Finding Forever: Treading Water Series, Book 5

by Force, Marie

  “Wait a minute,” Jill said. “Back it up. He said he would leave if it doesn’t work out? Does that mean you’ve talked about it being more than just coworkers?”

  “Maybe,” Maggie said.

  “Tell us everything,” Kate said. “What did he say? What did you say?”

  Maggie rolled her eyes and sighed. Too late to turn back now. “He asked me to go out with him when he gets back.”

  “What’d you say?” Jill asked.

  “I haven’t given him an answer.”

  “Why?” Kate asked. “You said you liked him. You’ve spent hours talking to him while he’s been away. And don’t say it’s because you work together. You’re both adults and professionals, and he already said he’d leave if things don’t work out. What’s the problem?”

  “When Ashton did the background check, he discovered that Brayden has a sealed juvenile record.”

  “What?” Jill’s mouth fell open in shock. “And he encouraged you to hire him and work with kids and—”

  “Easy, Counselor.” Maggie held up a hand to stop her sister’s tirade. “We discussed it and agreed that the twelve years he’s been an adult mattered more than whatever happened when he was a kid. His reputation, credentials, education and references are all impeccable.”

  Jill sat back, still seeming incredulous. “I want to know what he did. Does he know that you know about his record?”

  Maggie nodded. “I asked him about it before I hired him. He won’t talk about it. He said he never talks about it.”

  “That’s a deal breaker for me,” Jill said, looking to Kate for agreement.

  Kate appeared to be wavering.

  “Kate! Come on. She can’t take up with a guy with a record!”

  “His adult criminal record is clean?” Kate asked.

  “Completely, or I wouldn’t have hired him. The testimonials on his website from grateful parents are incredible. They say he changed their children’s lives with his skill, passion and dedication. I called all his references, and they said the same, that he was magic with the kids. I’ve seen that for myself in just a few days. He was only available because his previous employer lost funding for their program, and he was holding out for something around here so he could move back home to the Nashville area. He has friends here.”

  Jill and Kate were quiet as they absorbed the info.

  “I say it’s not a deal breaker,” Kate said.

  “Kate! Be serious! It is a deal breaker, especially because he won’t tell her what he did.”

  “We all made mistakes when we were kids. I made them, you made them, Maggie made them. No one is perfect.”

  “None of us ended up in juvie!”

  “What was it that Gram used to say? ‘There but for the grace of God go I’? We got lucky. We never got caught.”

  “I never did anything that could’ve landed me in juvie,” Jill said.

  “I did,” Kate said.

  Maggie raised her hand. “Me, too.”

  Jill eyed them skeptically. “What did you guys do?”

  “I’m gonna take the Fifth on that, Counselor,” Kate said.

  Maggie gave her a high five. “With you there, sister. The statute of limitations hasn’t fully expired.”

  “Joke all you want,” Jill said. “I don’t like it, and I cannot believe Ashton didn’t tell me this.”

  “I’m his client, not you,” Maggie said. “He was under no obligation to tell you.”

  “You’re my baby sister.”

  Maggie scowled at her. “I’m not a baby anymore, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

  Jill scoffed. “You’ll always be my baby sister. He should’ve told me you had a criminal living in your midst over there.”

  Maggie bristled at that, feeling oddly defensive of him. “He’s not a criminal, Jill. Don’t say that.”

  “What do you think Dad would say if he knew about this?”

  Maggie gave her a pointed look. “He’s not going to know about it, do you hear me?”

  “He won’t hear it from me, but I can’t promise he won’t hear it from someone else.”

  “How would he hear it? No one else he knows is aware of it.”

  “Ashton is.”

  “And he’s got a bit of a reputation for tattling,” Kate said.

  Jill turned on Kate. “Are you seriously holding that against him? Of course he was going to tell Dad that you were dating his father! Dad asked him to keep an eye on you.”

  “I’m not holding it against him,” Kate said. “I’m merely pointing out that he has a track record.”

  “He would tell you he learned a lot from that incident and would never interfere in someone’s relationship like that again. Be fair, Kate. That was more than ten years ago.”

  “This trip down memory lane is great fun,” Maggie said sarcastically, “but it does nothing to help with my dilemma.”

  “I say you don’t go out with him until he tells you what he did,” Jill said. “That’d be a hard stop for me.”

  Maggie looked to Kate. “What do you think?”

  “I think it matters that he’s not willing to tell you what happened, but I don’t think you have anything to fear from him. If you felt concerned about that, you never would’ve hired him to work with the kids.”

  “Right.”

  “So go out with him and put him on notice that if it seems like this thing between you is going to be something significant, he’s going to have to tell you everything.”

  “I, um, I think it might already be something significant, and I’m just not sure I’m ready for that.” She wrapped her arms around her legs, curling into the corner of Kate’s comfy sofa. “We’ve had these incredible conversations while he was away. We talk for hours about so many things. I told him about our family, what happened after Mom’s accident and all that.”

  “Wow, you don’t like to talk about that stuff,” Kate said.

  “I know. It was weird. I just found myself telling him like it’s no big deal when I’ve hardly told anyone about it.”

  “You feel a connection to him,” Kate said.

  “I do. I have from the beginning, from even before I met him, if I’m being completely honest.”

  “How do you mean?” Jill asked.

  “I felt it the first time I talked to him on the phone, this odd sense of familiarity with someone I’d never even met.”

  “Go out with him, spend time with him, get to know him,” Kate said. “Follow your gut.”

  “My gut let me down big-time with Ethan,” Maggie reminded her.

  “There was a reason why you hadn’t invited him into your apartment,” Kate said. “That was your gut telling you not to. You were following your gut. What he did has nothing at all to do with that.”

  “You really think so?”

  Kate nodded. “I do, Maggie. You’re a savvy, street-smart woman after living in New York City for six years. You can’t let what one guy did undermine your self-confidence. Look at the way you fought him off and left him in a heap on the floor.”

  “I agree with that,” Jill said. “You shouldn’t let what happened with that asshole ruin your self-esteem. You survived that, and he was the one who got injured.”

  “It scared me to realize how quickly it happened.”

  “Of course it did.” Kate reached for Maggie and embraced her. “It had to be completely terrifying. But instead of focusing on how it happened, think about how it ended.”

  “I did put a wicked hurt on him.”

  Kate laughed. “Yes, you did.”

  Maggie continued to lean against Kate. “You really think I ought to say yes to Brayden?”

  “I do,” Kate said.

  “Jill?”

  “I want to know what he did—and I want to know sooner rather than later. I think you need to make that nonnegotiable.”

  “I hear you, and I agree that he’s going to have to tell me at some point.”

  “Do you feel any better, Mags?” Kate asked.


  “I do. Thanks for listening, you guys.”

  “We’re always here for you, no matter what,” Jill said. “Don’t ever feel like we’re too busy for you. The three of us have been a team for a long time. No matter what else changes, that never will.”

  Kate kissed the top of Maggie’s head. “Love you.”

  Maggie smiled. “Love you, too.”

  Chapter 19

  “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me he has a freaking record,” Jill said to Ashton the second the car doors slammed shut for the ride home. They’d been out doing errands before dinner, or they would’ve walked to Kate’s.

  “Who has a record?”

  “Brayden! You knew this and didn’t tell me!”

  “It’s a juvie record. His adult record is clean.”

  “Still, you should’ve told me! He’s working and living right near my sister, not to mention the residents. I can’t believe she actually hired him knowing this about him.”

  Ashton started the car but let it idle as he turned to face her. “First of all, Maggie was my client, and as such, I was under no obligation to share the results of his background check with you.” When she started to object, he held up a hand to stop her. “Second of all, Maggie and I discussed it in depth, and she made a reasonable decision based on the information we had about his adult record, which showed twelve years of impeccable credentials. There’s no story here, Jill.”

  “Yes, there is. She asked him about what he did, and he refused to tell her.”

  “Which is entirely his right. Juvie records are sealed for a reason. You know that. How thankful am I, are all of us, that all our boneheaded mistakes as teenagers aren’t being held against us now?”

  “You never did anything to end up in juvie.”

  “Come on, Jill. I never got caught. That’s the only difference between me and him.”

  “You don’t know that, because we have no idea what he did.”

  “I know what he’s done as an adult. He’s gotten undergraduate and graduate degrees in animal science. Look up what’s involved with that major. I wouldn’t have lasted a semester before flunking out. His employment history is solid, as are his references, all of which Maggie and I checked before hiring him. People raved about his work with horses and kids. There’s nothing to worry about where he’s concerned.”

  “She’s interested in him. Romantically.”

  “Oh.”

  “And you’re okay with my baby sister potentially dating a man who’s keeping a former criminal record hidden from her?”

  Ashton thought about that for a second. “I would say that Maggie is a fully grown adult who can decide for herself if she’s willing to date him while knowing he’s keeping that info private.”

  “What if he killed someone?”

  “He’d probably still be in lockup or, at the very least, on probation. They don’t just let juvenile murderers run free after they become adults.”

  “I’m going to google him and find out what he did.”

  “I already did a full search. There’s no record of it anywhere. I had to really dig to find the juvenile record even existed.”

  Jill blew out a deep breath. “I don’t like this.”

  “Yes, I can see that.” Ashton put the car into Drive and headed for home.

  On the short ride, Jill thought about what Ashton had said about Brayden’s impeccable adult record and tried to settle the nagging feeling she had that he was keeping it hidden for more reasons than just privacy.

  “You should’ve told me about this.”

  “No, I shouldn’t have. Maggie is going to be my sister-in-law. She asked me to do a job for her, and I did it. If I go running to you with every little thing that comes up between us, she’ll never trust me to have her best interests at heart when I do work for her.”

  “Once upon a time, you wouldn’t have kept something like this to yourself.”

  He pulled up to their house, cut the engine and looked over at her. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “Kate reminded me of your role in breaking up her and Reid the first time around.”

  “That’s kind of a low blow, Jill. That happened more than a decade ago, and I’ve said more than once that I wouldn’t do it again if I had it to do over. Not sure how long I’m going to have to pay for that mistake.”

  He got out of the car, slammed the door and walked toward the house, not waiting for her the way he usually did.

  Jill followed him inside, locked the door, shut off the porch light and went into the master bedroom. She changed into a nightgown and robe, slid her feet into slippers and went to find him.

  He was in the living room watching SportsCenter, which was a deviation from their usual routine of going straight to bed when they got home at night. He always said he couldn’t wait to be in bed with her, but apparently, that wasn’t the case tonight.

  Jill sat next to him on the sofa, for once uncertain of what to say to him.

  He stared straight ahead at the TV.

  “I shouldn’t have brought up what happened in the past. I’m sorry about that.”

  “It’s okay. It happened. I own that I was wrong to call your dad about Kate being with my dad. I fucked up their lives for years. I get it.”

  “They would tell you a number of things screwed them up, not just you.”

  “What I did was the worst.”

  Jill moved closer to him, put an arm across his middle and rested her head on his chest. She was relieved when he wrapped his arm around her. “I’m sorry I brought that up. I know it’s a sore spot, and I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “It’s really okay.”

  “I’m worried about Maggie.”

  “I don’t think you need to be. She’s a very capable woman who survived on her own in New York City for years.”

  “She told us tonight that a guy she dated there attacked her last December. She fought him off, but the whole thing was deeply upsetting.”

  “Damn. She just told you this now?”

  “Yeah, it happened right before she came here for the wedding and Christmas, and she didn’t want to upset everyone’s good time.”

  “Poor Maggie. That’s awful.” He ran his hand up and down Jill’s arm. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think you need to worry about Brayden. Whatever happened was years ago, and his life since then has been about horses and kids. People like him, they trust him with their kids, and more important, horses like him. Animals are the best judge of character. They run on pure instinct.”

  “That’s true.”

  “I know you think I should’ve told you about his juvie record, but I still don’t agree. I was in a tough spot on this, since Maggie was my client. His adult record was clean. That’s what mattered to me—and her.”

  “I understand why you didn’t tell me, I guess.”

  “I talked to him the other night. I let him know I knew about his past and that I’d be watching him.”

  “You did that? Really?”

  “I did. I get what Maggie means to you, to all of you. I put him on notice that someone else knows about his record. I thought it might help.”

  Jill raised her head and kissed his cheek. “Thank you for doing that.”

  “Are you still pissed with me?”

  “No. Are you still pissed with me?”

  “Kinda,” he said, flashing the sexy grin that made her melt. “But I can think of a number of ways you can make it up to me, Counselor.”

  When he leaned in to kiss her, Jill met him halfway, relieved to be back to normal with him, even if she was still concerned about what Maggie might be getting into with Brayden Thomas.

  Maggie hadn’t heard from Brayden in a few days, so she had no idea what time on Sunday he was due home. She kept herself busy all day with laundry and returning emails from friends and catching up on magazines. Late in the afternoon, she took off for a ride on Thunder, which was a welcome relief from waiting and wondering if she would see Br
ayden when he returned, or if she’d ruined things with him before they ever got started.

  For the first time since she’d lived on the Matthews estate, she ventured into the thicket of trees on the south end of the property, following a well-worn trail through towering oak and pine trees. Sunbeams came through the trees, creating a magical sight as she rode slowly to take it all in.

  Why hadn’t she come this way sooner? she wondered.

  She followed the path for more than a mile, breathing in the fragrance of pine and dirt and decomposing vegetation. After another bend in the trail, she gasped at the sight of a huge meadow full of wildflowers with a pond in the middle of it. Thunder seemed to know where he was going, so she let him take her where he wanted to go, which was straight to the pond for a sip of water.

  Maggie dismounted and waited with him while he drank. After he was done, she tied his lead to a nearby shade tree. She stretched out on the grass and lifted her face to the warm sunshine, feeling more relaxed and at peace than she had in months. She actually dozed off and awakened when she heard hooves coming toward her. Immediately on alert, she jumped to her feet and turned toward the tree line in time to see Brayden on Sunday as they emerged from the trees.

  He brought the gorgeous palomino to a stop a couple of feet from Maggie. “Fancy meeting you here. Thought you didn’t do the forest.” He wore a denim Western-style shirt, old boots and dark jeans.

  Maggie immediately noticed how tanned he was. “I haven’t before, but Thunder and I were feeling adventurous today.”

  “Derek told me you were riding, and I looked all over for you. I was starting to get a little worried.”

  “Sorry. Didn’t mean to worry you. I let Thunder go where he wanted today, and he brought me here.”

  Brayden dismounted and took Sunday for a drink before securing her to a tree in the shade near Thunder. “This is quite a spot.”

  “It’s great.” Maggie’s nerves went batshit crazy now that he was off the horse and standing before her, looking even better than he had before he spent a week in the sun. “How was the trip home?”

  “Long.” He took his hat off and stepped closer to her. “Felt like it took forever to get back here. Was it only a week I was gone? Felt like a month.”