Blushing, I said, “Thanks, Connor. But I’m the lucky one.”
“I think you’re both lucky. Make sure you remember how lucky you are to have each other. Protect each other. It’s a bad world out there.”
I nodded and flipped him a final smile before making my way out to my car. My phone rang just as I was turning on the engine.
“Hello?” I said, turning the radio down.
“Hey, Kari. This is Brielle.”
What the hell?
“Hey, Bri,” I said warily. She’d never called me before and it made me uneasy. “Is something wrong?”
“Oh, no,” she said in a rush. “Nothing’s wrong at all. I just, uh, I wanted to . . .” Her voice trailed off. “I’m sorry, Kari, for not treating you as well as I should. I’ve been a child and I’m embarrassed about how I’ve acted.”
I didn’t know what to say, my mouth going dry. “Oh. Uh, Bri, that’s okay—”
“No, it’s not. I’m way too old to be acting like that and you’ve never been anything but nice to me. I’m sorry. You’re going to be a part of our family and I just want to . . . I don’t know. Start all over with you?”
I buckled my belt, both because I was getting ready to pull onto the road and because the conversation was making me a little unsteady. “Yeah, Bri. I’d like that.”
“Me, too. If you need anything with the wedding or whatever, let me know.” She quieted on the other end, the pause a touch awkward. “I’m really glad my brother has you, Kari. Welcome to the family.”
MAX
“Hey, Max. It’s Nick.”
I was making my way through the city to a meeting when he returned my call about an hour after I asked him to look up Joe Dumas. If Bri was right and Sam had staged the whole thing, I didn’t know what I was going to do.
Was there anything I could do?
“Thanks for getting back to me so quickly,” I said.
“No problem. So, Joe Dumas has a pretty interesting record. He’s been arrested a number of times for B&E, theft, things like that. He’s currently in Maricopa County jail for grand theft auto.”
“But nothing in terms of assault or rape?”
He paused and I heard pages being moved around. “No, nothing like that. He’s more of the petty gangster type, it seems. Nothing violent.”
“Okay.”
“Anything you need me to do?”
“Nah, I just wondered what his background was, what kind of guy he is. But I think you’ve answered it. Just send a bill to Alexander Industries to my attention.”
He laughed. “This one is on the house, Max. How are things? How’s Cane?”
“Cane is Cane. Expecting a baby, so that should be fun.”
“Cane as a father . . . Well, I can see that, actually. He comes across as this hardass, but he’s a good man. I know him enough to see through that bullshit he projects.”
I couldn’t help but smile at just how right Nick was. “You got him pegged.”
“I have to run to a meeting, but if you need anything, just call me.”
“I’m pulling up to a meeting myself, but thanks a lot, Nick.”
I turned off the phone and pulled into a parking spot and cut the engine. Blaine was standing near the marina at Tempe Town Lake, his hands tucked into his pockets. He seemed nervous, which was just how I wanted him. I didn’t need him in some pissing match with me; I needed to know how he met Samantha West.
I got out of the truck and made my way towards him. The wind was whipping pretty hard and I saw him wince as the cool air swept by him. He finally saw me coming and put his hands to his sides, trying to look more imposing.
Good luck, asshole.
“Hey,” I called out, the sound of my voice making birds take flight around the water’s edge; Blaine nodded in response. “I’m gonna cut right to the chase.”
“Sounds good,” he said, his eyes narrowing.
“How did you meet Sam?”
He bit out a laugh. “That’s what you called me for? To see how I met Sam?”
“I’m just curious. Did you see her somewhere? Did you meet online? Did you get hooked up by friends?”
“Not that it’s any of your concern, but we met at a bar. I was in there with a client and she came up to me. Same place, same time.”
She came up to me . . .
“Did she ever say anything to you about knowing Kari?”
He looked at me like I was crazy. “How would she know that I knew Kari? Yeah, we got into a conversation a few times about our pasts and things, that’s how I know you two have a history . . .”
“What are you talking about?”
He smiled cockily, tilting his head to the side. “That you two had this thing going on. She said she had a fuck buddy but he was embarrassed about it, coming from a good family and all. I didn’t care because that’s all I wanted her for, too.”
“That’s asinine,” I said firmly. “Sam is nothing to me but my little sister’s friend. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is that she didn’t know that you knew Kari?”