Decker (Torey Hope: The Later Years #1) (18 page)

“Did you have fun?” She laid her head on his shoulder as they buckled in for take-off late Sunday night. Her skin felt warm from the sun she’d gotten over their little vacation, and, thanks to their private cottage on the beach, she definitely didn’t have any tan lines. The scent of coconut and sand and sex seemed to still linger in her brain; her body was deliciously sore from the activities of the past couple days.

“Did I have fun? Well, I just spent three magical days with the woman I love being naked in my arms, under the most gorgeous sun, on the most exquisite sand, next to the bluest water I’ve ever seen. Did I have fun? No, Bug, I had the time of my life. I’m not sure how we’ll top it, not even with our honeymoon. Thank you for dragging me away.” He kissed her nose and settled her into the crook of his arm so they both could sleep a bit during the late flight. Being at work Monday morning was going to be a bitch, but he knew he couldn’t keep himself away another day.

**********

They walked, arm-in-arm, to the car and climbed in. “Do you want to stay at my place or go to yours?” Decker asked as he plugged his phone in. He’d forgotten his charger so he’d lost battery power yesterday. Surprisingly, he’d found it was sort of nice to not have to worry about every ding and beep sounding from his phone while they were away.

“Better take me to mine, I need to grab some clean clothes; plus, you know we won’t sleep if I’m at your place tonight. And, as much as I’ve loved our time together, I
really
need some sleep if I’m going to function at work tomorrow.” She kissed him, but he could see she was about to conk out again.

Turning toward her home, he drove silently as his hand absently rubbed her thigh. As they drove the last block to her house, he noticed his phone had finally pulled enough charge to start beeping about texts and messages. As he pulled into her house, he grabbed his phone and his heart stopped when he read the first message.

“What the hell?!” Decker immediately put the car in reverse and peeled out of the driveway. “Sorry, Bug, I’ll explain on the way; I can’t drop you off right now.”

Katie felt the worry pouring off of him in waves; Decker’s Uncle Nicky had been born with some challenges and he’d struggled with many things throughout his life. Nicky Morgan was probably the nicest, most direct, unassuming person Katie had ever met; she knew it was killing Decker to think that his sweet, innocent uncle had gotten hurt.

She listened as Decker called Sawyer. From what she could gather, Nicky had been treated for a contusion on his head at the hospital and was now back home. The whole family was over at John and Cindy Morgan’s home and that’s where Decker steered his car.

It was late, but Katie knew Decker wouldn’t rest until he saw Nicky and heard the story of what happened at The Center+. She wanted to believe it had been a random accident, but her heart felt sick that the “accident” hadn’t really been an accident at all; with all that had been going on with the mysterious texts and questionable issues at work, she feared this wasn’t just random. One look at the hard set of Decker’s jaw and she knew he was thinking the same thing.

**********

Walking into Decker’s grandparents’ kitchen, Katie was overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and concern. She saw Decker walk straight to his uncle and pull him into a tight hug.

“Uncle Nicky, are you okay?” Decker was younger, but Katie noticed that people who spoke to Nicky often took on the appearance and demeanor of being older than him due to his somewhat limited understanding of things sometimes.

“Yeah, Boss Man, I’m fine. My head hurts, but the doctor said it shouldn’t hurt for too long. I have a ‘goose egg’ on my head; don’t worry, that doesn’t mean that I actually have an egg on my head, it just means that I have a big bump. They took some pictures of my head and gave me some medicine.” Nicky patted Decker on the back as he assured his nephew he was fine.

“What happened?” Decker turned to the rest of the family when he asked his question. The air was heavy; tension floated thickly, and Katie could tell that her fear was about to be confirmed. This hadn’t been an accident. But why Nicky?

“Let’s all grab some coffee or tea and sit down.” Nate nodded to Libby who started pouring steaming mugs. Decker gratefully took the brief distraction from his parents and sat down with his coffee while everyone else found a seat with their warm mugs.

“So, the best we can figure, Nicky interrupted someone who was trying to find something in either Katie or Decker’s offices.” Nate spoke quietly, obviously trying to ease the sting of this blow.

“Start at the beginning, please.” Decker sipped his coffee, but Katie noticed the hard glint in his eyes already showing that his head was leading him to conclusions that weren’t ones he wanted to accept.

“This morning, I was going to go over some of the financial reports, but I was missing that one that you told me you were taking a last look at on Thursday. I was going to head down to The Center+ to grab it from your office, but Nicky stopped by the house before I left and said he was going down there anyway to finish up some things for a talk therapy session they were planning for tonight. He offered to grab the report; I knew it was in the red folder and it would be front and center on your desk, so I told him where to find it.” Nate took a sip of his hot tea as Libby ran her hand along his thigh; the anger Decker was feeling was reflected in his father’s eyes, but Nate’s eyes also showed guilt, guilt that he’d let his twin brother walk into getting hurt the way he did.

“When I got to The Center+, I finished up what needed done in the room we were going to use for tonight’s talk therapy, then I headed to your office, Decker. I was surprised at how messy your desk was, you never leave anything messy. I was looking for the red folder when I heard something in Katie’s office; it scared me because I knew no one should have been in those offices. I walked to the doorway between the offices and looked around, but I didn’t see anything or anyone. When I turned back around to take one last look for the red folder, I felt someone come up behind me. I’m not sure what they hit me with, but they hit my head and then ran out of the room. I fell down, but I was able to get back up and call Nate. He and Jeremiah came to help me. The police came and asked me a lot of questions.” Nicky finished his story, but Katie had a feeling there was something he wasn’t saying.

Decker must have gotten the same feeling because he looked around at the stoic faces surrounding the kitchen table. “What are you not telling me? What else happened? Damn it, something like this happens, someone I love gets hurt when it should have been me, I deserve to know what you’re not saying.” Decker slammed his fist on the kitchen table.

“Decker, I’m glad you and Katie weren’t there. I didn’t get hurt that bad, and I’m glad it was me and not either of you.” Nicky looked Decker in the eyes before letting his head fall; his voice was quiet and shook as he spoke again, “I think the person who hit me would have hurt Katie worse than me.”

Decker’s eyes snapped toward his father after hearing what his uncle had said. “What’s he not telling me, Dad?” He reached over as if to hold Katie’s hand, but pulled back at the last moment. That single movement stung worse than salt in a paper cut; she felt like miles were between them; she had no hard proof, but her gut told her that this incident was going to cause issues between them. Issues she wasn’t going to like.

“Go ahead, Nick, tell him what the person who hit you said.” Nate nodded at his twin; Nicky’s eyes shone with tears and his wife, Carly, reached over and took his hand.

He sniffed his nose and then spoke softly, “I don’t know if it was a man or a woman, I don’t really remember the voice, I just remember the words. ‘You’re lucky you aren’t that bitch Katie. I’m going to kill her. And soon.’ That’s when they hit me, and I just remember getting up later to call Nate.” Nicky wiped his eyes and looked between Katie and Decker. “So, you see, I’m so glad you weren’t there. A sore head is better than Katie ending up dead.”

A short while later, the group dispersed. Katie found herself being driven home by Sawyer while Decker stayed to talk some things over with Nate. She felt a bit spooked as Sawyer walked her to her door, but he got her settled in bed and promised to lock the door behind him as he left. “Sawyer? Why do I feel like I just got the proverbial brush off from your brother?” Tears threatened her eyes as she spoke; Decker had kissed her cheek absentmindedly and basically pushed her into Sawyer’s arms. No promises to call her, no words spoken in love, no assurances that everything would be fine. Her heart hurt, and her mind was running in circles trying to get inside Decker’s head to figure out what he was thinking.

“Katie-girl, if I know my brother, this is going to play out in one of two ways. The first option is he’s going to get pissed, pull you closer, and solve this shit. The second option is he’s going to get pissed, push you away in order to protect you and get control of the situation back, and solve this shit.” He leaned in to kiss her head and tucked the blankets around her tightly. “If I’m being honest with you, I think Option 2 is the most likely right now. He’s going to blame himself for not being there, for Uncle Nicky getting hurt, for putting you in danger. He was off having fun in the sand and sun when this happened. Someone is purposely fucking with him and The Center+, and you’re in danger; he’s going to tick each of those things off on his well-manicured fingers and add them up to one thing: ‘I need to get this under control,’ and the way he’ll do that is to push you away to protect you.” Sawyer rubbed her hand through the blanket as tears poured from her eyes.

“Yeah, that’s what I was afraid of. I think I’ve felt this coming since he first got your text tonight. Do I have a chance of fighting him on this? Or do I just have to sit by and watch as he closes in on himself again and pushes me away all in the name of controlling a situation and fixing whatever is going on?” She sniffed and wiped angrily at her tears.

“Well, I guess you could sit by and watch, but that doesn’t seem like my Katie-girl. And I know sure as shit that Kendrick, Zach, and I aren’t going to let him go running back to the uptight douche he used to be. I love my brother dearly, but he’s been a lot more fun since you came into his life; I’m not going to let him throw that away.” He laughed as she giggled. “Now, all of that being said, I think it will get worse before it gets better. And, I’m in 100% agreement with him that YOU need to be protected. I don’t get why someone seems so dead set against you and him being together, but that threat against you tonight isn’t something any of us are going to take lightly.” She shivered as Sawyer spoke of the menacing threat Nicky had shared with them earlier.

“Sawyer? In any other situation, this would be a totally fucked up request….” She looked up at him from her pillow and he just laughed, already knowing what she was going to ask.

“No worries, Katie-girl. Let me text Decker to let him know where I am. I’m going to check the locks on all the doors and windows, grab a pillow from the couch, and lose the jeans. I’ll be right back.” She smiled as he walked out of her room. Her heart hurt because she was so far from Decker, but she trusted Sawyer to take care of her until she could be back in his brother’s arms.

Sawyer checked the locks, called the police department to be sure an extra patrol was watching Katie’s house and texted his brother.

He headed back up the stairs and crawled into bed with her. Wrapping his arms around her, he whispered, “We will get through this, Katie-girl, and I’ll be here by your side until we do. I love you.”

She sniffed her nose and whispered, “Thank you, Sawyer. I love you, too.”

**********

Katie’s head was aching so badly the next morning, she had Sawyer let Decker know that she would be in later. Sawyer had briefly filled her mother in on what was going on, telling her to keep an eye out for anything suspicious and to call the police with any concern.

He had hugged her tight before leaving, “Don’t lie down and take this. Maybe I’m wrong and he’ll choose Option 1; I hope to hell he does. But, if he goes with Option 2, you have to fight. It won’t be easy, but he’s got to see that he needs you by his side and pushing you away isn’t the way to fix this. I’m going to talk to him first thing to see where his head is at, but I want you to get a hot shower and some breakfast and get your ass to work. And talk to him.” A quick kiss to her cheek and Sawyer was gone.

**********

Walking into The Center+ a few hours later, Katie smiled at Decker’s parents and held her head high in regards to their crushed expressions. Did they already know what he was planning on doing? Holding her steaming coffee in her hand, Katie checked in at her mailbox.

“Katie? Could I talk to you, sweetie?” Libby Morgan was probably the sweetest person in the world, and Katie could tell that what she wanted to talk to her about was not making her happy.