Staking Her Claim...: Book 1 in the Patricks' Brothers series (24 page)

The note arrived via courier at nine o’clock in the morning the day after the event. If that wasn’t bad enough, the dozen decapitated roses caused mass hysteria. The roses themselves weren’t the issue, though. The fact they were dyed an eerie black, the pathetic, wilting blooms were scattered around the base of the arrangement was the spark to an already smoldering powder keg of frustration.

I signed for the delivery, but there was no way in hell I was letting the courier leave without interrogating him. Okay, so maybe interrogate is too strong a word. I prefer to think of it as politely coercing him until he answered all of my questions. However, if you ask him, Andre the whiny courier, he would probably tell you my treatment of him was worse than he would have received at, Guantanamo Bay. I beg to differ. As far as I’m concerned, I was perfectly friendly and very accommodating given the circumstances.

At the end of the day, it was a bust anyway. The information he provided wasn’t relevant or useful. It took longer than necessary to find out the little I could too. Andre has to be the least cooperative person I’ve had to question in, oh, let’s say, ever. He was defensive, argumentative, and when those tactics didn’t work, he clamped his mouth shut and gave me the silent treatment. Mind you, that didn’t last for long seeing as my hospitality was waning by the second.

Now, you have to remember; things could have been worse for good, old Andre. I could have threatened to torture him slowly and painfully for the information, but I didn’t, something I count as a win for him and me. I think I showed remarkable restraint, but whatever. Unfortunately, Andre seemed to take great offense when I retrieved my backup weapon, a Sig Sauer P226 from the side table near the front door, explaining precisely how painful it was to be shot at point blank range. Surprisingly that appeared to have loosened his tongue, however.

Andre told me the order came in over the internet at two minutes past six that morning. As part of a chain of florists, ‘In Bloom’ – the one who was responsible for this delivery was named – utilize a central processing departments, one located in Alabama, one in New York, and the last in Los Angeles. They allocate the orders to the relevant florists, located closest to the intended recipients, and then the florists fill the orders.

Ninety-nine percent of communications between centralized departments and florists take place over the internet, phone contact is limited. The person ordering the flowers isn’t aware of who the job is assigned to, and the phone operators don’t generally provide that information as a rule of thumb.

There are the odd occasions that a customer may request who is fulfilling the order, and in those cases, the operators do give them the details but aren’t required to make a note on the job that they have. Which, in the event you’re in a situation, tracking a psycho as we are, is really fucking unhelpful.

In other words, we got nothing from Andre we could use. Aside from a pissed off courier threatening to report me for assault, that is. For the record, I didn’t assault him, I just intoned that I may possibly shoot him if he didn’t wise up and cooperate. I worded my request carefully, so I’m not worried about Andre causing a problem for me. But if he does, I’ll deal with it then. We’ve got bigger things to worry about right now.

Back to Brookes…

Calling him was the last thing I wanted to do, but it had to be done. And please let it be known; I’m not usually one to shy away from my brothers in the midst of having an epic temper tantrum, but this was one of these times I actually did consider running and hiding until he’d burned it out.

My concern over his reaction was confirmed when he all but lost his ever-loving mind, bellowing about our lack of progress in finding the ‘sick fuck’ who’s responsible for this. They were his words, not mine, and albeit I share his sentiment, I don’t think my brother is thinking straight at the moment. In fact, I know he isn’t. And the little matter of one, Miss Harper Cox, is one hundred percent the cause of that.

During my training in the Army, we were taught to analyze everything from multiple different viewpoints. Gather the information, collate it, break it down into its individual components, scrutinize every aspect of it, and then put it all together to give us various scenarios from every angle conceivable. But that’s not what Brookes was doing, and I know he received similar training.

Brookes was so hooked on who this involved that he wasn’t capable of seeing the bigger picture. His focus was single-minded, and his mind was on Harper. Not that I blamed him, I love her too, but that wasn’t going to help matters with the case. Actually, it might just hinder them.

He hadn’t admitted it to anyone, I don’t think he’s even accepted it himself yet, but Brookes is undoubtedly, irrefutably in love with my best friend. It might have started out platonically, but it was far from it now.

I think over the years that he was separated from her, spent time away from her obvious attempts at gaining his attention – Harper was young back then, give her a break– and Brookes learned more about her as a person, he found his interest in her evolving. That’s not to say it was easy for the poor guy to acknowledge that because it wasn’t. If there’s one thing I can tell you about my big brother it is; he hates change. Despises it in fact.

If there’s one man on the planet more stubborn than Brandt is, it’s Brookes. And that’s saying something. Brookes may be our oldest brother, but there’s always been a strange peacefulness that’s emanated from deep within him somewhere. Sure, he fought plenty, with Brandt and other guys his age, but it wasn’t just for the sake of it. Those fights only happened when Brookes believed someone had crossed one of his many lines, more often than not, disrespecting someone he cared a great deal about. Enter, Harper.

One of the more memorable times Brookes was caught fighting by, Uncle Luke, was also the first time I realized there was more to his feelings for Harper than he’d led us to believe.

Harper and I didn’t have any interest in becoming cheerleaders. Because let’s face it, jumping around like a bunny on speed, contorting yourself like a pretzel in a skirt shorter than a belt in front of thousands of people isn’t my idea of a good time. Harper’s either.

However, we did love football, and not just because my brother Finn was currently captain of our school’s team and all my other brothers played at one point in time or other too. We were die-hard fans of all things pigskin. We dressed in our team’s colors, black and gold, painted our faces for game day, and attended every pep rally. I know sad, but what can I say? There’s something about a man in tight pants and padding that did it for us. Still does if I'm honest.

Anyway, it was a Friday night at the beginning of November, we’d been back at school as juniors for a month now. Harper and I had just gotten to the field when I got a call from, Brookes saying he’d driven down from college for the weekend and wanted to meet up with us. I told him where we were, but that we’d see him afterward. If I’d known he was going to show up at the game and what that would result in, I would never have told him where we were.

Harper and I eventually found seats five rows back from the sideline at the end of the row. Not a great viewing angle, but close enough to smell the sweat, hear the refs calls, and yell abuse at the opposing team, so not that bad of one either.

There were a group of six guys supporting the visiting team, they’d traveled over an hour to be here, sitting behind us. This wouldn’t usually bother me, but these guys were loud, obnoxious, and crude from the outset, so I wasn’t all fired up we’d have to sit through an hour and a half, at least, of their crap. But there weren’t any free seats anywhere else, so I’d just have to grin and bear it. Harper, on the other hand, well, she wasn’t having any of it.

Standing up, she turned around and told them to shut up before I could tell her to leave it alone. Big mistake, because they didn’t hesitate in calling her a ‘fucking bitch’ among other not so pleasant things. Harper didn’t flinch at their name calling, but I could see her temper rising as her face flushed and her mouth pinched into a tight line. The last straw was when they threw a half-full box of popcorn at the back of her head, telling her to get on her knees and clean it up seeing as she wasn’t getting on them for anything else.

Just as I thought Harper was about to lose her shit, I wasn’t far behind her, Brookes showed up out of nowhere. He grabbed the guy by the front of his shirt, dragged him out of his seat, and disappeared behind the bleachers with him. About ten minutes later, Brookes came back sporting knuckles that were split and bleeding, wearing a mask of unadulterated fury. Apparently beating the shit out of the guy hadn’t dispersed any of his anger, I had mused at the time.

Harper looked at Brookes like the conquering hero, but she looked at him like that all the time so that was nothing new, but the way that Brookes looked at her was. It was as if he was seeing her in a whole new light, and I wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing.

The last thing I wanted was for Harper to have her heart broken by my big brother. Not just because it would make family gatherings awkward, even though it would, but because as tough as she pretended to be, Harper had the most fragile heart of anyone I’ve ever met.

Her belief in happily ever after’s, soul mates and dreams of big, white weddings was further proof of that. And therein lay the problem. My big brother was adamant he wasn’t built for any of that sort of stuff. In fact, he didn’t believe it existed. Harper was convinced if he gave her a chance she could change his view, but I knew different.

I knew Brookes couldn’t be swayed if he’d made his mind up about something, that was just the way he was. Always had been. But that didn’t deter Harper, quite the opposite actually. She was unwavering in her opinion she was the woman who would convert my brother to the land of happy endings, not sexual ones either, although I’m sure she wouldn’t mind some of those if Brookes were the man giving them to her.

But if there’s one thing I’ve learned about getting involved in other people’s business it’s; don’t. So as much as I didn’t want to, I’d stay out of it. Brookes and Harper would have to work it out for themselves, and I’d be there to pick up the pieces of whoever’s heart fell apart.

Like I said, if Brookes hasn’t accepted his feelings for Harper yet that realization isn’t far away. Especially if the knock-down, drag-out argument we just had is anything to go by.

“Hey, you got a minute,” I ask when he answers the call after four rings.

“For you, sure,” he grumbles tiredly. It’s ten AM and Brookes is, for the most part, an early riser, so if he’s still in bed, that means he had a big night the night before, which does not bode well for me. He’s a grumpy bastard if he hasn’t had enough sleep, he’s hungover, stressed, or overworked. Scratch that; he’s a grumpy bastard most of the time. Hence, me calling him and the rest of them moody assholes.

“I signed for a delivery about an hour ago. It was from our friendly neighborhood stalker. I’ve taken photos, so I’ll email them over to you after we get off the phone. But based on what’s in the note, I think we’ve got to reconsider telling Harper about the situation she’s inadvertently found herself in.”

“What the fuck?” He roars into the phone. “Are you telling me someone delivered shit to Max’s an hour ago and I’m only finding out about it now?”

Yeah, I didn’t think that would go down too well, but big brother can kiss my ass if he thinks I’m going to let him take his frustration out on me.

“Calm your shit, Brookes, I mean it. I’ve just spent the last hour talking to the most unhelpful delivery driver in the state of, Texas, and I’m not in the mood to deal with your crap too.”

“Sorry if I’m a bit fucking perturbed, Aly, but shit, I thought the guy had backed off or crawled back under whatever rock he came from when you hadn’t heard from him in so long,” he huffs. Not the apology I was looking for, but under the circumstances, I’ll take it.

Focusing on what I know, I reply,

“I did too, but obviously not. All we can do now is go over everything we’ve got, see if we’ve missed anything, and get to work on analyzing his latest gift. I want to see if Brandt can get hold of, Simon over at the forensic lab we use to put a rush on the fingerprint analysis on this stuff. I know it’ll cost some cake, but I’ll front it if EyeSee doesn't pick up the tab.”

“I’ll get it done,” he states resolutely, not leaving any room for discussion. “You don’t need to cover the cost, though, Aly. The company will do that. What are we dealing with here? Did you get a read off any of it; what he’s planning where his head’s at?”