by Cathryn Fox
Her father could say what he wanted about her, but she was not going to stand there and let him disrespect Luke. “I don’t think—”
He tapped his head and cut her off. “Then maybe you should think.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Why do you think he took this job?”
“Because I hired him and he needed the work.” At least that’s the only logical reason she could come up with.
“No. He took it because it was his way to get back at me. He’s probably robbing you blind as we speak.”
Something really important must have driven him to do it…
As Allison’s words pinged around inside her brain she stared at her father. “Dad—”
“You’ll see, Emery. You’ll see,” he said, and he pounded his cane on the floor and walked out of her office.
With her stomach in turmoil, she walked back into the market and restocked shelves. As the end of the day approached, she made her way back to her office, to return to her search, trying to find out more about Luke, and the court records. Lost in her search, she hadn’t heard him approach.
“Sorry it took me so long,” he said. “I couldn’t make it back any earlier.”
She glanced up then quickly shut her laptop as he dropped a kiss onto her mouth. Trying to appear casual, she asked, “How did you make out with the van?”
He gave her an odd look, glanced at her closed computer, and sat in the chair across from her. “Good. He was a tough negotiator, but I got a fair deal. We’ll be signing the papers tomorrow.”
Just then her assistant Tami poked her head in the door. “You busy?”
“No, come in,” Emery said, waving her in.
“I just cashed everyone out, and here’s five thousand.” Tami handed over a roll of bills. “There’s enough in the tills for morning.” She gave them both a smile and said, “I’m clocking out.” She looked at Luke. “Will I be seeing you tomorrow or are you guys all finished?”
“Everything should be in place by tomorrow.”
“Well I’ll see you tomorrow then.”
After she left, Emery stood, opened her safe and placed the money inside. She turned back to Luke. “And the pawnshop. Did you find anything out?”
He opened his mouth like he was about to say something, then he shut it again. “No, nothing.” He wiped his hands on his jeans, and avoided her eyes. In that instant she sensed he was hiding something from her. “Oh, and I have some things to take care of tonight, so I won’t be around.”
“Oh, okay,” she said, her heart racing from this unexpected turn of events. What was going on? Was he pulling away? Good God, maybe she really didn’t know him at all. And maybe he was backing off because he was almost finished with the job, which meant he was finished with her.
Old doubts resurfaced and her stomach cramped, some small part of her brain reminding her that people used her and discarded her when they’d gotten what they wanted.
Was she wrong to think Luke was different?
Luke took a long pull from his bottle as he kicked back at Sky Bar. He’d told Emery he couldn’t see her tonight because he had some personal things to take care of. He didn’t miss the curious yet almost dejected way she’d looked at him, like now that the job was almost over he was tossing her away like she was yesterday’s news. After learning about her past, he knew she expected that from him. But how in the hell could he climb into her bed and make sweet love to her when he was holding back such important information? It just didn’t feel right.
He turned to Garrett. “What the fuck am I supposed to do?”
“You’re going to have to tell her.”
“How can I do that? It will crush her.”
“Then maybe you can talk to Taylor. Put the fear of God in to him and maybe he’ll never do it again.”
“What kind of fucking man does that to his daughter?”
“Believe me, in my job I see lots of fucked-up shit.”
He thought about that for a moment. “Do you think you can do me a favor?”
“Sure.”
“Can you do a little digging on Taylor? Find out what he’s up to and why he’s stealing. He must need the money for something.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Luke pushed his beer aside, and needing time to sort through things, he stepped away from the bar. “I need some air.”
He jumped on his bike, and drove around town. Soon enough he found himself outside the market. He sat on his bike and watched Emery move around inside. His heart raced and it damn near killed him not to go to her, but he didn’t know how to face her when he was holding such hurtful information. He spotted someone in the store with her. He narrowed his eyes, his protective instincts going on high alert. A moment later the door opened, and she walked out with Trent trailing behind her.
What the hell was Trent doing there?
Emery went one way down the street toward her townhouse and Trent went the other, cutting the corner and heading to the seedier part of town. Luke followed him, and when he caught up to him on the sidewalk, Trent turned to him, surprise in his eyes.
Luke shut down his bike. “Hey, Captain America, what are you doing in this neck of the woods?”
Trent kicked a rock, and said, “Working.”
“Oh, yeah, working for who?”
He nodded behind him. “Emery.”
“She hired you?”
“Yeah. I actually asked for a job.” He looked down, shuffled slightly, then looked back up at Luke. “And well, I wanted to talk to you, to say thanks.”
“Thanks for what?”
Trent gave him a look like he was dense. “You know. For hooking me up at the center.” A small smile tugged at his mouth. “I actually really like it there. And…well…I wanted to say thanks for sending the food to my house. My brother really loved all the licorice. I told Emery I wanted to work off the debt.”
That’s why she’d taken down his address. His heart pinched and he could feel himself falling deeper and deeper in love with her.
Emery, sweet Emery, who’d given him so much of herself.
“Okay, Trent. Go home. I’ll see you at work tomorrow.”
“G’night.”
Luke started up his bike and made his way back down the street. As he passed the market he caught a light on in the back. He peered in and an uneasy feeling curled around him. Had Emery come back, or was someone else in her store? Luke took off down the street and made his way to Tanner’s place, to where his van was parked outside. He hopped off his bike, and fished his keys from his pocket. Sliding the side door open, he pulled a chair up in front of the monitors and turned on the live feed. Without a camera in Emery’s office he couldn’t tell if it was her in there or not, but when her father stepped back into the market, quietly closing the office door behind him, Luke’s throat tightened. Taylor moved toward the back door, and the video showed him shoving a bundle of money into his pocket, the same bundle he’d watched Emery lock up earlier that day.
Oh, Jesus, this was so bad. Her own father, the man who’d put Luke away for stealing, was robbing the place blind, and had no idea Luke was capturing it all. Son of a bitch!
With a pit in his stomach the size of a tennis ball, Luke made his way back home. Emery had so many people counting on her and she needed that money. But because she kept the state of the business private, not wanting to upset her father, he likely didn’t know how bad things really were, how hard this would be on her bottom line.
He grabbed Rex and took him out for a run to help clear his head, but his mind was still racing by the time he fell into bed, into a fitful sleep. Come morning, he made his way to the shower, hoping a splash of cold water would clear his sleep-deprived brain. The pinging of his cell drew his attention. He glanced at it, and saw a message from Garrett. It said one word and one word only.
Gambling.
Shit.
Clearly Taylor must have lost a bundle gambling, and desperate times ca
used people to do desperate things, but this was just damn wrong.
He raked his hands though his hair, trying to figure out what he was going to do about the situation. He couldn’t let him do this to his daughter, yet he didn’t have it in him to break Emery’s heart. Turning the water to cool, he jumped into the shower and as he waited for it to wake him up, his mind sorted through matters. What the hell was he going to do? There was no denying that he’d fallen for Emery. She was sweet, sexy, different from any woman he’d ever known. Even though they came from different worlds, she fit in so nicely with his friends, and he wanted to share his circle with her, wanted her to feel like she belonged, especially after she’d shared her hurtful past with him. He thought back to when she’d first hired him. He couldn’t help but think she did it because she believed in him.
His heart squeezed as he considered that longer, and the solution to his problem finally came to him. As he warmed to the idea, he shut the water off, and put a plan into motion.
He dressed quickly and made his way outside. Thirty minutes later, he pulled his bike up behind the van, parked it and climbed off. He slid the door open and stuck his head inside.
“Morning,” he said, but when he caught the strange look on his comrades’ faces he shot a glance toward the monitors to find Taylor talking to Ethan Lane—who was carrying a bouquet of flowers—as they walked toward Emery’s office. A wave of possessiveness moved through him, and he drew a slow breath to calm himself.
Instead of reacting, he put on his best professional face and said, “We just have a few last-minute things to do, then we’re done.” He looked at Colt. “You’ve gone over everything with Emery that I told you to?”
“Yup,” he said.
He looked at Tanner. “The alarm system has been integrated with the phone lines?”
“Finished setting it up a few minutes ago. The system is good to go.”
“Okay, just a few more things I need to test and then we’re out of here.”
Luke made his way back into the store, just as Lane was leaving Emery’s office. It took everything he had not to punch the guy in the throat and tell him to stay the fuck away from Emery. But that would have to wait. Right now he was on a mission.
He walked along the perimeter of the store, looking over the equipment he installed as he waited for the opportune moment. In order for him to do what needed to be done, he needed Emery and her father out of the office. Then he’d be having a one-on-one with Taylor himself.
He hung around, double and triple checking the system and basically just wasting time as he waited. He walked past the deli, and when he heard her father raising his voice his body tensed and he moved toward the office.
“I told you he was no good,” Taylor said. “Ethan Lane is the kind of man you should be with. Not one who’d steal five thousand dollars from you to get back at me.”
“Dad—” The anxiety Luke heard in her voice twisted his gut.
“Why the hell did you hire him anyways?”
“He was the only option. I was desperate and his company was the only one who could do it on such short notice.”
Jesus…
“And I’m guessing you opened the safe in front of him a time or two?”
“Yes, but—”
Luke took a measured step closer, his stomach twisting as he eavesdropped.
“No buts about it,” her father said. “He’s behind all this. He used you to get to me, Emery.”
Emery spotted Luke near the doorway. When her eyes met his and he spotted confliction, doubt brewing just below the surface, the bottom dropped out of his world.
She didn’t trust him.
“Well speak of the devil,” her father said, lifting his cane. “You better get your ass out of here before I call the cops on you again and get you locked up.”
He glared at Taylor and fisted his hands at his sides as anger moved through him. After a long while he turned his focus to the woman he loved, a woman who he thought believed in him.
“Emery,” he said, needing so much from her.
“I…I…” Her glance bobbed back and forth between Luke and her father. In a show of allegiance, her father stepped closer to her and put his arm around her.
While he wanted to tell her the truth, he knew he couldn’t do it. Couldn’t come between a father and his daughter. Not then, and not now. He pulled the money from his back pocket and slapped it on the table. “Here you go.”
Emery’s face paled. “Luke?” she asked, her voice as shaky as her hands.
“It’s all there,” he said. He cast a hard glare at her father. “And just so you know, I’m giving you something you never gave me.”
“Oh yeah, what’s that, boy?”
“I think you know.”
Luke glared at him, a deadly warning written all over him as he gave the old man a moment to digest his words.
When Taylor’s face fell, they exchanged a look of understanding—one that said Taylor knew Luke was fully aware that Taylor had taken the money and he’d have hell to pay if he didn’t get his shit together and make it right with his daughter.
With that he cast Emery one last look, his heart splintering into a million tiny pieces.
“Maybe your old man is right about Lane too,” he said, then he walked out of the market and her life, forever.
Emery watched him go, hardly able to believe what was happening. Tears filled her eyes and she felt physically ill. She clutched her stomach as bile punched into her throat.
How could this be happening? She’d shared so much with Luke, thought she knew him. This really didn’t seem like something he would do, but how could she dispute the facts, or contradict the evidence her father had put right in front of her?
“How the hell did he come up with that kind of money?” her father whispered under his breath.
“What?” Emery asked, spinning to face him. “What did you just say?”
Color moved into her father’s face and his cloudy eyes widened. “What? Nothing,” he said. “It was nothing.”
“No, it wasn’t nothing. If he stole the money, like you said, then why are you so surprised that he ‘came up with that kind of money’?”
“I…I…just… Emery, the man is no good. Stay away from him. Ethan is the man you should be with. Luke even said so.”
“I want to know,” she said, standing up to her father for the first time in her life. Something was going on here, and she was damn determined to get to the bottom of it. “Why did he say he was giving you something you’d never given him?”
She took a moment to think about it, and suddenly all the pieces known as Luke Phillips began to fall in to place. She’d once heard Luke say he’d never come between a father and a daughter—which undoubtedly was why he pushed his sister away. She also heard him say more than once that he believed in giving second chances.
“Oh my God. You took the money.” She took a small step back.
“Emery, it’s not like that.”
“You took the money,” she said again, shaking her head in disbelief.
“I got myself into a bit of trouble, but I’m going to get the money back. I promise.”
“You took the money and blamed it on Luke. How could you do that to him, to me?”
“Because I don’t like that boy.”
“You put him away for stealing, yet how is what you did any better?”
“It’s my business, so technically I’m not stealing.”
“No, it’s my business now. You left it in my hands, and you’ve been stealing from me. I hired Luke to install a new system because I could barely pay the bills, when all along it was you taking things from here. I kept the state of the business from you to protect you.”
“I’m sorry.” Her father fell into her chair, looking older than she’d ever seen him. “I’ll get some help. I promise. I never meant to hurt you and I didn’t know things were going bad. I…I just. I was desperate.”
Desperate times make people
do desperate things.
She took a moment to think about her conversation with Allison, and how Shane had told her desperation drove a person to do desperate things. She considered the way Shane had reacted when he met her, then thought about his wife Callie, and little girl Amber, who was twelve years old. Twelve years ago, Luke was put in juvie. Her mind raced, thinking about everything Luke had said and done since she met him, especially with Trent.
“What did he steal?” she asked, hysteria lacing her voice. “What did Luke take from this market?”
“That was a long time ago.”
“Tell me.”
He shrugged, a deep sadness on his face. “Just some food.”
“What kind of food?”
He shrugged. “Peanut butter, bread. You know, the usual kid stuff.”
Peanut butter…
Oh God!
That’s why Allison had asked her how well she knew Luke. Luke had a peanut allergy, and Allison likely did too, which meant Luke hadn’t taken the food to feed his family.
I knew he didn’t steal anything…
As Allison’s words banged around inside her head, everything started to make sense. Shane must have been the one who’d taken the food—to feed his pregnant girlfriend—and Luke had taken the fall. That had to have been what happened and why Shane had stood behind Luke, and was hell bent on giving back to the community and helping the youth.
She shot her father a glance, and watched him sag in his chair. “You sent an innocent boy away and he lost everything because of it.” She looked at the money Luke had tossed onto her desk. “And in return he took the blame for this and gave you a chance to make things right with me.”
She picked up the bundle of money, money he’d taken from his savings and had planned to use to expand his business and give his comrades work. Her stomach clenched. How could she not have believed him, believed in him?
Luke was a good man, a wonderful, loving guy and she drove him from her life because she second-guessed his integrity.
How could she have been so stupid? She thought he was pulling back from her because he was through with her, but it was because he knew the truth about her father. He was trying to protect her, and in turn she threw it all in his face.
