by Natalie Ann
“Are you threatening me?” she asked, standing up from her desk as if he said that right in front of her face. “That’s arson and you know it.”
“Don’t be so ignorant. That was always your problem. You were too blind to see what I was offering you to take it and be happy. Fine, I was thrilled to have you gone from my life. What I’m saying is I can ruin your business many states away with just some bad publicity leaked to the press. Check out the link I’m sending you and you’ll understand.”
The phone clicked in her ear, then she heard a ding and looked at the text and clicked the link. Keith Stevens Ex Denies Abuse Claims And Is Now Seen Slumming With a Bartender.
“What the hell!” she shouted. That reporter was so stupid he even got Brody and Cade mixed up. Neither one of them was going to appreciate being associated in a negative light. Didn’t Cade tell her his parents tried their hardest to keep up a good image? That the reputation was everything to them. They barely drank more than one beer in public, owning a bar and brewery no less!
She sat back down at her desk, not even aware she was gripping her phone so tightly, then tossed it over the papers.
“What’s wrong, Alex?”
She turned and saw her mother standing there. “Nothing,” she said.
“I don’t believe you. You look like you’re ready to cry and I heard you yelling before I even got down here.”
There was no way to avoid this, even if she wanted to, and she desperately did. “I just got off the phone with Keith.”
“What does that prick want?” her mother asked. Alex loved it when her mother got angry, which wasn’t often in life.
“It’s not a big deal.”
“It is if you’re swearing and you look like you want to cry,” her mother said again. “He has no business coming back into your life after almost two years.”
“He’s not coming into my life like you think.”
“Then tell me what it is.” She didn’t want to tell her mother but felt she had no choice, so she did. “You need to talk to Cade about this.”
“He already knows some of it. He was with me, hence the reason for this picture. That’s me and Cade in the photo in the background. The reporter is too much of an idiot to realize he confused Brody and Cade. And trust me when I say it’s far from slumming. The guy didn’t even list their names, which was at least one good thing.”
“You said the reporter never came into the bar though, right?”
Cade had told her Brody had never seen the guy, and he’d looked. “Not that any of the recordings showed. Who knows? The reporter could have shown that picture to anyone leaving the bar and asked if they knew who it was. Someone could confuse them if they didn’t know them personally, I guess.” It was the only thing that seemed possible in Alex’s mind.
“I still think you need to tell Cade what is going on.”
“I already told him why the reporter stopped me,” she argued.
“But he doesn’t know about the call and this article in the paper in Texas.”
“True.” Nor did her mother know that the business was threatened. “I don’t know what he could possibly do about it. All it’s going to do is set him off. His name wasn’t released; neither was the name of the bar. It will probably blow over.”
“I doubt it. I don’t understand why anyone is contacting you about Keith. Did you stop to think that maybe there is some truth to these allegations and someone is looking into his past?”
“I guess. I didn’t think much of it. I learned later on I was just window dressing for him. You know all about it. But if he’d ever laid a hand on me, I would have broken every bone in each one of his fingers.”
“And he probably knew that, Alex. The question is, what do you know about his past before you met him at Duke? Maybe he got into trouble as a kid. He had enough money growing up to make things go away. Do you think maybe it’s coming back to haunt him?”
“I don’t know. I don’t really care either. He’s not my concern.”
“He is right now. There is more going on and you know it, but you’re not telling me. For some reason, you feel you need to shield me from it. So be it then, but don’t do it alone. Call Cade.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Don’t think. Do it. You need someone in your corner and you know he will be.”
As much as it pained Alex to agree, she knew her mother was right. Cade would be there for her, but the question was, did she want to drag him into her mess?
Boiling His Blood
On Wednesday, Cade was the first one of his brothers to show up for their meeting. Ella came into his office and asked, “What’s going on? You’re never this early unless you’re excited and I can tell you’re far from excited but are definitely pissed off.”
“I’d rather talk to everyone at once,” he all but growled.
He hadn’t slept a wink last night after Alex called him before bed and told him what happened with Keith’s phone call.
First he was pissed she didn’t call him right away, and then he was ticked enough to want to try to track that reporter down and put his fist through the guy’s face just like Brody had threatened to do to him so much as a kid.
“Does this have to do with that reporter that stopped Alex at the mall on Saturday?”
He should have known Brody would say something to the rest of them, which was only boiling his blood even more. “Yes.”
“Come on,” she said walking forward and putting her hand on his shoulder. “We’ll go in the conference room and relax. They’ll be here soon.”
“I’d rather try to gather some more information,” he said.
He didn’t get very far last night on anything more than finding the social media pages of Delvin Smith and pretty much nothing on Keith Stevens that he didn’t know from past research. Once when Ella brought his name up weeks ago and then a deeper dive a few days ago when Delvin stopped them in the mall parking lot.
“We’re better as a team than on our own. Go get a coffee, maybe get some breakfast and take a few calming breaths. You’re never tense and right now you’re wound tighter than Mom when she is supposed to be keeping a secret from someone and you know she wants to run her mouth.”
He laughed. “You say I get that from her.”
“You do. You can’t keep a secret either.”
He nodded and walked downstairs to grab a cup of coffee. There was no way he was going to even consider touching anything in the kitchen to cook, so he started looking for some food he could grab. “What are you doing down here?” Aiden asked him.
“Looking for food. I’m hungry.”
Aiden looked at him carefully, probably read the same body language as Ella did, and offered, “What do you want? I’ll make you something quick. You’re never here this early.”
“Whatever you can make me before the meeting. I’ll eat it upstairs.”
“Have a seat right here while I cook,” Aiden said.
“I’m not going to talk about it, so don’t ask like Ella. I want to tell all of you at once.”
“That’s fine,” Aiden said, “But you can still sit here and watch me. Maybe you’ll learn something and can impress Alex with it the next time you make her breakfast.”
Cade let out a laugh. “You taught me all the basics. I doubt there is anything you can teach me to make in this short of time.”
“Don’t insult me,” Aiden said.
A few minutes before the meeting, Cade was walking up the stairs with pancakes stuffed with layers of fruit and whipped cream in his hand. Somehow Aiden managed to make the whipped cream by hand while he cooked pancakes and sliced fruit. Cade couldn’t multi-task like that if he wanted to.
“Where’s mine?” Ella asked when she saw them walk by the door.
“You wouldn’t have eaten it even if I made you a plate,” Aiden said.
“True. But I would have eaten the fruit.”
“Then go down and get some. It’s in the bowl on the co
unter. I didn’t have time to clean up. Not unless I wanted to get yelled at for being late,” Aiden said.
“Wow,” Ella said. “You left a mess. You never leave a mess. What does that tell you, Cade? Aiden left a mess just for you.”
“Yeah, I know. Thanks,” he said to Aiden, then walked past him into the conference room. He still heard Aiden ask Ella what was going on, but she wouldn’t be able to tell him since she didn’t know.
A few minutes later, Brody and Mason walked in, each with pancakes that Aiden had left downstairs for the guys to grab on the way up when they came, along with the fruit for Ella.
Once everyone was seated at the table, Mason looked at him. “You’re here early enough for Aiden to voluntarily make you breakfast. Something is going on, so you better tell us and get it over with.”
It was almost scary how well his family knew him. But the truth was they knew each other so well, there wasn’t any need to worry about keeping secrets.
While he ate his breakfast, he gathered his thoughts, which he didn’t do often in front of family, then told them what happened the past few days.
“Seriously?” Brody asked sarcastically. “How could someone confuse the two of us?”
“It’s not the time, Brody,” Mason said. “Only you would get annoyed over that.”
“Speak for yourself,” Cade said. “I don’t need to be compared to the Neanderthal over there.”
Brody just laughed and went back to eating his pancakes.
“So now what do we do?” Aiden asked. “This guy threatened Alex and her business. Why? What could be his reason?”
“I’m not sure,” Cade said. “Alex insisted that Keith never raised a hand to her and I believe it.”
“She’d kick any guy in the balls faster than me if that happened,” Ella said.
“No one could kick a guy in the balls as fast as you,” Cade said, snickering. He knew first hand.
“Ella,” Aiden said, “you hold the record for the fastest feet in Charlotte. Maybe even the US.”
She smiled. “I had no choice when it was four against one.”
“Let’s get back to Cade’s problem,” Mason said.
“Yeah,” Cade said. “Can we focus on me here? I just need to know more about this guy Keith. Why a reporter thinks he needs to track down Alex and ask that. Keith is engaged right now, why not go after the fiancée?”
“I’m sure he did,” Ella said, “and I’m sure he got nowhere. She’s probably sticking by her man. I looked into Keith myself when I heard the name weeks ago.”
“Really?” Cade asked, not surprised in the least. “What did you find?”
“Not a lot on him, but more on his fiancée. You need to know where to look, Cade. The society pages had an article on how they met and some of her background. Working middle class. Very attractive. Played sports, extremely active, but also could be feminine. Kind of quiet in general, but could mingle when needed.”
“Sounds like Alex,” Brody said.
“Exactly,” Ella said. “So I tried to find more on Keith. I didn’t get very far. But the bottom line is, if what you’re saying is this guy is running for the Senate and he comes from money, he’s targeting the middle class. He is showing he can relate to them and is marrying someone from that class to prove his point.”
“You think he sought Alex out?” Cade asked. “To exploit her background for his own gain? Even back in college?”
“It sounds it, in a sick twisted way,” Aiden said.
“Why did they break up?” Ella asked. “Did Alex tell you?”
Cade hadn’t wanted to share too much on a personal level that Alex had told him, but felt that he didn’t have a choice at this point. “Let’s just say you figured it out. Or started to. When she rebelled about being put on display and said that she didn’t want to be in the public eye, he ended things very quickly and very sharply.”
No one else said a word and he was glad for that. “I think the first thing we need to do is see if anyone else even tries to contact Alex,” Brody said. “If they’re going to leave her alone, then maybe it’s over with.”
“Would you leave it alone if Pick came back into town and started showing up at the bar?” he asked Brody. “Or if Nic’s mother showed up at your door when she got out of prison?” he asked Aiden. “No, you wouldn’t. Because you know deep down there would be a reason for it. Something is in this guy’s past and I don’t want this hanging over her head.”
“Let me talk to Travis,” Ella said. “I’m sure he can find out a lot more than any of us. If Keith has any type of past he’s trying to cover up, Travis may be our best bet or at least fastest option for the moment.”
Travis McKinley was the owner of the security company they used. The same guy that helped Mason out when he was being attacked during a robbery in the brewery a short time ago. The same guy that Ella hated to spend any more time with than necessary.
“I can call and ask him if you want. I know you try to avoid him in general,” Cade said.
“I’ll do it,” Ella said. “You try to figure out anything else from Alex for me to pass on to Travis. If we can get the ball rolling now, maybe it would be better to be on the offense than defense.”
Cade looked around the table at everyone. “Thanks, guys.”
“The Fierce Five stick together,” Ella said.
“If Cade doesn’t blow this,” Brody said, “we might be adding another woman to the mix.”
Everyone laughed around the table. He’d love nothing more than making Alex a permanent fixture in his family, but now he had a better understanding of why she wasn’t knocking down the wall of steel in his way but might just be adding several layers.
Feel Like a Fool
“Why would your family do this for me?” Alex asked him later that night.
“Because they like you and they love me,” Cade said, grinning.
She wasn’t sure what to make of his smirk right now. Or the fact that his family liked her so much. Someone that was barely holding her life and her parents’ business together. “That’s nice, but this isn’t anything for them to get involved in.”
“It is,” he argued. “They know how I feel about you even if you don’t want to talk about it, let alone admit it.”
She didn’t know what to say at that moment. She didn’t think now was the time to even consider talking about their relationship. “Even after your family is being dragged into this?”
“First off. Our name wasn’t in the article, just my picture. It wasn’t even that good of a picture, so if I’m annoyed over anything, it’s that.”
She shook her head. Sometimes he could make her laugh at the craziest of times. “What’s the second thing? You said first.”
“Second of all. I’m not someone who walks away when I’m annoyed, upset, don’t get my way, or what I want. Well, that isn’t true. I know what I want, but I’m going to work even harder to get it now.”
Her face flushed, but she didn’t comment on that. “What do you need from me now?” She’d rather focus on her problem with Keith than a potential one with Cade.
He stared at her long—long enough that she was squirming, thinking he was going to put her on the spot, but instead he said, “Tell me anything that stands out about Keith. His family business. Any stories he told you about growing up. Anything at all. You’re a good judge, so tell me something that might have seemed odd at the time, rather than everything you know.”
She never thought of it that way. “It’s easier when you say it like that. I’ve been trying to think of everything and was just getting confused. I guess one of the things that stood out the most was how he was always so nice and accommodating in the beginning. Then when he got what he wanted—when I moved there, and he was annoyed that I wouldn’t move without a job—that’s when he started to change.”
“Did he ever berate you? Talk down to you?”
“Not until we were done. Then he was a whole different person.”
&nb
sp; She remembered that now. That the last week when Keith had told her she had a month to get out, she rushed because he was nasty, cruel even. Not to her face, but he was saying or doing things in the community, she knew. She couldn’t go anywhere without someone looking at her differently. People she didn’t even know were staring at her then like she’d robbed a bank and gotten away with everyone’s last dime, including their children’s piggy banks.
She could barely show her face at her job and it wasn’t like many knew she was even dating Keith. She was too embarrassed to voice this all to Cade though. That she’d been so wrong about the guy she thought she was going to marry.
“What else?” Cade asked.
“He didn’t talk about his exes. He talked in general, but never listed names and never gave specifics. I always thought it was strange. Most guys at least slip and say a name, but he never did.”
“That is odd. Do you think he made up the fact that he even had exes?”
“No. I believe he did. I can’t explain it, but he’s the type of guy that probably had a lot. I just always felt he was a private person. That is one of the reasons I thought we got along so well. It’s how I am.”
“But he really wasn’t that way by the sounds of it? He was just masquerading behind someone he thought you wanted.”
“That’s a good word for it. I feel like a fool when I look back now. That I wasted so much time with him.”
“You loved him, didn’t you?” Cade asked, his face not showing a lot of emotion, but she got the feeling he was putting a mask on right now too.
“I thought I did. It’s like I was more in love with the idea of getting out of here and starting a whole new life. One where I didn’t have to worry about every dime I had. That’s wrong and selfish of me, but at the root of it, I think that might have been a huge driving force back then.”
“It’s not wrong to want to get ahead in life,” he said, his hand reaching for hers. “The five of us did everything we could to give my parents that life.”
