Just What I Needed (Cardinal Springs #3)

Chapter 1

DAN

It’s been two years since my life in New York began to fall apart. And it’s only gotten worse.

I know I should sell the car. I kick my own ass about it every day.

Selling the BMW, replacing it with some old Toyota beater, would give me more than enough padding to get through another year, maybe even two.

If I’m smart (and I used to be), I could make that money last until this investigation wraps up and I’m (please, god) cleared.

But every time I think about handing over the keys and giving up this last vestige of my old life, the one where I was smart and successful and didn’t have to crash on a series of couches and guest beds in the tiny hometown I couldn’t wait to leave…

well, I still have the car, so that should tell you how fucking weak I am.

As I turn onto Main Street, I spot Mrs. Eberle, my old high school English teacher, standing on the corner.

She lowers her sunglasses and tracks my car as I make the turn.

I instinctively sink lower in my seat, trying to avoid her gaze.

I don’t know what’s worse, being investigated by the feds or living under the watchful eyes of your hometown’s biggest gossip.

I think I prefer the feds.

The Bluetooth in my car connects to my iPhone, my Favorites tab lighting up the screen. My dad is at the top, then my siblings, descending in age: Archer, twins Felix and Owen, and then my little sister, Grace. The sixth name on the list is the only one that doesn’t belong to family.

Marcel Lewis.

My attorney.

I tap his name and brace myself.

“Dan the man!” Marcel’s deep voice booms through the high-end sound system. The speakers are so good it sounds like he’s sitting in the passenger seat. “Tell me something good!”

If only…

“Change of address,” I grunt. I press the accelerator at a stop sign, the car leaping forward with the grace of a prima ballerina. The two blocks that make up downtown Cardinal Springs blur by.

“Seriously? I thought you were done with the couch-surfing life. You were staying in that hockey player’s apartment, right?”

Until this morning, that was certainly the case.

But then I turned on the kitchen faucet to rinse the glass from my protein shake, and a creak, crash, and gush sounded from the bathroom.

It took a shockingly short time for the burst pipe in the ceiling to flood the floor of the tiny bathroom, then start working on the bedroom.

Two hours, a call to the landlord, and an emergency plumber’s visit later, my apartment—well, the apartment I’ve been borrowing from my sister’s recently retired pro hockey player boyfriend, because I can’t afford my own place on no income and a rapidly dwindling bank account—was damp as a bayou and had no running water.

Leaving me once again in need of a place to stay.

It took an hour and the entire McBride family phone tree to find someplace.

Archer’s house is being treated for termites, so he’s bunking in our dad’s only guest room, eliminating both of those options.

Felix and Owen only have a couch available, which is barely long enough for my six-foot-two frame.

And even if I wanted to destroy my back and shoulders by crashing there, Owen and his new girlfriend, Wyatt, are spending as many nights together as possible these days, and the walls in that house are too thin for my taste.

Just last week Felix confessed to sleeping with earplugs and a white noise machine, and his bedroom is on the opposite end of the house.

I was seconds from demolishing what remained of my savings and booking a room at the Motel 6 out by the highway when Grace solved my problem.

Or created a whole new one—I’m still not entirely sure. I grit my teeth as I make a left toward the west side of town.

“Plumbing issue,” I explain to my lawyer.

There’s a long silence, and I know Marcel is hoping he’ll goad me into saying more by leaving the space. But he should know better by now. I prefer silence to almost anything else.

“You being charged by the word?” he asks.

If I were, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to afford any more.

Marcel’s sigh reverberates through the speakers. “Okay. Where are you headed?”

“Eight-oh-five Henderson Road,” I say, turning onto the street in question. It’s lined with mature oak trees and nearly identical brick cracker box houses, all built in the fifties during central Indiana’s postwar baby boom.

“Thanks for letting me know,” Marcel says over the sound of typing. “You doing good?”

I shrug before I remember that Marcel can’t see me. “Fine.”

“Any reason for me to push you further on that?”

“Nope,” I reply, popping the p for maximum effect. I’m very good at giving off social cues that say I don’t want to talk. Unfortunately people aren’t always very good at picking up on them.

Another sigh from Marcel. Why did I end up with the only lawyer in New York who thinks he’s also a therapist?

Well, because after the finance community declared me persona non grata, Marcel was the only attorney who’d return my calls.

And that’s probably only because he’s married to Jameson Lewis (formerly Lander), my roommate at Princeton.

So even though I’d rather stick my hand in a tiger’s mouth than discuss my personal life, I have to share all manner of secrets with Marcel.

That’s what happens when you’re part of a federal investigation.

For example, the federal government likes to know where they can find you at all times.

Otherwise they might track you down at a child’s first birthday party that you’re forced to attend out of family obligation (entirely against my will, I might add—my family might be worse than the feds).

That will quickly make you the center of attention, and as someone who prefers not to be perceived by anyone ever, that’s basically all the levels of hell in one afternoon.

“Okay, well, thanks for the update. I’m hoping to finally get this deposition on the books soon. Do you want to schedule a Zoom so I can run you through the questions?”

“I’m good.”

“That’s what I figured you’d say. You’re my one client who I never have to worry will say too much.

Honestly, you should run a training course on how to keep your answers short,” Marcel says, and when I don’t reply, he chuckles.

“I know you’re totally focused on this case wrapping up, but please make sure to live your life while you’re waiting. ”

“That a message from Jameson?” I ask.

“Of course,” Marcel says. “He misses you at dinner.”

“Tell him I said hi,” I reply, because it’s a better answer than What life could I possibly be living in the middle of Indiana?

“I will. Take care of yourself,” Marcel says, and I end the call.

I pull over in front of the third house on the street, distinguishable from the others only by the red tulips blooming in the front garden and the shiny new pink paint on the front door.

A bright blue older model Prius is parked in the short driveway, a sticker affixed to the back that says if you can read this, thank a teacher.

I’ll be crashing at Carson Webber’s house—she’s my little sister’s childhood best friend—for however long it takes the elderly plumber working on the leak to finish the job.

Burt has a flip phone, takes only checks, and moves with the urgency of an exhausted sloth, so I’m thinking it’ll be a good long while.

I take a deep breath, steeling myself to exit the blessed silence of my car.

Because I know that it will not be silent inside the house.

I’m grateful Carson is taking me in. It’s just that Carson is…

well, I don’t know what she is. She’s like her pink front door or those happy little tulips in human form.

She’s always smiling, always talking, always wearing bright colors.

Her cheeks are always flushed pink to match her pouty lips.

And I could deal with all that—I’m well practiced at existing in a world full of extroverts—but Carson drives me a different kind of crazy.

Every time I’m around her, I feel like a fucking cartoon bunny, ready to sit at the feet of the singing princess and bask in her glow.

The way I feel physically pulled into her orbit every time I’m around her is fucking wild.

It takes the kind of focus I usually bring to work or the gym to keep myself from getting too close to her.

She’s like a pesky craving to tamp down, same as the kind I get when I pass a hot dog cart on the street in Manhattan.

And I allow myself only one hot dog a year, on opening day from my season ticket seat on the Mets first base line.

But those tickets are long gone, and I missed opening day this year.

Still, as I end the call with Marcel and climb out of the car, dragging my duffel bag across the center console, I let myself linger on the image of my fingers sinking into the flesh of her soft, round hips.

I imagine her pretty pink lips. I imagine twirling one of her thick blond curls around my finger.

I let my mind run wild as I take those few steps up to the door, and for a moment, my life isn’t a total shit show. I’m able to imagine I haven’t let down myself, my family, my friends. That I’m not dangerously close to an indictment, to prison.

For just a moment, I feel fucking amazing just thinking about her.

But by the time I’m face-to-face with that pink front door, I’ve shoved it all back down. Carson is bad for me, and I have plenty of experience resisting things that are bad for me.

And even if I did let myself indulge, let myself feast on her like the most decadent of cheat meals, then I’d have to confront the fact that as bad as she is for me, I’m way worse for her.

She may be a decadent chocolate tart, but me?

I’m poison.

And with that final firm reminder, I hoist my duffel over my shoulder and knock on the pink front door.