Catching Sam: Book 2 of 5: The MacDonald Brothers

by Emily Matthews

  Why did he immediately have to think everyone had sinister motives? Why couldn’t he assume the best in people instead of the worst? What the fuck was wrong with him?

  The book he’d read on trusting people was sitting on the corner of his desk. “Fat lot of good you were,” he said, throwing it into the garbage can.

  He picked up the phone and hit one of the speed dial numbers. He only knew of one person who might be able to help.

  “Hey, Matthew. What’s up?”

  “What’s wrong?” Matthew responded without preamble.

  “What makes you think something’s wrong?” asked Sam.

  “I know you. I can hear it in your voice. Plus, you rarely make social calls. Is it the Denali project?”

  “No. It’s personal.”

  “Wow. Um, okay. That’s new.”

  “Shut up, man. What are you doing right now? Can I come talk to you?”

  “Holy shit, you’re serious. I’m golfing, but I can be back at the clubhouse in fifteen minutes. Meet me there?”

  “I don’t want to interrupt your golf game,” Sam hedged.

  “Eh, I’m doing shitty anyway. It’ll give me an excuse to walk away. You’ll be doing me a favor.” Sam knew that was bullshit, but appreciated his friend’s willingness to drop everything to help him.

  “See you in a sec.” Sam hung up, texted Steve, then laid his head back on his chair. Matthew was happily married and had three adorable kids. He was the only family man Sam knew well and trusted implicitly. There must be some secrets to keeping a woman happy that Matthew could share.

  Thirty minutes later, he was in the clubhouse bar sitting at a table across from Matthew, nursing a Jack and Coke. He’d spilled his guts and told him what had been going on with Annie. How he’d broken all the rules, was dating an employee, and had now really fucked up.

  “You’re not worried about the company, are you?” Matthew asked.

  “Of course I’m worried about the company,” Sam exclaimed. “Think of the story she could tell. She could have a legitimate lawsuit of sexual harassment. Who knows how much it could cost me? Cost the company. I mean, the company itself is isolated, but a scandal involving the CEO would have repercussions on the stock price. You’ve got something to lose here too.”

  The reality of what he’d done set in, and he hung his head. “Look, if I have to, I’ll resign and say it had nothing to do with Samatrix. You can do damage control and be back on track. Or if I settle with her…it would only cost me but save the company.”

  “You’ve never settled on anything before. Why now?” Matthew frowned.

  “I’ve never fucked up so royally. This is different. I don’t settle when people lie about me or try to blackmail me, but this wouldn’t be a false accusation. I did sleep with her, even after finding out she was an employee. I did break into her spare bedroom. I did threaten to have her transferred. She could tell the honest-to-God truth, and I’d be fucked. Why didn’t I just stick to the damn rules?”

  Matthew stared silently out the window for a minute. Good. This was what Sam needed, a second person to look at this from another angle. See if he was missing anything. Figure out a way to get him out of this mess.

  “Do you love this woman?” Matthew finally asked.

  “What?” Sam’s brows narrowed in confusion. “What’s love got to do with it?”

  “Got to do with it, got to do with it,” Matthew sang the next few lines of the Tina Turner song and then chuckled.

  “Dude, focus.”

  “You asked me for help, here’s my advice. Quit being an idiot. From everything you’ve told me, this woman sounds great. She must mean something to you, or you wouldn’t have broken all your stupid rules, and you wouldn’t be here asking me for help.”

  Sam nodded.

  “Well, here’s more advice. Stop assuming the worst. She’s not going to sue the company. She’s not going to accuse you of anything. You need to focus on your real problem.”

  Sam looked up, surprised. “And what’s that?”

  “After everything you’ve said and done, she may not take you back. You invaded her privacy, you doubted her word, and you accused her of lying and getting pregnant.”

  “Well, she did lie. About being married.” Sam sulked.

  “Maybe there’s a good explanation for that. Just like for the crib. You said she wanted to explain, but you wouldn’t let her. Who knows what her reason was?”

  “Hm.” Matthew was probably right.

  “And we’re back to whether or not you love her. Whether you’re going to fight or give up. It won’t be easy to win her trust again. You need to decide right now if she’s worth the effort.”

  Sam picked up his drink and swirled the amber liquid around. Did he love her? He’d only known her for a short time, but in that time, she’d become important to him. He enjoyed spending time with her, he wanted to do things to make her happy, he felt comfortable around her, and lord knows he was physically attracted to her. It wouldn’t seem like it to her, but he trusted her more than he’d trusted any other woman. Was that love?

  And even if it was, how could he repair the damage he’d done? Should he just let this be the end of it? His heart was saying go for it, she’s trustworthy, but his brain wouldn’t stop with the doubts and cynicism. Could he overcome the self-sabotage and get his heart to override his mind?

  Matthew interrupted his thoughts. “The way I see it, you have two options. You can do the bare minimum, go apologize, and smooth things over in order to salvage a working relationship, or decide you want more…that you want to make amends but also move forward with a personal relationship. That road will be harder.” He smiled.

  “Have you ever been in trouble with Lucy? Like, real trouble?”

  “Uh, yeah. We’ve been married for twelve years. Of course I’ve been in trouble. You remember that time I bought a boat when we were just getting started and barely had a nickel to our names? That didn’t go over so well.” He chuckled at the memory.

  “What did you do to get out of the doghouse? I’m thinking flowers won’t be enough.”

  Matthew laughed out loud. “No, they won’t be. At least you’re not a complete idiot. There’s some hope for you. See, I could tell you what I did then, but you have to think about Annie. What would mean something to her? What does she love? What type of gesture would get her to forgive you?”

  “I should just go talk to her and see what she’s thinking. Maybe it’s not as bad as I thought, and she’ll forgive me if I just ask.”

  “Sure. Try that.” Matthew smirked. “So cute. So naive.”

  “Humph. Fine, I’ll think of something. I was hoping to resolve this before I left for New York, but that’s probably not going to happen. Damn. I hate leaving things hanging.”

  “Good thing you have a shit ton of money. That may come in handy. Big gestures are often expensive.” Matthew winked.

  Sam racked his brain, trying to come up with something on the spot. “What if I ask her to marry me?”

  Matthew’s eyes got wide, and he sat up straight and leaned forward. “You want to marry her?”

  “Well, I’m not sure, but that would be a big gesture.”

  Matthew sighed and shook his head. “Sam, when you ask someone to marry you, you’d better be damn sure that’s what you want. A marriage proposal isn’t something to fuck around with and dangle in front of someone as a means of forgiveness. I wouldn’t do that unless you are one hundred percent certain that’s what you want.”

  “Okay, okay. You’re right. That was just off the top of my head. I’m heading to New York this weekend for Mitch’s bachelor party, but I’ll talk to Jake on the way out there and maybe hit up my other brothers for ideas as well. Between the five of us, we’ve got to be able to think of something!”

  “Just remember what I said about making sure it is something specific to Annie. It has to be heartfelt. None of that bullshit flowers and balloons stuff.”

  “Go big or go ho
me. Got it.”

  “And, Sam, if you figure out you do want to marry this woman, I’ll be so happy for you. You deserve someone special to share your life with. Marriage can be tough, but it’s definitely worth it.”

  “Thanks. I knew I could count on you for some good advice. I’ll keep you posted.”

  “You better. And once you pull your head out of your ass and patch things up, invite Annie to dinner at the house. Lucy and I would love to meet her. The woman who caught Sam MacDonald…she must be amazing.”

  “She is. I’ll figure out a way to fix this.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Even after spending several hours at the park thinking about everything, Annie still spent the drive home replaying the conversation with Sam. She’d accused him of not trusting her but couldn’t stop the niggling feeling that the fact that she kept a locked room just for his sake meant that she didn’t totally trust him either.

  Why hadn’t she told him about Avery sooner? She thought maybe he’d feel sorry for her or see her as damaged goods in some way. Or worse, that she’d been a terrible mother. But what did that say about how she saw Sam? She was assuming he’d see the worst in her, and it wasn’t fair to assign feelings to him she didn’t know he had, or would have, had he known about Avery. It appeared the lack of trust might be a two-way street.

  What would Brody Robinson say? She’d spent countless hours listening to Brody’s CDs and reading his books. What would he advise? Think of things from Sam’s point of view. Okay. Seeing the crib would be very confusing to Sam. Understandable. She could also understand why he was pissed thinking she’d lied to him about being married. It was inadvertent on her part, but he wouldn’t know that.

  So many people had tried to take advantage of Sam over the years, he must have to be constantly vigilant over people’s actions and motives. While all that made sense on paper, it was still a discouraging thought that she and Sam hadn’t been as close as she thought.

  Yes, she could have come clean once she found out she was still married. But while that was selfish on her part, that didn’t excuse why he’d taken Wayne’s word over hers. She had to believe he would come to his senses on that, once he calmed down enough to think it through. That it was just another impulsive decision he’d regret.

  After arriving home, she went to the refrigerator for a water bottle. She took a long swig and held the cold bottle to her forehead.

  Another of Brody’s gems came to mind. It was one of her favorites. So much so, that she’d printed it out in a fancy font and had it professionally framed: What you focus on determines how you feel.

  She had used this simple yet powerful mantra so many times over the years. For a split second, she even thought she might be able to save her marriage with it, but no matter how many times she tried to focus on Wayne’s good qualities, she couldn’t escape the deal-breaking negative ones.

  She shut the refrigerator door, let out a gasp, and nearly jumped out of her skin.

  Speak of the devil. Wayne was sitting casually at her kitchen island with an ugly smirk on his face. Gaunt and unshaven, worn down by the consequences of his actions, he looked horrible. It didn’t look like prison had agreed with him.

  “What’s the matter, Annie? Not happy to see your husband after all this time?”

  She remained silent. Should she play his game for a while and see if he would leave peacefully? Trying to get him to leave if he didn’t want to seemed problematic since she couldn’t physically throw him out.

  “Come on. I drove all the way up here to see you. The least you could do is offer me something to drink. Got anything stiffer than water?” He made a curt nod to the water bottle she was gripping tightly with both hands.

  “How did you get in here without the alarm going off?” she asked. She’d turned off the notification alerts, but the alarm still should have sounded if someone was breaking in! All that money and trouble over the fucking alarm system and the very person she was trying to keep out was sitting at her kitchen counter. What the hell?

  “Oh, yeah. That scared me for a second. Lucky for me, you’re very predictable. I tried Avery’s birthday a couple different ways, with and without the zeros, and on my third try the alarm countdown stopped. Shoulda picked a harder code, hon.”

  Shit. That was a stupid mistake on her part. At the time, she’d just wanted to get it done fast and put very little thought in to the code.

  “What do you want, Wayne?”

  He ignored her question and looked her up and down slowly. The thought of him wanting that made her skin crawl, and she cringed. Seeing him again brought back a flood of emotions—none of them good.

  His smug, condescending look threatened to launch her back to her mousy days of hanging on his every word and doing whatever he said. She knew this would happen and had prepared for it. Figuring out what she would say and how she would react to him was what kept her up at night. She took a deep breath.

  “I thought we could reconnect. You know, catch up. It’s been a while.” The way he said it made her stomach turn. “You’ve changed.”

  “You haven’t,” she said bluntly. “You need to go. Now.”

  “See what I mean? You were never such a sassy little thing. You got hot too. What’s up with that?” He rose from the stool, and she stiffened. He noticed and laughed. “What’s the matter, wifey? You afraid of me?” He took a couple of slow steps toward her, and even though it repulsed her, she refused to retreat.

  “Wayne, if you don’t leave now, I’m going to call the police.”

  He froze, and a look of anger flashed over his face. “Okay. Then they will be the first people I tell about you and Sam MacDonald.”

  “What about us? You have no proof of anything. And besides, what would the police care about any of that?”

  “I have a picture of him coming to your house last weekend. The police wouldn’t care, but I’m sure the tabloids would. They’d take my grainy photo and story of Sam’s sordid affair in a heartbeat. They’d probably pay me a nice chunk of change too.”

  “Is that what you want? Money?”

  “Right now, yes. That is high on my priority list. The prison hardly gave us anything, and since my wife left me high and dry, I’m broke.”

  Damn it. This is exactly why she didn’t want Sam involved in this. If she called the police and had him thrown out, she had no doubt that he would sell his story to anyone who would buy it. And she’d bet money the story would be embellished and exaggerated beyond all recognition. If anyone printed Wayne’s version, Sam would be an alien from another planet sent here to take everyone’s money, wives, and daughters.

  The tabloids would print anything, and most reasonable people didn’t believe half the stuff they published, but if a real magazine or newspaper got wind of the story and started poking around, they could probably find evidence of an affair. Not foolproof, see-they-had-sex evidence, but anyone who’d seen them together might corroborate. Pika or any of the staff at the resort in Maui, Sam’s pilot, or secretary. Anyone at the office who overheard their earlier argument—even Beckie could be tricked again! If a reputable source reported it, Sam would have a real PR problem, and she couldn’t do that to him. No matter how mad she was.

  Sam simply having a girlfriend would be big news, but when you add in that the girlfriend is married to a murderer, the juicy factor goes up exponentially. No one would care about the difference between murder and manslaughter.

  “So, you’re blackmailing me. If I call the police, you’ll call the tabloids?”

  “That about sums it up,” he said casually as he opened the refrigerator and perused its contents. “What’s for dinner, love?”

  “If you think I’m making you dinner, you are out of your ever-loving mind,” she said firmly.

  “I’ll just start with these leftovers then. Lasagna? Looks pretty good.”

  “Wayne, what’s your plan?”

  “Well, your boyfriend ruined my Plan A. I’m moving on to Plan B, wh
ich is to get as much money as I can from you and then, depending on how much that is, decide whether or not to ruin Sam’s precious reputation.”

  “Why do all your plans rely on other people giving you money? Why don’t you go back to California and get a fucking job?”

  “Jesus, Annie, when did you start cussing? You kiss your momma with that mouth?”

  “I’m serious, Wayne. Do you plan to get a job?”

  “Sure. Someday. Right now, I need some cash, and since my wife, who appears to be doing all right for herself, didn’t leave me any…”

  “I offered you one hundred thousand dollars to sign the divorce papers, and you turned it down. And you’re the one who wanted a prenup.”

  “Does that offer still stand? Cuz I’ll take it. Hundred grand, and I’m gone.”

  “No. I’m not giving you anything. According to my attorney, we’ll be divorced within the month, whether you sign anything or not. And if I give you money now, it will only be a matter of time before you’re back for more.”

  “What the hell am I supposed to do then, Annie?”

  “Get. A. Job.”

  “You make it sound so easy. I just got out of prison. Who’s gonna wanna hire me?” he whined.

  “Didn’t they work with you before you left prison to make some arrangements for something?”

  “I told them I was going back to my wife, who made plenty of money.”

  “Well, you’d better figure out a Plan C because I’m not giving you anything, and neither is Sam.”

  “We’ll see,” he said ominously.

  How the hell was she going to get him to go? “Well, what’s your more immediate plan? Like right now? Where do you plan to go tonight?”

  “Oh, honey. I’m staying right here with you. In fact, I’m not letting you out of my sight until we work something out.” His tone had a menacing note to it, which put her on edge.

  “What? You can’t mean that! Where have you been staying? Go back to wherever that is.”

  “I’ve been sleeping in a car I borrowed since I got out. Lately, I’ve been staying at a homeless shelter, but I’m not going back there. I can’t risk you calling anyone. Speaking of which, where’s your cell phone?”