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Calen was having trouble working up any kind of sympathy. Yes, her parents were controlling, but they were also rich and had pampered Sasha. Maybe the pampering hadn’t been enough. Maybe nothing would be enough. Some part of Calen had always worried about her neediness, though he had assured himself that Sasha’s good qualities outweighed the bad.
He no longer believed that.
Trust was all-important, and he never would have had that with Sasha. Sadly, Sasha might never have it in herself if she turned to forbidden sex to solve her problems.
“So, what’s in the envelope?” Emmy asked.
Slowpoke-y turtles could have won races in the time it took for them to answer. “Naked photos of me,” Tate finally said.
“I sent some to Tate,” Sasha added, picking up the explanation. “He got his. I never got mine because your stupid father didn’t deliver the letter.”
Calen let the insult go because it was hard to defend a man who had indeed done a whole bunch of stupid things. “Any reason you two didn’t just text or email the pictures?”
Sasha gasped. “Do you know how many times that backfires? All the time,” she said, answering her own question. “We thought the mail would be safer and sort of old-fashioned.”
Emmy groaned again, repeated her, “Good grief.”
Calen and she were obviously of like minds about this. There was nothing old-fashioned about sending naked pictures. Then again, maybe in Sasha’s mind, there was.
“So, does Owen know about this thing you had with his assistant?” Calen asked Sasha.
“No.” That answer came instantly from both Sasha and Tate.
It was Sasha who continued, “I want it to stay that way. You’re supposed to take this letter and the others to the post office, right?” She waited for Calen to confirm that with a nod. “The post office where Janice Fay Merkins works.”
Calen could see where Sasha was going with this. Janice Fay was one of the biggest gossips in town, and the woman would look at every letter that Waylon had failed to deliver. She would see that this one sent to Sasha had come from a renter in the house on Belmont Street, and Janice Fay would soon figure out that renter was Tate. The woman wouldn’t keep that tidbit to herself. Nope. Janice Fay’s blabbering would start a whole lot of speculation that would end up painting Sasha and Tate in a bad light.
“I don’t want Owen to know,” Sasha insisted.
“Of course, you don’t.” And because Calen couldn’t resist, he added, “You said it was a one-off with Owen. Was it with his assistant, too?”
“Oh, what does it matter that you know the truth,” Sasha spat out as she got back to her feet. “No, it wasn’t. I cheated. Obviously, so did your father. And so did you.”
Calen was certain he looked offended. Because he sure as hell was. “I didn’t cheat.”
“Sure, you did,” Sasha said with the certainty of gospel. “Maybe not sexually, but you cheated with Emmy.”
Emmy’s sound of outrage was slightly louder than Calen’s. “And in what warped fantasy world did that happen?” Emmy challenged.
Sasha sighed, and the fight drained out of her eyes. “Because Calen has been half in love with you since high school. Best friends,” she added in ayeah-rightmumble.
Both Emmy and he issued some denials, but Sasha had quit listening. She took hold of Tate’s arm, and they walked out, leaving Emmy and Calen standing there to deal with what she’d just said.
Calen muttered another denial, shook his head, and would have said something he might have ended up regretting because either way he went with this, it could come back to bite him in the ass. Thankfully, he didn’t have to say anything else because his phone dinged again. Of course, it’d been doing that most of the night, but now seemed like a good time to check.
“Is there a problem with Nessa?” Emmy immediately asked.
Calen shook his head and showed her the screen. Finally, he could start wrapping up some of the chaos Waylon had started.
Because the postmaster had agreed to allow the undelivered mail to be handed out at the post office today.
Chapter Eight
Emmy figured she had to be functioning on some previously unknown supply of energy because here she was at the hospital at eight in the morning when she’d gotten no sleep.
Oh, she’d gone to bed all right after Calen had driven her back to her house. He’d walked with her to her door, given her a long goodnight kiss and the assurance he’d call after he’d finished setting up the mail delivery. But she hadn’t managed even a catnap because there’d been way too much going on in her head. Too much going on in her body, too.
She still had a buzz from the sex with Calen. Amazing sex. Amazing enough to become the benchmark for all future sex. And she didn’t believe it’d been lip service when Calen had kissed her goodnight so he could go to work. Still, his quick departure had left her feeling that too many things had been left unfinished.
