by Amber Malloy
Levi grabbed her by the arm to steer her away from his friends. Although he was glad to provide entertainment, he didn’t want it to be at his expense.
“We’re at a funeral.”
“Memorial,” she corrected, “and it ends at five. What are we going to do after that? You haven’t even given me flowers.” Meghan sniffed.
Shocked he was even having this discussion, Levi became that guy he never thought he would be. “I need a break.”
“What?”
“This isn’t about you, it’s about me,” he threw out, unable to stop the dreaded words from falling from his lips.
“It’s Valentine’s Day,” she screeched.
The polite murmur in the banquet room grew silent.
He tried to pull her away but she snatched her arm from him. “You’re the shittiest boyfriend!” she cried. Levi had no idea how she pulled that sound off but hoped to never hear it again. “When you wake up tomorrow and come to your senses, don’t call me!” She signaled for her friends to leave, while his dad stared daggers at him. Humiliated until the end of time, it took a minute for the room to go back to their polite small talk.
“That was smooth.” Shawn put his hand over his shoulder and laughed. “You broke up with your girlfriend at your best friend’s funeral, and on freakin’ Valentine’s Day. Fucking classic, man.”
“Yeah,” Greg agreed. “This is going to be epic when we go back to school.” The embarrassment would have been much worse if Bud didn’t chuckle at his predicament—the first smile he had witnessed from him in days.
“Your life is going to be pure hell. You know how those girls stick together.”
“Maybe they’ll make a cheer about it at the next basketball game,” Bud muttered.
As Levi realized the severity of his situation, his friends all laughed at how screwed he would be come Monday morning.
Not five minutes later, his father ripped him a new one over Meghan’s meltdown, and Levi passed on hanging with the guys. Instead, he hiked over to the cabins. It snowed in a hard drizzle that would eventually turn to good ski powder. Drawing his suit jacket closed, he made every plan to sit down and do his homework.
Of course, he ended up two cabins away from his house. He gave Cayden’s door a quick rap with his knuckles. She greeted him in a tight white t-shirt, pajama bottoms, and glasses. The glasses were delightfully new.
“Sorry to hear about your friend.” Cayden stood back to let him into her girly palace. He walked in and felt the release of tension he didn’t know he held in the pit of his stomach all day.
Chapter Nineteen
Present Day
Fall leaves blew around the resort’s main driveway. Cayden wrapped her long cashmere sweater around her body and waited for the cavalcade to arrive. Limited in her resources concerning Shana’s murder, she had to cut a few deals.
“Ms. Young.”
She sighed at Katie’s refusal to use her first name.
“Sorry, Cayden. That florist you recommended is awesome.”
“Good.”
“And I was wondering if we can use them full-time.” Katie stepped closer and lowered her voice. “Our florist in town really isn’t very good. A lot of dead and wilted stuff.”
“Sorry, but that’s not my department.”
“Um, we get complaints about that florist and it still doesn’t sway Mr. Scott to change them.”
Dying to unleash to someone about him, Cayden bit her lip to stop the onslaught of bitter words. Of course he wanted to cut costs. It would help him buy her out in the long run.
“Sometimes he makes it hard to do my job. I’m sorry to complain.” She glanced around. “But the only reason I got the pumpkin patch is because I cried a little.”
Cayden chuckled. Levi would probably never be easy.
“Honestly, I’m surprised that even worked. I think he was just tired,” the marketing director finished.
“What day was this?” Cayden asked.
“When Doc came out to see about Stoney.”
The night prior, they had done filthy things to one another. Chipper Katie managed to hit the nail on the head. Cayden had worn Levi down.
“He doesn’t listen to anyone, not even his parents, so I was wondering… Could you talk to him?”
Hiring Bellingham Flowers would certainly help Simone’s family, but she didn’t deal with the vendors. “I’ll see what I can do,” Cayden promised.
“Great. I hate to ask, but the little bit of pride I had left went down the tubes once I cried on the job.”
“It happens to the best of us.” She patted Katie on the shoulder while several black SUVs drove up to the entrance.
“Oh, is this the wedding party you booked?”
“Yep. You’d think it was the president,” Cayden muttered. They waited for the first truck to pull into the driveway. The driver got out and walked around to the passenger side before he opened the door.
“This is exciting,” Katie said.
“Cayden Young, where the hell am I?” Deny Flicker screamed. Socialite, pop star, and all around troublemaker jumped out of the backseat.
At some point, Cayden would have to evaluate her attraction to bad girls. It probably had a lot to do with the heavy sense of responsibility she carried all her life.
As the purple-haired singer air-kissed her cheeks, she figured the free-spirited friends always made the best partners in crimes. “Thanks for saving me,” Deny whispered in her ear. “Hopefully my brother will at least give me a call on my wedding weekend.” The rest of her team of hangers-on, along with her hair and makeup artists, trailed behind the pop star into the resort.
“Um, should I?” Katie asked.
Cayden nodded her head for her to show the ridiculously tacky entourage around. Shorter than everyone by a few feet, Katie tried to catch up.
Once the drivers dropped off the luggage, they drove away from the driveway. Instead of following her friend inside, Cayden waited for one more car to pull up to the entrance.
A laid-back California dude opened the door to the Chevy Tahoe and stepped out. “This place is freaking awesome. I swear, if it wasn’t rustic and hauntingly beautiful like you said I was going to totally bail.”
Snatching off his sunglasses, Wes Richards took in a deep breath. “Wow, you can’t do this in Los Angeles. The smog will kill you.” One of Forbes’ top one hundred tech gurus wanted to marry the high-maintenance but well-intentioned pop star. This union would be the billionaire’s biggest challenge to date.
“Didn’t want to drive with the crew?” The growing numbers in Deny’s entourage had gotten out of hand.
“Trust me, they won’t exist after the wedding.”
“Keep your fingers crossed that this works,” she told him.
“I have every faith in you that it will.” He wagged his eyebrows up and down before throwing his arm over her shoulder. “Now tell me, pretty one, when do we work on your problem?”
As the bellboys ran out with luggage racks, they headed inside the resort. “We have to wait for Teddy to show up.”
“Oh, wow, the lost sheep is coming … this should be fun.”
“What should be fun?” Levi asked with bite.
“The wedding,” Cayden explained. “This is the groom, Wes Richards. Levi here owns Goosebay Lake.”
“Cool place, man. Thanks for letting us crash.” Wes dropped his arm from around her shoulder and extended his hand.
“No problem.” After a beat, Levi’s rigid posture seemed to ease up and he accepted Wes’s hand to shake. “The new ponies just arrived, I’d figured you’d want to check them out.”
“Holy shit, you have ponies!” Wes squeaked. “Can I come?”
Levi glanced between them before he shrugged. “Sure, we’ll take the golf cart.”
Since she told him about Dale, Levi hadn’t been in the best of moods. Surprised that he invited the tech giant to go with him, Cayden closed her mouth before she crossed to the elevator bay and
pushed the top floor.
“Go ahead, I’m going to check on Deny.” She needed Wes’s help to solve Shana’s murder, so she hoped the two men got along.
Chapter Twenty
They stood off to the side of the truck while the breeder unloaded the miniature horses. If they got back the other two, then their head count would reach the whooping number of five.
“These little bastards are so cool,” Wes said next to him.
“Feel free to play with them once they’re unloaded.”
“I’m a grown-ass man, why would I play with ponies?” Wes grunted. “Just kidding, I’m totally going play with them.” He smiled. “Do they have names?”
Levi walked him closer to the paddock where his team supervised the introduction of the horses to the farm. “Nah, I’m going to let Cayden do it.”
“She bought into this place when she was a teenager, right?”
“Yeah, about thirteen years ago.” Levi unlatched the fence for them to go into the run.
“She invested in my tech firm right after college … for her, not me. I’m a drop out.”
They tentatively approached the horses. Skittish little buggers, Levi signaled for Wes to slow down his gait. “Hold on … you developed one of the most popular tech companies this century and you don’t have a degree?”
“College really wasn’t teaching me anything new. Cayden was my biggest asset. If it wasn’t for her, I would be working at the Genius Bar.”
Levi chuckled at the thought of Wes wasting his talents in retail. “How did you meet your fiancée … Deny, is that it?”
“Wait a minute.” Wes stood from his crouching position. “You’ve never heard of Deny Flicker?”
Levi shook his head. He couldn’t even picture a pop star named Deny anything.
“‘Lick, Lick, Lick Me’? ‘We’re Going Down South’? Or ‘Hallelujah Your Mouth’?”
“Never heard of one of those, but I’m sensing a theme.”
The tech guru’s face screwed up in thought. “It sounded worse coming out of my mouth. I can’t believe I didn’t notice how filthy my fiancée’s songs are.” Wes seemed seriously confused by the whole turn in the conversation.
Sneaking closer to the horses before they took off, Levi managed to catch the slow one. “Look at it this way … it could be a compliment.” He kept the little guy calm for Wes to pet him.
“No wonder my parents were worried about meeting her.” Wes hugged the animal’s mane and kissed his muzzle. “This place is great, at least they’ll approve of it. Besides, this is Cayden’s fault … she introduced me to Deny at a party.”
“Not really surprised.” Levi laughed. “She seems to have a knack for that.”
“Tawdry matchmaking?”
“Knowing what people need.” Reaching over, Levi grabbed the female horse for Wes.
“They’re so cute. How much for them?” Wes asked.
“I’m guessing you canceled a really big shindig to come to the sticks for a small and intimate ceremony. You probably have enough to deal with.”
“True. And don’t forget about whatever murder Cayden is roping us into.”
“You know about that?” Levi stood, surprised she told him.
“Sure. Deny’s been helping her forever. I popped in on one of their all-nighters. Trust me, dealing with one of those geniuses is hard … but both?” He shrugged. “They managed to scam me into a few sleuthing assists.”
Levi figured the help Cayden got from the tech expert may have not been completely legal.
The horse nuzzled Wes’s face and snorted. “Okay, this one is definitely going home with me. Name your price, man.”
****
The wedding party booked out the whole top floor. Cayden didn’t bother to knock. She could hear the chaos from the hallway. Turning the knob to the resort’s most palatial suite, she stepped in. Hair, makeup, and clothes were everywhere. While the bride-to-be sat at the vanity close to tears, the stylists ran around the room with no real sense of purpose.
“Hey, everyone, can I get a minute alone with Deny?”
“Uh, uh,” the hairstylist said, waving his curling iron in her direction. “No one, but no one tells us what to do except the diva.” The rest of the room agreed with various forms of sucking teeth and eyes rolls.
“Get out!” Deny’s snapped, forcing her employees to scatter. “Just get the hell out, all of you.”
Cayden waited for the room to clear as the impending tears finally fell down the star’s face. Best friends since they were kids, she could read her moods without words.
Deny pushed off her purple wig and sobbed. Mixed with Egyptian and Ethiopian, Deny’s exotic features made her stand out from the usual pop stars.
Cayden crossed to her and immediately began to unbraid her curly blondish hair.
“He’s going to leave me, it’s just a matter of time.”
“Why the hell did you sell rights to your wedding pictures?” The small and casual affair had turned into a three-ring circus. Often Cayden would talk Deny off the ledge, but too wrapped up with her own crap this time, she couldn’t save her from the fall.
“I didn’t, it was my publicist, Stella. She contractually obligated me to all of this. Seriously, Cayden, I’m on the hook for millions.”
“What the hell?” Cayden stopped mid braid to stare at her in the mirror. “Did you tell Wes?”
“No. I thought I could handle it, but…” She hiccupped in full panic mood. “Stella said she can get me out of this mess, but I have to sign my soul over to Trouble Records for another album, and I just want to— Argh! She conned me into firing Rubin, my manager, and I don’t know what to do.”
As Deny was wracked with sobs, Cayden could no longer make out her words. She hurried to finish her braids before the next crying fit started.
Deny and her brother were Cayden’s only childhood friends. During the summer months, the three of them were inseparable, but that would always end with each fresh school year. They were boarding school brats and she couldn’t wait for summer to roll around again to be with them. September always came fast. While other children filled their days with school, Cayden got stuck with the well-over-sixty gang her grandfather hung with.
The twins’ annual reprieve from dealing with the oldies became the reason Cayden wanted to attend Chesterfield in the first place. The girls promised to attend college together and that was exactly what they did. The salacious pop star majored in psychology while Cayden received a B.A. in Sociology and Finance.
“Let me get this straight… Stella has constructed a deal where you will be out of millions if you don’t make another pop record?”
“If I have to sing one more dirty song!” Deny screamed. She dropped her head down on the brass vanity and sobbed.
“Seriously?” she muttered.
Raised by her wealthy grandparents, Deny promised to go to school for something reputable. However, the minute they passed away, Deny set out to became a star. Perhaps not the one with that Rolling Stone type catalogue. Instead, she got labeled with that Rihanna kind of vibe everyone loved.
“I’m this strange feminist icon where I own my sexuality and can show my tits.”
Cayden choked back her smart comment and let her friend finish whining.
“Wes is the best thing that’s ever happened to me and he thinks I’m being a raging diva. Now I want out.”
“Of the wedding?”
“No, my career! Come on, Cayden, pay attention?” Mascara streaked her lovely face. “I want to be a housewife. Geesh, I feel like I’m talking to one of the record company stooges.”
The good girl in Cayden resisted throat-punching her best friend.
“Look, don’t take offense, but you’re being one hell of a dramatic whore.”
“Huh?” Deny said, shocked someone dared to talk back to her.
“Really, sweetie, you graduated with honors.” She whipped out her phone from her sweater pocked. “Get it together.”
“Cayden?”
While Deny sat slack-jawed, Cayden’s fingers flew over the keyboard. “Who had exclusives to your wedding photos?”
“People,” she squeaked.
“What about television rights?”
“Um, I’m not sure…”
“And who owns your employees phones, you or Stella?”
“Well, I do, duh.”
Cayden glared at her until the pop princess had the good sense to glance away.
“Fluff your hair and fix your face.”
Appropriately afraid, it seemed, Deny hurried to do what Cayden demanded.
Cayden dialed her office. “Hey,” she greeted Gil.
“I haven’t heard from you in a while.” He sounded pissed.
“In two secs, I’m going to forward over some info. Do me a favor and make sure Wes Richards’s lawyers get it.”
“Will do. Hey, if you got a second I’d love to talk to you about—”
“Sorry, Gil, I have to go.” She hung up on her CEO before Wes walked into the bridal suite room. “Deny has something to tell you.”
“Good or bad?” the good-looking nerd asked.
“I’m sure you know the answer to that.” Cayden slipped away to allow the two lovebirds to hash it out.
The tech guru called her a month ago, worried. Knowing Deny since childhood, Cayden could only imagine what could be the problem. Even if the couple decided to postpone the wedding, her friend would undoubtedly be on the hook for millions.
Chapter Twenty-One
For two days straight, suppliers and construction crews made a mess of his property. An elaborate tent for the nuptials, hand-crafted with artisanal wood, decorated his field. Close to school going back in, not many guests trolled around the resort that weekend. Walking past the huge construction site, Levi headed for the barn.
“Things are certainly busy, no?” Fernando greeted him at the horse enclosure.
“For some more than others.” While the wedding was scheduled for tomorrow, Levi had no idea if the pop star and tech genius would get married or not. Evidently a power struggle threatened to tear apart her career. “Fernando, I need a favor.”