“Yeah, you do. And that is why I’m not telling him. I gotta go. I’m going to leave him a note and hopefully I’ll be back by tomorrow morning.”
“He’ll be tearing things apart looking for you,” Analise said.
“Which is why you’re going to send Barron and Havoc to keep him company while I’m gone.”
Chapter 15
“Heyyyyy,” Brandt called out, dragging out the word playfully.
Seconds later, Daisy’s head peeked around the corner of the open front door. “What are you doing here?”
“Came to see what extras you’re deciding to add, and then going to buy some yummies from Bailey.”
Daisy grinned at her brother. “Since you’re here, I was wondering if…”
“Yeah, unhuh, I told y’all, didn’t I?” Brandt asked, looking at Shaun and Lucien who were standing to his right. He continued to grin as he shook his head and started toward his sister, who just smiled exaggeratedly at him and disappeared back inside the small building she’d ‘just had to have’.
Brandt followed her inside and dutifully listened to all her ideas about where she wanted to add to the small building, and then separate the addition into two rooms. He listened to where she wanted to add shelves for storage, and place an elevated surface at the front of the main room so that even the students in the back could easily see her easel or base if she was in the front giving examples of whatever it was she was teaching. Then she took him back outside to show him the spaces she wanted to remain cemented over so that if her students wanted to take their easels outside to work in natural light, they could. “Alright, I can do all of that. You want the front and sides to have the cement taken up, though, right?”
“I do. It’s just too much. But the area in the back, I’d like to leave, just a smooth slab of concrete we can keep clear of grass and dirt and bugs, and they can comfortably create on.”
“Yes, because Lord forbid there’d be a bug outside,” he snarked.
Daisy scowled at him and gave him an “I’m still your big sister and can kick your ass” glare.
“What about extra buildings. Don’t you need a kiln? Maybe somewhere for sculpting?”
“I’d love that. But I don’t want to ask for too much.”
“Daisy, if you need it, just say you need it. I’d rather get it all done at once.”
“I’d really like that.”
Brandt laughed. “Done. Now that we’ve got all that straight, I want to talk about something else.”
“Okay. What’s up?” Daisy asked.
“I’ve given you space to handle your own. I’ve waited patiently for you to trust me enough to tell me about what caused you to come running home so suddenly — but you haven’t. I’m running low on patience, Daisy.”
“I know you think you have to oversee everything in your Alpha-Dom…” she started.
“No. Bullshit. Do not even try to go there. This has nothing to do with anything other than my sister came home, suddenly. And hasn’t been the same since. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that something happened. I want to know what the hell happened. Or do you not trust me as your brother enough to tell me? Not as your Alpha, because honestly, to hell with that. Throw that out of the window, because I will always be your brother first and foremost. I can’t protect you from something if I can’t see it.”
“I don’t need protection, Brandt. I really don’t. I just need time to heal.”
“From what?”
She shook her head as she crossed her arms and stared at the ground.
“Really hurts that you won’t trust me. I thought we were close,” Brandt said.
“We are close! This has nothing to do with trust.”
“Then what does it have to do with?”
She sighed and lifted her head to look into the sky.
Brandt thought she was done and wasn’t going to answer. Just when he was ready to walk away, she finally spoke. “Embarrassment. Humiliation. Trying to find whatever pieces I may still have of any kind of self-respect.”
