by Natalie Ann
“But you all reaped the rewards too.”
He smiled. “We did. We do. But it was for them, not us. They’re great parents and we just wanted them happy. We all got together and figured if we did this, it’s a legacy to pass on to our kids someday too.”
“Do you want a family and kids?” she asked, surprised to hear him say that. The playboy that got around. She wouldn’t be surprised if she was the longest he’d ever been with someone.
“Of course.”
She nodded and didn’t say anything else, not even knowing what to say.
***
A few days later, Travis McKinley knocked on the door to Cade’s condo. He rushed forward and opened it, still taken back at the sheer size of the man he’d dubbed Mountain Man to the rest of the family.
Travis had the same military haircut he’d been sporting for God only knows how long. Cade had no way of knowing how old Travis was. He was guessing early to mid-thirties. The guy smiled, when he wanted to, which wasn’t as often as Cade would have liked.
But Travis did good work and saved Mason’s ass big time. The family would always be in debt to him for that.
“Come on in,” Cade said, holding the door open. “I appreciate you doing this for me. You didn’t say anything to Ella about coming here tonight, did you?”
“Do I look stupid?” Travis said, his deep voice almost bouncing off the walls. “Your sister scares me, so the last thing I want to do is get on her bad side. You’re not going to tell her I was here, are you?”
He caught the twitching of Travis’s lips and laughed. “No way. I know from personal experience how scary she is so I don’t get on her bad side either.”
“Leave Ella alone,” Alex said, crossing her arms. “She’s not here to defend herself.”
“Speaking of women that have me scared,” Cade said. “Travis, this is Alex.”
Travis walked forward and held his hand out. “Nice to meet you,” Alex said. “Thanks for doing this. Though I’m not sure what Cade thinks it’s going to accomplish.”
“It will accomplish something, trust me,” Travis said.
“Can I get you a drink?” Cade asked.
“Anything of Mason’s will do,” Travis said and then took a seat.
Cade came back with a beer for Travis and himself. Alex had water in her hand so he was guessing she was sticking with it. “So you did find something?”
“I did,” Travis said, putting a folder on the table. “I’ll let you go through that on your own time. There is also a summary on top.”
“You’re pretty thorough. I can’t understand why Ella gets so annoyed with you,” Cade said.
Alex slapped his arm. “Cade!”
“Sorry,” Cade said grimacing. “It just slipped.”
“I told you she scares me,” Travis said, taking a long drink out of the bottle. “I can’t figure out what it is about me that sets her off.” He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. The gist of it is, Keith had a case of assault when he was a juvenile sealed pretty tight.”
“How did you get it then?” Alex asked.
“Some things are best not shared. And whatever you do with that information, I’ll ask you don’t share who got it for you. I pulled a few strings as it was, and if it comes back to me or them, it could make it harder for me in the future in my line of work.”
“No need to worry. I’m going to forget you were here tonight,” Cade said.
“Just like your sister,” Travis mumbled. “Anyway. Keith was interested in a girl in high school. Guess the girl didn’t share that interest.”
“She was just middle class, right? Maybe her family barely getting by?” Alex asked. “But pretty, could look good on his arm?”
“Yep,” Travis said. “Keith has a type, sorry to say.”
“It is what it is,” Alex said. “So what happened?”
“She turned him down one too many times. This girl was at a party he was attending. There was alcohol and possibly some recreational drugs involved. She said no; he didn’t hear her. She went home with a black eye and some bruising in more places than that.”
“Did he rape her?” Cade asked, starting to feel ill that Alex was involved with someone like that.
“There was no mention of rape. The girl wouldn’t consent to a rape kit and didn’t even want to go to the police. It was months later that she did. Your guess is as good as mine why she waited or even went after that amount of time.”
“So what happened when they reported it?” Alex asked.
“A rookie took the report at the police station. He didn’t know any better to call someone up when the name Stevens came across his desk. They would have swept it under the rug before it was filed if they could have. But since it was filed, there was a lot of paperwork to get it sealed. Charges were dropped and the girl and her family moved out of the area at the end of the school year. Not only that, there were rumors of a nice payout for silence.”
“Why buy someone off if you’re not guilty?” Cade asked.
“Again, your guess is as good as mine. You can read more in detail there,” Travis said.
“Anything else on Keith?” Alex asked. Cade looked over and saw her face was whiter than the inside of a coconut at this point.
“No. Nothing,” Travis said. “Either he kept his nose clean and learned his lesson, or he’s better at buying people off.”
“I didn’t get bought off. Not that I’d take any money from him. But he didn’t do anything like that to me. Even when we started dating, he was a gentleman. Like I told Cade, I didn’t see another side to him until I told him I didn’t want what he was asking of me.”
“Some people mature when they’ve got their eyes on a prize,” Travis said. “Either way. It’s your information to do what you want with it. Hope it helps.”
Trust Me
A week later, Cade found himself getting off a plane in Dallas. He breathed in the warm air a few times, made sure he was steady, but overall he wasn’t feeling that bad.
Once he was in his rental car, he drove to Keith Stevens’s office. He’d called and made an appointment, lying through his teeth that he wanted to help fund Keith’s campaign. He was banking on the fact that Keith would like having donations from “working class” businesses.
“Cade Fierce here to see Keith Stevens,” he said twenty minutes later to a secretary.
“Hi, Mr. Fierce. He’ll be with you in about five minutes. Can I get you a drink? Some water, maybe? Coffee or tea?”
“No, I’m good,” Cade said. He planned on being in and out of here in less than twenty minutes and catching the next flight back home…after he took another Zofran.
“Cade,” Keith said, walking out of his office with his hand held out. He was wearing a thousand-dollar suit, easily. Cade knew; he had one or two of them himself. He didn’t bother with it today. There was an image he needed to portray and middle class didn’t wear suits like that. Not that his family business was considered middle class anymore with the brewery expansion.
Keith got a better look at him and his smile dropped. Good, the asshole recognized him from the picture in the paper.
“Nice to meet you, Keith,” Cade said, smirking. “I’m hoping you and I can come to some sort of agreement today.”
Keith nodded but turned to his secretary. “Let me know when Mr. Collins arrives. I’m sorry, Cade, but I can only spare you about five minutes today.”
“It won’t take that long,” Cade said following the guy in. He knew a ploy when he saw one.
Keith shut his door. “So Alex sent you here to talk to me?” Keith was fighting back a grin. If he thought Brody was cocky, it was nothing like Keith was projecting. He couldn’t wait to wipe it off Keith’s face.
“No,” Cade said. “I’m here because I’m telling you right now, you’re going to stop calling Alex. You’re going to leave her and her name alone, not to mention her business. Matter of fact, you’re going to forget she even exists, let alone spent three years of
her life with you.”
He was talking calmly, something he only did when he was in a situation like this. It was funny, now that he thought of it. The more serious the situation, the calmer he was at this point in his life.
Keith snorted. “And why would I do that? You have no idea who you’re talking to.”
“Actually, I think it’s you that has no idea who you’re talking to. If you were smarter, you’d have done some research on my name when I made the appointment and realized that I was the person in the picture.”
Keith’s face flushed. “I leave that to my staff.”
“Then maybe you need better staff.”
“You’re just a bartender. What do you think you can say that will interest me?”
“That’s where you’re wrong. I’m an attorney. You should get your facts straight. There are five of us and we’re all pretty damn special and carry a lot of weight in our own way.”
Keith snorted. “I’ve come across a lot of attorneys in my life who think they carry weight when they don’t carry more than a backpack full of papers.”
Cade laughed. “You know Chelsea, right?”
“Chelsea who?” Keith asked.
“Chelsea the rising country singer.”
“Who hasn’t heard of her?” Keith asked, looking a little confused.
“Your fiancée has a thing for Chelsea’s music, doesn’t she?”
“Leave Angie out of this.”
“You’re the one playing dirty here, not me. Though anyone can do a little research on people if they look hard enough. But you see, Chelsea got her start in our bar. That’s where she was discovered two years ago. She’s kept in touch. She’s actually a good personal friend of the family.”
“What’s your point?”
“My point is, she seems to like your opponent and is willing to endorse him and play at some events held in his honor. That would be a real kick to your ‘in it for the working class’ campaign to have someone who came from her background to where she is now supporting your opponent in her home state of Texas, huh?”
“I don’t care about that,” Keith said.
“I think you do. But if you want to lie about it, that’s fine. What I think you really do care about is this information,” Cade said, dropping it on Keith’s desk.
Keith eyed it for a second, then picked it up and looked inside. His face turned the color of the shirts at Fierce. He’d have to work on his poker face if he wanted to get further into politics. “Where did you get this?”
“I’m glad to know you aren’t going to try to insult me and say it’s not true. And where I got it is none of your business.”
“What do you want?” Keith asked.
“I told you. Forget Alex exists. If someone contacts her, she’ll answer the way she wants, and you should know by now, she doesn’t give a shit about you, but she’d never say anything negative either. She won’t hurt your campaign. You’re doing a good enough job of it yourself.” Cade stared the smaller man down, wondering what the hell Alex had seen in him. When the phone rang, Cade said, “I believe that’s your make-believe appointment, so I’ll get on my way.”
“How will I know you won’t try to blackmail me or go public with this?” Keith asked.
“All you’ve got to do is keep up your end of the deal and I’ll keep mine. Guess you’ll have to trust me,” Cade said, then let himself out.
***
“You did what!?” Alex screamed the minute Cade told her how he spent his day.
“Can you lower your voice?” he said, sitting back on the couch. “My head is killing me.”
“It serves you right,” she said, stalking about his place. “I can’t believe you thought you could just take it upon yourself to deal with this. To think I needed a man to come in and save the day. To save me.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, wincing. She wasn’t going to feel sorry that he looked like hell. Too damn bad. He could have told her what he was doing.
“You flew there today?” she asked, barely stopping her teeth from grinding.
“And back. I never stopped moving. Don’t I get some sympathy?” he asked, his voice low. He did look a lovely shade of light green, but she wasn’t caving.
“No. No one told you to fly there and back. No one told you to confront him. To threaten him. My God, things could get worse for me! Did you even think of that?”
“I did. And I took a calculated risk. It’s not going to get worse. He has way too much to lose and you know it. He was just being an ass and a bully to you. Like he is to all the women in his life.”
“I could have handled it,” she said. She thought she could, somehow.
“Fine. I believe it. You could have, but I did it faster. Can you please stop yelling now?” he asked.
“I’ll stop yelling because I’m done. I might even be done with you.”
“What?” he asked, sitting up fast.
She didn’t bother to turn around and look at him, only slammed out the door.
***
He was sleeping on the couch when he heard his front door open. He blinked his eyes open, hoping it was Alex.
Nope. It was his mother.
“What do you want?” he asked her, his voice raspy.
“I came here to give you a piece of my mind.”
“Can it wait until tomorrow when I don’t feel like shit?”
She laughed and turned the light on in his living room, causing him to look at his watch and see it was almost eight. He’d felt so wretched that he couldn’t even get off the couch after Alex left. If he thought the nausea was bad, it wasn’t anything like what he felt knowing he just lost her doing something he thought was right.
“No, it can’t. You need someone to talk some sense into you.”
“Go on. As if I haven’t been yelled at enough tonight,” he said. He didn’t even want to know how she found out what happened. She always did somehow.
“Cade. It was completely stupid and irresponsible for you to go there today and confront Keith. Not only that, you could have put your siblings and Fierce in jeopardy. Did you think of that? Did you once think of anyone other than yourself?”
He sat up fast, realized the room wasn’t spinning, and said with more force than necessary, “I had their backing. Brody and Aiden offered to go too. Mason would have offered, but he didn’t want to leave Jessica.”
His mother paused; she wasn’t often at a loss for words. “What about Ella?”
“We didn’t tell her.”
“That’s wrong,” his mother said, her lips twitching.
“She didn’t need to be there.”
“Because she’s a woman?” her mother asked, her hands on her hips now. Oh boy, Hurricane Jolene was building up steam.
“No. Because she’s meaner than us all.”
“She is that. Takes after her mother.”
Cade snorted. “She takes after Dad there. You’re not mean or sneaky. That’s all Dad. You wind up and down fast. Dad holds onto it and so does Ella.”
“Your father isn’t mean at all,” his mother said. “It’s just gruffness now and again. You should have seen him when we first met. He’s much better now.”
He wasn’t in the mood to argue with her about this. “It doesn’t matter. The bottom line is, it was no place for her. I went alone. I dealt with it.”
“Why did you do it?” his mother asked. “Why go at all?”
“Because I love Alex and when you love someone you stand in front of them. You stand for them. No one was going to come into her life and start messing with what she’s worked so hard for while I’m around.”
For some reason, his mother was trying to hide her smile. “Those are good reasons.”
“Not if she’s done with me because of it.”
“What?” his mother asked, her back getting straighter. “She wouldn’t dare break up with you over defending her honor.”
“Yeah well, if I remember correctly she said she was done yelling and
done with me and then she slammed out of here.” He felt his eyes starting to fill again. He had no clue it could hurt this much.
“Cade,” his mother said, her voice softer. “Love hurts like hell at the best of times. You can’t let it end this way though. You’ve got to go fight for her.”
He snorted. “It seems like all I do is fight for her. I’m sick of driving down a one-way street.”
“I don’t think you are,” she said.
“It sure the hell feels that way.”
“You’ve always been the one of my kids that got their teeth in something and never let go. You’re going to let go this time?”
“What choice do I have? I’ve been with her long enough to know that she’s holding back. I didn’t know the reason, but I do now.”
“What’s that?” she asked.
“She knows all about me and my past. She brings it up enough about me not taking things seriously.”
“Yet you took this threat against her seriously,” his mother pointed out.
“True,” he said. “She has only wanted to be friends though.”
“You’ve been dating darn close to three months. I’d say that’s more than friends.”
“Right again,” he said. He’d thought of all of this before. Why hadn’t he ever said it to Alex though?
“She was used by Keith. He only wanted one thing from her and she’s holding herself back because of it.”
“She told you that?” his mother asked.
“Not necessarily those words.”
“Then don’t assume and make an ass out of yourself.”
“I’m used to making an ass out of myself. It’s what I’m so good at.”
She walked over and pinched his arm. “Stop pitying yourself. Stop making excuses. You’re not that person anymore. I don’t know how many times I need to tell you that. It’s time you start believing it.”
“I do believe it,” he argued.
“Could have fooled me,” she said.
“What do you want from me?” he asked, dropping his head back down.
“I want you to go talk to Alex and tell her how you feel. I’m betting she has no clue.”
