Page 33 of A Furever Home (Gaynor Beach Animal Rescue #8)

ARTHUR

My little furry pack descended on Brooklyn’s place like it was home.

Of course, most of it was basically a dog paradise, with plenty of cat perches even if they weren’t designed that way.

I’d worried about Sadie’s reaction to invasion of her space, from how Brooklyn described her, but she attached herself to Eb like he was her big brother.

When Eb flopped down next to Cheyenne on the family room floor to be loved on, Sadie lay down calmly too, although out of touching range.

Cheyenne scratched Eb’s chest and eyed me. “So, you and my brother?”

“Yeah.” I shifted on the couch, trying to stretch my leg out a bit. I would never regret asking Brooklyn to top me, but my stupid muscles were complaining now that the haze of orgasm was gone.

“‘Yeah’ isn’t an answer.”

“‘So’ isn’t a question,” I noted.

“Are you boyfriends now? Like, for real?”

As I hesitated, unsure how to answer, Brooklyn called from the kitchen, “Cheyenne, quit harassing my boyfriend.”

I barked a laugh that had Sadie cocking her head, eyeing me. “I guess you have your answer.”

“Does that mean you’re going to live here?”

Brooklyn came in, drying his hands on a towel. “That comes under harassing. We haven’t made real plans yet, thanks to someone who knocked on the door in the middle of the night and has bigger problems than we do.”

“I could go somewhere else.” She crossed her arms, looking fierce, but I thought I saw fear in her eyes.

I said, “Nope. No way. You’re stuck with two big brothers for the foreseeable future, or at least till you turn eighteen.”

She mumbled, “Coulda had that at home,” but she flushed and looked pleased.

Eb nudged her to keep going with the petting.

“Speaking of your big brothers,” I said. “I want to see pictures, especially of Denver. I need to recognize them if they show up.”

Brooklyn came and sat beside me. “Turn sideways.” He gestured with his finger and when I rotated, he lifted my foot to his lap. Having my leg straight and elevated made me sigh with relief. He rubbed my calf gently. “You overdid it, huh?”

“In a good cause.” I smiled at him. He met my gaze and echoed the smile with something a little wicked in the curve of his lips. I took a short breath.

“Ugh. I’m going to the kitchen for something.” Cheyenne got up and headed through the gate, leaving it open.

Eb followed her and I called, “Wait,” as he reached the gate. He looked back over his shoulder.

“He can go through,” Brooklyn said. “The gate’s for boarders, not residents.”

“Okay,” I told Eb, who trotted off toward the kitchen, his big tail thudding on the wall as he wagged. Twain scampered after him. I called to Cheyenne, “But no food. We fed them at Shane’s place.”

“Got it,” she called back.

I leaned more comfortably into the pillows and decided I could get used to a hot guy massaging my foot. “Mmmm. But I still want to know what your brothers look like.”

“I’m not sure there are pictures out there. We had a few around the house, but I didn’t take any with me when I left.”

“Yearbook?” I suggested, although people changed from high school.

“We don’t have a real yearbook at our school,” Cheyenne said, coming back in with an ice pack in her hand. “Do you, um, want this?”

I made grabby fingers. “You’re a goddess of a borrowed sister. Give it here.” When she passed it over, I laid the ice over the burning muscles of my thigh and sighed. “Yeah. That’s good. What do you mean, no yearbook?”

“You have to understand the mindset,” Brooklyn said.

“Photos mean being traceable and identifiable, especially with facial recognition software these days. The adults in our community try to keep our digital footprint to a minimum. No social media for fun, although they monitor it for information. No posting pictures. No smartphones for anyone except male heads of households.”

“Seriously? No internet?”

“Minimal. Back when I was a junior, the local high school decided to put their yearbooks online, but my dad and his group took over the school board and nixed the funding to scan in back issues. And they persuaded the school that the yearbook should be a voluntary end-of-year celebration only, which means the half of the kids who live in town did pictures, and those of us out in the boonies didn’t, and there’s not a formal class list that’s so easy to find. ”

“Wow, that’s pretty hardcore.” I was surprised. “Yearbooks are as American as apple pie.”

Cheyenne sat down where Eb had flopped on a big rubber mat and rubbed his belly. In a voice that sounded like a quote, she said, “Sacrifices must be made.” Then in her own voice, “Not that I care about a yearbook.”

“Would be handy now,” I pointed out. Plus, I’d been hoping for a look at Brooklyn at eighteen. I bet he’d been cute.

“Denver looks a lot like Brooklyn,” Cheyenne said.

“He’s three years younger and his hair is darker and he wears a lot more beard, but if you see someone that reminds you a lot of Brooklyn, that’s probably him.

Or Dad, if the guy’s hair is receding in front and going gray.

All of us take after Dad, except Nevada, who looks like Mom. ”

“Okay, that helps,” I said. “What about Harvey?”

Cheyenne looked up sharply. “Harvey? Does it matter? He’s home watching his two little kids. I hope.”

“It just occurred to me that if your brother wasn’t eager to drive all this way, he might tell the guy you’re supposed to marry to go get you instead.”

Cheyenne shivered. “God, I hope not. Denver’s a creep and he wants to be Dad’s mini-me, but Harvey’s scary.”

Brooklyn said, “Showing him to Arthur would be a good precaution, though. I’m not sure where we’d find a photo.”

“Workplace?” I suggested.

Cheyenne shook her head slowly. “He works at the lumberyard, but it’s run by one of Dad’s friends. I doubt they post work photos online. WildApple Building Supply, if you want to check.”

I dug my phone out of my pocket and searched, but the listing was pretty basic. No staff info or photos. “Nope. What about his wedding? He was married, right?”

“Yeah, but Nancy was local so I bet they kept the photos off the internet.”

“Big wedding?” I asked. “Small? Any guests from the outside? What was Nancy’s maiden name?”

“Medium-sized,” Cheyenne said. “Her name was Kleeberg.”

“That’s not too common,” I noted. “Worth a look.” I put the name into an online search with no luck.

“Maybe the Book of Face,” I quipped. There were no profiles with that name, but when I checked for photos, two came up.

And looky there, wedding pictures. “What about these?” I turned the phone and Cheyenne came over to look.

“Oh fuck, yeah.”

“Cheyenne,” Brooklyn chided. “Language.”

“That might be a titch hypocritical,” I suggested, nudging his crotch with my heel. I remembered a few f-bombs recently.

He glared at me, then sighed. “Okay yeah, sorry, Cheyenne. I promise to stop nagging about your language.”

“ Thank you.”

“Is one of those men Harvey?” I asked.

“That guy.” She pointed a finger at the dark-haired, bearded, hulking man on the left of the photo. “That’s him.” Her finger shook and she snatched her hand back.

I tried to zoom in on the photo but it lost resolution pretty quickly. “Maybe on a laptop.”

“I’ll get mine.” Brooklyn stood and set my foot on the couch. He brought the laptop over and squatted by me, opening it on his knees and logging in. Cheyenne knelt beside him to see better. He found the page and photo, then zoomed.

On Brooklyn’s bigger screen, I could make out a hawk-like nose and heavy brows on Harvey’s face above a bush of beard that could’ve hidden any kind of chin.

He held his bride’s upper arm and his grip looked more like restraint than affection.

He looked older than twenty-five in those photos which were dated five years back.

I could totally understand why one glance made Cheyenne shiver.

“I think I’d know him,” I said after another long scan. “But download that in case we need to put our friends on the lookout.”

“It won’t matter, though, right?” Cheyenne appealed to Brooklyn. “Once you have legal custody, there’s nothing he can do?”

“Right.” Brooklyn squeezed her shoulder. “Even without my custody, he has zero rights. Unlike our dad. They can’t force you to marry him and without a marriage, he’s just a mean stranger, no authority.”

“Yep. I know.” But she swallowed hard.

“And Harvey does have little kids and no wife. Not likely he can be away for a week. Dad said he’d send Denver. He expects to be obeyed.”

Cheyenne nodded.

I used my phone to pull up more information. “Okay, doing some math. The trip from Piperston, New York to Gaynor Beach is forty-two hours of drive time. Last night, you talked to your father when? Seven o’clock?”

“More like nine, by the time we had everything ready,” Brooklyn said.

“So if Denver jumped in his car midnight their time, and drove without stopping more than to pee, the soonest he could be here would be…” I did some mental math. “Three p.m. tomorrow.”

“I doubt Denver would kill himself to get here that fast.” Brooklyn straightened and set the laptop up out of dog-reach.

“He won’t challenge our father, but I bet he’ll resent being sent off like an errand boy to fetch his sister.

If he didn’t leave till morning, and took at least one full night’s sleep, he won’t get here till late Thursday at the earliest. Probably three days with driving fourteen hours a day, which would push it off till Friday. ”

“Right.” I sat up a bit. “So we’re completely in the clear until tomorrow afternoon, and on yellow alert through till Friday, and then red alert. When will you hear from Wynn?”

Cheyenne said, “He was filing the paperwork this morning. He said there’d be notice if it was accepted or rejected within twenty-four hours, and then a court date within ten days for the emergency injunction.”