The Killing Game(56)

Emma: Shit what r we spose to do about that?

Carter: Is it Greg’s?

Don’t know yet, she texted back to both of them. She was just delivering the information, not analyzing it. Let them stew on it a while, and then maybe they could all work out how they wanted to deal with the baby’s impending birth. As far as she was concerned, the child was a Wren until proved otherwise.

It was half past four when Andi heard Luke’s truck rattling up her long drive. She glanced out the window in time to see him sweep into view from beneath the canopy of fir boughs. Her heart beat light and fast. It had been a long time since she’d seen him. Too long, she thought.

At that same moment she heard a text come in on her phone, which she’d left on the table by the door, where she always dropped her keys. She glanced at the screen and saw the message was from Trini: Bobby coming by Friday. I’m asking him if we can get together Saturday. Work 4 u?

Saturday was two days away. Andi didn’t have plans for either Friday or Saturday. Sure, she wrote back, dreading the meeting a little. It would be different if she had a date herself, she supposed, and idly wondered if Luke was busy.

Like you’re really going to ask him to go with you to meet your friend and her boyfriend. Then she thought: If you hire him as a bodyguard, you’ll see him all the time.

“I worry about you, Andi. I really do,” she murmured aloud as she, with a glance at the window, watched Luke’s long legs stride across her small yard and up the steps to the front door. He rapped once and she crossed the room in an instant.

He looked . . . good. She imagined what that hard chest would feel like pressed up against her and felt a jolt of awareness even though he hadn’t touched her in any way.

“Hey,” he greeted her with a big smile.

“Hey yourself.” She held the door wide. “Come on in.”

“Been a while,” he said as he entered her small cabin and looked around. “Looks nice.”

Andi followed his gaze to the furniture arrangement, a few items of artwork that included an impressionistic painting of sunflowers she’d done herself and hung over the fireplace. “I’ve been making it mine.”

“How’re you doing?”

“Fine. Really. I’m fine.” He looked at her closely, as if checking the veracity of her statement and she shook her head and said, “I don’t know if I thanked you enough for calling in the cavalry at Lacey’s that night.”

“You thanked me over and over. Trust me. I’m just glad you’re okay.”

“Yeah, well, bad things happen and we get past them.” She half laughed. “I wish that were true of the Carrera brothers.”

“One way or another, we’ll get past them.”

“You promise?” She lifted her brows.

His flashing smile made her heart squeeze a bit. “Gonna do my damnedest.”

This was a dangerous conversation. She purposely changed it by asking, “Would you like something to drink? I’ve got coffee, tea, water, and I think there’s a diet cola rattling around somewhere. Or beer, wine . . . a martini?”

“You having anything?” he asked curiously.

Andi’s thoughts returned to Mimi and her baby bump. “I sure am. Red wine and a lot of it.”

“Ah. You met with—”

“Mimi Quade. About six months along maybe?” she added brightly.

“I think I’ll take some of that red wine, too.” Then, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not like I didn’t know she was pregnant.” Andi walked toward the kitchen. “It was just kind of hard, seeing her.”

“I can imagine.”

“What did Peg Bellows have to say?” she asked, deliberately changing the subject again as she pulled a bottle of Cabernet from her tiny, black wrought-iron wine rack.

“Well, there’s no love lost over the Carreras there anymore.”

Andi opened a drawer and took out the corkscrew, but her mind was stuck on the image of Mimi’s baby bump. It was like she couldn’t see anything else all of a sudden. She sensed herself sinking into despair and was surprised that it had come up on her so fast when she’d thought she was past it.

Luke went on, “The brothers worked both Peg and Ted, coming off as friends, benign investors who would buy their house for a maximum price. They’d done the same thing with the Bellows’s neighbors. A little different scenario, but all with the same goal.”

Andi stood perfectly still. Loss had her in its tight embrace, squeezing the breath from her. Unaware, Luke said, “It’s the same tale I hear whenever the Carreras are involved.”

She tried to speak but couldn’t find the words. Her nose burned and she sensed tears building. She clutched the corkscrew with a death grip.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, coming nearer until he was right beside her as she faced the counter. “Something happen?”

She shook her head.

“Here, let me do that.” He took the opener from her now unresisting hand. Tears filled her eyes. She was embarrassed, but there was nothing she could do. Luke shot concerned looks at her as he uncorked the bottle. To her consternation, he reached forward and caught a tear with the tip of his finger. “Hey, it’s okay,” he said softly, and that opened the floodgates.