Twenty Seven

Stepping out of a helicopter into a beautiful field filled with different species of flowers is certainly something Grace from two months ago would have not pictured herself doing. When Dominic had mentioned a very safe place, I was picturing another penthouse with a pool by its side. But the picture in front of me, was like a painting of nature come to life.

The plants dancing according to the force, the length of my gown doing the same and with the deafening whirring of the copter blades vanishing with its ascend, I took some seconds to enjoy the scene laid out in front of me.

We left the bare circle in the middle of the field and walked towards the only obvious entrance. Soon scents here and there slapped my nostrils as we walked by. Deeply inhaling the surrounding air, I stopped my steps and reached to feel one of the sweet smelling species.

“Stop.” Looking up at Dominic who had this very serious look that he successfully maintained throughout the flight, on, I questioned him with a quick glare. “The people here don’t like the flowers on this field being touched. There is another small field for that.”

“Okay!” With a surrendering gesture, I got up, re-clutching the little bag in my hand properly. “Are you going to tell me where we are now?” I asked, my eyes skimming through the area as we resumed our walk.

“I can’t tell you precisely where we are.”

“I can always use Google Maps,” I reminded him.

“I know. But I am trusting you not to be stupid to share your location with your friends.” I resisted the urge to roll my eyeballs. “Anyway,” he continued unenthusiastically. “,welcome to my home town.”

Whoa. Talk about things I did not see coming at all. “Something tells me you don’t want to be here.” We were already at the exit of the field and all that was ahead of us was a bare land with the outline of a house peeping from a very far distance.

Looking straight ahead, he began to resume his long strides. “This is one place I can consider safe.”

As I caught up with him, a million things started to race through my mind. Like Jeremy would simply put it, I was starting to over-think. “Now that I think of it, I really don’t see the need to go anywhere safe. It is not like I was attacked or anything. It was just a text message.”

“Do we really have to wait till you’re attacked before we do something?” His swung his head sideways to look at me. “That text you got means someone is watching you. Someone wants to hurt you.”

“I know. But… Dave is already investigating, isn’t he?” Dominic drew a long sigh and looked ahead. “And our suspects, they don’t sound so dangerous that I would have to run somewhere safe and… ouch!” I had absentmindedly talked on, I did not notice Dominic had stopped walking.

As I took a step back from his sturdy figure which I had just bumped into hard, he looked me straight in the eye and asked, “What exactly is the matter Grace?”

“I… I just feel all these going somewhere safe is quite unnecessary and perhaps too early. I know I agreed to the idea, but, but now that I think of it, it is hardly necessary.”

Dominic took a step closer to me, a cool breeze passing through us within the same second. “You are thinking too much Grace.” He reached for my arms, the strap of his bag brushing against my left arm in the process and continued, “It is my duty to do anything, silly or not, to protect you. I don’t care if you find it unnecessary, as long as it keeps you safe, we are going to be staying here for a while.”

Shrugging quite dismissively, I said, “This place does seem nice. But are you certain Ruby is going to be fine?”

He resumed walking. “Dave has eyes watching Samantha’s house as we speak. You certainly didn’t think I would leave my daughter unguarded, did you?” I gave the back of his hair a sheepish grin as I followed the direction of his walk. And that I did for the next few minutes in silence, even though my eyes roamed about the environment for a while.

Excusing the sky which was quite gloomy for a morning, the features of life that stared right back at me from the extreme ends of the huge road made me feel grateful, even if for just a minute, about life.

“Anyway,” Dominic swept away the silence. “Dave called me yesterday and he informed me that Diane is presently out of the country at the moment. She has been for two weeks actually. And uh… Regina is pretty much still in New York. They are yet to get anything from that text though.”

“Okay. But…Ugh! You just reminded me that I don’t have my phone anymore,” I pouted.

“You can always use my phone.”

“How much longer till we get to our destination?” My knees began to slowly clamp as I sought to reduce the growing ache in my legs. Looking behind, it occurred to me that we had walked quite a distance, quite a long distance.

“We are here.” As I bumped into him again, I slightly cursed.

“You should really start notifying me before stopping like that. Hitting my head against your body is not exactly something I would love to happen repeatedly.” I rubbed my forehead as I found my stance beside him, his brow quirked as I stole a glance at him. “Is the car yours?” I pointed to the vehicle packed in front of the cabin which I guessed was going to be our abode during our stay.

“Nope. It is someone else’s.” The cabin’s structure was quite huge with planted flowers laying round at the foot of the building, giving the brownness of the bungalow -like building a little life.

As we resumed our walk into the structure, the entrance door swiftly swung open to my surprise, revealing a woman who looked like she was probably in her late thirties. “Well, look who the breeze brought along.” Arms crossed, she fixed her round, mystic looking eyes on Dominic who was already steps ahead of me.

“Hello Janet.”

“Hello to you too, brother.” Brother? Oh yeah, he did say he had a sister and two brothers. I guess we really are in his home town. My eyes flickered to the tall figure who was silently communicating with her brother. The resemblance was quite hard to see, but I saw it anyway.
“Well don’t just stand there, give me a hug!”

I heard Dominic give off a scoff, but he went into her embrace anyway. “You look different,” I heard Dominic say, my sort of weary self starting to feel like the awkward third wheel.

“I have been working out.” As my eyes swept her fit figure, she caught me and finally noticed me. “She is not Diane.”

“No. She is not.” He cleared his throat and walked back towards me, his hand clutching mine as soon as he leveled in stance with me. “She is Grace, my girlfriend.”

As though suddenly touched by something hot, an actual look of horror covered her face. She started to make her way towards me. “Please tell me you are real.”

Confused, I answered, “I am, real?”

Her hand felt for my hair when she finally made it to us. I looked up at Dominic for an explanation of some sort but he ignored my silent question with a flicker of his eye. “You are really real.” Her horrified look dropped. “Oh thank heavens.” Heavy chuckles escaped her lips as she hurriedly ushered me into her arms.

Still confused, I played along with her drama, smiling at her when she took breaks from her bone crushing hugs to admire me or compliment me. “Okay Janet that is enough.”

*You don’t say*. I glared at Dominic who easily waved off my look.

“Q has to hear about this!” Her excitement was crazy.

“Janet…”

“What?” She eyed him as her arm went on to hook my mine.

“We have to rest. Q will be hearing about whatever tomorrow.”

“What, no. Everyone is presently at the main house.” She began to gently tug at my arm. “They all have to meet her. They have to know she is real. Come on, into the car.”

“You are most certainly not commanding me right now.”

“Eliot Dominic Powers, get your butt into that car right now!” She narrowed her eyes at him. “How’s that for a command?”

“We had better not waste time at that damn house.” Dominic loudly grumbled as he surprised me by actually walking towards the packed car.

“Come on darling,” her tone had changed to a loving one. “,I want us to meet everyone while at breakfast.” After ensuring, I was seated comfortably and safely, Janet kicked the car to life.

It took a while, but I soon dashed out of the mild bewilderment that had briefly overcome me. “Janet,” I smiled at her peeping image on the front mirror. “Why were you asking me if I was real earlier?”

“Oh you see, when Eliot had called and told me about a particular Grace he was seeing, his brothers and I thought he made it all up to shut us up.”

I glanced at the already stoic looking Dominic beside me. “Shut you up?”

“He was tired of us asking… begging him to finally consider having a girlfriend.” My lips formed an *oh*. “Honestly, if he didn’t bring you along, I would still be in doubt. I am so glad you are real Grace.” She threw me another huge grin, the car dancing as we took on a bit roughened path. “We are going to arrive at the main house soon. Pops will be so thrilled to meet you Grace.”

I gave her another smile, faced Dominic and whispered, “Your first name is Eliot?” His eyes flickered to mine and they communicated his wish to be left alone quite well.

“And we are here! Oh hey Pops, look who’s here” As she jumped off the car, she hugged the figure that stood against one of the wooden poles of the building. There was a lot of facial resemblance between him and Dominic. To put it better, excusing some particular details, their father looked like a much more grown version of Dominic.

“Father.” Dominic’s deep voice said beside me with so much strain in it. It was full of anger.

“Dominic,” the older man’s rough voice replied, making sure to return the stone glare his son was giving him.

“They are not exactly on talking terms right now,” Janet, who had found a way to slide away from her father’s side whispered into my ears as we both watched the duo exchange a lot with just dagger glares.

“That explains what is going on right now.”

“Yeah. Anyway, come in. You must be famished.”

I frowned. “Wait, what? You are just going to leave them alone? If they could kill each other with their looks they would have seconds ago.”

Janet clicked her tongue in response. “Well, they haven’t done that yet, have they?” My frown deepened. “They need to sort things out and this is the time, so let’s go in and eat. They will be fine.”

As she slightly nudged me towards the entrance, I took another worried look at Dominic, the reason for his serious demeanor earlier becoming clear to me.