“It’s going to be an old-fashioned Western wedding,” Tag was saying, his voice filled with excitement. “I can’t wait for you to meet Lily. She’s like no woman I have ever known.”
Hayes didn’t doubt it. He’d never seen his brother so happy. All of the brothers had the Cardwell dark good looks. Add to that their success, and women were often throwing themselves at one of them or another. Except for Jackson, none of them had found a woman they wanted to date more than a few times. They’d all become gun-shy after Jackson had bitten the bullet and gotten married—and quickly divorced after he found out his wife wanted nothing to do with their newborn son.
Hayes couldn’t wait to meet this Lily McCabe to find out what kind of spell she’d cast over his brother—and possibly try to break it before the wedding.
* * *
GUS THOMPSON HAD never been so angry. The bitch had called the cops on him. He glanced toward the empty receptionist’s desk at the front of the real-estate office. It didn’t surprise him that Cynthia hadn’t come in today. Stupid woman. Did she really think he would blame her?
No, he knew Cynthia didn’t do anything without checking with her boss.
So where the hell was McKenzie Sheldon? No matter what was going on, she was usually at work before him every morning. She must have had a rough night, he thought with a smirk.
Where was everyone else? he wondered as he checked his watch. Had they heard about the police coming by his house last night?
When the front door opened, he turned in his office chair, the smirk still on his face since he’d been expecting McKenzie. He felt it fall away as he saw the cops. Hadn’t it been enough that an officer had shown up at his door last night, questioning him about stalking the receptionist at the office? Now what?
“Mr. Thompson?” the policewoman asked. Her name tag read P. Donovan.
“Yes?” he asked, getting to his feet. He saw them look around the empty office.
“Are you here alone?”
“Everyone seems to be running late this morning,” he said, and wondered why that was. Because they’d all been given a heads-up? Gus noticed the way both cops were looking at him, scrutinizing him as if he had horns growing out of his head.
“We’d like to ask you a few questions,” the woman cop said. “Ms. Sheldon has asked us to first see that you remove your belongings from the premises.”
“What?” he demanded. “The bitch is firing me? Has she lost her mind?”
P. Donovan’s eyes went hard and cold at the word bitch. The word had just slipped out. He’d known McKenzie had it in for him, but he’d never dreamed she’d fire him.
“I’m her biggest-earning salesman,” he said as if there had been a mistake made and he hadn’t made it. Neither responded. Instead, he saw the male cop looking around. “What?”
“Are there some boxes in the office you can put your belongings into?” the cop asked.
Hadn’t either of them been listening? “She can’t do this.” Gus heard the hopelessness in his voice. He hated nothing worse than the feeling that came with it. He wanted to break something. Tear the place up. Then find McKenzie Sheldon and punch her in the face.
The male cop had gone into a storage room. He came back with two boxes. “Please take only those items belonging to you personally. We’ll watch so we can tell Ms. Sheldon.”
Gus gritted his teeth. McKenzie didn’t even have the guts to face him. Well, this wasn’t the last she’d see of him. He’d catch her in a dark alley. He started to shovel the top of the desk off into one of the boxes, but the male cop stopped him. T. Bradley, the name tag read.
“Leave any inventory you’ve been working on.”
He grabbed up his coffee mug and threw it into the box. The couple of tablespoons of coffee left in the cup made a dark stain across the bottom. The same way McKenzie’s blood was going to stain the spot where they met up again, he told himself.
His personal belongings barely filled one box. That realization made him sad and even angrier. This business should have been his. When he was a boy, he used to sleep on the floor of the main office when his mother had to work late. This place had been more like home than home during those years when she’d been growing the business.
“Is that everything?” P. Donovan asked.
He didn’t bother to answer as T. Bradley asked for his key to the building.
“Ms. Sheldon has taken out a restraining order against you,” the cop said. “Are you familiar with the way they work?”
He looked at the cop. “Seriously? Do I look like someone who is familiar with restraining orders?”
“You are required to stay away from Ms. Sheldon and this building. If you harass her—”
“I get it,” he snapped, and handed over his key. As he started toward the door, T. Bradley blocked his way.
“We’re going to need you to come down to the police station with us to answer a few more questions.”
“About what?” The receptionist, bloody hell. “Look, I haven’t done anything that any red-blooded American male doesn’t do. I like women.” He realized they were staring at him. “Come on. She liked it or she wouldn’t have led me on.”
“Whom are you referring to?” P. Donovan asked.
He frowned. “Cynthia. The receptionist. She was threatening to call the cops last night, but I didn’t really think she’d do it. Why would you ask me that? Who else called the cops on me?”
“Didn’t she ask you to leave her alone?” the woman cop asked.
He shrugged. “I thought she was just playing hard to get.”
“What about Ms. Sheldon? Did you also think she was just playing hard to get?” T. Bradley asked.
Gus closed his eyes and sighed. So she’d told them about that time she’d caught him in her neighborhood. “There’s no law against sitting in your car on a public street. I didn’t even realize she lived in the area. I was looking at the house down the block, okay?” Not even he could make the lie sound convincing.
“Let’s go,” P. Donovan said and led him out of the building as if he were a criminal. In the small parking lot, he saw his colleagues waiting in their vehicles for the police to take him away.
He wanted to kill McKenzie.
“Please open the trunk of your car, Mr. Thompson,” T. Bradley said as Gus started to put the box in the backseat.
“Why?” he demanded.
“Just please open it,” P. Donovan said.
He thought they probably needed a warrant or something, but he didn’t feel like making things any worse. He cursed under his breath as he moved to the back of the vehicle and, using his key, opened the trunk. It was empty, so he put the box in it. “Satisfied?”
It wasn’t until T. Bradley rode with him to the police station and they had him inside in an interrogation room that they demanded to know where he’d been last night after he’d left the office.
“We know you didn’t go straight home,” P. Donovan said. “Where did you go?”
So much for being Mr. Nice Guy. Through gritted teeth, Gus said, “I want to speak with my attorney. Now.”
Chapter Four
He’d failed.
Failed.
The word knocked