Page 86 of Deserving Ryleigh
Everything moved as if in slow motion for Tiny. He wanted to tell her not to answer it. That they were in the middle of an unknown situation, and besides, all their friends were already here. No one should be calling her. Not right now. It was too much of a coincidence, and Tiny knew deep in his bones that whoever was on the other end wasn’t calling to say hello.
Pandemonium reigned around them. Babies were bawling, his friends were trying to calm the invited guests, and pretty much every adult was trying to figure out if anyone was hurt. What had happened. But Tiny’s attention was focused on Ryleigh.
Max squirmed in her grasp. He’d seen his sister and wanted to go to her. Ryleigh let go of him, but kept her eyes on the boy as he ran across the room to his oldest sister, Joyce, who was in a huddle with her other siblings, Cora, and Pipe.
The phone in Ryleigh’s hand continued to vibrate. Whoever was on the other end wasn’t hanging up. He or she wanted to talk to her with a determination that made the hair on Tiny’s arms stand up.
“Unknown,” Ryleigh whispered, turning the phone to show Tiny.
He wanted to take the phone from her, throw it across the room, but whatever was happening needed to be played out. And if the person on the other end was somehow responsible, they needed to know.
“What if it’s him? My dad? What if he did this?” Ryleigh whispered.
“He’s in prison. It can’t be him,” Tiny said, not really believing his own words. There was only one person he could think of who wanted to do harm to The Refuge.
Harold Lodge.
But Ryleigh shook her head. Her eyes no longer held the excitement and happiness that had been there just minutes ago. That Tiny had loved seeing so much. She once more looked like the paranoid and wary woman he’d watched over after she’d admitted lying to everyone to get the job at The Refuge.
Tiny wrapped his hand around her nape, the only thing he could think of at the moment to show her that she wasn’t alone. That whatever was going to happen when she answered the phone would go down withhimby her side. He and Ryleigh may not have exchanged vows that day, but everything Brick had said, he’d felt. And he thought Ryleigh felt the same way.
Ryleigh took a deep breath…and answered the phone. She put it on speaker, and she and Tiny bent over the phone so they could hear what was said over the voices of their friends.
“Hello?”
“Hello, daughter dear.”
Ryleigh’s eyes widened and her pupils dilated in fear. Tiny tightened his grip on her nape, doing what he could to reassure her.
“What…how…where are you?” she asked.
“That’s not important. It sounds as if things are kind of crazy there,” Harold Lodge said with a small laugh.
“What did you do?” she demanded.
“Nothing much. Just blew up two cabins. I made sure no one was in them first though. Doesn’t that give me some brownie points?”
Ryleigh’s horrified gaze met Tiny’s. “Blew up two cabins?” she asked.
“Yup,” her dad said, sounding completely unaffected. “C4 is amazing stuff. It can blow up buildings but there’s not a huge fireball after. Really, daughter, you should be thanking me. That entire forest could be burning down around you right now. Instead, you just have a shit-ton of new kindling for those bonfires you all seem to like so much.”
Ryleigh was shaking so violently in his grasp, Tiny had a hard time holding on to her. It was a good thing they were already on the floor, otherwise he had a feeling her knees would’ve given out by now.
“Why? Why can’t you just leave me alone?” she asked, the agony easy to hear in her tone.
“Because you have something I want,” Harold said in a hard voice. “You double-crossed me,again, and you already know how I feel about that. No one fucks with me, and you’ve screwed me over more times than I can count. I want my goddamn money, Ryleigh.”
“It’s not your money. It’sneverbeen your money,” Ryleigh told him.
“I stole it. It’smine.”
“You didn’t steal anything. You mademesteal it. So it’s doubly not yours!”
Tiny was glad to see a little color coming back into Ryleigh’s cheeks, and that she seemed to be getting over her shock about what happened, what her father haddone. But he wasn’t sure antagonizing the man was smart right about now.
“It’s my money!” her dad yelled, making the people nearest them look over in surprise and curiosity.
“If you think I’m giving you anything when you’re hurting my friends, you’re insane,” Ryleigh told him.
