by Mia Ashlinn
Chapter 11
A sharp elbow to his ribs jarred Shane, and he blinked, looking around at the men in the booth with him. They all seemed to be keeping a close eye on him as though waiting for him to spontaneously combust in the middle of the diner.
“Stop thinking so much,” Ethan said, then elbowed him again. “We still have a lot more to talk about.”
Fuck. What else could they tell him that would make him feel like a bigger heel than he already did? I’m sure they have a lot more where this came from, asshole.
A thought struck Shane. “How do you, Brett, and Sam fit into this?”
“We’ll get to that in a minute.” Ethan peered at Adam with a smirk. “You were right. He is an impatient bastard.”
Adam shrugged negligently. “I told you so.”
Cutting Ethan a sharp look, Brett shut Ethan up without uttering a word. At the same time, Deke gave Adam an identical look. But Adam just glared right back at him. The two men’s dominant personalities clashed and neither of them backed down.
“Keep going,” Shane demanded, hoping to interrupt the two men’s battle for dominance. “Don’t stop now.”
Deke broke eye contact with Adam, looking at Shane with a frown before he went on. “Katie-Anne has a past that most people are not privy to, a past that you need to discuss with her and not me. But she is not fluff, Shane, not at all.”
“You’ve seen her, Deke,” Shane said, grasping at straws. He wasn’t ready to concede that they were completely right, and he was entirely, horribly wrong—again. “You know how she acts.”
“Yeah, I do,” Deke concurred. “I have seen her, but it is nothing more than an act. Surely you can see that.”
Shane felt his brow furrow. Ignoring the last statement Deke made, he asked in a strangled voice, “Why would she do that? Even if she did it with me and Landon, why would she feel the need to lie to her best friends or her brother or, hell, to anyone else?”
Sam spoke up for the first time since sitting down. “Don’t you think it is much easier for people to despise the person you are pretending to be than having them hate you for the person you really are?”
“It just doesn’t make sense,” Shane responded as he held on to that last, fragile piece of hope that he wasn’t the biggest fool on the planet.
“Katie-Anne is a very complex woman,” Ethan commented as he plucked a fork from the table and peered at each of the plates on the table. He assessed each plate with his eyes as though trying to choose the best food. “She is one of my closest friends, and I love her.”
“Before you kill my friend, he is not interested in Katie-Anne. None of us are,” Brett reassured him. “It has always been you and Landon for her.”
“Yeah,” Ethan agreed as he speared a piece of fruit off of Adam’s plate. “Our girl has a stupid five-date rule. After five dates, she dumps them—no matter who they are or how she feels. She loves ’em and leaves ’em.” He stuck the fork in his mouth with a moan and ate the fruit. “Well, except, Rafe. He is the only one who managed to stick around.”
“Did you have to go there?” Deke asked, his fury palpable. “He’s not ready to hear about Rafe, their relationship, or their trip to The Edge of Kinky.”
“He has a right to know, and I am going to tell him,” Ethan defended himself. “Seriously, if we are going to lay everything on the table, he needs to know about Rafe. That man knows a lot about Katie-Anne, probably more than most people do. If he wants to be with Katie-Anne, he needs to understand her. Since Rafe is in town with his sister, Izzie, he might want to talk to him.”
Oh yeah, I’ll talk to him. My fist and his face will have a nice, long chat.
Shane gave Deke his undivided attention. “You knew about this, I presume.” He was amazed that he was able to disguise the fury in his tone. The last thing he needed to do was piss them off right now. But later, they would not escape his wrath.
“Of course I knew,” Deke informed him with a grimace. “I am the one who introduced them.”
Shane’s head just about blew off as he realized his own brother’s betrayal. His blood pressure went through the roof, and he leaned across the table and grabbed his brother by the lapels of his tailored jacket. “You knew how I feel about her. You knew how Landon feels. Why in the fucking world would you do that to us?”
Deke stared Shane straight in the eye, his glittering brown ones meeting his blue-green ones. “I introduced them as business associates, Shane. I would never do something like that to you, and you know better,” Deke declared. “You just get all irrational, possessive, and jealous when it comes to Katie-Anne and Landon.”
Deke scowled. “Now shut up and listen to me. Rafe is an international art dealer that I have been friends with for a long time. When he came to visit The Edge a while back, I thought it would help her career for them to have a meeting. At that time, she had been staying in Kinky more and more, and she seemed lonely. Rafe was the same way. It was inevitable they would strike up a friendship in addition to their business relationship. I had no control over that, and I certainly had no control over whether they did or did not become lovers.”
“You and your fucking God complex,” Shane sneered.
“Shut up,” Deke growled, his normally calm demeanor slipping. “There is still a lot more we need to tell you. When we are done, I will let you take a couple of swings at me. I deserve them, but not until I give you the okay.”
“Hell yes, you deserve them,” Shane shot back but released his brother and sat back down.
“Keep going, Deke,” Adam urged.
“You asked why she did all of this, but you did not ask what exactly she did,” Deke informed him curtly. He looked as though he disapproved, as if he were disappointed.
“I figured that it was fairly obvious,” Shane answered. “She’s a famous painter, and she raised money she didn’t need to prove a point to herself or me or whoever.”
Man, I sound like an asshole. Now, I’m a damn fool and an asshole.
“She did need it,” Deke disagreed.
Shane shook his head, insisting, “No, she didn’t.”
“Yes, she did,” Adam told him with a hard sigh. “Katie-Anne barely has any money. She invests every penny she has in the store. Otherwise, she donates it to charities and organizations around the world.” His lips turned down in to a deep frown. “She has no clue that we know where her money is going, and we don’t intend for her to find out. She would kill us or castrate us if she did.”
Shane had a hard time believing that Katie-Anne had no money. She might give large donations, but she couldn’t afford half the things she did, if they were right. “What about the designer clothes? What about her sports car?”
“They are all secondhand or sewn by her,” Adam said matter-of-factly. “She often trades her work for those things. Besides, she designs clothes, jewelry, and shoes with her friend, Madeline Moore. Well, that isn’t entirely true. Maddie designs most of the stuff, and she sketches it, but she still has an eagle eye for those kinds of things. Katie-Anne cannot keep up her rich-girl appearance without designer clothes, and God knows she would never pay for them with her family’s money. So she sews them and trades things for them whenever she can.”
“The car was mine,” Deke explained. “I sold it to her below cost because she needed a new one when she crashed hers. She pays me monthly payments that she can barely afford.”
Crash? Shane felt his heartbeat increase. She’d been hurt. She could have died, and he wouldn’t have known. None of them would have, not even Landon. They should have been there with her. They should have been by her side, holding her hand and taking care of her.
“What crash? What happened? When was this? Where was she? Why didn’t you tell me?” Shane interrogated.
“Because we didn’t know until a couple of weeks after she was released from the hospital,” Deke answered. “By the time we found out, it was pointless to tell you. God, Shane. Do you think so little of us? We have kept
secrets for her, but we would have told you something like that if we had known in time.”
“Sorry,” Shane muttered. Deke was right. His foster brother was a lot of things, but unfair wasn’t one of them. He would have been the first person to call him if he knew anything that involved her safety. “What happened?”
“She sped down a wet road and ran off it to avoid hitting a dog. Damn idiot,” Ethan grumbled. “She would prefer to save a stray dog than save her own neck.”
Shane closed his eyes and shook his head. He didn’t want to hear the rest of the story, not right now, maybe later when he wasn’t teetering between pain and fury. Changing the subject, Shane asked, “Why didn’t you just give it to her?” It was a rather redundant question. Shane was beginning to see that her pride would never allow her to accept something as expensive as a car.
Deke responded just as Shane had suspected. “She wouldn’t have taken it, and you know it. You are beginning to see. I can see it in your eyes. You just don’t want to accept the truth that’s been staring in your face, but you will.”
“We had to convince her that Deke didn’t want it because it had been in a fender-bender.” Adam rolled his eyes. “Up until that point, the stubborn woman refused us numerous times.”
“This is insane,” Shane stated. But it was the truth, and he should just accept it. He was a fuckup, and he didn’t deserve her, but that didn’t change a thing. She was his, and he would be damned before he walked away from her. Everything they said only cemented what he’d decided yesterday. She would be his, one way or another.
“Welcome to the world of Katie-Anne,” Ethan replied with a short, harsh laugh.
Deke glanced at Ethan and ordered, “Your turn.”
Shane looked to his side at the three men he’d hated up until only moments ago. Now, he wondered what they were really like. If he’d been that wrong about the woman he loved, he might be misjudging the men who’d obviously helped take care of her. Damn it. I would prefer to just hate them so I can kick their asses.
“Are you sure you want to hear this from us?” Brett asked reasonably as he met Shane’s eyes. He looked at him with a question behind his serious expression. “Would you prefer to hear it from her?”
Shane shook his head. “It isn’t like she’s told me before now. I don’t think she is going to change her mind any time soon, and I need to know this stuff.”
Ethan nodded. “My sister, Aly, is TL Jacobsen’s domestic dealer.”
“I thought that was Rafe’s job,” Shane muttered. He wasn’t sure if he was asking or saying. All he knew was the words fell from his lips without much thought. It was like it was his subconscious talking, not him.
“It is his job. Well, sort of,” Ethan replied, sounding more than a little irritated. He snatched up Shane’s coffee mug before he could stop him and sipped on the dark brew. “Aly is Rafe’s business partner. She handles everything domestic while Rafe is the international globetrotter,” he stated when he had finished drinking.
Shane nodded. “That makes sense.”
“At first, Katie-Anne stayed with us as a favor to Aly.” Ethan seemed to cringe a bit, as though he was preparing for a punch to the face. “She would drop in occasionally and stay for a night or two. But, after a while, we sort of bonded with her, and she started staying with us every time she was in town.”
Shane felt the jealousy rising inside him. Bile crept into the back of his throat, and he had to swallow it down. “Bonded? You bonded with her?”
Before anybody could respond, their pretty, young waitress appeared. Nikki flashed them a smile then dropped their bill onto the tabletop and disappeared from sight.
“Don’t get your underwear in a wad,” Ethan responded with his typical irreverence. “I meant that we became friends. She is a fun person to hang out with.”
Shane’s eyes bugged out a little, and he asked, dumbfounded, “Fun?” That wasn’t exactly a word he would have chosen to describe his woman. She was a lot of things, but fun? He wasn’t convinced of that one—no matter what the fuck they said.
“Yes, fun,” Brett repeated. “She is nothing like the person she is here. Honestly, we were shocked to see how she acts in Serenity when we first moved here. But as I said, she is complex. She has her reasons.”
No shit. Shane couldn’t help but ask, “Shouldn’t she be making tons of money since she is TL?”
“Are you listening to us?” Ethan thundered as his hand came down on the table with a noisy thump which caused everything on the table to clatter and shake. “Katie-Anne doesn’t give a fuck about her money or her name. She doesn’t care about anything that comes with it. She doesn’t keep any money that she doesn’t need for the store or survival. Why do you think she hasn’t repaired Pure Fluff yet?”
“She doesn’t have the money,” Brett answered for him, stating the obvious.
“Insurance?” Shane asked.
“No,” Deke responded as he reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. “She refused to buy it since it was an unnecessary expense. At least, that is what she told me. Now, she is saving up, but it will take time for her to have enough. It doesn’t help that no one will buy jewelry from the town’s richest bitch at a garage sale. So she is thinking about just selling the building to Ella for her to expand The G Spot into and washing her hands of the whole thing.”
Thumbing through the cash inside his wallet, Deke commented offhandedly, “It isn’t like she will take a penny from anyone to help her, either.”
“I just don’t get it,” Shane said with a shake of his head.
And he didn’t, not really. Most people loved money and power, but maybe, she was more like him than he knew. God knows he’d hated his family’s money when he was a kid. He’d been able to escape the life of a spoiled rich child born to a drug addict and her dealer.
Katie-Anne couldn’t escape her situation, so this might have been her way to cope. He couldn’t blame or begrudge her for that. In fact, he understood it. If only I’d understood sooner, instead of rejecting her because she had money.
“Yes, you do,” Deke told him knowingly. He dropped a wad of cash on the top of the bill. “You just don’t want to admit that you were wrong. You don’t want to own up to the fact that you misjudged her so unfairly for so long.”
Deke was right. He didn’t want to admit—again—that he’d fucked up where Katie-Anne was concerned because that meant it was even more his fault than he’d originally thought. That fact was a hard pill to swallow.
His hole kept getting deeper and deeper, and he had no clue where the bottom was. But he’d better figure it out soon and fix it before she walked away from him and Landon—this time for good.
Chapter 12
Across town, Landon stepped into The Sweet Spot. The smell of coffee and baked goods wafted under his nose, causing his stomach to growl. If it he didn’t have more important things to do, he would head straight for the counter. But he did have something he had to do—and soon.
The heated room felt so much better than the outside. Even in the middle of the day, it was chilly in Serenity, Kansas. Scanning the room, Landon immediately homed in on Katie-Anne in the corner with a horde of pretty ladies. Jaycee, Shannon, Sarah, and Ella all huddled protectively around a visibly distraught Katie-Anne. Not wanting to disrupt their emotional moment, Landon made his way to the bistro table closest to them.
When Jaycee noticed him, he shook his head. In typical Jaycee fashion, she nodded with a small but secretive smile. His friends’ woman was a mischievous handful, and he probably should be worried that she was up to no good, but he wasn’t. He was too focused on Katie-Anne.
Keeping his attention on his wife, Landon took a seat in the tall chair, just as his sister glanced up and spotted him. He smiled at her gratefully with a nod of his head. If it weren’t for Sarah’s text, he wouldn’t have known where Katie-Anne was and been able to seek her out.
Early that morning before the sun had even risen, he’d sat a
t the kitchen table with his foster sister like they did every morning, chatting about whatever crossed their mind. Predictably, Katie-Anne and Shane had been the only two things he was thinking about. So they were the topic of their discussion.
Landon had explained that he needed to talk to Katie-Anne desperately about something dire that involved Shane but didn’t know where to find her. Sarah had ended up confessing that she had plans with Katie-Anne and the other girls for the day, and she’d promised to let Katie-Anne know he was looking for her.
However, Landon held no allusions when it came to Katie-Anne, and he knew without a doubt that she would not come to him willingly with a loving smile and an open ear. Of course, he’d told Sarah that, and she’d disagreed which led to bickering amongst siblings.
After calling him an overly dramatic son of a biscuit eater, she’d left the table in a huff and given him the silent treatment until she walked out the front door a short time later. With her cold shoulder and bad attitude, he’d figured he’d lost his chance for help from her. But he should have known better. It was Sarah, after all.
Even with her anger directed at him, she’d delivered Katie-Anne on a silver platter by texting him the details of their location. Obviously she had come to the same conclusion he had and was playing matchmaker. Only now, he realized that it was more than that. Something was wrong with his wife, and Sarah had apparently wanted him to come to Katie-Anne’s rescue.
Sitting back, Landon eavesdropped on his wife for the second time in twenty-four hours to find out just what the hell was going on.
* * * *
Katie-Anne dropped her head into her hands and shook it from side to side. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to tell them, but I have to. Leila isn’t going to let this go, and I don’t want them to hear it from her,” she mumbled between sniffles. “God, I cannot even tell you guys.”