by Becky Wade
But since before lunchtime today, Bo hadn’t heard from Meg. He’d sent her three texts, called once, and left a voice mail. Everything had gone unanswered, which worried him.
The time on his cell phone read 5:48.
He typed in Everything okay? and sent the message.
While he waited, he paced.
Within a minute, his phone beeped to let him know he’d received a reply. From Meg, thank goodness.
Can you come by my father’s office in the big house? she’d written. I’d like to ask you about something.
Sure, he replied. I’ll be there in 5. I’ve missed you today. He scooped up his keys, his sunglasses, and his corduroy jacket, and made his way to his truck.
He didn’t know what she wanted to ask him about, but he hoped it’d be something like, “When would you like to get married?”
Answer: this evening.
Or, “How long do you think kisses should last?”
Answer: twelve straight hours.
Or, “Are you mine, Bo?”
Answer: yes. I always have been, am, and always will be undeniably yours.
Chapter Twenty-one
Bo entered the hallway that led to Meg’s father’s office and immediately spotted a security guard standing outside the office’s doorway.
His steps slowed.
A security guard inside the house? The concern for Meg that had been gnawing at him earlier came rushing back, double force. Had there been some kind of emergency? A security issue? Maybe that’s why he hadn’t heard from her all afternoon.
He didn’t know this particular guard, but a patch on the sleeve of the man’s uniform told Bo that he’d come from the same agency as the familiar faces that worked the front gate. Bo nodded to the guard, and the man nodded back.
Bo let himself into the office. The moment he saw Meg standing on the far side of the desk, he knew that something had gone wrong. She’d dressed in a white suit and had on big diamond earrings. Her perfect hair and makeup couldn’t hide the redness of her eyes or the puffiness of her face.
Had someone done something to her? Hurt her? Fear overtook him hard. “What’s happened?”
She swallowed with difficulty.
He moved toward her, intending to comfort.
She raised a hand. “That’s close enough.”
He stopped at once. “Why is there a security guard outside?”
“Because of you, Bo.”
“Because of me?”
“Yes,” she answered, her voice flat.
What did a security guard have to do with him? Why would—
“I know about everything. Brimm found out about what you’ve been doing.”
“What I’ve been doing?”
Her lips thinned.
Bo struggled to remain calm, to understand through his confusion. She’d been crying because of . . . him? Called a security guard to protect her from him? Because of something Brimm had told her? His hands began to shake. “What did Brimm tell you I’ve been doing?”
“Computer hacking.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’ve been checking into all my investments and my accounts. Trying to verify my net worth.”
“What?” He felt like he’d been slammed in the head with a metal pipe. “Brimm told you that I’ve been doing this?”
“Because you have been.”
“No I haven’t.” Where had this accusation come from? He couldn’t make sense of it, couldn’t think straight when Meg looked so devastated.
She crossed her arms.
“Look me in the face, Meg. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve never once looked up anything about you on a computer. Never. And I definitely haven’t hacked into your financial stuff. For one thing, I’d never do that to you. For another, I wouldn’t know how.”
“At this point, Bo, I’d really appreciate it if you’d just tell me the truth.”
“I am.”
She motioned to a few sheets of paper stacked on her father’s desk. “These say otherwise.”
“Then they’re dead wrong.” His pulse drummed, hurtling blood through his veins as he fought to piece together the situation. Brimm had come to her with these papers. These papers somehow incriminated him. Which could only mean one of two things. Brimm—or someone else—had framed him. Or this whole thing was a nightmare of a mistake.
It didn’t look like Meg was willing to consider either of those possibilities, though. Her posture, her tone, and the accusation in her beautiful eyes all showed him, clear as day, that she actually thought he was guilty.
She thought he was guilty. The realization filled him with agony.
Last night she’d liked—maybe even loved—and trusted him. And now she believed him to be a liar who wanted her for her money.
His fingers curled into his palms. He couldn’t bear for her to think that of him. He couldn’t bear it. Desperation rose sharp inside him.
———
Meg realized that her decision to confront Bo in person had been a mistake. A big mistake. Because looking into his face, so familiar and starkly handsome, was unraveling her resolve and making her want to turn traitor and believe in his innocence, even now.
Her anger had demanded that she tell him in person that she’d found him out. She’d longed to watch his reaction and hear him admit his guilt. She’d even had some crazy notion that he might apologize or show remorse.
None of it would have helped much, in the face of the heartbreak crushing down on her, but it would have been something. Something to hang on to as she walked into the dismal days ahead. More than she’d ever gotten from Stephen.
It appeared, though, that Bo had no intention of giving her the truth or an apology. He was going to keep on denying everything right to the end.
He moved to her father’s desk and looked down at Brimm’s papers. “I don’t understand what this says.”
Meg raised an eyebrow.
“I don’t. I’m not a computer expert. You can ask Jake, or anyone else in my family. Anyone I work with. Lynn, even. They’ll tell you. There’s no possible way I could hack into anything.”
“It would have been easy for you to make everyone think that.”
The small muscles along his jaw hardened, and his gray eyes glittered with pain.
She wanted him desperately. To be her husband, lover, best friend. She wanted, with a physical ache, a future with him. Marriage and children and the rest of their lives twined together into one, lived out side by side, inseparable.
But it wasn’t going to be. None of it was going to be. “Can you be honest with me, Bo?” She hated the faint wobble in her voice. “Please? You owe me that much.”
“I am being honest with you,” he said raggedly. “I’d trust you with every single thing that matters to me. My family, my life, my reputation. I need you to trust me in this one thing. I didn’t do these things you’re saying I did.”
“Of course you did.”
“No. I love you, Meg.” He fisted his hands in the front of his shirt and pressed the fabric against his chest. “I love you.”
She reached out blindly to grip the top of her father’s chair.
“I’m yours. Until I die, and even after that, I’m yours.”
She shook her head as moisture rushed to her eyes.
“I didn’t do the things you’re saying I did. I don’t know why you or Brimm think that I did them, but please believe me. Please. I would never, not for anything in the world, hurt you. Never. I swear it.”
Her nails dug into the leather as she used the chair’s bulk to keep her upright. “I think you’d better go.”
He dropped his hands to his sides and moved closer to her.
“Stop,” she pleaded.
He did.
She could not allow him one inch closer. Not an inch, or she’d crack.
“Can you trust me?” he asked.
“You don’t deserve my trust.”
He flinched as if she’d whi
pped him. His skin paled.
He was either telling the truth—which he couldn’t be. Or he was a consummate actor—which he must be.
Had everything between them been fake? Or just some of it? Would it be worse or better if he’d actually liked her a little? Maybe there was a grain of reality in how he’d acted toward her and the things he’d said to her. Maybe he did find her attractive in some small way, and her money had made it possible for him to stomach kissing her—
All at once she felt like she was going to be violently ill. She moved to the nearest window and jerked it open. Air flushed in—heavy and moist after the earlier rain, devoid of relief. “I told you yesterday that I’d keep the horse farm open. And I will.” She focused on the grounds below the window. She’d decided to keep the farm running for many reasons she’d continue to stand behind. “But you’ll no longer be a part of Whispering Creek Horses. Your employment here is over.”
He made no sound.
She waited.
Nothing but more awful stillness.
She glanced at him and instantly regretted it. He looked stricken, and she didn’t think it was because she’d just fired him. Sympathy welled inside her, and she battled down an urge to run to him and beg his forgiveness. He should be begging you for your forgiveness, Meg. She turned back toward the window. “I’d like you to leave now.”
He continued to stand motionless.
“I mean it.”
Bo’s footfalls moved away from her. She looked around in time to see part of his back and shoulder disappear into the hallway beyond.
She rested a hand against the window frame and leaned into it, letting it steady her swaying weight.
She’d done the right thing just now. She’d broken their relationship, irrevocably. But doing so didn’t make her feel better. All she felt? A black and roiling despair.
Because the hardest thing of all to take—harder even than Bo’s deception or the realization that he’d never loved her—was the loss of him. She’d just lost someone irreplaceable. She’d just lost the one man she cherished more than any man on earth.
“You need to calm down,” Jake said.
Bo had all but worn a track in his kitchen floor. His thoughts and emotions wouldn’t allow his body to be still. He pushed his fingertips against his forehead, fought to keep himself from splintering into a hundred pieces.
He’d called Jake as soon as he’d left Whispering Creek. His brother had arrived at his house minutes later, and Bo had just finished explaining everything to him.
“Are you going to say I told you so,” Bo asked, “about my relationship with Meg?”
“Listen, if I was right in any way, then I’m sorry I was. I’ve seen how happy you’ve been the last few weeks. I didn’t want that to stop.” Jake leaned against the kitchen counter, his hands in his pockets. “Hey, you think you can just try to calm down?”
“I can’t stand to think that she’s out there hating me.”
“She might not hate you. She’s mad because she thinks you pretended to like her because of her money.”
“How’s it possible she could think that?”
“You know why.” Jake jerked his chin toward the papers Bo had brought home with him from Whispering Creek.
How was he supposed to defend himself against evidence he couldn’t even understand? “I need to find someone who can read that and tell me what it says.”
“There’s some kid over in Wylie who’s supposed to be a computer genius. Mom’s friend’s son. You remember Mom telling us about him?”
“Barely.”
“I’ll call her and get his number.” Jake pulled out his cell phone and dialed.
The kid from Wylie showed up on Bo’s doorstep an hour later. He wore a knit ski cap over curly hair, a hoodie, tight jeans, and a pair of black Converse high-tops. He couldn’t have been older than sixteen or taller than five foot seven.
This was the person who was supposed to help Bo save his relationship with Meg? In this part of Texas, the shoes alone probably got the kid’s butt kicked on a weekly basis. “Kyle?” Bo asked.
“What’s up?”
Bo introduced himself and Jake, then took him into the kitchen to show him Meg’s papers.
Kyle went through the sheets one by one while Bo waited, grinding his teeth. The seconds dragged into minutes, driving him insane with impatience.
“Yeah. Hmm.” Kyle scratched his forehead with one skinny finger while he considered. “Can I look at your computer?”
Bo led him to the desk against the back wall. The kid sank onto the chair and took over the computer, making the cursor and screens fly. “This, uh, setup is seriously old and slow. You need an upgrade.”
Bo scowled at Jake above Kyle’s head.
Jake lifted a shoulder.
Bo wanted to take the kid by the shoulders, shake him, and growl at him to hurry.
At one point, Kyle tilted the hard drive tower so that he could read some information on the back of it. Then he turned to Bo. “What would you like to know?”
“What do the papers say?”
“They basically show how a group of investigators were able to find a hacker.”
“Why do they think I’m him?”
“This your computer?”
“Yes.”
“The hacking was done on this computer, that’s why.”
Bo paused, thinking. “How can they, or you, be sure it was done on this computer?”
“Because every computer has a unique ID . . . like a fingerprint, you know? The hacking had this computer’s fingerprints all over it.”
“I didn’t do it.”
“Well, somebody did. Using this machine.”
“Could the hacker have done this whole thing through my computer remotely?” He’d been on calls with technical support before, when they’d taken over his computer right in front of him.
“No. In this case the hacker sat right here”—Kyle turned toward the monitor, hunched over the keyboard, and mimicked typing—“and did it all on this computer.”
Someone had been in his house. Someone had framed him for certain.
Kyle looked back and forth between the brothers. “Anything else, you know, you need help with?”
“I think that’s it,” Jake answered.
Bo stood frozen while Jake thanked the kid and walked him out.
When Jake returned, Bo met his brother’s gaze. “Do you believe I’m innocent?”
“Yes.”
So he hadn’t lost his mind. Regardless of the evidence, Jake had faith in his truthfulness.
“It’s looking, though,” Jake said, “like Meg thinks you’re guilty for a good reason.”
Bo’s heart twisted. He nodded.
“She seems like she’s pretty guarded to begin with,” Jake said. “Like she’d be slow to trust anyone.”
“She is.”
“Probably in part because of her money.”
“True.”
“And who her father was.”
“Yes.”
“And her experience with her husband.”
“Yeah.”
“So she’s already cautious. Then her cousin brings her this information about you—information that seems legit. I’m not saying it’s right, Bo, but I guess if I put myself in her shoes, I can see why she kicked you out.”
Bo wanted to break or punch or shoot something. To scream. How in the world was he ever going to get her back?
Unable to remain still, he strode into the kitchen, gripped the front of his sink, and stared hard out the window into the darkness. Jake had been right. Meg was careful. She’d been raised the rich daughter of a famous businessman, and yes, that had shaped her. But Bo knew that her relationship with Stephen had wounded her most. No way she’d risk letting a man play her like that a second time. Which was, at this very moment, exactly what she thought Bo had been trying to do to her.
Bo hated that he’d been accused of doing something he hadn’t done. It filled h
im with fury on one hand and made him helpless on the other because he couldn’t defend himself. Still, as bad as that part was, he could stomach it.
But Meg thinking he’d betrayed her like Stephen had?
That undid him.
Jake came to stand next to him. “How’d the hacker get in here?”
“I don’t know.”
“You keep your doors locked.”
“Yes, but that’s it.” Living in Holley, he’d never thought much about security. Never had a house alarm. “Unless the hacker has a copy of my house key, he or she must have come in through a window.”
“Let’s see if we can find which one.”
The brothers moved through the house, testing each window. Back when Bo had bought the place, he’d had new windows put in. They all slid easily open, but had latches to lock them in place when closed.
In his bedroom, Bo tugged on a pane that slid open in answer. “Here,” he said to Jake.
They each took a close look. No scratches on the sill or smudges on the glass. No sign that anyone had forced the window open.
“When did you have this one open last?” Jake asked.
“Maybe a week and a half ago. It’s possible that I forgot to latch it when I closed it.”
“Or possible that it was jimmied open.”
“It doesn’t look like that, though, does it?”
“Think there’s any chance the person left prints?” Jake asked.
“No. A person this smart would have worn gloves.” Bo had no desire to call the police. Most likely, he’d alert them to the crime, then find that evidence pointed straight back at him.
“Why would someone do this to you, Bo?”
Bo shifted his attention from the window to his brother. “To get me away from Meg and away from Whispering Creek.”
“Who’d want to do that?”
“Her family, for one. I know for sure her uncle doesn’t want us together.”
“You think he’s capable of setting you up like this?”
“I wouldn’t have thought so. But he can certainly afford to hire someone to do this kind of a job.”
They grabbed flashlights and went outdoors to examine the window and the surrounding area from the exterior. They couldn’t find a single indication that someone had used the window to enter and exit Bo’s house. They searched and searched.