Olivia Barnes-Fleetwood was a badass bitch who took no crapfrom anyone.
Unless her heart was involved.He’d talked to several of thehands who adored her.They said she was a fair boss and genuinely thoughtful, butthey knew she sometimes had a hard time with the men she negotiated with.Shewas used to hard negotiations when it came to business.
So why run?
The part of himself that was still an eight-year-old kidtrying to survive the day thought she’d run because she didn’t want him.
The confident man who knew how to read a sub was starting tothink she’d run for the opposite reason.
So they’d done some research, and lucky for them thehousehold security cams weren’t all that hard to break into.Garrett wasn’t ahacker, per se, but he had some skills.
And Keane was the one who went to prison.Lucky him.
“Any idea who the women at the door were?”Keane asked.
“I think it’s Trev McNamara’s daughter and Gigi Dawson.Youhaven’t met Win Dawson and his wife, Naomi, yet, but I’ve had a couple ofmeetings with him.From what Bobby told me they’re some of Olivia’s closestfriends.”
So safety had shown up and she bolted.
He should have taken that as her answer and headed to thebunkhouse, but he’d caught sight of a picture of her as a kid all wild hair andhappy smiles.Josh had stood in the background, obviously younger but far moreserious and stern than his sister.Jack and Sam and Abby had looked on at theirkids, but it was clear that Olivia was the sun in the sky.
When was the last time Olivia Barnes-Fleetwood had thatcarefree smile on her face?He knew the answer.It was the night before whenshe let herself go.He would bet a lot that she rarely let herself go that way.
But they had gotten her there.Briefly.They could do itagain.
When he figured out she needed him, he put aside hisprotective barriers and decided it was time to take her at her word.She wantedthem to help her.Well, he was going to help her.
“Did you ask Bobby about them?”Keane asked.They hadexchanged numbers the night before.Bobby was a protective friend who wantedall the information he could have since Olivia wanted none.So when she ran,Garrett had texted.
It took a while, but the guy texted back and he seemedconcerned.
“He said she’s not usually like this.He said she usuallystands her ground and fights when she needs to.I think he was worried abouther.Especially when I mentioned the name Scott,” Garrett explained.“It was abad time, apparently.Bobby said maybe we should go back to Olivia’s and cookher dinner and wait for her to come home.She’s probably nervous.”
“So she goes out drinking with her friends?”Keane openedthe door, and raucous music blasted through him.The Barn was hopping for aSunday night.It was a luxurious roadhouse trying to fit in with touches of abroke-down bar.The trouble was Keane had been to actual broke-down bars, andthis place was pretending.Inside there were groups of women chatting overmargaritas and a bunch of guys staring at the Rangers game on the big screenwhile they downed beers and talked about the coaching staff.
“Like we haven’t hit a bar before when times are tough,”Garrett shot back, having to talk louder over the music.
He didn’t think this qualified as tough times.Her ex wasback, but she had a plan and they were willing to go along with it.
“We were in the middle of a discussion.”That was what trulybugged him.She hadn’t told them she needed time to think about what they wereoffering.She hadn’t given them her own plan.Hadn’t explained that she wouldlike to talk this whole thing through with her friends.Hadn’t even told themgood-bye.Just left them sitting there like idiots.
He was going to have such fun slapping that gorgeous ass ofhers.
They had barely gotten to real discipline the night before,and she seemed to love it.He could give her so much more.
If he could find her in this place.It looked huge.Thereseemed to be a couple of different bars and a part of the building that servedas a sit-down restaurant, and apparently a dance hall, if all the hooting andhollering was any indication.It was a massive East Texas redneck paradise.Which was different from the town.They’d taken a tour of the town, and itseemed quiet and a little uptight.While Gwen had driven them around Olivia’sregular haunts, she’d imparted an enormous amount of wisdom about Willow Fork.And by wisdom he meant gossip.
“And she got scared.”Garrett stopped him before they couldget to the hostess station.“She needs time.Maybe we should listen to Bobby.Ithink we shouldn’t push her.”
But she was begging for it.If she didn’t want to be pushed,she would have explained calmly that she needed to think about the situationand she would have gotten her purse and her cell phone.Instead, she’d run awaylike a bride who figured out she wasn’t ready to get married.She createddrama, and from what he could tell that wasn’t something she did most of thetime.
So deep down he suspected this was some kind of a test.Evenif she didn’t realize it was.
Bobby might know her, but he didn’t know the sexual side ofthe woman, the intimate side, the submissive side.
It occurred to him that Olivia had been left behind by a lotof men she cared about.Not her family.They were solid, but just because shehad wonderful fathers didn’t mean other men hadn’t hurt her.It didn’t mean shewasn’t reluctant to throw her whole self into a new relationship.
She had men who loved and adored her, but none who spoke toher submissive side.This felt like a plea for discipline to him.If she wasrejecting them, she would say it.She wouldn’t sugarcoat it.She wouldn’thesitate.She would kindly tell them it wouldn’t work for her.