“How’re you doing?”
“Fine. Really. I’m fine.” He looked at her closely, as if checking the veracity of her statement and she shook her head and said, “I don’t know if I thanked you enough for calling in the cavalry at Lacey’s that night.”
“You thanked me over and over. Trust me. I’m just glad you’re okay.”
“Yeah, well, bad things happen and we get past them.” She half laughed. “I wish that were true of the Carrera brothers.”
“One way or another, we’ll get past them.”
“You promise?” She lifted her brows.
His flashing smile made her heart squeeze a bit. “Gonna do my damnedest.”
This was a dangerous conversation. She purposely changed it by asking, “Would you like something to drink? I’ve got coffee, tea, water, and I think there’s a diet cola rattling around somewhere. Or beer, wine . . . a martini?”
“You having anything?” he asked curiously.
Andi’s thoughts returned to Mimi and her baby bump. “I sure am. Red wine and a lot of it.”
“Ah. You met with—”
“Mimi Quade. About six months along maybe?” she added brightly.
“I think I’ll take some of that red wine, too.” Then, “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not like I didn’t know she was pregnant.” Andi walked toward the kitchen. “It was just kind of hard, seeing her.”
“I can imagine.”
“What did Peg Bellows have to say?” she asked, deliberately changing the subject again as she pulled a bottle of Cabernet from her tiny, black wrought-iron wine rack.
“Well, there’s no love lost over the Carreras there anymore.”
Andi opened a drawer and took out the corkscrew, but her mind was stuck on the image of Mimi’s baby bump. It was like she couldn’t see anything else all of a sudden. She sensed herself sinking into despair and was surprised that it had come up on her so fast when she’d thought she was past it.
Luke went on, “The brothers worked both Peg and Ted, coming off as friends, benign investors who would buy their house for a maximum price. They’d done the same thing with the Bellows’s neighbors. A little different scenario, but all with the same goal.”
Andi stood perfectly still. Loss had her in its tight embrace, squeezing the breath from her. Unaware, Luke said, “It’s the same tale I hear whenever the Carreras are involved.”
She tried to speak but couldn’t find the words. Her nose burned and she sensed tears building. She clutched the corkscrew with a death grip.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, coming nearer until he was right beside her as she faced the counter. “Something happen?”
She shook her head.
“Here, let me do that.” He took the opener from her now unresisting hand. Tears filled her eyes. She was embarrassed, but there was nothing she could do. Luke shot concerned looks at her as he uncorked the bottle. To her consternation, he reached forward and caught a tear with the tip of his finger. “Hey, it’s okay,” he said softly, and that opened the floodgates.
“I’m fine.” Her voice shook.
“I know.” He reached forward and folded her into the strength of his arms. She could smell the earthy, masculine scent of him and she wanted to cuddle into him and weep. Instead she stood like a stiff rod and squeezed her eyes closed, trying to stem the flow. “I don’t want to cry.”
“I know.”
“Doesn’t do any good and it makes you look like hell.” She choked out a miserable little laugh.
“I don’t think you could ever look like hell.”
“Don’t be nice to me.”
He tightened his grip. “Okay, I’ll treat you bad.”
That made her laugh for real and she pulled back, but his arms wouldn’t completely release her. “I’m so sorry,” she said shakily. “I’m fine. Really I am. It just came over me.”
“It’s okay.”
“I want to hear more about what Peg said. I really do.”
He hesitated a moment, then admitted, “She said she wants to see Blake Carrera dead.”
“Dead?” Andi swiped at her tears, turned away from his scrutiny, and he finally, somewhat reluctantly, released her.
“They had an affair. It ended badly, and Ted died.”
“I thought it was Brian on the boat with him.”
“It was, but where there’s one Carrera brother, there’s another. You sure you’re okay?”
“No, but I’m trying. Okay?”
He nodded and she managed a thin smile before opening an upper cupboard and pulling out two crystal stemmed wineglasses.
“That’s a little fancy for me,” Luke said. “I could break that. How about a small tumbler?”
“No. Sorry. If you break it, you break it. But I need a little bit of... ceremony and beauty.”
“Like that, huh?”
“Yes, like that,” she said, pouring them each a glass. The red liquid shone like blood under the lights. “You want to walk out to the lake?” she asked.