Chapter Six
Honor’s Edge Investigations Office
Snow had fallen overnight. Just a dusting, but Sam wanted to get on the road early because of it. She didn’t know how easy Nate and Cal would be to roust this morning. Cal had certainly drunk his fill, and Nate had no doubt put away more than he’d planned.
Surely that explained … last night. The hand holding. The hug. Not that any of it crossed any friendship lines, it had just felt…
Like it might.
She felt like they were speeding toward something she wasn’t quite sure what to do with. Because it wasn’t simple on any level. Their past. The fact they worked together.
The fact no one sticks around you for long.
Add a mysterious doppelganger and a trial they all would have to testify during … it just felt like too much.
But Nate understood that. Hence the weird moments. As long as they both kept protecting that line, nothing more had to get complicated.
She snorted. How could they possibly handle more?
She shook her head, walking out the front of the office so she could make sure the closed sign was in place, and everything was locked up tight. She stepped into the icy morning, the powdery snow. She checked the sign, locked the door, gave the door a tug satisfied when it didn’t give.
Then heard footsteps. She glanced up. A figure was moving toward her on the sidewalk. He had his head down, face hidden behind the big winter coat collar, but she still recognized him quickly enough.
Bo Lake.
She didn’t love him showing up here, especially this early. It left her feeling … not afraid. She could take care of herself. But … unsettled.
Especially since she wasn’t wearing her gun.
Still, she smiled politely at him. “Bo. Morning. Sorry if you were coming by to talk. I’m on my way out.”
“You’re closed today?” he asked, studying the closed sign on the door.
“Yeah. Got some stuff going on over at the courthouse.” She checked her watch. She didn’t have much time. “I’m sorry, Bo, I don’t have an answer for you yet.”
He smiled sheepishly. “I wasn’t going to push. Really. I was going to walk down to the diner and just … take a look in. See if you were … Well, I understand. It’s … unique.”
He seemed so dejected, and she had a soft heart under all that barbed wire. Maybe especially for these damn Bennet-looking men and all their problems.
“Listen, I called your references, looked at your background yesterday. I’ve got to talk it over with my … coworker before I give you the job, and we’ve got a lot going on this week. You plan on sticking around Marietta for a while?”
“As long as there’s a chance you give me that job and investigate my life.”
There was more than a chance, but she didn’t feel right about pressuring Nate any more than she already had.
Maybe because she had a few doubts herself.
She couldn’t decide just how she felt about this guy.
Half the time he seemed so earnest and lost she wanted to fix it for him.
Her job was finding answers for strangers.
But half the time … it was that uneasiness she felt. Not just suspicion. That gut feeling that told her something wasn’t right. And that the answers were going to be really not all right.
She kept a polite smile in place, frustrated her gut seemed split down the middle. “I’ll be in touch.”
“Thanks, Ms. Price. I really appreciate it.”
He wasn’t that much younger than her—well, that was the theory anyway. That he’d been five when he’d been found twenty years ago. So the Ms. struck her as all wrong. “Call me Sam, okay?”
He nodded, then walked past her. On his way to the diner, just like he’d said. She didn’t watch him go, but she did give one last look before she walked into the alley back to where her car was parked.
Nothing felt settled. Nothing felt like an easy answer.
“What else is new?” she muttered to herself, trudging to her parking lot in the back of the building.
She drove out to Aunt Lisa’s ranch and Nate’s rental cabin trying to put Bo Lake out of her head and focus on what today would entail. A long day of a trial. The first of many long days.
She glanced toward Lisa’s house as she drove onto the property. Her childhood home after her mother had died. And now she wasn’t welcome.
It hurt, no matter how many times she thought she’d come to accept it, the hurt just … sat there. Even if she knew she deserved it. When her loyalty was to the truth, she had to accept that relationships weren’t going to stick around in the face of that. Not always.
She looked away, pulled off onto the lane that led around to the rental cabins. She pulled up to Nate’s. Before she shoved the car into park, the front door opened, and Nate and Cal stepped out.
She was glad she could have a reaction here in the safety of her car.
Nate in a suit was something. He just didn’t look …
right, like the sophisticated lines of a suit were trying to cage a wild animal, a strength and a vitality.
Something about the suit emphasized the hard lines of his face, the broadness of his shoulders—where his usual choice of jeans and a T-shirt or sweatshirt just fit.
Which was fine enough, but didn’t quite point out all the ways there was something a little lethal about Nate Bennet.
Damn.
Cal, on the other hand, looked like he should. Like a slick lawyer who knew what he was doing. The weight and muscle he’d lost while recovering from his gunshot wound were almost hidden under all that slick.
Nate locked the front door while Cal strode over to her car. He had dark sunglasses on, no doubt a nod to his hangover, and Sam couldn’t resist messing with him. Not when she knew he’d been messing with her last night, mostly to get or gauge a reaction out of Nate.
She flicked the radio on, inched up the volume as Cal plopped himself into the back seat.
“You’re a mean person, Sam Price,” he grumbled.
“Yeah, don’t I know it.” She grinned over at Nate as he got in, who had a small smile on his face, so he couldn’t have been as bad off as Cal if the loud beat of the music didn’t bother him.
Still, she turned it down and drove away from the cabin and out toward their not-so-amusing destination.
She’d planned on having a nice, light conversation on the way over, but she found all those words she’d planned on escaped her. She really wanted to tell Nate about Bo being outside the office this morning, but Cal didn’t know about him yet.
Not to mention, she was a little concerned Nate might overreact. Because he got all … weird and macho about things, like he had when she’d gotten into a little tussle with an overzealous witness this summer.
And she didn’t care for the fact that she didn’t get mad about the weird and macho. At least not as mad and offended as she should. It was just nice that someone … might care.
Care.
She could relive the way his thumb had moved across her knuckles, the fluttering, hopeless warmth that had settled deep inside her when he’d moved his hand down her spine.
They were friendly moves. She just didn’t know how to deal with them appropriately because she hadn’t grown up in a touchy-feely household.
Her mother had died when she’d been ten.
And Mom had been sick for a long time before that.
Maybe Nate’s dad was an evil son of a bitch, but his mother had been one of those warm, demonstrative women.
Even from afar and at a young age Sam had recognized that in Marie Bennet.
Of course, Sam didn’t think Nate had had much in the way of hand-holding and hugs since he’d run away, beaten and bloody, fifteen years ago. So no matter how she tried to hold on to that excuse, it didn’t fly.
None of her excuses seemed to fly anymore. She just didn’t know what to do about it. So she drove in silence, pulling into the parking lot of the courthouse with so many knots in her stomach, in her chest, she didn’t know how long they’d take to untie.
She spotted Landon’s truck, and Aly getting out of said truck, so she pulled into the closest open spot. They all filed out and met Landon and Aly halfway between the vehicles. Aly’s gaze swept over Cal, no doubt taking in the sunglasses and the pale complexion.
Her mouth set into a disapproving frown before she forced it to curve. “Morning.”
Sam didn’t miss the way she left the good off the greeting.
“Well, let’s get this over with,” Cal muttered, striding purposefully toward the big building.
Landon sighed, and Aly looked worriedly after Cal, but she and Landon clasped hands and walked toward the courthouse.
Nate and Sam didn’t move right away. Nate was staring at the building, or Cal, or maybe even Aly and Landon and their entwined hands. Sam couldn’t tell for sure, but she could tell he was feeling lost amid all this trepidation.
So she did what he’d done last night. She took his hand in hers and squeezed.
And they walked into that courthouse holding on to each other.