“Just as long as one, the other or all of your women take Lex to a beach.”
“That we can do.”
Ty grinned at his phone.
Then they said words of good-bye.
Then he flipped it shut, folded out of the chair, shoved the phone in his back pocket and walked back down to his wife and father.
Chapter Nineteen
That Felt Good
Ty sucked back the last of his beer and I watched as his long arm reached out to put the empty on the coffee table.
I was tucked into the back of the couch, my front tight to my husband, my cheek to his chest, my nearly finished beer in my hand resting on his abs and we were watching a movie.
His Dad was gone. The visit had not been great, it had not been shit. I’d invited him back, Ty had not protested, Irv had said he’d be delighted to come but no plans were made. There was something going down with Irv and Ty and I suspected, when plans were made, they’d be done through Ty.
I didn’t pry. Ty needed to work this out without me in his face about it and he knew I was there when he needed me.
After Irv left, I made dinner and Ty told me the rest of what Angel had to say. To say I was stunned was an understatement. Then again, Chace Keaton had given it away that day in the closet; I just didn’t get all of it.
We ate dinner and we hit the couch.
And I didn’t like the dregs of beer, warm beer at the bottom of the bottle was not my favorite thing so I wanted another one and I knew my husband did too.
So I pushed up on my elbow that was between the couch and Ty and looked down at him.
“I’m getting us more beer,” I said when his eyes moved from TV to me.
His answer was to stretch a long arm out to tag the remote and hit pause. Then he looked back at me. I grinned, put a hand in his chest but pushed up on my hand in the couch.
Then something caught at the corner of my eye, I turned, looked over the back of the couch for a scant second and at what I saw, instinct drove me to drop instantly down, all my weight hitting Ty. It came as a surprise to him and he grunted, his hands going to my hips, his lips beginning to curve up because he thought I was messing around then he saw my face and they stopped.
“Someone’s doing something at the backdoor,” I breathed, my lungs constricted, my breath sticking in my throat.
Ty went solid under me for a nanosecond then he bucked his hips to pull out his phone as he whispered, “Stay here. Do not move. I’m not back in five minutes, you dial 911 then you call Tate.”
I opened my mouth to protest but didn’t get a sound out before his phone was pressed into my hand, he was out from under me and he was gone.
I lay there hyperventilating, listening and clutching Ty’s phone in my hand. Ty didn’t have shoes on and I’d taken mine off when we hit wind down mode on a Sunday night which was to say, approximately five seconds after we waved his father away. I couldn’t hear him move, I couldn’t hear anything.
Then I heard the backdoor open.
Then nothing.
I kept hyperventilating, counting to thirty then counting to thirty again trying not to think about my husband having enemies, no weapon and no shoes.
I counted to thirty again.
I got to my seventh set of thirty when I heard the backdoor close then I heard the lock flip then I heard the vertical blinds slapping against each other as Ty pulled them over the door then another slap as he shut them. Then this happened again and I knew he was at the window over the sink.
I lifted up and looked at him over the couch. Then I watched as he moved around the house, a manila envelope in his hand, closing all the blinds including the ones at the wall of floor to ceiling windows that it took three long tugs to get both sides of them across the expanse then he slapped them closed.
I’d never seen those blinds closed. It felt weird being closed in our house. We were in a development but removed. There were houses close but with the trees around, they felt far. Being the last house in the development, up an incline that grew significantly steeper after the last house before ours, our place felt separate, private, there was no need to close the blinds so I never had.
I felt a shiver trill up my spine at the need to close the blinds and then another one when Ty walked to stand opposite the coffee table from me where he lifted up the envelope and started to study it, turning it back to front.
I curled my legs in an S and got up on my hand, my eyes also on the envelope.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“No clue. Was sittin’ at the backdoor.” I looked up at his face to see him looking at me. “You see who put it there?”
Dusk had fallen, it wasn’t dark but there wasn’t a lot of light left. Our house faced west, the back was darker than the front and the outside light wasn’t on.
I shook my head and answered, “It was a man. A big guy but not you, Bubba, Deke big. Short-sleeved shirt, plaid. That’s all I saw.”
“So you didn’t recognize him?”
I shook my head.