Page 60 of Lavender Lake
“You mean they’re going to live here for the next few months while they build?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“Wow,” I said. I looked around. “I don’t see any people.”
“We’re early,” he said.
He cut the side-by-side engine and my ears hummed from the noise.
“I wanted to talk to you. Out here and away from everyone else,” he said.
“What about?” I asked, turning to face him.
His expression was stoic. “Hadley is the most important thing to me. You know that, right?”
“I do.”
“Then, what I’m about to say—it’s coming from that place, okay?”
I frowned and nodded.
“I want her to be happy. And in order for her to be happy, she has to have an easy pregnancy and a healthy baby. I won’t have her needlessly worried or stressed in any way.” He pinned me with a stare. “It’s hard enough with Connor in the hospital. Do you get what I’m saying, Salem?”
“Me,” I said flatly. “You meanIshouldn’t worry her, or stress her out.”
“You’re her twin. She loves you so much. But I’m asking—no, I’m fuckingbeggingyou—please don’t be something else she has to worry about.”
I swallowed and nodded.
“One more thing,” he said.
“What?” I croaked.
“Stay away from Bowman.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Ranch
“Stay away from Bowman,” I repeated.
He sighed and raked a hand through his hair. “Look, he’s my best friend, my best man, and basically my brother. But he’s not . . . he’s had a hard go of it. A hard life, I mean.”
“You mean the foster kid thing and the abandoned at birth thing?” I queried.
Declan paused. “He told you?”
I nodded.
“I wasn’t expecting that.” He leaned back in his seat and went on, “He’s not a family man. I just don’t want you to have any illusions about him.”
“No illusions,” I assured him. “But this talk is kind of unnecessary, don’t you think? He’s here to get to know Hadley. I’m here to—for my dad. There will be a wedding. And then I’ll go back to New York and he’ll go back to the circuit.”
He looked at me for a long moment, like he was pondering saying something else, but then a caravan of trucks drove up behind us. One by one they parked in front of the double wideand climbed out. After a while, an older woman stepped out of one of the vehicles.
“Who’s that?” I asked in confusion.
“Stella,” Declan said. “Come on, let me introduce you to the Monroes.”
