimate sex retreat—never mind the fact that you didn’t mention Cow Camp or that you were trying to get me out of town before Mitch came to see me. Yes, why don’t you try a dose of honesty now, Mr. Sheldon?”

“Trixie, I don’t want Mitch to hurt you.”

She swung her gaze to Rory. “Were you in on this?” She held up her hand. “Don’t answer that. How silly of me. Of course you were. The two of you are adjoined at the hip.”

“I resent that implication,” Brock mumbled, clasping his hands in front of his extended legs.

“I don’t give a damn what you resent right now, Brock.” Trixie inched closer. “How could you do this to us?” She glared at Rory. “I just don’t understand. Why would you shut Mitch out like this? Don’t you remember what he and I meant to one another? Have you forgotten that the three of you were best friends, closer than brothers?”