Chapter Thirty-three – Because of You
Chapter Thirty-three
Andie
BECAUSE OF YOU
Performed by Kelly Clarkson
My head jerked up as my office door slammed shut. Fallon strode across the Aubusson rug, twirling her cowboy hat in one hand. She perched on the arm of the wingback across from me.
“You’ve been holding out on Maisey and me,” she said.
My stomach plunged as my mind whirled with the long list of things I’d kept from my friends.
Fallon didn’t bother waiting for a reply. “You and Cooper are way more serious than a first da—what in the hell happened to your face?”
My hand went to the bruise and the cut below my eye. At least the swelling had gone down. It was just my cheek that was now an ugly shade even makeup couldn’t hide, no matter how adept I’d gotten at hiding bruises when I’d been with Eddie.
I gave her the highlights of what had happened.
“Does this have to do with whoever broke into your house and messed with your things?” I heard the hurt beneath the calm of her question, and guilt twisted through me.
“Lance told you about that?” I asked.
“More like it was a simple line item in his weekly report.”
I tried to maintain eye contact but couldn’t stand the disappointment there, so I looked away. I didn’t know what to tell her. Part of me wanted to spill everything, just like I had with Cooper, but years of keeping my past close wouldn’t let me.
“What’s going on, Andie?” her voice softened. “You can trust me.”
“I know.” My eyes shot back to hers. “Honestly, we’re not exactly sure.
” It was mostly true. I knew why they were coming for me, but not who or how they’d found me again.
“Cooper believes it was Randy Cleaver or one of his cohorts who threw the can in order to send a message to Cooper. But my house…” I shook my head.
“Cooper’s handling it. He just wanted Lance to be aware because we think someone took the key from my purse while it was here. ”
Fallon inhaled sharply. “You think one of the employees is behind this?”
I shook my head. “No. I told Cooper it was impossible. No one here would break into my house.” Except, someone likely had. That left a sour taste in my mouth I couldn’t shake.
The silence brewed between us for too long before Fallon broke it.
“Are you in danger? Has someone threatened you?”
I thought of the note Cooper had found last night, and my throat bobbed.
The anger I’d felt at whomever this was after they’d threatened to harm Luca and Akela came back to me.
If it was just the money, and I had it, I’d give it to them, but they wanted me to leave too, and I wasn’t doing that. Not without a fight.
Dawson would give me the money. Hell, if Fallon knew what I was up against, she’d happily throw it at me. It was in their natures to give freely of the wealth they had, especially for a worthy cause.
But this wasn’t a worthy cause. Even thinking about asking for the money made me ashamed. I couldn’t ask someone else to pay for my mistakes, regardless of how large their bank accounts were.
It may have been Eddie who’d borrowed the money that had gotten us into this mess, but I’d helped steal more from the casino to add to the stash. This was my problem. It was bad enough Cooper was in it up to his neck now.
“Cooper’s handling it,” I repeated.
She leaped from the edge of the chair and started pacing. “Do you need time off? Do you need to disappear for a few days?”
“Like you’d run if you were in my place?” She wouldn’t. She hadn’t. Any time anything bad had happened in Fallon’s life, she’d faced it with fists raised. I shook my head. “No. We’re hoping it’ll be behind us by the end of the week.”
“You have a plan?”
We didn’t, but I believed Cooper when he’d said he’d come up with something. “It’s in the works.”
She stopped and stared at me. “Whatever you need, Andie. I’m here for you.”
Tears welled, and I pushed at the corners of my eyes with my index fingers, the crooked twist in the right one another brutal reminder of my past. “Thanks.”
“I came here to harass you about not giving Maisey and me the scoop on you and Cooper, but that can wait. Just know, you’re not off the hook. We want the entire juicy story.”
Even as I gave her a watery smile, my body heated thinking of last night. Being with Cooper had been a vivid dream and a hazy mirage all twined together. Beautiful and poignant and sexy as hell.
“We’ll have a girls’ night soon, and I promise I’ll give you all the delightful details. Like how the earth shook, and the heavens wept.”
Fallon smiled for the first time since walking in. “I knew it. I knew you two would be fire together. Steam practically rises off your bodies whenever you’re in the same room.”
“Steam, sheam. But the flames…those were something else,” I teased, fanning myself, and Fallon chuckled.
“Okay, reason two for coming here. Mom and I talked, and we want you to take Thanksgiving off.”
I shook my head, but she spoke over the objection I started to utter.
“No. I’m serious. You’ve worked every Thanksgiving for eight years.
You’ve earned it. Take it. Mom’s going to cover the morning, Parker and I will bring the kids down and eat here with Mom, Teddy, and the guests for dinner, and Kevin is going to cover the evening.
I’m a call away if all hell breaks loose anywhere in between. Go be with Cooper and the Wylees.”
She saw me hesitate. “As your boss and your friend, I’m telling you that you need this time off, Andie.
Not just because you’re starting a new relationship, but because I’ve felt the stress clinging to you over the last few weeks, even after we hired Misty.
Do this so I don’t feel like a horrible boss working my employees into the ground. ”
“You can hardly be accused of driving anyone into the ground. You’re the one who decided months ago to shut the resort down on Christmas, and that was one-hundred-percent for your staff’s benefit.”
She tossed her hat in the air, caught it, and slammed it onto her head. “That was for me and Parker. We want to be with the kids and not be disrupted. It was entirely selfish. Besides, the ranch doesn’t need the money. Not these days.”
She headed for the door. “I had planned on taking a group up to the caves today on horseback, but the weather report calls for more snow, so I’m going to keep us closer to the castle. I’ll be here if you need me.”
Then, she was gone, leaving behind that odd stillness that remained whenever she left.
For a moment, I regretted not coming clean and telling her everything.
But what could she possibly say? And she’d never be able to look at me the same way again.
Even Cooper didn’t look at me the same anymore.
Sure, he didn’t look at me with disgust, as I’d first feared he would.
But would Fallon see what he did? Would she see a survivor or a thief? A victim or a killer?
I glanced down at my phone. The battery was dangerously low as I’d forgotten to charge it last night. Hadn’t even once thought about it after Cooper had touched me. My entire body warmed at the memory. He hadn’t said he loved me back, but I’d felt it in every touch, every caress.
As I pushed papers and files around, trying to locate the charging cord I always left here, the landline on my desk buzzed. Distracted, I answered it while still searching, and Michelle at the front desk said, “Andie, there’s a man here to see you. He insists it’s urgent.”
I was glad for the interruption. Glad to get out of my head and the vicious circle of doubt and worry I couldn’t seem to stop.
“I’ll be right there,” I told her.
But once I’d arrived in the lobby and saw who was standing by the concierge’s desk, I wished I’d asked who it was.
I wished I’d told Michelle to say I wasn’t here.
I wished I could turn tail and run just as I’d insisted I wouldn’t do anymore.
Because standing there, scowling at me over the top of wraparound sunglasses, was the one man I’d never expected to see again.
The last man alive I wanted to see.
I froze in the archway, caught like a deer in bright headlights on a dark road.
How had he found me?
I’d been so careful, and yet now two people from my past had shown up in Rivers.
The longer we stared at each other, the deeper his glare turned. It shot me back in time nearly thirteen years. I was eighteen again, caught poolside with a champagne bottle raised to my lips and a boy’s arms wrapped around my waist.
Disgust dripped through the air between us.
“Ari,” he sneered.
My eyes darted around the room. No one had heard him say the name. No one was even paying attention.
I tilted my head, indicating he should follow me, and then led the way toward the conference room.
I didn’t need to look to know my father followed me.
I heard the snap of his dress shoes on the golden tile, a staccato beat a quarter note off the clip of my boots, but it was the anger radiating from him that really made itself known.
In the conference room, I waited for him to pass by, his suit sleeve brushing against the wool of my red dress, before easing the door shut. He placed a metal box on the table and then whipped around, scanning me as if I were dung clinging to his shoes.
When his gaze landed on my bruised cheek, he sneered. “I guess some things never change. Who’s the loser this time? I bet he’s worse scum than the one you married.”
His voice was loud. Ugly. And I knew for a fact how thin the conference room walls were, so I stepped forward.
“Please, lower your voice.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
We stared at each other for a long while. My heart rate finally slowed, and behind it, the frustration and hurt reeled in. My dad hadn’t seen me in nearly a decade. For all he knew, I could have been dead, and yet he showed not a single hint of relief, of love, of pleasure at seeing me.