Easy Love

by Kristen Proby

  “Tell me about it.”

  “You have an employee there named Gerald Rudolph. Didn’t get to him until I hit the ‘R’s.” All of the hair on my body stands on end.

  “We do.”

  “His wife’s maiden name is Hannah Peters.”

  Bingo. I shimmy in my seat, doing the happy dance.

  “Thanks, Adam. Can you email that information to me?”

  “Sure thing. There is other info in the reports too, including a description of the woman who picks up the checks.”

  “Great job, Adam. Thanks again.” I immediately call Eli’s office and sigh in relief when he answers. “I need a meeting with you, Beau, and Van ASAP.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. We’re about to wrap this case up.”

  There’s a long pause, and then, “Be in my office in thirty minutes.”

  “But Van is at the inn.”

  “She’s at the doctor for a check up. She’ll be here.”

  He hangs up, and I sit for a second and frown at the phone. Why did he sound so…cold? Solving this case is what I was hired to do. He should be happy that it’s almost over.

  I use the next twenty minutes to print out all of the information I’ve gathered, along with the email from Adam when it comes through.

  The elevator seems to take forever. This is the part of my job that I love so much. The part when I get to sit before those who hired me and tell them who and how. The satisfaction of knowing that the job was done well. My whole body is humming with excitement when I walk into Eli’s office and see that Beau and Van are already there.

  “Thanks for meeting with me.”

  The door closes behind me, and I sit in a seat between Beau and Van, facing Eli.

  “Who is it?” Beau asks immediately.

  “Gerald Rudolph.”

  “Impossible,” Eli says calmly.

  “No, it’s not impossible.” I explain the suspicions I brought to Van’s attention over the weekend, and then show them the evidence that Adam sent over. “His wife’s maiden name is Peters. Hannah Peters. Every transfer went to Western Union to an H. Peters.”

  Savannah is shaking her head. “This doesn’t make sense. He has no reason to steal, Kate. He makes a very good salary. He’s been with us for a very long time.”

  “That’s how it usually is,” I reply gently. “The person responsible is typically someone that is trusted. Loyal, even.”

  “I guess that people make poor decisions when they have a lot of stress in their lives,” Savannah says slowly.

  “Thank you, Kate,” Eli says and stands, showing me the door. He’s suddenly a stranger, and I don’t like it. “We will go over this evidence, and discuss, and let you know if we need anything further.”

  “Are you okay?” I ask, frowning at him.

  “Of course.”

  I stop in the middle of the office and stare at him. Finally, he simply leans in and whispers in my ear. “We will talk later. Have a good afternoon.”

  And with that, I’m shown through the door.

  I return to my office and decide to make additional copies of all of the reports I just gave to Eli.

  Why was he so cold just now? Not four hours ago he was holding me tight, being so sweet, so tender. Treating me like I’m special and sexy and someone he enjoys being with.

  And, in his office, he was distant, as if he’s never seen me naked or been inside me.

  How can men do that? Go from hot to cold in a matter of hours?

  Is he mad that I solved the case and the person responsible is someone he likes?

  Or maybe…

  I sit back and stare at the wall as it occurs to me that me solving this case means that I’m leaving. My time here is almost over.

  And that just makes me sad.

  I’ve loved spending time with Savannah and Declan again. I didn’t realize how much I missed them until I had them available to me all the time.

  But, most of all, I’ve enjoyed Eli. He’s amazing sexually, and has given me a new confidence physically that I’ll always be indebted to him for. He showed me how a woman is supposed to feel when she’s with a man, in and out of bed. He makes me laugh. He turns my body inside out and makes it sing.

  And I suspect that I wasn’t as careful as I thought I was, and I’ve already done the irresponsible thing and fallen in love with him.

  I don’t do love.

  He has been honest with me from the beginning. He’s attracted to me, enjoys me, but he doesn’t love me.

  And I am leaving. I have a life in Denver. A job that sends me all over the country. I need to make sure that Rhys is going to be okay.

  I have responsibilities.

  “Are you okay?” Hilary asks, as she walks into my office, pulling me out of my daydream.

  “Hi,” I reply with a grin. “I’m okay. Just a lot on my mind.”

  “Wanna talk about it?”

  I shake my head no with a sigh.

  “I’m your friend, you know. You can always talk to me about stuff.”

  “I appreciate that. How was your weekend with Louis?”

  “Even better than the last time,” she says with a wink, and sits in the chair in front of my desk. She sets a to-go container on my desk. “I brought you lunch.”

  “You didn’t have to do that. Is it lunch time already?”

  “It is,” she confirms. “I tried a new soup recipe and had a ton left over. This is why I rarely cook for myself. Cooking for one is just a waste of food.”

  “I hear you. Thanks.” I take the lid off and sniff it. She even warmed it up for me. “Smells great. So, what else did you do this weekend?”

  “I took Louis shopping. I needed some new shoes.” She lifts her leg and shows me a gorgeous pair of sling-back Choos. “And I might have needed a new bag too,” she says with a laugh, and shows off a gorgeous black Gucci handbag.

  Wow.

  “Those are gorgeous,” I agree.

  “Your friends are fun,” she says with a smile, changing the subject.

  “I know.” I swallow, but keep my face impassive. This is the job. Lying. I’m excellent at it when I need to be.

  “I didn’t realize you were so close to the Boudreaux family.”

  “I wouldn’t say we’re super close,” I reply easily. “I did go to college with Savannah, and when I decided to move down here, she offered me a job.”

  “Convenient.”

  So, Hilary has a bitchy side.

  “I’m going to work through lunch,” I say, ready for Hilary and her crappy attitude to leave. “Thanks again for the soup.”

  “Anytime.” She stands and heads for the door. “I’m out for the day.”

  “Oh?” I check the clock. “At noon?”

  “I have to go to the doctor. Yearly fun stuff.” She wrinkles her nose, then waves and saunters off.

  And I can’t help but feel like I’m missing something.

  I open the soup and take a bite and think back on the past few weeks with Hilary. She has more experience than me in this position, but I know she doesn’t make enough money to buy close to five thousand dollars worth of shoes and handbags.

  Unless she has a ton of credit card debt.

  Which, she might. I mean, not everyone manages money well.

  But…

  One thing’s for sure, she makes a heck of a soup. I continue slurping it up, eating it quickly. I was hungrier than I thought.

  Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Hilary’s statement the day we met for happy hour when I asked how she could afford her new car passes through my mind.

  New shoes and bags.

  Leaving early from work.

  And she was at the club when I was talking to Savannah about my suspicions regarding Mr. Rudolph!

  I wonder how much she really heard?

  Having eaten all of the soup, I close the lid and come to a complete and utter stop. Written on the top in marker is H. Peterson, with the ‘on’ almost completel
y worn off.

  H. Peters.

  It can’t be!

  I scratch my neck, which has just begun to itch, and log into the employee time clock program to bring up Hilary’s logs, print them out, and compare her comings and goings to the dates of the transfers.

  Sure enough, every day there was a transfer, Hilary clocked out right around 2:00. Not long after Mr. Rudolph would have left for the hospital.

  I page down Adam’s email, looking for the description of the woman who picks up the checks.

  A woman in her mid-thirties. Blonde hair, average height, average build.

  Hilary.

  I swallow, but realize my tongue suddenly feels thick. My throat itches. Cheeks are tingly.

  “Shit!” I stare down at the empty bowl and my heartbeat triples. It’s getting harder to breathe. My lips feel funny.

  “Kate?” Mr. Rudolph is standing in the doorway, frowning. “Are you okay? Your face looks swollen.”

  I shake my head and pull my purse out of my drawer, looking for my EPI pen, but I don’t have it. “Peanuts.”

  But my mouth is so swollen, it sounds like veanuth.

  “What?”

  “Ate peanuts,” I repeat and point to the bowl. “Ambulance.”

  I’m struggling for breath now. My eyes are swelling shut.

  I’m going to die. The bitch killed me!

  “I need an ambulance,” I hear Mr. Rudolph say. “She has an allergy and can’t breathe.”

  And suddenly, everything goes black.

  ***

  “Kate?”

  Someone is yelling at me. I try to open my eyes, but can’t. Everything is dark. My throat hurts.

  “Kate, did you eat peanuts?” The same voice keeps shouting at me. I can only nod.

  “It’s a nut allergy,” I hear another person say, as I’m being wheeled in a bed. “Gave her an EPI shot, and got her airway open.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Kate O’Shaughnessy,” someone says. I don’t recognize any of the voices. Where is Eli? I want Eli. I can’t see. I touch my face, and it feels totally foreign. “Here’s her ID and insurance card.”

  Someone has been going through my purse.

  “Okay, guys, wheel her back to room nine.”

  I’m shuffled about, lifted onto a new bed, changed from my clothes to a gown. All blind. My tongue is too big for my mouth. I itch everywhere.

  “You can’t talk to me, can you, Kate?”

  I shake my head.

  “I’m Dr. Coggin,” the kind man says. “Just nod yes or no, okay?”

  I nod yes.

  “I hear you have an allergy to peanuts, and ate some?”

  I nod.

  “Do you know how much?”

  I shake my head no.

  “Are you itchy? Warm?”

  I nod vigorously.

  “Still having problems breathing?”

  I hold my hand up and tilt it, as if to say so-so.

  “Okay, we are going to give you some Benadryl and steroids in an IV, and it’s going to make you sleepy, but it should calm all of this down. If you have visitors, can they come back to see you?”

  I nod and lie back, frustrated that I can’t talk or swallow. I’m quite sure I’m a drooling mess.

  I want to cry, but my eyes are so swollen, my tear ducts don’t work.

  There’s a prick in the back of my hand. “I’m putting in your IV, Kate. I’m your nurse, Mona.”

  I nod.

  “Because this Benadryl is going directly into your bloodstream, you’ll get sleepy pretty fast.”

  Good. Maybe I’ll wake up half-way normal.

  “Kate?”

  My head turns at the sound of Savannah’s voice. She takes my free hand in hers.

  “Oh, my God, Katie, are you awake?”

  I nod and squeeze her fingers, but the medicine is already making me tired. I need to tell her that it’s all because of Hilary, but I still can’t talk around my tongue, and now my body is feeling heavy from the drugs.

  “Sleep, Kate,” Van says. “You’ll feel better when you wake up.”

  “Where’s Eli?” I hear Beau ask Van as he also comes into my room.

  “I don’t know,” Van responds. “We can’t find him.”

  What does she mean they can’t find him?

  I moan, frustrated, but can’t fight sleep as it slips over me.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Eli

  “Look, it’s just government bureaucracy,” Sal, the shipyard foreman, says in frustration. “It’s their job to find these kinds of things.”

  “It’s OSHA, Sal,” I reply coldly. “I don’t give a fuck if what you say is true, the bottom line is, you either fix that hydraulic system to their specifications, or they will shut down that whole line.”

  He shakes his head and paces his office in frustration.

  “There’s nothing wrong with it,” he insists. “It’s perfectly safe.”

  I raise an eyebrow. “Sal, you’ve been with us since I was a kid. I respect your opinion, and I’m not saying that it’s unsafe. I am saying that it didn’t pass the OSHA inspection, and it has to be fixed. I don’t want to be called back down here for another ass-chewing by that inspector. You know the regulations. We operate within them, one hundred percent of the time. If you don’t want to work that way, I’ll find someone else who does.”

  “Are you threatening me?” He scowls and props his hands on his hips.

  “No. I’m explaining what I expect to happen. Get it done. You have twenty-four hours.”

  I walk out without another word, frustrated that I was brought in on this in the first place. I’ve just spent three hours away from the office, where I have to fire a man who I’ve known almost half of my life.

  Fuck. And have charges brought against him.

  But not before I sit down with him, man-to-man, to ask him just exactly what in the ever loving fuck he was thinking.

  Not to mention, now that the case is closed, Kate will be leaving.

  And why does the thought of that make me want to punch a wall? I’ve known since the day I met her this was temporary. We’ve had fun. I’ve enjoyed her.

  I’ll enjoy women after her.

  I stop next to my car and shake my head before opening the door and lowering myself inside.

  The thought of other women does nothing for me except turn my stomach.

  I pull my phone out of my pocket and frown when I realize the sound had been off. Four missed calls from Beau, all over two hours ago.

  He can be damn annoying.

  I punch the button for voice mail and pull out of the shipyard.

  “Eli, Savannah and I are on the way to the hospital. Something’s happened to Kate.” My heart stills, then trips over. “I’m not sure what’s happening. Where are you?”

  The next message fifteen minutes later: “I’m almost to the hospital. Answer your fucking phone.”

  I floor the accelerator and try to call Beau, but it goes straight to voice mail, as does Savannah’s phone.

  What the fuck has happened to Kate? Panic sweeps through me, picturing her broken and hurt in a hospital bed. Sweet, loving Kate is the last person on this Earth that deserves to be hurt. She’s so damn good.

  Living in a world without her is incomprehensible, even if she’s not mine.

  And she can’t ever be mine.

  But she’d sure as fuck better be okay.

  I find parking, run into the hospital and ask for Kate’s room number, rushing away as soon as the numbers are out of the receptionist’s mouth.

  It seems to take forever to find Kate’s room, and just as I walk through the door, I see Kate reach up to Beau standing next to her, place her hand on the back of his neck, and pull his ear down to her lips.

  “Hey, wrong brother—”

  Beau puts a finger up, stopping me. Savannah and Lila are listening closely.

  “Go ahead, Kate. What is it?” he says softly.

  “Hil
ary,” we all hear her rasp. “Not Mr. Rudolph. She stole the money, gave me peanuts. I have proof.”

  We all gather around her. I grip her leg, thankful that she’s alive, but fucking pissed at how swollen her beautiful face is. She looks like she went ten rounds with the devil himself.

  “Enough for me to go have her arrested now?” Beau asks anxiously. Kate nods, and Beau kisses her forehead and leaves immediately, pulling his phone out of his pocket as he hurries out.

  “What’s happened?” I ask Savannah and Lila, as I take Beau’s place next to Kate. Her hand is small and warm in mine. “Are you okay, cher?”

  “Wanted you,” she says.

  “Don’t talk,” Lila says soothingly. “Someone, Hilary, slipped her peanuts. She’s very allergic.”

  “We told Hilary that at girls’ night out,” Savannah adds with mutiny in her eyes. “That little bitch knew exactly what she was doing.”

  “Lunch,” Kate adds.

  “She brought you lunch?” Lila asks and Kate nods. I brush her hair off her forehead and cheeks, kissing her lightly. I can’t stop touching her, reassuring myself that she’s okay.

  “Thank God for Mr. Rudolph,” Savannah adds. “He walked in just as the reaction happened. Her airway closed up. He called the EMT’s and they brought her here. She’s been sleeping since I arrived, and her tongue is just now small enough for her to talk.”

  “I knew I didn’t like that woman,” Lila adds.

  “Sleepy,” Kate says.

  “Sleep, baby,” I whisper in her ear. She tightens her grip on my hand. “I’m right here. I’m not leaving. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

  She nods and slips into sleep.

  “I’m going to make that woman’s life a living hell,” I announce calmly.

  “Good,” Lila says. “I’m going to go call Rhys and her parents. I’ll be back.”

  Lila leaves and Savannah leans back in her chair and watches me quietly for a long minute.

  “You’re in love with her.”

  “I love her so much I can’t breathe,” I admit, surprised. “I think I just figured that out.”

  “But you’re still going to let her leave.” It’s not a question. I glance up and hold my sister’s gaze for a moment, then look back at the sweet woman lying in this bed.

  “I am,” I reply quietly.

  “Eli—”