I started gathering my things.
“What are you doing?” Cade asked.
“Coming with you,” I said.
Cade shook his head at first in regret, and then he seemed resolved about something. “We don't know what we're up against. I don't know what I might find. Dragging you into this wasn't right, to begin with. I was wrong and selfish to let you partner with me.”
Where had this come from? Just moments before we were going over everything and it seemed that we were coming to some form of resolution.
“I asked to partner with you, remember? I can take care of myself. Let me go with you. You don't know what’s trying to get in there and harm Dayle. Two people protecting him is better than one, right?”
“When we were looking for answers, and you were helping figure out possible solutions, your involvement at that point carried little risk of anything happening to you,” he said.
I widened my eyes and tugged at the huge flannel I wore. “And what's different now? Dayle could just be having a panic attack. We don't know for certain if anyone is even there. And if someone is, I promise I'll stay in the truck while you check it out.”
Cade flattened his lips into a thin line. “You’re not changing the way I feel about this and my expertise should count for something. I do this, I do it my way and on my own.”
What was Cade so afraid of? This was unlike him. It was as if the moment Dayle said that something or somebody was after him, a switch had flipped inside Cade.
He was no longer acting as if we were in this together. In fact, he was putting so many walls between us at this moment that it would take a few sticks of dynamite to blast through. I was flabbergasted, shocked, and taken more than a little by surprise. I hadn't expected that at the last minute, he would shut me out.
“Why should I stay here when I've helped you? We're in this, the two of us, together,” I said.
He backed away from me. With each step, I felt he put one more brick between us.
My loaner phone he’d given me rang. I glanced down and it was Sophia from the office back home.
“Hey,” I said. “Don't tell me, my vacation has been cut short?”
“Leaving me with that jerk for this long is cruel, Augusta. I'm going to take the high road here and not return evil for evil.” She took a shaky, exaggerated breath. “He took your idea, that Mr. Turner did, and they're going to choose that guy you absolutely abhor and said we should not work with. They're going to close with him in three days.”
What could I say? I hadn't expected them to move up the timescale by so much, but I was working on a fix for this. If I could get Cade interested in the company Slade had left him, maybe we could present the deal I would have worked out with Slade to Mr. Smith.
I wasn't trying to think about the job though until I finished figuring out what had happened here. However, a lot of residents here would be adversely affected if Mr. Turner was allowed to close that deal with Slade’s competitor.
“Sophia, I know. I might have another idea. What else is going on with Mr. Turner?”
Cade began to walk away.
“Augusta, it's the end of the world and I'm heading to a bomb shelter. I can't work here without you. No one can make me.”
What does she mean? “I'm sort of being pulled at two ends here. What's made you plan for the world’s destruction?”
“Mr. Turner has decided to fire you. Told me himself. Then he said he wanted your number, but I explained to him that you left your phone when you went on vacation. And that no one had been able to get ahold of you.”
How had Sophia?
She cleared up that mystery. “I looked on your phone and did this thing I’d learned how to do to trace a call from the last number that called to check office voicemail.”
Sophia was amazingly good when it came to breaking into desks, locked offices, and now she could trace numbers? I shook my head remembering never to get on her bad side. I’d have to get her that case of ice cream she wanted soon.
I was glad she’d covered for me. But that wouldn't hold long. Even I knew that if someone wanted to fire me, then telling me was just the last bit of business.
More than likely, I already was without my job. The job meant everything to me, and I had toiled to the bone to develop a way to fix the sudden drop in our numbers. What had I done to deserve Mr. Turner to betray me and now to get rid of me?
“Why didn't you come back, if you were aware of what Mr. Turner was doing?” she asked.
“I was working on something else,” I said.
“Augusta, nothing can be more important than this.”
She sounded as if she truly was in agony.
I took a few deep breaths. I had to think through this and figure out what to do.
“Augusta is that you preparing for the end of the world? Because if it is, you've got a way more low-key version of doing it than I do.”
“Sophia, I have to put you on hold for just a moment, please hang in there with me,” I said.
Cade was at the door.
“Don’t leave without me, Cade, I'm your partner.”
He paused at the door, one hand on the handle, the other flat against the door frame, and he didn't turn around. “You should go to your office where the worst that will ever happen to you is your boss will let you go.”
Cade’s hard voice was different than the grouchiness he sometimes had. He was now cold, thoughtless, and resolved. Did he know how much pride I took in my work? It didn't matter what I was doing. It had to be done well, and it had to be done to the finish.
“And that's why you need to allow me to close this case by myself. I'll be objective. I'll be doing this because I know what I'm doing,” he said.
“Eavesdropping on my emotional intent as well as my conversation? That’s shabby,” I said. “Because you'll be alone. You won't have to worry about anyone else right?” I took a deep breath and let it out. “Mr. Turner wanted to fire me and you're doing as much the same.”
“Go home, Augusta.” He didn't care that he was behaving as though this case wasn’t mine as well.
“Cade, what do you think could go wrong? I'll stay out of the way!” I said.
He turned toward me then. A little in the door, mostly out. “You won't. When it comes down to it, you'll get curious or careless or killed.”
The door slammed on his parting words. I stood there stunned, furious, and despairing. He’d left me in the thick of the hunt when someone needed protecting, and I couldn’t believe he’d done it.
If he wanted me out of his cabin and away from the case, then I wouldn't stay here. But how was I going to leave the case? I looked at the phone. “Sophia, you didn't hear that did you?”
“Well, I wasn't trying. You were the one who didn't put the phone on mute. What case?” she asked.
“I think I'm coming home,” I said.
She began to cough. It took her a moment to stop. “That’s the other thing I wanted to tell you. Your ex-boyfriend has been grilling me for your whereabouts. Your parents have called too. But I think that they have someone who's keeping tabs on you because they haven’t asked where you are at. Strange right? Anyway, they have some odd inclination that the minute you come home you'll see reason and take Mark back.
I couldn't go home. Not now.
“Then that settles it, I’m staying here. But I can't stay in Cade’s cabin. He's as much as kicked me out.”
She seemed to have calmed down somewhat. I guess telling me what was on her mind and what was going on was helping her out, at least. “And you can't go far at this time of night. Whatever you do, you need to get somewhere that is safe. Whoever he is, and whatever you're involved in, it seems to me that he's just trying to keep you from getting in over your head.”
I felt like banging my forehead against a wall. “How can you tell? You don't even know him.”
“But I did hear what he just said to you. And it doesn
't take an idiot to hear that he's worried in a huge way. The idiot would be me by the way for not having found a safe place to go to ground yet. You haven't told me what's going on, but whatever it is, please be careful Augusta,” she said.
When we got off the phone with each other I grabbed my things and went to the four-wheeler. I hadn't driven it in a while. I climbed in and sat there for a full minute wondering where I would go. Who could I possibly stay with at this late of an hour, at this last minute?
What I really wanted to do was leave this town tonight. I wouldn't, though. It was late and the only person I could think of that might have a spare room was Diana. She’d said she was the one people stayed with when they needed somewhere to go.
I called her and when I explained what had just happened, she kindly offered her extra room for me to use for as long as I needed it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
*Augusta*
DIANA’S CABIN WAS A LITTLE bigger than the other ones. She had a living area plus a dining area and kitchen. And she also had two rooms. It was more than enough space for us to stay in the same cabin without getting on each other's nerves. I tried not to frown. Hopefully, I wouldn't get on hers, because at this point, I couldn't do anything more than think about everything that had gone wrong.
I stayed that way for the entire night and Diana saying that I needed my space, didn't bother me that first night.
The next morning, she went to work and left me to my own devices. I was grateful in a way that I had some time alone to think about things. I was sorrowful in another way because of how things had turned out.
Diana said I could eat whatever I wanted. I looked around finding some fruit and settling on that, I went back to my room, sat on the floor, and looked around.
As long as I was here, I could work the case from the clues. I didn’t need to be out in the field with Cade. I sighed. I knew I wasn’t even a real investigator, but still, I knew I could figure this out. I had to, to stop someone else who could be next on the murderer’s list.
What I knew so far was the chocolates came from Diana when she was trying to make a peace offering to Odra.
Odra was a vampire. She could’ve been poisoned but we’d only speculated on what that poison could have been.
Slade was human, and though he was the frailer of the two, we didn’t find anything that would have harmed him either.
I looked around the empty room. I was sorry for everything. For coming to this town. For deciding it was a good idea to tag along with Cade. For even meeting Cade and falling for him. I halted in my thoughts. Somewhere along the way, I’d handed him my heart, and I couldn’t seem to catch up with him to tell him so.
Putting my chin on my knees, I realized I was ticked off with the fact that I'd come all this way, and I’d met him, and I’d opened myself up to him a little bit, and he’d still thought that I would get in the way?
Did you really open up completely to him, Augusta?
I thought I had, but I realized there were times when I still thought and acted like he was going to do the same thing as Mark had done to me in regards to suddenly wanting to change me. But the more I thought about it, the more I understood Cade had never tried to. He’d never once criticized me. And he never made me feel anything less than beautiful in his presence.
No, that wasn't the problem. The problem was that he thought I was a liability. I grimaced. I wanted him to think of me as an asset.
This was all too much. Cade running off and leaving me and thinking he was right by doing so. Mr. Turner and his treacherous actions, and now I was pretty certain no one would hire me once I got back. Mr. Turner was good at blackballing those he wanted out of the way.
As I lie there for most of the day, I finally laid back on the floor and stared at the ceiling. The only time I got up was to throw my apple core and orange peel away. Then I reclaimed my spot right back on the floor staring at the ceiling beams of the cabin.
Closing my eyes, I thought about Odra. I thought about the candy at Betty’s. I thought about the bar-b-que place. Something was just at the tip of my mind—waiting there for me to see. It kept bothering me. I wondered if someone close to Odra and Slade had killed them. Then I remembered something. At the nail salon, Christie had said that Diana loved the chocolates so much that she went and got them a lot.
Oh my goodness. I knew one thing that was bothering me. Chocolates. Dayle had immediately given them to Diana. She’d thought because they had just slept together. But Dayle didn’t even like chocolates. That day on the truck ride over to Badger Town when Dayle had been preoccupied with company—he’d as much as said so.
Since Cade had ousted me from the case, there was no one to bounce it off of. But if that was indeed true, then Dayle wasn’t the intended victim…Diana was.
I heard keys jingle at the door, and then Diana called out, “Augusta? You'll never believe what I just did.”
Easing myself into a sitting position, I stared dubiously at the door. Not two minutes later, Diana came bursting in. “Get up. Get dressed. We're having friends over.”
I squinted at her. “Who?”
“Christie and Fifi. We all had a little discussion today. I'm meeting them for lunch and told them that you were a little down and out. They both agreed that that is unacceptable. So get dressed. They'll be over in about an hour.”
She flounced out of the room before I had a chance to answer. They were coming by? I was in no condition to mingle with anyone.
But I wasn't going to let my dejected sadness get in the way of other people's fun. Besides I was a guest in Diana's home and if she invited people over, then the least I could do was try to make an effort to socialize. I sighed heavily. It would be a great effort.
About an hour later, Fifi showed up first. Then Christie came in about ten minutes after.
They both had arms overflowing with food, movies, and alcohol. It'd been awhile since I'd had a night in with a bunch of girls. They’d brought their own food and booze.
Christie put on a movie, Fifi started cooking, and Diana began making some drinks. It was a whirlwind of activity, and I stood there on the outside of it, a little out of my depth.
All I could think about was keeping Diana safe. Was it terrible that these women were being so lively and yet despondent thoughts of Cade permeated my good intentions?
Diana shoved a drink in my hand, and Fifi put a plate in the other one. Christie ran over and began guiding me to the chair in front of the television. We all sat down on Diana's huge couch and they began talking at once.
“Guys suck,” Fifi said.
“They don't suck, they just are a different species than we are. Once we understand that, we will figure out one of the greatest mysteries of the world.” Diana smiled sagely.
Christie giggled. “You two are so full of gloom and doom. She doesn't need to hear that. Honestly, Augusta, every couple has their ups and downs.”
“Yeah?” I asked giving her all of my focus.
“You can’t expect things to just be perfect all the time. I know when you and Cade were together you were on cloud nine. The rest of us were pretty much non-existent, and now things look different.” Christie stared at me, her big green eyes kind and compassionate. “Remember how you felt during that honeymoon phase? Like nothing and no one could come between the two of you?”
I hadn't realized we had been going through a honeymoon phase. Or even that I was falling in love with him until he kicked me out of his cabin. But it’d felt like I was leaving my home.
“I think you're wrong, Christie,” Fifi said. “She’s here and he’s with Dayle. Who knows what they’re doing together.”
Curiously, I glanced at Fifi. My attention was solely on her.
She continued. “Cade is just like Dayle. Men like them need to have their options limited. If they can’t then they’ll wander. He’s not with you right now, which could very well be because he’s with another girl.”
Diana looked at her. “Fifi?”
Fifi patted my arm and then my hand. “What Cade did was the kind of thing that men like him do. But it's more than any man has ever done for me. At least he cut clean from you at the beginning. It’s better that way. Before anybody has too many feelings involved and it doesn't hurt as much. Later, it would have been so much worse, Augusta. So consider yourself lucky.”
Christie just stared at me for a long moment. “Remind me never to ask you to console me.”
Fifi's eyes narrowed. “Listen girls. My ex-boyfriend led me on for years. I thought he wanted me and only me, and then I discovered he was with another woman. Then we broke up, and he came back to me. Then he gave me a long sad story that pushed every button. I took him back.”
She must be speaking about Dayle.
“I thought we were beyond that, Fifi,” Diana said.
Fifi shook her head. “We are. But not three days later, Dayle was in the arms of some other woman, secretly, and I find out about it because she mistakenly calls his number while we are together. That's what you have to look forward to with love, Augusta. You give your heart and then some guy comes and stomps all over it.”
I went still. I did feel a little bit like Cade took my heart, and I didn’t know if he was stomping all over it, but it sure did hurt to think about him. I loved Cade with all his grouchiness, his moodiness…and his incredible considerateness.
We’d had that strong connection from the start. I was fairly certain I wanted him to be my mate. I sighed. But how? As far as I knew what I felt was one-sided. Not to mention he’d really hurt my feelings by going to protect Dayle alone.
Could I sit and listen to the well-meaning young ladies much longer with my heart being torn in two? But there was a reason I didn’t want to move. Something more that I couldn’t quite make out that was disturbing me right now. I puzzled through it while listening to the girls talk.
They began going on about men again. I winced. After a few minutes, I decided I'd have to leave this conversation. Frankly, it was making me feel worse. But I also wanted to see if I could maybe open my mind up the way Cade had and see what was going on with Dayle.
The Vampire's Alpha Mate: A BBW Tiger-Shifter Romance (Arcane Affairs Agency) Page 17